Volcanism in this region sleeps and wakes in cycles, and the second outpouring of lava in less than a year suggests the island nation may be in for decades of volcanic activity.Įach new eruption is like a window into our planet's inner workings, and scientists have already begun to explore the depths beneath Iceland, one of the few places in the world where part of the mid-ocean ridge stands above the sea. But they awoke in 2021, spewing lava for six months-and this year they began yet another fiery fit. Microplastics found in the human bodyįor nearly 800 years, the volcanoes of Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula had slumbered. And in August, researchers announced that they had found signs of another possible undersea crater off the coast of West Africa that is about the same age as Chicxulub-perhaps evidence that a fragment of the incoming asteroid broke off and smashed into Earth separately. In March, scientists provided another glimpse of the asteroid’s devastation: Within minutes of the impact, rocks that formed in the extreme temperatures rained down more than a thousand miles from the crater’s center. In February, researchers studying a set of fossil fish that died in the blast concluded the asteroid struck during spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It left behind a gigantic undersea crater known as Chicxulub. The apocalyptic blow ushered in a mass extinction that felled more than three-fourths of all species, including all the dinosaurs except birds. Sixty-six million years ago, the trajectory of life took a sudden, violent turn when a 6.5-mile-wide asteroid slammed into the waters off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. New snail species are the world's smallest The explosion also unleashed avalanches of hot ash and volcanic rubble known as pyroclastic flows that raced along the seafloor for at least 50 miles. ![]() The eruption excavated some 2.3 cubic miles of rock from the seafloor, making it the largest volcanic blast in a century. "Everything so far about this eruption is off-the-scale weird," says volcanologist Janine Krippner, who was with the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program when the event occurred. Even before the volcanic dust settled, scientists were racing to gather data about the eruption's oddities with the hope of better understanding the mechanism behind this surprisingly powerful blast and cascade of effects. The blast sent a pressure wave around the globe multiple times and caused towering tsunami waves to crash on shores near and far. ![]() In January, a submarine volcano in the Kingdom of Tonga, known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, unleashed an eruption unlike any seen in recent decades. Tonga volcano erupts with surprising intensity “We can say that the heart is beating, but to what extent it’s beating like a healthy heart-that will require more studies.” The next steps will include transplanting OrganEx-treated organs into live pigs to see how well they function. Using a machine, they circulated the mix for six hours and noticed signs of revival in the dying organs-heart cells began beating, liver cells absorbed glucose from blood, and DNA repair resumed. The researchers induced cardiac arrest in pigs and left the dead bodies at room temperature for an hour before infusing their blood with OrganEx, which contains amino acids, vitamins, metabolites, and 13 additional compounds. But a sapphire-blue solution called OrganEx developed by neuroscientist Nenad Sestan and his team allowed them to restore basic organ functions well after the tissues had last received fresh blood. Normally organs must be harvested right after the heart stops pumping blood for them to be viable. The research could one day help extend the viability of human organs intended for life-saving transplants, thousands of which are discarded annually because they aren’t immediately preserved. In a medical first, scientists at Yale University preserved the function of multiple pig organs including the brain, heart, liver, and kidneys a full hour after the animals had died. Remnants of the ship’s hull, however, remained unidentified until researchers analyzed timbers found in a sea cave near Astoria and revealed that they were crafted from a type of hardwood used to build ships in Asia during the 17th century: a perfect match for the missing Santo Cristo de Burgos. Known as the “Beeswax Wreck” for the blocks of beeswax carried by the vessel that still occasionally wash up on shore, the lost galleon has been a part of local lore for centuries. ![]() They likely belong to Santo Cristo de Burgos, a ship that was sailing from the Philippines to Mexico in 1693 when it veered off course and vanished. Remains from a 17th-century Spanish galleon were identified on Oregon’s northern coast.
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