Our moon is one of the brightest objects in the night sky. But unlike a lamp or our sun, the moon doesn’t produce its own light. Light can travel in lots of different ways. Moonlight is actually sunlight that shines on the moon and bounces off. The light reflects off old volcanoes, craters, and lava […]
WSU geologists have found a new way to estimate how fast magma is recharging beneath the Yellowstone supervolcano. Scientists now have a better understanding of a key factor of what’s underneath the massive caldera: a pool of basalt magma continually recharging the system. “It is the coal in the furnace that’s
The Pacific Northwest was home to one of the Earth’s largest known volcanic eruptions, a millennia-long spewing of sulfuric gas that blocked out the sun and cooled the planet, Washington State University researchers have determined. “This would have been devastating regionally because of the acid-rain effect from the eruptions,” said John Wolff, a professor in the […]
Vast swaths of forests in western North America are dead or dying, killed by pine bark beetle. The beetles have been there all along, but prolonged droughts reduced the trees’ ability to defend themselves from the inner bark-munching bugs. The western slopes of the Sierra Nevada range in California have been especially hard hit by […]