Geologists develop app to print 3-D terrain models of any place on Earth

Today's geology lesson is all about anticlines.

Students can read all they want about geological folds, axial planes, hinge lines, antiformal synclines and synformal anticlines. But it can still be a challenge to visualize just what geologists are talking about.

A better option is putting boots on the ground -- such as a trip to Iowa State University's Carl F. Vondra Geology Field Station near Shell, Wyoming. The field station is in the north-central part of the state, on the western flank of the Bighorn Mountains. Nearby is Sheep Mountain, a well-known and typical anticline.

The Bighorn River has cut a canyon through the mountain and students can hike along the river to get a good look at a natural cross section of the exposed geological fold.

But most students aren't able to make a trip to Sheep Mountain.

So Iowa State researchers have come up with a new option -- TouchTerrain.

The web application is open source and free for private use through Iowa State's GeoFabLab. It allows anybody with a 3-D printer to easily and quickly print terrain models of any place on the planet, including the ocean floor.

The largest Tanzanite crystal in the world

Tanzanite is the blue/violet variety of the mineral zoisite (a calcium aluminium hydroxyl Sorosilicate) belonging to the epidote group. It was discovered by a Tanzanian Jumanne Mhero Ngoma in the Mererani Hills of Manyara Region in Northern Tanzania in 1967, near the city of Arusha and Mount Kilimanjaro. Naturally formed tanzanite is extremely rare and is endemic only to the Mererani Hills.

Tanzanite is noted for its remarkably strong trichroism, appearing alternately sapphire blue, violet and burgundy depending on crystal orientation. Tanzanite can also appear differently when viewed under alternate lighting conditions. The blues appear more evident when subjected to fluorescent light and the violet hues can be seen readily when viewed under incandescent illumination. 

The largest tanzanite crystal “The Mawenzi,” was found in 2005 and crystal weighed 16,839 carats. 

Big L.A. Earthquake Could Cause Beach Areas to Sink Up to 3 Feet in Seconds

Big L.A. Earthquake Could Cause Beach Areas to Sink Up to 3 Feet in Seconds

The Newport-Inglewood fault has long been considered one of Southern California’s top seismic danger zones because it runs under some of the region’s most densely populated areas, from the Westside of Los Angeles to the Orange County coast.

But new research shows that the fault may be even more dangerous than experts had believed, capable of producing more frequent destructive temblors than previously suggested by scientists.

A new study has uncovered evidence that major earthquakes on the fault centuries ago were so violent that they caused a section of Seal Beach near the Orange County coast to fall 1½ to 3 feet in a matter of seconds.

“It’s not just a gradual sinking. This is boom — it would drop. It’s very rapid sinking,” said the lead author of the report, Robert Leeper, a geology graduate student at UC Riverside who worked on the study as a Cal State Fullerton student and geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The study of the Newport-Inglewood fault focused on the wetlands of Seal Beach. But the area of sudden dropping could extend to other regions in the same geologic area of the Seal Beach wetlands, which includes the U.S. Naval Weapons Station and the Huntington Harbour neighborhood of Huntington Beach.

Leeper and a team of scientists at Cal State Fullerton had been searching the Seal Beach wetlands for evidence of ancient tsunami. Instead, they found buried organic deposits that they determined to be the prehistoric remains of marsh surfaces, which they say were abruptly dropped by large earthquakes that occurred on the Newport-Inglewood fault.

Those earthquakes, roughly dated in 50 BC, AD 200 and the year 1450 — give or take a century or two — were all more powerful than the magnitude 6.4 Long Beach earthquake of 1933, which did not cause a sudden drop in the land, Leeper said.

As a result, the observations for the first time suggest that earthquakes as large as magnitudes 6.8 to 7.5 have struck the Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon fault system, which stretches from the border of Beverly Hills and Los Angeles through Long Beach and the Orange County coast to downtown San Diego.

The newly discovered earthquakes suggest that the Newport-Inglewood fault is more active than previously thought. Scientists had believed the Newport-Inglewood fault ruptured in a major earthquake once every 2,300 years on average; the latest results show that a major earthquake could come once every 700 years on average, Leeper said.

It’s possible the earthquakes can come more frequently than the average, and data suggest they have arrived as little as 300 years apart from one another.

If a magnitude 7.5 earthquake did rupture on the Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon fault system, such a temblor would bring massive damage throughout Southern California, said seismologist Lucy Jones, who was not affiliated with the study. Such an earthquake would produce 45 times more energy than the 1933 earthquake.

“It’s really clear evidence of three earthquakes on the Newport-Inglewood that are bigger than 1933,” Jones said of the earthquake that killed 120 people. “This is very strong evidence for multiple big earthquakes.”

The idea that the Newport-Inglewood fault could produce more powerful earthquakes than what happened in 1933 has been growing over the decades. Scientists have come to the consensus that the Newport-Inglewood fault could link up with the San Diego County coast’s Rose Canyon fault, producing a theoretical 7.5 earthquake based on the length of the combined fault system.

An earthquake of magnitude 7 on the Newport-Inglewood fault would hit areas of Los Angeles west of downtown particularly hard.

“If you’re on the Westside of L.A., it’s probably the fastest-moving big earthquake that you’re going to have locally,” Jones said. “A 7 on the Newport-Inglewood is going to do a lot more damage than an 8 on the San Andreas, especially for Los Angeles.”

The study focused on taking samples of sediment underneath the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge in 55 locations across a broad zone, mapping buried layers for signs of past seismic activity.

To do this, scientists used a vibrating machine to push down a 20-foot-long, sharp-tipped pipe into the sediment and extract sediment samples that gave them a look at what has happened geologically underneath the site.

They found a repeating pattern where living vegetation on the marsh suddenly dropped by up to 3 feet, submerging it underwater, eventually killing everything on the surface and later buried.

“We identified three of these buried layers [composed of] vegetation or sediment that used to be at the surface,” Leeper said. “These buried, organic-rich layers are evidence of three earthquakes on the Newport-Inglewood in the past 2,000 years.”

Earthquakes elsewhere have also caused sudden drops in land, such as off the Cascadia subduction zone along the coast of Oregon and Washington. There, pine trees that once grew above the beach suddenly dropped below sea level, killing the trees as salt water washed over their roots, said study coauthor Kate Scharer, a USGS research geologist.

Another reason pointing to major earthquakes as a cause is the existence of a gap — known as the Sunset Gap — in the Newport-Inglewood fault that roughly covers the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge and Huntington Harbour.

The gap is oriented in a way that, if a major earthquake strikes, land could suddenly drop. Such depressions have formed in other Southern California faults, which have created Lake Elsinore from the Elsinore fault, and created Quail Lake, Elizabeth Lake and Hughes Lake from the San Andreas fault, Jones said.

While the scientists focused their study on the Seal Beach wetlands, because Huntington Harbour and the Naval Weapons Station area also lie in the same gap of the Newport-Inglewood fault, it could be possible that the sinking would extend to those areas as well, Leeper said.

But further study would be a good idea for those areas. It’s possible that an investigation of Huntington Harbour, for instance, would show that land underneath it did not drop during earthquakes but moved horizontally, like much of the rest of the Newport-Inglewood fault, Scharer said.

Sudden dropping of land could cause damage to infrastructure, Scharer said, such as roads or pipes not designed to handle such a rapid fall.

Nothing in the new study offers guidance for when the next major earthquake on the Newport-Inglewood fault will strike next. “Earthquakes can happen at any time. We can’t predict them. All we can do is try to understand how often they occur in the past, and be prepared for when the next one does occur,” Leeper said.

Scientists generally say that the chances of a major quake on the San Andreas fault are higher in our lifetime because that fault is moving so much faster than the Newport-Inglewood, at a rate of more than 1 inch a year compared with a rate of one-twenty-fifth of an inch a year.

But it’s possible a big earthquake on the Newport-Inglewood fault could happen in our lifetime.

Oldest Fossils

Found in Australia by researchers with the University of Western Australia and Oxford University, these microscopic fossils are sulfur bacteria cells. The sedimentary rock in which the cells were found allegedly dates back to 3.4 billion years ago, leaving some scientists claiming that was life on an early, oxygen-free world.
But microfossil identification can be a hot topic. It can be difficult to discern if the fossils were created by living cells or nonbiological processes, like mineral deposits. The researchers, as reported by the New York Times, believe they’ve nailed these as bacteria though:
Cell-like structures in ancient rocks can be deceiving — many have turned out to be artifacts formed by nonbiological processes. In this case, the geologists have gathered considerable circumstantial evidence that the structures they see are biological. With an advanced new technique, they have analyzed the composition of very small spots within the cell-like structures. “We can see carbon, sulfur, nitrogen and phosphorus, all within the cell walls,” professor Martin Brasier of Oxford University said.
Crystals of fool’s gold, an iron-sulfur mineral, lie next to the microfossils and indicate that the organisms, in the absence of oxygen, fed off sulfur compounds, Brasier and his colleagues say.
The New York Times also states that contention in identifying microfossils could arise among scientists who have already claimed to have found the oldest fossils:
The honor of having found the most ancient microfossil has been long been held by J. W. Schopf, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1993, Schopf reported his discovery of fossils 3.465 billion years old in the Apex chert of the Warrawoona Group in Western Australia, about 20 miles from where the new fossils have been found. Those would be some 65 million years older than the new find, but Dr. Schopf’s claim was thrown in doubt in 2002 when Brasier attacked his finding, saying the fossils were not biological but just mineral artifacts.
According to Oxford’s press release, the researchers believe this finding could have implications for finding life on other planets. If there were life on other planets, researchers say it would look similar to this. The findings were published in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience.

Image: These fossils are clustered together in a fashion that supports scientists' theory they are evidence of early single cellular life. (Photo: David Wacey/University of Western Australia)

World's Deepest Underwater Cave Discovered

A team of explorers say they've discovered that a cave in the eastern Czech Republic is the world's deepest flooded fissure, going at least 404 meters (1,325 feet) deep.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, who led the team, told The Associated Press on Friday that he felt like a "Columbus of the 21th century" to have made the discovery near the Czech town of Hranice.

Starnawski, 48, determined Tuesday that the flooded limestone Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, which divers, including him, have explored for decades in its upper parts, was at least 404 meters deep. He scuba dived to a narrow slot in the rock formation at 200 meters down, then sent a remotely operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 meters, or the length of its cord, but still did not hit the bottom.

In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 meters down without reaching the cave's bottom, which made him want to do more exploring. But after diving that far down, Starnawski had to spend over six hours in a decompression chamber, and decided he needed a robot instead.

Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, Starnawski said Tuesday's discovery makes Hranice Abyss the world's deepest known underwater cavity, beating the previous record-holder, a flooded sinkhole in Italy called Pozzo del Merro, by 12 meters (39 feet).

The Czech Speleological Society said it thinks the cave is even deeper and will yield additional records. When the robot was 404 meters deep "it was as deep as its rope could go, but the bottom was still nowhere in sight," the society said.

In this underwater photo taken Aug. 15, 2015 in the flooded Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, in the Czech Republic Polish explorer Slawomir Packo is exploring the limestone abyss and preparing for deeper exploration with the use of a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV. On Sept. 27, 2016, the robot went to the record depth of 404 meters (1,325 feet) revealing the abyss to be the world's deepest flooded cave, during the 'Hranicka Propast - step beyond 400m' expedition led by Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski and partly funded by the National Geographic. (Krzysztof Starnawski of EXPEDITION via AP)

Diving in the cave is a challenge, because of its muddy areas and a water temperature of 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). The water's mineral composition also damages equipment and injures exposed skin, Starnawski said.

"But that is the only price to be paid for this discovery, and it was worth paying," he said.

A cross-section map he made of the cave ends with question marks in an unexplored area where he believes the fissure goes deeper.

In this underwater photo taken Aug. 21, 2015, in the flooded Hranicka Abyss, Czech Republic, Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski is seen examining the limestone crevasse and preparing for a 2016 expedition to measure it depths. On Sept. 27, 2016 Starnawski and his Polish-Czech team discovered that the cave goes 404 meters (1,325 feet) down, making it the world's deepest known flooded abyss. (Krzysztof Starnawski of the Krzysztof Starnawski EXPEDITION via AP)

On Saturday, he plans to dive to 200 meters again to bring the robot back through the narrow passage. The device was made especially for the expedition and operated by a Polish firm, GRALmarine.

NASA Has Found A New Solar System With 7 Earth-Size Planets

APE CANAVERAL:  Astronomers have found a nearby solar system with seven Earth-sized planets, three of which circle their parent star at the right distance for liquid surface water, raising the prospect of life, research published on Wednesday showed. The star, known as TRAPPIST-1, is a small, dim celestial body in the constellation Aquarius. It is located about 40 light years away from Earth.

Researchers said the proximity of the system, combined with the proportionally large size of its planets compared to the small star, make it a good target for follow-up studies. They hope to scan the planets' atmospheres for possible chemical fingerprints of life.

"I think that we've made a crucial step towards finding if there is life out there," University of Cambridge astronomer Amaury Triaud told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday.

The discovery, published in this week's issue of the journal Nature, builds on previous research showing three planets circling TRAPPIST-1. They are among more than 3,500 planets discovered beyond the solar system, or exoplanets.

Researchers have focussed on finding Earth-sized rocky planets with the right temperatures so that water, if any exists, would be liquid, a condition believed to be necessary for life.

The diameter of TRAPPIST-1 is about 8 percent of the sun's size. That makes its Earth-sized planets appear large as they parade past.

From the vantage point of telescopes on Earth, the planets' motions regularly block out bits of the star's light. Scientists determined the system's architecture by studying these dips.

"The data is really clear and unambiguous," Triaud wrote in an email to Reuters.

Because TRAPPIST-1 is so small and cool, its so-called "habitable zone" is very close to the star. Three planets are properly positioned for liquid water, said lead researcher Michael Gillon, with the University of Liege in Belgium.

"They form a very compact system," Gillon said on a conference call. "They could have some liquid water and maybe life."

Even if the planets do not have life now, it could evolve. TRAPPIST-1 is at least 500 million years old, but has an estimated lifespan of 10 trillion years. The sun, by comparison, is about halfway through its estimated 10-billion-year life.

In a few billion years, when the sun has run out of fuel and the solar system has ceased to exist, TRAPPIST-1 will still be an infant star, astronomer Ignas Snellen, with the Netherlands' Leiden Observatory, wrote in a related essay in Nature.

"It burns hydrogen so slowly that it will live for another 10 trillion years," he wrote, "which is arguably enough time for life to evolve."

Scientists discover 2-meter long carnivorous WORM with snapping jaws

This is a photograph showing the holotype of Websteroprion armstrongi.

Gigantic Worm With Snapping Jaws Lived 400 Million Years Ago

A previously undiscovered species of an extinct primordial giant worm with terrifying snapping jaws has been identified by an international team of scientists.

Researchers from the University of Bristol, Lund University in Sweden and the Royal Ontario Museum studied an ancient fossil, which has been stored at the museum since the mid-1990s, and discovered the remains of a giant extinct bristle worm (the marine relatives of earthworms and leeches).

The new species is unique among fossil worms and possessed the largest jaws ever recorded in this type of creature, reaching over one centimetre in length and easily visible to the naked eye. Typically, such fossil jaws are only a few millimetres in size and need to be studied using microscopes.

Despite being only knows from the jaws, comparison with living species suggests that this animal achieved a body length in excess of a metre.

This is comparable to that of 'giant eunicid' species, colloquially referred to as 'Bobbit worms' which are fearsome and opportunistic ambush predators, using their powerful jaws to capture prey such as fish and cephalopods (squids and octopuses) and dragging them into their burrows.

Lead author Mats Eriksson from Lund University said: "Gigantism in animals is an alluring and ecologically important trait, usually associated with advantages and competitive dominance.

"It is, however, a poorly understood phenomenon among marine worms and has never before been demonstrated in a fossil species.

"The new species demonstrates a unique case of polychaete gigantism in the Palaeozoic, some 400 million years ago."

Co-author Luke Parry from the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, added: "It also shows that gigantism in jaw-bearing polychaetes was restricted to one particular evolutionary clade within the Eunicida and has evolved many times in different species."

The specimens were collected over the course of a few hours in a single day in June 1994, when Derek K Armstrong of Ontario Geological Survey was dropped by helicopter to investigate the rocks and fossils at a remote and temporary exposure in Ontario.

Sample materials, from what proved to belong to the Devonian Kwataboahegan Formation, were brought back to the Royal Ontario Museum, where they have been stored until they caught the eyes of the authors'.

avid Rudkin from the museum said: "This is an excellent example of the importance of looking in remote and unexplored areas for finding new exciting things, but also the importance of scrutinizing museum collections for overlooked gems."

The species has been named Websteroprion armstrongi. This honours Armstrong, who collected the material, and bass player extraordinaire, Alex Webster of Death Metal band Cannibal Corpse, since he can be regarded as a 'giant' when it comes to handling his instrument.

Luke Parry added: "This is fitting also since, beside our appetite for evolution and paleontology, all three authors have a profound interest in music and are keen hobby musicians."