Largest Earth Volcano Discovered

Carole sent this wonderful  National Geographic article.

It tells about the recent studies of a super volcano like other, well except the monster on Mars Olympus Mons.  

The area, now designated Tamu Massif was until very recently considered to be a collection of smaller structures.  It was very much like the proverbial group of blind people asked to touch different areas on an elephant and then describe the animal from that one localized examination.   Tamu Massif is so huge that many researchers could not see the complete structure.

And Tamu Massif is indeed huge.  From the NG article:

• (Tamu Massif is ) A volcano the size of New Mexico or the British Isles has been identified under the Pacific Ocean, about 1,000 miles east of Japan, making it the biggest volcano on Earth and one of the biggest in the solar system.
• Tamu Massif is a rounded dome that measures about 280 by 400 miles or more than 100,000 square miles. Its top lies about 6,500 feet below the ocean surface, while the base extends down to about 4 miles deep. Tamu Massif dwarfs the largest active volcano on Earth....

Yep you read that right, A 100 thousand mile ACTIVE volcano!

Tamu Massif is a volcanic type known as a shield volcano, like Mar's massive Olympus Mons.  This makes Tamu Massif the largest volcano on Earth and one of the LARGEST in the solar system. 

Read the complete National Geographic article written by Brian Clark Howard, HERE 

***Error update***  reader Dennis just brought an error to my attention.  For some reason I read the article to say "active"  when that is not the case.  

Earth Shifted on it's Axis?

Dan just brought some new data concerning Friday's earthquake in Japan. First off, according to Eryn Brown of the LA Times, the quake has been upgraded to a mind numbing magnitude 9.0 by the Japan Meteorological Agency! Plus according to Richard Gross, a geophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the quake probably shifted the position of Earth's axis about 6.5 inches, causing the Earth to rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds! Just as amazing is data that shows that that the temblor's force moved parts of eastern Japan as much as 12 feet closer to North America

Ancient Geological Formations Were Working Reactors

In sixteen different areas in an African uranium mine are ancient evidence that at one point in distant history there were naturally occurring nuclear reactors capable of generating 100kws of electricity! What is even more astounding is that the reaction was stable for thousands of years. Now before you get yourself in a tizzy remember how powerful 100kws is. An electric heater pulls about 5kws so we are talking about 20 or so heaters. But it's how LONG they ran, now that's amazing! How can a reactor sustain itself without running away and melting down? It seems that ground water played a big part. It only ran periodically so the reaction had a chance to build and then water was introduced to inhibit runaway. So for a hundred thousand years or so this system would heat up and then water would shut it off only to start over again. I know, gross oversimplification of the process - but to be able to take place at all a few billion years ago is mind twisting!

Scientific American via Dvice blog

World's Deepest Drill Hopes to hit Mantle Soon

the Chikyu research vessel already holds the record for deepest hole drilled, at 23,000 feet below the seabed, two to four times that of any other drill. But far from sitting on its' laurels, Chikyu wants to add another mile to that depth, bringing it to the Earth's mantle for the first time in history.

As the PopSci article puts it:

• In 2007, off the coast of Japan, it became the first mission to study subduction zones, the area between tectonic plates that is the birthplace of many earthquakes. Over the next three years, scientists will tack on at least an extra mile of drill and attempt the most ambitious mission ever: piercing the Earth’s mantle.
• For deeper ground penetration, where temperatures can exceed 500°F and corrosive chemicals reside, engineers will use a higher-tensile-strength steel to build the drill string. Also in development are new drilling (synthetic) mud that cool the drill bit during operation.

PopSci via Gizmodo

Research: Plate Tectonics Started Over 4 Billion Years Ago

Science Daily posts an article that pretty much bases the commonly held time line of when plate tectonics started on Earth: New research suggests that plate tectonics may have started more than 4 billion years ago — much earlier than scientists had believed, according to new research by UCLA geochemists. That puts the first plate activity within the first 500 million years of Earth's history. Many scientists believe that plate activity started 3.5 billion years ago, others that it began even more recently than that. Instead of a hellish, dry, desolate early Earth with no continents, it looks like as soon as the Earth formed, it fell into the same dynamic regime that continues today. This means that early Earth had oceans which may very well have contained life.

<- read complete article at sciencedaily.com ->