Category: Earth Science News

Envisioning Safer Cities with Artificial Intelligence

Over the past several decades, artificial intelligence has advanced tremendously, and today it promises new opportunities for more accurate healthcare, enhanced national security and more effective education, researchers say. But what about civil engineering and city planning? How do increased computing power and machine learning help create safer, more sustainable and resilient infrastructure?

U.S. National Science Foundation-funded researchers at the Computational Modeling and Simulation Center, or SimCenter, have developed a suite of tools called BRAILS — short for Building Recognition using AI at Large-Scale — that can automatically identify characteristics of buildings in a city and detect the risks a city’s structures would face in the event of an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami.

SimCenter is part of the NSF-funded Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure program and serves as a computational modeling and simulation center for natural hazards engineering researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Charles Wang, the lead developer of BRAILS, says the project grew out of a need to “quickly and reliably characterize the structures in a city. We want to simulate the impact of hazards on all the buildings in a region, but we don’t have a description of the building attributes.”

For example, he says, “in the San Francisco Bay area, there are millions of buildings. Using AI, we are able to get the needed information. We can train neural network models to infer building information from images and other sources of data.”

To train the BRAILS modules and run the simulations, the researchers used supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center — notably Frontera, the fastest academic supercomputer in the world, and Maverick 2, a GPU-based system designed for deep learning.

“Frontera is a leadership computing resource that serves science and engineering research for the nation,” says Manish Parashar, director of NSF’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “We are excited about the new computational methods and techniques Frontera is enabling to transform how engineering discoveries are being made to make our lives safer.”

The SimCenter recently released BRAILS version 2.0, which includes modules to predict a larger spectrum of building characteristics. These include occupancy class, roof type, foundation elevation, year built, number of floors, and whether a building has a “soft-story” — a civil engineering term for structures that include ground floors with large openings like storefronts that may be more prone to collapse during an earthquake.

“Given the importance of regional simulations and the need for large inventory data to execute these, machine learning is really the only option for making progress,” says SimCenter co-director Sanjay Govindjee. “It is exciting to see civil engineers learning these new technologies and applying them to real-world problems.”

Stay Tuned For More Latest Research and Development

 

Most Massive Neutron Star Ever Detected, Almost Too Massive To Exist

 

Neutron stars — the compressed remains of massive stars gone supernova — are the densest “normal” objects in the known universe. (Black holes are technically denser, but far from normal.) Just a single sugar-cube worth of neutron-star material would weigh 100 million tons here on Earth, or about the same as the entire human population. Though astronomers and physicists have studied and marveled at these objects for decades, many mysteries remain about the nature of their interiors: Do crushed neutrons become “superfluid” and flow freely? Do they breakdown into a soup of subatomic quarks or other exotic particles? What is the tipping point when gravity wins out over matter and forms a black hole?

A team of astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Green Bank Telescope (GBT) has brought us closer to finding the answers.

The researchers, members of the NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center, discovered that a rapidly rotating millisecond pulsar, called J0740+6620, is the most massive neutron star ever measured, packing 2.17 times the mass of our Sun into a sphere only 30 kilometers across. This measurement approaches the limits of how massive and compact a single object can become without crushing itself down into a black hole. Recent work involving gravitational waves observed from colliding neutron stars by LIGO suggests that 2.17 solar masses might be very near that limit.

“Neutron stars are as mysterious as they are fascinating,” said Thankful Cromartie, a graduate student at the University of Virginia and Grote Reber pre-doctoral fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia. “These city-sized objects are essentially ginormous atomic nuclei. They are so massive that their interiors take on weird properties. Finding the maximum mass that physics and nature will allow can teach us a great deal about this otherwise inaccessible realm in astrophysics.”

Pulsars get their name because of the twin beams of radio waves they emit from their magnetic poles. These beams sweep across space in a lighthouse-like fashion. Some rotate hundreds of times each second. Since pulsars spin with such phenomenal speed and regularity, astronomers can use them as the cosmic equivalent of atomic clocks. Such precise timekeeping helps astronomers study the nature of spacetime, measure the masses of stellar objects, and improve their understanding of general relativity.

In the case of this binary system, which is nearly edge-on in relation to Earth, this cosmic precision provided a pathway for astronomers to calculate the mass of the two stars.

As the ticking pulsar passes behind its white dwarf companion, there is a subtle (on the order of 10 millionths of a second) delay in the arrival time of the signals. This phenomenon is known as “Shapiro Delay.” In essence, gravity from the white dwarf star slightly warps the space surrounding it, in accordance with Einstein’s general theory of relativity. This warping means the pulses from the rotating neutron star have to travel just a little bit farther as they wend their way around the distortions of spacetime caused by the white dwarf.

Astronomers can use the amount of that delay to calculate the mass of the white dwarf. Once the mass of one of the co-orbiting bodies is known, it is a relatively straightforward process to accurately determine the mass of the other.

Cromartie is the principal author on a paper accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy. The GBT observations were research related to her doctoral thesis, which proposed observing this system at two special points in their mutual orbits to accurately calculate the mass of the neutron star.

“The orientation of this binary star system created a fantastic cosmic laboratory,” said Scott Ransom, an astronomer at NRAO and coauthor on the paper. “Neutron stars have this tipping point where their interior densities get so extreme that the force of gravity overwhelms even the ability of neutrons to resist further collapse. Each “most massive” neutron star we find brings us closer to identifying that tipping point and helping us to understand the physics of matter at these mindboggling densities.”

These observation were also part of a larger observing campaign known as NANOGrav, short for the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves, which is a Physics Frontiers Center funded by the NSF.

Mantle Rock Behind Yellowstone’s Supereruptions Extends To Northern California

Victor Camp has spent a lifetime studying volcanic eruptions all over the world, starting in Saudi Arabia, then Iran, and eventually the Pacific Northwest. The geology lecturer finds mantle plumes that feed the largest of these eruptions fascinating, because of their massive size and the impact they can have on our environment.

Over the past two years, this abiding interest helped him connect the dots and discover that the mantle source rock that rises upward from beneath Yellowstone National Park to feed its periodic supereruptions also spreads out west all the way to Northern California and Oregon.

On its westward journey, it acts as the catalyst for fairly young—meaning less than 2 million years old—volcanic eruptions at places such as Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho, before reaching Medicine Lake Volcano in the northeastern tip of California, close to the Oregon border.

The mantle rock spreads laterally through narrow flow-line channels well below the earth’s crust for over 500 miles, bifurcating twice: once as it leaves Yellowstone and again as it reaches the California-Oregon border. These lines end at Medicine Lake, an active volcano near Mount Shasta, and at Newberry Volcano, an active volcano about 20 miles south of Bend, Ore.

This discovery is significant because it reveals how mantle plumes similar to the one beneath Yellowstone behave as they feed the majority of the world’s largest volcanic eruptions of basaltic lava, including the ones in Hawaii.

“Since the plume is not controlled by plate tectonics, it can rise and emerge anywhere on earth, depending on where it manages to break through the earth’s surface,” Camp said. “So, knowing this will help us understand supereruptions that have occurred before, and those that will occur in the future.”

The results of his self-funded study were published in the journal Geology in May.

Mantle plumes are composed of very hot, low-density mantle rock. Mantle is one of three major layers of planet earth—we live on the earth’s crust, the thinnest layer, and mantle is the second denser layer that extends from about 100 kilometers (62 miles) below the earth’s surface all the way down to about 2,700 kilometers (about 1,680 miles), and further down is the core of the earth comprised mostly of iron mixed with a few other elements.

Mantle plumes are technically mantle rock, but because they are hotter and more buoyant than surrounding mantle they rise in a plume-like form. When the Yellowstone plume first reached the base level of the North American tectonic plate, it was blocked by the rigidity of the cold plate base which acted as a barrier. At this depth of about 100 kilometers, the plume began to decompress and melt, while simultaneously spreading laterally to the west.

The mantle rock that Camp traced to California took many millions of years to move out west. What’s interesting is that the source of the mantle rock under Yellowstone today originated at the core-mantle boundary geographically centered near present-day San Diego, but very deep beneath the earth’s surface we reside on—and took a circuitous route through different regions of the mantle before it rose up underneath the Yellowstone volcano.

Camp sourced seismic tomography images, similar to X-rays and CT-scans (computerized tomography scans), that show how the mantle plume ascended, and he analyzed field data as well as published chemistry and age data on volcanic rocks at the surface, to demonstrate its westward flow.

Earth’s Last Magnetic Field Reversal Took Far Longer Than Once Thought

Earth’s magnetic field seems steady and true—reliable enough to navigate by.

Yet, largely hidden from daily life, the field drifts, waxes and wanes. The magnetic North Pole is currently careening toward Siberia, which recently forced the Global Positioning System that underlies modern navigation to update its software sooner than expected to account for the shift.

And every several hundred thousand years or so, the magnetic field dramatically shifts and reverses its polarity: Magnetic north shifts to the geographic South Pole and, eventually, back again. This reversal has happened countless times over the Earth’s history, but scientists have only a limited understanding of why the field reverses and how it happens.

New work from University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist Brad Singer and his colleagues finds that the most recent field reversal, some 770,000 years ago, took at least 22,000 years to complete. That’s several times longer than previously thought, and the results further call into question controversial findings that some reversals could occur within a human lifetime.

The new analysis—based on advances in measurement capabilities and a global survey of lava flows, ocean sediments and Antarctic ice cores—provides a detailed look at a turbulent time for Earth’s magnetic field. Over millennia, the field weakened, partially shifted, stabilized again and then finally reversed for good to the orientation we know today.

The results provide a clearer and more nuanced picture of reversals at a time when some scientists believe we may be experiencing the early stages of a reversal as the field weakens and moves. Other researchers dispute the notion of a present-day reversal, which would likely affect our heavily electronic world in unusual ways.

Singer published his work Aug. 7 in the journal Science Advances. He collaborated with researchers at Kumamoto University in Japan and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“Reversals are generated in the deepest parts of the Earth’s interior, but the effects manifest themselves all the way through the Earth and especially at the Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere,” explains Singer. “Unless you have a complete, accurate and high-resolution record of what a field reversal really is like at the surface of the Earth, it’s difficult to even discuss what the mechanics of generating a reversal are.”

Earth’s magnetic field is produced by the planet’s liquid iron outer core as it spins around the solid inner core. This dynamo action creates a field that is most stable going through roughly the geographic North and South poles, but the field shifts and weakens significantly during reversals.

As new rocks form—typically either as volcanic lava flows or sediments being deposited on the sea floor—they record the magnetic field at the time they were created. Geologists like Singer can survey this global record to piece together the history of magnetic fields going back millions of years. The record is clearest for the most recent reversal, named Matuyama-Brunhes after the researchers who first described reversals.

For the current analysis, Singer and his team focused on lava flows from Chile, Tahiti, Hawaii, the Caribbean and the Canary Islands. The team collected samples from these lava flows over several field seasons.

“Lava flows are ideal recorders of the magnetic field. They have a lot of iron-bearing minerals, and when they cool, they lock in the direction of the field,” says Singer. “But it’s a spotty record. No volcanoes are erupting continuously. So we’re relying on careful field work to identify the right records.”

The researchers combined magnetic readings and radioisotope dating of samples from seven lava flow sequences to recreate the magnetic field over a span of about 70,000 years centered on the Matuyama-Brunhes reversal. They relied on upgraded methods developed in Singer’s WiscAr geochronology lab to more accurately date the lava flows by measuring the argon produced from radioactive decay of potassium in the rocks.

They found that the final reversal was quick by geological standards, less than 4,000 years. But it was preceded by an extended period of instability that included two excursions—temporary, partial reversals—stretching back another 18,000 years. That span is more than twice as long as suggested by recent proposals that all reversals wrap up within 9,000 years.

The lava flow data was corroborated by magnetic readings from the seafloor, which provides a more continuous but less precise source of data than lava rocks. The researchers also used Antarctic ice cores to track the deposition of beryllium, which is produced by cosmic radiation colliding with the atmosphere. When the magnetic field is reversing, it weakens and allows more radiation to strike the atmosphere, producing more beryllium.

Since humanity began recording the strength of the magnetic field, it has decreased in strength about five percent each century. As records like Singer’s show, a weakening field seems to be a precursor to an eventual reversal, although it’s far from clear that a reversal is imminent.

A reversing field might significantly affect navigation and satellite and terrestrial communication. But the current study suggests that society would have generations to adapt to a lengthy period of magnetic instability.

“I’ve been working on this problem for 25 years,” says Singer, who stumbled into paleomagnetism when he realized the volcanoes he was studying served as a good record of Earth’s magnetic fields. “And now we have a richer record and better-dated record of this last reversal than ever before.”

Drop Of Ancient Seawater Rewrites Earth’s History

The remains of a microscopic drop of ancient seawater has assisted in rewriting the history of Earth’s evolution when it was used to re-establish the time that plate tectonics started on the planet.

Plate tectonics is Earth’s vital — and unique — continuous recycling process that directly or indirectly controls almost every function of the planet, including atmospheric conditions, mountain building (forming of continents), natural hazards such as volcanoes and earthquakes, formation of mineral deposits and the maintenance of our oceans. It is the process where the large continental plates of the planet continuously move, and the top layers of the Earth (crust) are recycled into the mantle and replaced by new layers through processes such as volcanic activity.

Where it was previously thought that plate tectonics started about 2.7 billion years ago, a team of international scientists used the microscopic leftovers of a drop of water that was transported into the Earth’s deep mantle — through plate tectonics — to show that this process started 600 million years before that. An article on their research that proves plate tectonics started on Earth 3.3 billion years ago was published in the high impact academic journal, Nature, on 16 July.

“Plate tectonics constantly recycles the planet’s matter, and without it the planet would look like Mars,” says Professor Allan Wilson from the Wits School of Geosciences, who was part of the research team.

“Our research showing that plate tectonics started 3.3 billion years ago now coincides with the period that life started on Earth. It tells us where the planet came from and how it evolved.”

Earth is the only planet in our solar system that is shaped by plate tectonics and without it the planet would be uninhabitable.

For their research, the team analysed a piece of rock melt, called komatiite — named after the type occurrence in the Komati river near Barberton in Mpumalanga — that are the leftovers from the hottest magma ever produced in the first quarter of Earth’s existence (the Archaean). While most of the komatiites were obscured by later alteration and exposure to the atmosphere, small droplets of the molten rock were preserved in a mineral called olivine. This allowed the team to study a perfectly preserved piece of ancient lava.

“We examined a piece of melt that was 10 microns (0.01mm) in diameter, and analysed its chemical indicators such as H2O content, chlorine and deuterium/hydrogen ratio, and found that Earth’s recycling process started about 600 million years earlier than originally thought,” says Wilson. “We found that seawater was transported deep into the mantle and then re-emerged through volcanic plumes from the core-mantle boundary.”

The research allows insight into the first stages of plate tectonics and the start of stable continental crust.

“What is exciting is that this discovery comes at the 50th anniversary of the discovery of komatiites in the Barberton Mountain Land by Wits Professors, the brothers Morris and Richard Viljoen,” says Wilson.

FOLLOW UP: Probability of Earth Changing Events Within 14 Day

Historical evidence indicates large significant Earth changing events related to a Full Solar Eclipse. A pattern of events falls within a 28 day ‘window’ – as in window of opportunity. My research exhibits a cluster of natural phenomena had historically occurred 14 days prior to an eclipse – or within 14 days after.

The reason for large events to occur prior to a solar eclipse is not yet fully known. I speculate it is related to celestial alignments whereas charged particles and electromagnetic plasma interacts with our Sun and planetary orbs, one of which is Earth.

Close to and during a full solar eclipse, it is the sudden temperature fluctuation which can cause a chain reaction. Producing a sudden and rapid shift in both the jet stream and ocean currents, can cause the destabilization of set seasonal patterns. Additionally, what is often referred to as Extreme Weather involving tornadoes, hurricanes, straight line winds, and wind shears is almost always related to shifting ocean and jet stream

Although temperature flux may be subtle, if tectonics are at their tipping point, it would not take much to set them off. Additionally, the rapid yet subtle temperature change can cause the expansion and contraction of Earth’s lithosphere, which could set off a chain reaction of tectonic slippage resulting in significant earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Remember, the majority of volcanoes are submarine (ocean bottom); hence the rapid shift in ocean temperatures is also prone to set off a rippling effect which is often unpredictable due to the spider webbing tentacles which connect a system of mantle plumes and volcanoes.

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Science Of Cycles keeps you tuned-in and knowledgeable of what we are discovering, and how some of these changes will affect our communities and ways of living.

 

UPDATE: 2019 Full Solar Eclipse and Earth Changing Events

I have highlighted areas of concern as related to the causal effects of a total solar eclipse (shown below). If tectonics are at their tipping point, it would not take much to set them off. As mentioned, it is mostly the rapid temperature change which causes an expansion and contraction of Earth’s lithosphere, even if ever so slight.

Most ‘mantle plumes’ as well as volcanoes are sub-marine (ocean bottom); hence the rapid shift in ocean temperatures is also prone to set off a rippling effect which is often unpredictable due to the spider webbing tentacles which connect a system of mantle plumes and volcanoes.

A mantle plume is a large column of hot rock (magma) mostly originating from Earth’s core-mantle boundary. This flow of viscous material rises through the mantle, asthenosphere, and lithosphere finding its way to Earth’s surface or crust. The expanding or contracting movement of these events are the cause of earthquakes and volcanoes. The surface includes ocean bottoms causing an increase of ocean temperatures, which in-turn destabilizes the lower atmosphere contributing to forming or escalating tropical storms or hurricanes.

Next article will address perhaps a less scientific direction which suggest the current mode of global political dysfunction, may have some roots in history showing a pattern of “what happens below – reflects what happens above”. This suggest the turmoil which results from earth changing events appears to be in-sync with emotional unrest. Continued scientific data will of course follow.

Watch for ongoing reports as information comes in. I also plan to present a more extensive outline to the science behind my research, especially for those who may be new to my work.