Mud pots, or mud volcanoes, form when volcanic gases escape underlying magma and rise through water and earth to form bubbling mud pits. I had the chance to watch some Keep reading
Tag: geology
Ferrovolcanism
Beyond Earth, scientists expect to find objects formed by a volcanism much different than what we typically see here. Researchers used Syracuse University’s Lava Project apparatus to simulate ferrovolcanism — Keep reading
The Mobile Mud Spring of Niland, CA
What’s part geyser, part mud pot, and all creeping, unstoppable natural disaster? The Niland Geyser, known as the world’s only moving mud spring. Dianna explores this geological mystery in the Keep reading
The Intermittent Spring of Afton, WY
Yellowstone may get top billing, but Wyoming is home to more fluid dynamical wonders, like the world’s largest rhythmic spring. Located a little outside Afton, WY, Intermittent Spring — as Keep reading
A Macro View of Weathering
Water constantly weathers sedimentary rock, both physically — through abrasion — and chemically — through dissolution and recrystallization. Now researchers have gotten their first view of this weathering at the Keep reading
Chaotic Mixing in Porous Media
One of the peculiar characteristics of viscous, laminar flows is that they are reversible. Squirt dye into glycerin, stir it one way, then the opposite direction, and the dye returns Keep reading
Uncovering Erosion Patterns
Gypsum and limestone cliffs sometimes form patterns of long, parallel grooves known as rillenkarren. Recent research shows that these patterns form when a thin layer of water flows over a Keep reading
Making a Miniature River
Despite wide differences in ecology and geology, rivers around the world share certain fundamental features. Physicists study these characteristics by creating small-scale rivers in the laboratory, like the experiment featured Keep reading
Dissolving Caramel
In nature, erosion patterns are driven by the interactions of flow and topography. Here, researchers study that process in the lab by placing an inclined block of caramel in quiescent Keep reading
Exploring Martian Mud Flows
When looking at Mars and other parts of our solar system, planetary scientists are faced with a critical question: if what I’m looking at is similar to something on Earth, Keep reading