Near miss tsunami in Alaska during tourist season last year highlights increasing environmental instability

A team of researchers published a Science paper describing the massive landslide generated tsunami in Alaska last August. ESS Professor Gerard Roe and Research Scientist Mira Berdahl made vital contributions to the study, described in more detail in the UW News release. Their analysis attributed the 481-meter wave to glacial retreat from global warming and in this region, they found that 100% of the industrial era warming was human caused.

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Seattle Fault gets 5,000 more years of sleep

Just over 1,100 years ago an earthquake on the Seattle fault rocked — and reshaped — the Puget Sound region. It lifted the sea floor and sent a powerful tsunami through the sound. Researchers have estimated that this fault, which runs east to west beneath the middle of the city, will produce a large earthquake every 5,000 years or so. However, a UW analysis, recently published in Geology, pushes that estimate back to 11,000 years. ESS Research Scientist Elizabeth Davis is lead author.

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The PNW has many rivers, but no system for gauging landslide dam risk

Scientists have a new tool for estimating lesser known hazards in the Pacific Northwest: landslide dams and outburst floods. In a new study, published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences and led by ESS Graduate Student Paul Morgan, UW researchers debut a mathematical approach to mapping landslide dam hazards based on valley width and projected slide size.

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On the Seattle Fault, the biggest quakes aren't the most likely

Smaller quakes from secondary faults occur more frequently than previously thought, says new study published in Geology by ESS researchers Elizabeth Davis and Juliet Crider. PNSN Director Harold Tobin is also quoted.

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Planets need more water to support life than scientists previously thought

In a new study, Haskelle White-Gianella and Joshua Krissanen-Totton show that an Earth-sized planet likely needs at least 20 to 50% of the water in Earth’s oceans to maintain a critical natural cycle — the geologic carbon cycle — that keeps water on the surface. These new parameters could exclude many exoplanets in the so-called habitable zone and help narrow the search for life.

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Discovery of organic compounds bolsters case that Saturn's moon Enceladus could support life

A new analysis of data from the Cassini space probe has identified organic compounds within jets of water ice erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Some of the compounds, which likely originated in Enceladus’ subsurface ocean, have never before been identified on another world beyond Earth. The study, conducted in part by UW researcher Fabian Klenner, contributes to mounting evidence that Enceladus could support life.

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Researchers find key to Antarctic ice loss blowing in the north wind

Antarctic ice is melting at a startling pace, and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the greatest sources of uncertainty in climate projections. Researchers thought westerly winds were accelerating ice loss, but a new study from UW flips the narrative by 90 degrees, pointing instead to winds from the north. ESS Professor Eric Steig and graduate student Gemma O'Connor are quoted.

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How oxygen made the deep ocean home to animals, spurring rapid evolution

New research shows deep-ocean oxygenation supported animal evolution, but only after 390 million years when above-ground plants increased woody biomass, altering atmospheric and aquatic oxygen levels. This trend closely correlates with the rise of modern vertebrates. ESS Graduate student Kunmanee "Mac" Bubphamanee is lead author.

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'Revolutionary' seafloor fiber sensing reveals how falling ice drives glacial retreat in Greenland

A UW-led team of researchers, including ESS postdoc Dominik Gräff and Assistant Professor Brad Lipovsky, used a fiber-optic cable to capture calving dynamics across the fjord of the Eqalorutsit Kangilliit Sermiat glacier in South Greenland. This allowed them to document — without getting too close — one of the key processes that is accelerating the rate of glacial mass loss and in turn, threatening the stability of ice sheets, with consequences for global ocean currents and local ecosystems.

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Seismologists tapped into the fiber optic cable network to study offshore faults

UW ESS researchers showed that they can monitor seismic activity at the ocean floor using fiber optic cables without disrupting telecommunications. They developed this technique in Alaska and then tested it off the coast of Oregon.

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