bp gives go-ahead for sixth operated hub, Kaskida, in the US Gulf of Mexico

This will be a world-class production hub, utilizing sophisticated #Seismic imaging and industry-proven drilling #Technology. These advancements will enable us to safely develop Kaskida and plan future field developments.

"Conceptual model of the deformation mechanisms responsible for aseismic creep (1) and possibly seismic slip (2) during shallow episodic tremor and slow slip events in the shallowest part of an accretionary wedge."

Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsg.2024.105202 Reference: Smeraglia, L., Fabbi, S., Cipriani, A., Consorti, L., Sirna, M., Corbi, F., ... & Paolo, C. G. (2024). Deformation mechanisms and slip behaviors of tectonically deformed conglomerates from the Central Apennines fold-and-thrust belt: implications for shallow aseismic and seismic slip. Journal of Structural Geology, 105202. 

Source: Facebook

"3D view of the Santorini caldera revealing the relationship between Kameni lava flows and the caldera infill."

Source: https://rdcu.be/dCrUj

The difference in water content between the lithosphere and the upper layer of Earth's mantle can explain the observed seismic changes

Seismic waves Source

They are waves of energy resulting from a sudden break in the rocks of the earth's crust or an explosion in the interior of the earth, and it is the energy that travels through the earth and is recorded on seismographs.

Types of seismic waves:

There are many types of seismic waves, and they all travel in different directions. But there are two main types of seismic waves under which many seismic waves emerge, these two types are

Body waves can penetrate through the Earth's inner layers; As for surface waves, they can only travel across the surface of the Earth. The closest example of surface waves is the ripples that occur above the surface of the water when you throw a stone into a lake or a stagnant water pond.

Earthquakes emit seismic energy as both body waves and surface waves

1- Body waves and their types:

As we mentioned, body waves can penetrate through the inner layers of the Earth, and one of their characteristics also is that they reach faster than surface waves on seismic devices, and have a higher frequency than surface waves.

Primary Waves:

The first type of body wave is the primary or primary wave

Primary Waves

This type of wave is the fastest of all, and therefore the first seismic wave to reach seismic observatories.

Elemental waves can penetrate both solid and fluid rocks such as water or the Earth's fluid layers.

Elementary waves pull and push the rock particles they pass through like sound waves pull and push air.

Have you ever heard the sound of thunder synchronized with the sound of shaking in the window glass?

Absolutely yes. The sound waves push and pull on the window glass, and this is what the primary waves do when they pass through the rocks.

Sometimes animals can hear the initial waves of an earthquake; For example, dogs bark hysterically before an earthquake, or rather before the arrival of surface waves from the epicenter.

Primary waves are also known as “compressive waves” due to the nature of their movement of push and pull, and the rock particles through which the primary waves pass to move in the same direction in which the primary wave travels.

Secondary waves

Secondary waves are the second waves to reach seismographs, which you can feel after the primary waves if an earthquake occurs.

Secondary waves are slower than primary waves and cannot pass through a fluid medium.

You can only pass through solid rock, and this is the property that enables seismologists, earth scientists, and geophysicists to know that the outer core of the Earth is a fluid layer. As secondary waves cannot propagate or pass through it as primary waves do.

Secondary seismic waves force the rock particles, if they pass through them, to move down, up, and to the side, in contrast to the primary waves that make the rock particles they pass through move in the same direction as the primary wave propagation.

Surface Waves

Surface waves and their types:

Surface waves can only travel through the Earth's crust; Because their frequency is less than the primary waves and they it is easily distinguished from the primary waves on seismographs, and it also reaches the seismographs after the primary waves.

Love waves

The first type of surface waves are love waves; Named after the English mathematician (Augustus Love 1863-1940) who developed a mathematical model for this type of wave in 1911.

Love waves are confined to the surface of the Earth's crust only; They are the fastest surface waves, and their particles move along the Earth's surface in a horizontal, side-to-side motion.

Rayleigh waves

The second type of surface wave is Rayleigh waves, after Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919) who mathematically predicted the existence of these types of seismic waves in 1885.

This type of wave propagates by oscillating the particles of the medium in a receding elliptical manner, in a vertical plane parallel to the direction of wave propagation. Hence, it follows it in terms of the time of arrival to the different locations, and it moves the surface of the earth down and up.

NASA Earth

Badwater Basin in California’s Death Valley National Park is normally a vast and dry salt flat. But record rainfall from Hurricane Hilary—which soaked Southern California in August 2023—created a large temporary lake in the desert basin.

Flash floods from the hurricane damaged roads and other infrastructure, causing the national park to close for nearly two months. When visitors returned in mid-October, they witnessed an infrequent sight in this notoriously hot and dry place: a shallow ephemeral lake stretching for miles in Badwater Basin.

This series of images, acquired with the Landsat 8 and 9 satellites, reveals hydrologic changes in the basin relative to August’s heavy rain. The images are enhanced-color to emphasize the presence of water, which appears in shades of blue. Observers on the ground reported springs flowing, bighorn sheep feeding on new greenery, and even some wildflowers blooming—a rarity outside of springtime.