Seismology articles from across Nature Portfolio

The rigid-body motion of Earth’s wandering inner core has now been reliably tracked over the past 20 years. With this knowledge, we can compare seismic recordings obtained when the inner core returns to the same position after moving for several years. More is changing than just the inner core position; the soft outermost inner core probably deforms.

A low-velocity anomaly in the upper mantle beneath the Coral Sea, may be interpreted as a thermomechanical plume which interacts with subducting slabs, affecting offset intraplate volcanism and rifting in the Woodlark basin, according to multimode waveform tomography.

Episodic tremor and slip in the mantle wedge produce extensional fracturing and dilatational shear due to changes in pore fluid pressure, according to deformation experiments on serpentinite and field observations of a shallow mantle-wedge-derived serpentinite shear zone.

Density data of iron-rich peridotite melts collected in a levitation furnace on the International Space Station indicates iron-rich peridotite melt has higher density than that at the base of the Mars’ mantle

Post-injection aseismic slip in the Weiyuan shale gas field perturbed stress fields sufficiently to trigger the 2019 ML 5.6 induced mainshock, according to numerical modeling informed by an earthquake catalog for the preceding 11 months.

Pairs of co-located large and small earthquakes that share almost identical seismic wave onsets more frequently occur on simple fault than complex fault systems, according to an analysis of 24 years of seismic records from Northern California

Sustained monitoring is essential for assessing volcanic hazards. Integration with igneous petrology is key to linking monitoring data to underlying magmatic processes.

Earthquakes ringing through the planet illuminate how its heart is transforming.

The rigid-body motion of Earth’s wandering inner core has now been reliably tracked over the past 20 years. With this knowledge, we can compare seismic recordings obtained when the inner core returns to the same position after moving for several years. More is changing than just the inner core position; the soft outermost inner core probably deforms.

Near-daily sampling of volcanic ash during a three-month eruption reveals shifts in mantle-derived liquid magma (melt) composition, highlighting its potential as a monitoring and forecasting tool. These shifts align with the amplitude of volcanic tremor, a persistent seismic signal, suggesting a link between magma viscosity, shallow bubble escape dynamics, and tremor changes.

Jeong-Sik Oh hikes to find hidden fault lines, with the help of drones, aircraft and laser technologies.

Olivine is stable and abundant in the Earth’s upper mantle, and its transformations may drive large earthquakes deeper in the mantle, as Tomohiro Ohuchi explains.