Yellowstone's Ancient Supervolcano: Only Lukewarm?

Molten plume of material beneath Yellowstone cooler than expected

Yellowstone National Park and its famous geysers are the remnants of an ancient supervolcano.
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The geysers of Yellowstone National Park owe their eistence to the "Yellowstone hotspot"--a region of molten rock buried deep beneath Yellowstone, geologists have found.

But how hot is this "hotspot," and what's causing it?

In an effort to find out, Derek Schutt of Colorado State University and Ken Dueker of the University of Wyoming took the hotspot's temperature.

The scientists published results of their research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s division of earth sciences, in the August, 2008, issue of the journal Geology.

"Yellowstone is located atop of one of the few large volcanic hotspots on Earth," said Schutt. "But though the hot material is a volcanic plume, it's cooler than others of its kind, such as one in Hawaii."

When a supervolcano last erupted at this spot more than 600,000 years ago, its plume covered half of today's United States with volcanic ash. Details of the cause of the Yellowstone supervolcano's periodic eruptions through history are still unknown.

Thanks to new seismometers in the Yellowstone area, however, scientists are obtaining new data on the hotspot.

Past research found that in rocks far beneath southern Idaho and northwestern Wyoming, seismic energy from distant earthquakes slows down considerably.

Using the recently deployed seismometers, Schutt and Dueker modeled the effects of temperature and other processes that affect the speed at which seismic energy travels. They then used these models to make an estimate of the Yellowstone hotspot's temperature.

They found that the hotspot is "only" 50 to 200 degrees Celsius hotter than its surroundings.

"Although Yellowstone sits above a plume of hot material coming up from deep with the Earth, it's a remarkably 'lukewarm' plume," said Schutt, comparing Yellowstone to other plumes.

Although the Yellowstone volcano's continued existence is likely due to the upwelling of this hot plume, the plume may have become disconnected from its heat source in Earth's core.

"Disconnected, however, does not mean extinct," said Schutt. "It would be a mistake to write off Yellowstone as a 'dead' volcano. A hot plume, even a slightly cooler one, is still hot."

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Why Are 'Mama' and 'Dada' a Baby's First Words?

A baby's first words are often "mama" and "dada," much to the delight of parents. Now scientists think they know why.

Beyond the obvious — Mommy and Daddy are around a lot and babies are drawn to them — languages in many cultures have apparently made the task easy by creating words for mothers and fathers that feature patterns of repeating sounds, a new study suggests.

To arrive at this finding, brain scans were made of 22 newborns (age 2 days to 3 days) while they listened to recordings of made-up words. They heard words that end in repeating syllables, such as "mubaba" and "penana," as well as words without them, such as "mubage" and "penaku."

Brain activity increased in the babies' temporal and left frontal areas whenever the repetitious words were played. Words with non-adjacent repetitions ("bamuba" or "napena") elicited no distinctive responses from the brain.

This suggests "mama" and "dada" (or "papa") are well-chosen words to teach a baby, and it also indicates that the ability to more easily recognize these sorts of repetitive sounds is hard-wired in the human brain.

The research, led by University of British Columbia post-doctoral fellow Judit Gervain, was published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's probably no coincidence that many languages around the world have repetitious syllables in their 'child words,'" Gervain said, citing "papa" in Italian and "tata" (grandpa) in Hungarian as examples.

"The language center of most right-handed adults is located on the left side of the brain," Gervain said. "This is consistent with our finding with newborn babies and supports our belief humans are born with abilities that allow us to perceive and learn our mother tongue systematically and efficiently."

"The brain areas that are responsible for language in an adult do not 'learn' how to process language during development, but rather, they are specialized — at least in part — to process language from the start."

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Japanese physicists aim to unlock universe's mysteries

A worker shows the facilties of the world's largest scale synchrotron 500m in diameter which produces neutrons and neutrino and can be used for research materials and life science at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) Tokai Research and development center at Tokai village in Ibaraki prefecture, in July.

As the world's scientists try to unzip mysteries about the universe, Japan is set to open its largest atomic science park to study the world at its smallest level.

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The Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC Center) -- a 150 billion yen (1.36 billion dollar) project almost entirely funded by the government -- will open in December as one of the world's three hubs of atomic science.

The gigantic complex in the nuclear research hub in Tokai, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northeast of Tokyo, is designed to help researchers study any object on Earth beneath the level of the atom.

By better understanding the world in such minute detail, researchers hope to bring benefits to a variety of fields including pharmaceuticals, food processing and ion batteries.

"As far as research results are made public, researchers can use these facilities for free," said Shoji Nagamiya, director of J-PARC Center.

As many as 57 companies, largely in pharmaceuticals as well as universities and other institutes, are considering research at the science park, where up to 23 studies can take place simultaneously.

"Researchers will be able to study some lighter atoms that X-rays cannot analyse, most notably those of water," said Kunihiro Suzuki, chief spokesman at the J-PARC Center.

"This means they could unzip the mechanism of any living organism -- whose main part consists of water -- and this will hopefully lead to further development of, for example, cosmetics and frozen food products," he said.

The research could also help in developing more advanced lithium ion batteries, Suzuki said. Such rechargeable batteries are widely used in electronics, but automakers are hoping to eventually use them to power eco-friendly cars.

The plant will also conduct experiments to track down neutrinos -- the elusive and miniscule elementary particles discharged in nuclear reactions.

Neutrinos are considered key to understanding the universe. The Sun and supernovas, or star explosions, send into the universe a mass of neutrinos, which do not appear to interact with mass and lack an electrical charge.

Trillions of neutrinos pass through every person's body each day without changing course, but scientists are not clear what their function is.

Tracking them down is no easy task. European physicists made history last year when they managed to take a snapshot of the very instant that a neutrino slammed into a laboratory detector.

In a project to start in April next year, about 400 scientists at the J-PARC Center will send trillions of neutrinos on a 295-kilometre (183-mile) trip through the Earth's crust to another lab in western Japan.

Invisible to the naked eye, each neutrino will make the entire journey in a mere 1,000th of one second.

Scientists only hope to be able to detect 10 or 20 neutrinos a day from the J-PARC Center. But the experiment is still seen as significant as it could help explain one of the universe's biggest mysteries -- its infinite nature.

The neutrinos are being sent to a lab called Super Kamiokande, which was constructed by 2002 Nobel Prize physicist Masatoshi Koshiba.

Koshiba and his team have detected neutrinos set off by a supernova in an effort to understand the birth of the universe.

The world's two other hubs for atom physics are in the United States, which has government-run laboratories in Illinois and Tennessee, and Western Europe, with laboratories in Britain, Germany and on the French-Swiss border.

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