Earth Sciences

Geophysicists can use a new model to explain the behaviour of a tectonic plate sinking into a subduction zone in the Earth’s mantle: the plate becomes weak and thus more deformable when mineral grains on its underside are shrunk in size.

The more water is dissolved in the magma, the greater the risk that a volcano will explode. A new ETH study now shows that this simple rule is only partially true. Paradoxically, high water content significantly reduces the risk of explosion.

Switzerland may soon be facing a shortage of railway ballast. ETH geologists are heading into the wilds to track down new sources of crushed rocks.

Researchers from the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF and ETH Zurich have spent four years conducting rockfall experiments, enabling them to compile the most comprehensive set of measurement data to date. Among other things, the results show that wheel-like rocks have a wider lateral spread than cube-shaped rocks. The new findings have important implications for hazard assessment and the dimensioning of protective structures. Based on the measurement data, calculation programs can be calibrated and refined to give a more accurate representation of reality.

Switzerland has considerable capacity for carbon storage and a bright future in shallow geothermal energy. These are the two main findings presented in Innosuisse’s final report on the 2013–2020 Energy Funding Programme, in the chapter on geo-energy. Lyesse Laloui, a full professor in civil engineering at EPFL, is the chapter’s author and the head of a research group on this topic.

Norway experiences dangerous landslides due to its clay-rich soil. For her Master’s thesis in civil engineering at EPFL, Mathilde Metral outlined steps that the country’s geotechnical engineers can take to improve the predictive computer model they’re currently developing.