Scientists think they could have found the cause of a series of “slow-motion” earthquakes that have shaken New Zealand in recent years – a hidden ocean which sits two miles beneath the sea floor. The water was revealed as part of a giant volcanic area formed about 125 million years ago, when an eruption forced a plume of lava bigger than the US to the surface of the Earth. Researchers found the region by towing 3D seismic sensors behind a boat to build up an image of the ancient volcanic area. There, they found thick, layered sediments around long-buried volcanoes which contained much more water than expected. Andrew Gase, from the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, who carried out the research, said: “Normal ocean crust, once it gets to be about seven or 10 million years old should contain much less water.” The ocean crust scanned by researchers was 10 times as old as this – but water made up nearly half its volume. The tectonic fault line which runs through New Zealand is known for producing slow-motion earthquakes, also known as slow slip events. During one of these, the energy from an earthquake gets released over days or months, often causing little or no harm to people. Scientists don’t know why they happen more at some faults than at others, but they are thought to be linked to buried water. Finding this new area of water at the fault line which creates so many slip events could provide an explanation. Gase said: “We can't yet see deep enough to know exactly the effect on the fault, but we can see that the amount of water that's going down here is actually much higher than normal.” If researchers can work out how the water reserves affect slip events – possibly by dampening them – they could, in turn, understand normal earthquakes better. Scientists also think underground water pressure could play a key part in creating conditions that release tectonic stress via slow slip earthquakes. As a result, Gase said scientists should drill even deeper to find out where the water ends up. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

(Reuters) -Salesforce raised its annual revenue forecast on Wednesday and projected quarterly sales above estimates as it benefits from a

Amazon has unveiled a slew of gadgets and an update to its popular voice assistant Alexa, infusing it with more generative AI features amid the heated AI race among tech companies

If you're one of the lucky ones with access to Google Search Labs, from now

Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, are scheduled to speak at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty

Hurricane Lee has intensified to a Category 4 storm and is "rapidly strengthening" as it churns through the

Summer in India has always been hot. Increasingly, it’s testing the limits of human survival. As temperatures have

Kai Cenat was in the intro of 'Fast X' while Choppa made a song for the action movie

WhatsApp has finally launched a private and fast way for people to transfer their chats to a new device. The change fixes one of the biggest privacy issues with using the app. Until now, it has been difficult to move chats between devices – such as when getting a new phone – and so users may have been taken in by unofficial and potentially dangerous third-party apps offering a way to do so. Now users can keep their complete chat and media history as they move it between phones, without the need to exit the app. WhatsApp said the feature was intended to be “more secure than using unofficial third party apps which lack clear privacy practices, and more private than cloud services”. It is also meant to be faster than backing up the whole chat history, and also means that big files that would usually be left out of such a backup will be kept around. The system means that two devices can be put closely, checked with a QR code and then have their data shared between two devices on the same operating system. The tool is fully encrypted, meaning that there should be no way for that data to be stolen as it moves between the phones. To use the new tool, the two devices must be in the same physical location, connected to WiFi and with location settings on. It is then activated by clicking through to the Settings on the old phone, choosing “chats” and then “chat transfer”, which will bring up a QR code that can be scanned with the new phone. All of the data should then be moved from the old phone onto the new one, without the need to back it up or use third-party tools. The change is one of a range of recent features introduced by WhatsApp, as it aims to make privacy and security a central part of its offering. Recently it added a new feature aimed at blocking “spam and scam” calls, for instance, along with other privacy changes. Read More WhatsApp launches major new feature that could end spam calls iPhone users urged to check their photo library amid fears they could be deleted How to see exactly who has looked at your TikToks

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2023--

MUNICH China's Leapmotor needs to increase its sales by five times or more to survive a consolidating EV

Contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries forecast fourth-quarter profit above analysts' estimates on Tuesday, providing the latest sign that a supply