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Understanding how earthquakes occur is one of the main open questions in the field of seismology. Decades of research have not been enough to establish a model to predict earthquake’s behaviour neither to explain the systematic variation of the properties of their seismic rupture observed according to the depth where they initiate. This situation has often led to underestimate their capacity to generate tsunamis, making it difficult to develop early warning systems in areas affected by large and great earthquakes. A study carried out by Valentí Sallarès, a CSIC researcher, and César R. Ranero, ICREA researcher, both at the Institute of Marine Sciences of Barcelona of the CSIC, which stands for Spanish National Council for Scientific Research, ​​proposes a paradigm shift and presents a new conceptual model...

An international team led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC, Barcelona) demonstrate the growth of a young fault in the Alboran Sea, called the Al-Idrissi Fault System, source of the magnitude (Mw) 6.4 earthquake, which affected Al-Hoceima, Melilla and the south of the Iberian Peninsula in January 2016. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows the generation and growth of an active fault system. Geologically, the Alboran Sea is a young basin located between the Eurasia and the African tectonic plates. At the boundary between both plates is located the Al-Idrissi Fault System (AIFS), across the seafloor of the Alboran Sea. It represents the longest active tectonic structure in the region. The fault is about 100 km long and 1 to 4.8 km wide, accommodating a total slip rate of 3.8 mm/yr. Our study shows, f...

A study with researchers from CEAB and ICM, both centres of CSIC, reveals that marine sponges, the oldest group of animals on the planet, contribute significantly to one of the fundamental biogeochemical cycles of the ocean: the silicon cycle. Until now, it was believed that the main sinks of silicon occurred through the burial of diatoms, but according to the new results, published in Nature Geosciences, skeletons of marine sponges are also important sinks of silicon in the global ocean. Silicon is one of the most abundant chemical elements in the universe and, after oxygen, the second one on Earth. In the ocean, it is part of sediments, minerals and rocks and, more importantly, it occurs dissolved in the seawater. “This dissolved silicon plays a key role in the ecological functioning of the ocean. Among other functions, it is n...

An international group of scientists led by the Spanish National Research Counci (CSIC) has identified a new fault in the Alboran Sea. The fracture produces little deformation in the seabed, although there are "relatively high magnitude earthquakes", such as the magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale that affected the city of Melilla and several areas of Andalusia on January 25th on 2016. The results of this research, published in the journal Tectonics, allow establishing potential geological risks in the Alboran Sea. The work, which is part of the INCRISIS geology and marine geophysics campaing carried out on the Hespérides in May 2016, places the new fault in the limits between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates in the Alboran Sea, at western Mediterranean Sea. So far, the best known fault in this area was the Al-I...

Located in the southwestern Mediterranean, the seamount has been named after Francesc Pagès in memory of the ICM scientist, biologist, and expert in gelatinous plankton and jellyfish. This seamount was mapped during the SARAS international campaign, on board of the Ramon Margalef vessel, and is included in the Atlas of the Mediterranean Seamounts and Seamount-Like Structures, recently published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The tribute was proposed by Gemma Ercilla, from the Department of Marine Geosciences of ICM, "for his reputation as a biologist and for his human quality, shown in our conversations at the institute and in sporadic meetings abroad", argues the researcher. The atlas Edited by Maurizio Wurtz and Marzia Rovere, with the collaboration of twenty experts including the ICM scien...

An international team led by the University of Southampton (UK) and with the participation of César Ranero, ICREA researcher at the Department of Marine Geosciences of the ICM has found that the tectonic faults control the amount of water entering the Earth at depths of several kilometers. The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, have large-scale implications since the reaction between seawater (hydrosphere) and rocks (litosphere) at great depth causes a geochemical exchange, which also produces energy and nutrients that can be used by various anaerobic ecosystems. The scientists conducted experiments on the continental margin west of Iberian peninsula. There, faults were formed when continents of North America from Europe separated from each other, around 120 million years ago. The work is based on the use of s...

The ICM and the Fishermen's Association of Palamos are working together in a study funded by the Diputació de Girona to assess the impact of different models of trawl doors on the seafloor.   Quick loss of sediments The results of a study recently published by scientists from the ICM and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) warn that the loss of sediment caused by the trawl doors in the submarine canyon of La Fonera (prawn fishing area in Palamós) has increased during the last years. The work, a comparative analysis of sediment cores from the canyon in 2002 and 2011, concludes that the natural sedimentation rates have been altered since trawling was industrialized in the early 70s. Due to this as well as to constant technical changes in boats, sedimentation rates over the past decade are ten t...

In 1st April 2014, a quake around the northern city of Iquique reached a magnitude of 8.1 and triggered a tsunami. Despite that magnitude, experts were surprised that the quake was not as large and damaging as expected, and that it affected only a limited region. Geologists from the ICM, the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR), and the German Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources now presented a possible explanation for the smaller than expected tremor. They published their findings in the international journal Nature Communications. The reason for the high earthquake frequency in Chile lies just off the coast where the oceanic Nazca plate, one of several tectonic plates in the Pacific region, subducts underneath the South American plate. This leads to the accumulation of stress that will sooner or later, be rel...

A study led by scientists from the Polytechnic University of Marche (Ancona, Italy) involving researchers from the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM, CSIC) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), has determined that fishing trawling causes intensive, long-term biological desertification of the sedimentary seabed ecosystems, diminishing their content in organic carbon and threatening their biodiversity. Trawling is the most commonly used extraction methods of sea living resources used around the world, but at the same time, it is also one of the main causes of degradation of the seabed. This fishing practice originated in the second half of the fourteenth century, and in the last thirty years has grown exponentially, being progressively expanding towards greater depths in the ocean. The study, published in the latest issue ...