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Powell's last Jackson Hole speech could pack a punch – Reuters
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Fungicide use may be placing canola production at risk
Dr Steve Marcroft inspects canola growing in a trial site. Photo: Marcroft Grains Pathology
CROP pathologists and fungal disease experts are concerned about the increasing use of precautionary fungicide applications in Australian canola.
Repeated applications of a single fungicide as “cheap insurance” against disease could have serious long-term consequences.
Australian Fungicide Resistance Extension Network (AFREN) project lead Fran Lopez-Ruiz, said fungicide resistance posed an ongoing threat to canola production, with frequent and repeated application of the same fungicide group being one of the main drivers.
AFREN is an initiative of the Grains Research and Development Corporation.
“Repeated use of fungicides from the same chemical group, especially when there’s no clear evidence of yield benefit, can drive the development of fungicide resistance within disease populations,” Dr Lopez-Ruiz said.
Fungicide resistance means a fungicide is no longer effective for disease control and denies growers the option to use the affected fungicide group.
This loss increases reliance on other registered fungicide groups, increasing the risk of multiple fungicide resistance scenarios.
Spores released by fungicide-resistant fungi can spread over large areas in a short time.
This means overuse of fungicides and poor disease management practices on a single farm can quickly become a regional problem.
“We are seeing this with net form net blotch (NFNB) of barley in parts of South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria.”
“NFNB pathogen populations with triple fungicide resistance to all three registered fungicide groups have limited growers’ options for protecting their barley yields.
“This is why AFREN recommends a targeted approach to fungicide application – only apply fungicide when necessary and when there is a clear economic benefit from doing so.
“Even then, different fungicide groups should always be used in rotation so any pathogens with fungicide resistance or reduced sensitivity will be controlled by one of the treatments.”
The comparison between NFNB of barley and blackleg of canola should not be taken lightly, according to Steve Marcroft of Marcroft Grains Pathology, based in Horsham, Vic.
Blackleg with reduced sensitivity to Group 3 fungicides prothioconazole, fluquinconazole, flutriafol and tebuconazole is present in NSW, SA, Vic and WA.
There is a high likelihood of resistance developing with the potential for field failure in pathogen-conducive environments.
Mutations for reduced sensitivity to Group 7 SDHI fungicides and Group 12 fungicide fludioxonil, the only other fungicide groups registered for blackleg control, have also been detected in SA.
There is a potential for reduced sensitivity to these two groups under high disease and fungicide selection pressure.
Dr Marcroft said he has received several inquiries about using double rates or off-label timings to help control blackleg or mitigate efficacy issues due to fungicide resistance.
“Both practices are illegal, as label rates and requirements must be followed, and they will also contribute to increased levels of fungicide resistance,” Dr Marcroft said.
“Fungicides must only be applied in accordance with label recommendations and only used when disease pressure is high and there is a clear risk of yield loss.”
Preliminary results from GRDC-supported research by Marcroft Grains Pathology, using blackleg of canola as a model, suggests that foliar applications during the four to eight-leaf stage are the main driver of fungicide resistance.
Canola plants can typically tolerate crown canker infection of up to 20 per cent before any yield loss occurs. Photo: Marcroft Grains Pathology
Growers should avoid spraying fungicide during this growth stage if possible.
“It’s important to remember that canola plants can tolerate a significant amount of disease before any yield loss occur, typically up to 20 percent crown canker infection,” Dr Marcroft said.
“While skipping early foliar applications will lead to a small amount of crown canker, this is unlikely to result in yield losses but will have a massive impact on minimising the risk of fungicide resistance evolving.”
Low levels of Upper Canopy Infection (UCI) are also unlikely to impact yield. Furthermore, applying fungicide after 50 per cent bloom can breach maximum residue limit (MRL) restrictions.
“If fungicides are used to excess when disease pressure is low or there is no threat to yields, they may no longer be effective when we genuinely need them,” Dr Marcroft said.
“What may seem like cheap insurance now could actually be a longer-term risk to canola production. Weighing the pros and cons of a fungicide spray with your agronomist is a much better investment.”
Growers should also follow the AFREN Fungicide Resistance 5 principles for integrated disease management.
This includes planting canola at least 500m from the previous season’s stubble, using time of sowing to manage disease risk, and using more resistant varieties and rotating them.
The AFREN website contains further information.
Source: GRDC
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‘Playing the Prime Minister ‘changes your perception’ of politics’ says Suranne Jones
NetflixJones says she was ‘a bit of a geek’ when it came to researching the role and spent many hours in the House of Commons and talking to politicians Actress Suranne Jones has taken on the role of many women under immense pressure. In Doctor Foster she suspects her husband of having an affair, in Vigil she investigates a death on board a submarine, and in Gentleman Jack she develops a dangerous lesbian romance.
But none of the roles are quite as pressured as her latest – playing a British prime minister whose husband is kidnapped.
Hostage, Netflix’s new political thriller, sees Jones’ character, Abigail Dalton, build an uneasy alliance with French President Vivienne Toussaint – played by Julie Delpy – who is being blackmailed during a London summit.
The two leaders work together in order to rescue the PM’s husband, unmask the kidnapper and blackmailer, and bring those responsible to justice.
‘Political with a small p’
Given its themes of immigration, the funding of the NHS and public trust, audiences may be tempted to connect Hostage to today’s headlines.
But, both stars insist the show is less about mirroring today’s politics and more about creating a thrilling story set in the political world.
“We’re entertaining and we’re in the political world, but it’s in no way a reflection of the world we live in,” Jones tells the BBC.
“It’s political with a small p – there’s enough that roots us in the real world but the world is too complicated to link it directly and I think it would be inappropriate.”
Delpy agrees and says: “Things change every day. It’s impossible to be in the political moment because tomorrow is something else.”
The show’s writer, Matt Charman, explains that there are some connections to the real world as it’s “impossible to write a show that exists in the climate we live in that doesn’t end up feeling that it’s in dialogue with it”.
“If you wrote a show that isn’t connected to our world it would feel weird,” he says, “but I hope the show does have the ability to exist in its own oxygen.”
NetflixCharman specifically wanted the two leaders in hostage to be women It is rare to see two female world leaders sharing the spotlight in a political thriller, but, for Charman, making sure Dalton and Toussaint were women was integral to the way the series was conceived and it was both a creative and political choice.
“What was exciting was the idea of women in power and how we explore that,” he says, explaining that he tried to explore how each situation the characters face would be different for a woman.
“There’s a double standard for women, so giving full dramatic freedom to that was very important.”
Charman and Jones have shared an agent for the past 10 years and Hostage came about because Charman really wanted to work with Jones and the pair settled on creating a political thriller.
Jones says she particularly enjoyed exploring “how these two women have to dance around each other”.
“A female politician is used to dealing with men so it’s interesting to see how it plays out when it’s two women.”
While viewers quickly learn about Jones’ character – a loving wife and mother who is idealistic about bettering the country – Delpy’s character is more drawn out and our opinion of her changes throughout the show.
“We made sure not to play into the female politician stereotypes,” Delpy say. “What I like is that these women actually have some things in common like they both want change and came into office hopeful.”
The Guardian describe Hostage as “quite unusual” in that it doesn’t remind you of any other political thrillers.
“It’s a little biting but it’s not House of Cards cynical, it has a breakneck pace but it’s not 24, the dialogue is sharp but never played for laughs,” Zoe Williams writes.
‘Cost of being in power’
To play Dalton convincingly, Jones, who also served as an executive producer on the show, says she really immersed herself in the reality of political life. She visited the House of Commons, spoke to the Speaker of the House and devoured books, podcasts and documentaries.
“I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to research,” she admits. “I was fascinated by not emulating anyone but by understanding a life I knew nothing about. And it’s the cost of being in a powerful position in that way that really struck me.”
Charman also talks about the extraordinary amount of research that went into creating the show.
I ask him whether Dalton or Toussaint were inspired by any real life politicians and he confesses that they are, but he won’t say who.
“We interviewed a lot of people and Suranne had incredible access to people who had been prime minister who talked about their time in office and the pressure on their family. But it was all agreed that they would speak about this as long as it could remain confidential,” he says.
Jones won’t say which politicians inspired her character but says all of her previous characters are a part of her and she has “a boardroom of personalities” which feed into who she plays.
She says all the research into what it’s like to be a politician “changes your perception for sure” and makes you realise “the cost of being in a powerful position”.
NetflixAshley Thomas plays the Prime Minister’s husband who is kidnapped in French Guiana One question the show raises is whether or not it’s possible for a politician today to stick to their ideals once they come into office and while Jones is unsure, Charman is an optimist.
“I wanted to explore how there can be decent people in politics who are fundamentally good but get pushed around,” he says.
He adds that it’s not “inevitable” that people give up their ideals once in office, but “it’s definitely tough to keep your morals”.
Above the thrills and drama of Hostage, Charman says the show explores “what it takes to be a good person in a system that doesn’t always reward good people.”
Delpy is slightly more pessimistic and explains that given “politicians have to be heard, if you’re too reasonable you won’t be listened to as there’s so much noise of both extremes”.
“If you have a moderate view you get lost in the noise as people are only listening to the loudest.”
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Rock Used as Doorstop For Decades Found to Be Worth Over $1 Million : ScienceAlert
They say one person’s trash is another’s treasure, but a chunk of ‘rock’ used to keep a door open for decades is a treasure by almost anyone’s standards.
A woman discovered the 3.5-kilogram (7.7-pound) stone in a stream bed in southeast Romania, brought it home, and used it as a doorstop.
Her find turned out to be one of the biggest intact chunks of amber in the world, according to a report by El Pais. Its value? Somewhere in the region of €1 million – around US$1.1 million.
Related: Man Keeps a Rock For Years Hoping It’s Gold. It Turns Out to Be Far More Valuable.
Resin forming under the damaged branch of a tree. (KevinDyer/Canva) Amber is tree resin from millions of years in the past. Over time, the highly viscous substance fossilizes into a hard, warm-hued material widely recognized as a gemstone.
In Romania, pieces of amber can be found around the village of Colti in sandstone from the banks of the River Buzau, where it has been mined since the 1920s.
Known as rumanite, this amber is famed and prized for its wide array of deep, reddish hues.
frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen>The elderly woman who found this particular rumanite nugget lived in Colti, where it remained performing a function so humble that it was missed even by jewel thieves who once targeted the home, reports say.
After the woman died in 1991, the relative who inherited her home suspected the doorstop might be more than meets the eye. On learning what he had, he sold the amber to the Romanian state, which had it appraised by experts at the Museum of History in Krakow in Poland.
According to these experts, the amber is likely around 38 to 70 million years old.
The chunk of amber. (Buzău County Museum) “Its discovery represents a great significance both at a scientific level and at a museum level,” Daniel Costache, director of the Provincial Museum of Buzau, told El Pais.
Classified as a national treasure of Romania, the nugget has had a home at the Provincial Museum of Buzau – the county in which the relic was found – since 2022.
An ant inside Baltic amber. (Anders L. Damgaard/CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons) The discovery resembles that of a man in Michigan, who kept a large piece of rock as a doorstop, only to find out decades later that he was keeping his doors in place with a meteorite worth $100,000.
A chunk of amber worth over a million dollars isn’t a bad score, either, really. Just imagine how many doorstops you could buy.
An earlier version of this article was published in September 2024.
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India’s biofuel drive is saving billions but also sparking worries
Getty ImagesIndian government says ethanol blending has cut 69.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions since 2014 India’s drive to blend more biofuels with petrol has helped the country cut millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and save precious dollar reserves.
But it has also sparked worries among vehicle owners and food policy experts about its potential impact on fuel efficiency and food security.
Last month, India achieved its objective of blending 20% ethanol with petrol, known as E20, five years ahead of its target.
The government views this as a game changer in reducing carbon emissions and trimming oil imports. Since 2014, ethanol blending has helped India cut 69.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and saved 1.36 trillion rupees ($1.5 bn; £1.1 bn) in foreign exchange.
A study by Delhi-based think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) shows that carbon dioxide emissions from road transport in India will nearly double by 2050.
“The demand for fuel is only going to increase and shifting to ethanol-blended petrol is absolutely necessary to cut down emissions,” Sandeep Theng from the Indian Federation of Green Energy, an organisation that promotes green energy, told the BBC.
But many vehicles in India are not E20-compliant, making their owners sceptical about the benefits of the policy.
Hormazd Sorabjee, editor of Autocar India magazine, said that ethanol has a “lower energy density than petrol and is more corrosive”. This results in lower mileage and exposes certain vehicle parts to a greater risk of wear and tear.
Mr Sorabjee added that some manufacturers like Honda have been using E20 compliant material since 2009, but many older vehicles on Indian roads are not E20 compatible.
While there is no official data on the impact of of E20 fuel on engines, consumers routinely share anecdotes about their vehicle’s deteriorating mileage on social media.
Many standard insurance policies in India also don’t provide cover for damage due to the use of non-compliant fuel, a top executive at online insurance platform Policybazaar, who wanted to stay anonymous, told the BBC.
“Consumers need to take add-on policies but even those claims can be denied or downgraded based on fine print of the policy,” he added.
The federal petroleum ministry has described these concerns as “largely unfounded”.
In a post on X, the ministry said that engine tuning and E20-compatible materials could minimise the drop in mileage. It also advised replacing certain parts in older vehicles, saying the process was inexpensive and “easily done during regular servicing of the vehicle”.
Getty ImagesExpansion of ethanol use could mean diverting more farm produce into manufacturing fuel Mr Sorabjee told the BBC that while milage concerns are real, they are a “not always as bad as made out to be”.
The bigger concern, he said, was the potential damage to vehicle materials due to the corrosive properties of E20.
Some vehicle manufacturers are offering ways to mitigate this.
Maruti Suzuki, India’s biggest four-wheeler maker, is reportedly likely to introduce an E20 material kit that could cost up to 6,000 rupees ($69; £51). The kit will reportedly replace components like fuel lines, seals and gaskets. Bajaj, a leading Indian two-wheeler maker, has advised using a fuel cleaner that could cost around 100 rupees ($1.15; £0.85) for a full tank of petrol.
But not all vehicle-owners are convinced. Amit Pandhi, who has owned a Maruti Suzuki car in Delhi since 2017, is unhappy that petrol pumps don’t offer the choice to opt for a blend other than E20.
“Why should I be forced to buy petrol that offers less mileage and then spend more to make the materials compliant?” he asked.
In 2021, a document on India’s transition to E20 published by Niti Aayog, a government think tank, had highlighted some of these concerns. It recommended tax benefits for buying E20 compliant vehicles, along with a lower retail price for the fuel.
The government has defended its decision to not pass the recommendations, saying that at the time of the report’s relase, ethanol was cheaper than petrol.
“Over time, procurement price of ethanol has increased and now the weighted average price of ethanol is higher than cost of refined petrol,” the petroleum ministry said earlier this month.
Getty ImagesIndia is looking to increase ethanol-blending in petrol in the coming years It’s not just consumers – the government’s blended fuel push has also raised concern among climate researchers and food policy experts.
Ethanol is produced from crops like sugarcane and maize, and expanding its use means diverting farm produce into manufacturing more fuel.
In 2025, India would need 10 billion litres of ethanol to meet its E20 requirements, according to government estimates. The demand will balloon to 20 billion litres by 2050, according to Bengaluru-based think tank Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP).
Right now, sugarcane is used to produce about 40% of India’s ethanol.
This puts India in a bind. It has to choose between continuing its reliance on sugarcane – which has a higher yield for ethanol but is water-intensive – or using food crops like maize and rice to produce the fuel.
But the shift comes with its own challenges.
In 2024, for the first time in decades, India became a net importer of maize, using large amounts of the crop to make ethanol.
Ramya Natarajan, a research scientist at CSTEP, said the diversion of produce had a significant impact on the poultry sector, which now has to spend more to buy corn for feedstock.
Moreover, this year, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) approved an unprecedented allocation of 5.2 million tonnes of rice for ethanol production. The rice in FCI stocks is earmarked to be given to India’s poor at a subsidised rate.
The policy could lead to an “agriculture disaster in a couple of years”, said Devinder Sharma, a farming sector expert.
“In a country like India, where 250 million people go hungry, we cannot use food to feed the cars,” Mr Sharma said.
To meet the demand for ethanol through corn and sugarcane in a 50-50 ratio – as outlined by Niti Aayog – India would have to bring in an additional eight million hectares of land under maize cultivation by 2030, unless there is a drastic increase in yield, according to CSTEP.
But even that could lead to problems.
“If farmers replace rice or wheat cultivation with maize, that would be sustainable because we have enough surplus of these crops. But we need other crops like oilseeds and pulses too,” Ms Natarajan said.
Ms Natarajan added that continuing with the E10 blend – petrol mixed with 10% ethanol – would have been a more ideal choice.
India, however, is planning to go even beyond E20.
“The country will now gradually scale towards E25, E27, and E30 in a phased, calibrated manner,” Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri said recently.
Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, X and Facebook
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‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ actor breaks down latest episode of series
The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Sean Kaufman is opening up about the latest episode, weighing in on the debate surrounding the show’s ‘stressful’ love triangle.
Kaufman, who portrays Steven in the series, is getting candid about the romantic dilemma in the third and final season.
During an exclusive interview with People magazine, the actor recently explained why he found himself torn between the two women in his life.
He told the outlet, “I had no idea what to expect. When we started season 3, we weren’t given all the scripts, so to go episode by episode and see how it plays out, and see the love triangle start to form, was very interesting and fun.”
The 25-year-old broke down the latest episode, revealing how the love story begins to wrap up in the final installment of the series.
Speaking about the August 20 episode, Kaufman said, “Yeah, it’s a big one. It’s the first time you see the dynamic between the three of them.”
For those unfamiliar, the actor stars alongside Rain Spencer and Denise in the series’ central love triangle.
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Google Beats Apple in Smartphone AI Race
Apple is behind Google in the race to add artificial intelligence (AI) features to smartphones, according to Wall Street Journal Personal Tech Columnist Nicole Nguyen.
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CJ rejects delay in Imran bail hearings
ISLAMABAD:Chief Justice Yahya Afridi on Wednesday made it clear that the Supreme Court would not allow prolonged adjournments in the bail petitions of PTI founder Imran Khan, being heard in connection with multiple cases linked to the May 9, 2023 violence.
A three-member bench led by Chief Justice Afridi, and including Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui and Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb, took up appeals against the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) June 24 decision, in which a bench led by Justice Shahbaz Ali Rizvi had dismissed Imran’s bail applications.
During the proceedings, the chief justice observed that the prosecution would first have to cross the threshold of establishing how the LHC’s rejection of the bail could be sustained. “We will hear the prosecution first,” he remarked.
The hearing began with an assisting counsel informing the bench that Special Prosecutor Zulfiqar Naqvi could not appear due to food poisoning and was currently admitted to a hospital. He requested the matter be adjourned until next week.
The chief justice, however, responded that the matter would be taken up on Thursday (today). Advocate Salman Safdar, representing the PTI founder, objected to the adjournment request and urged the court to at least allow them to argue.
He pointed out that the LHC had dismissed his client’s bail plea in November last year after six months of pendency, during which 16 hearings were held and eight different prosecutors were changed. “The prosecution repeatedly sought adjournments. We are now fed up,” he said.
Chief Justice Afridi assured the defence that the matter would not be subjected to unnecessary delays. Advocate Safdar requested that family members of the PTI founder, who were present in court, be allowed to address the bench.
However, the chief justice declined the request, stating: “We will only hear the lawyer. We will not allow family members to speak in court.” The hearing was attended by the PTI founder’s sisters along with senior party leaders. Later, the bench adjourned further proceedings until Thursday (today).
In their detailed verdict, LHC’s Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Justice Tariq Mahmood Bajwa had said: “In this view of the matter argument furnished by learned counsel for the petitioner (Imran Khan) to the effect that on May 9, 2023, the petitioner was in jail is of no help to him.”
In its detailed verdict, the bench reproduced the statements of two police officials, the prosecution witnesses, who claimed to have secretly attended the meetings of the PTI wherein the party’s founder allegedly gave instructions to other party leaders to attack military installations in case of his imminent arrest from the IHC.
The bench observed that the statements of the witnesses were not to be termed as belated.
It said the role assigned to the petitioner, evident from the statements of the witnesses, attracted the provisions of Section 120-B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) and 121-A (conspiracy to commit offence of waging or attempting to wage war against the country) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The bench held that the statements of the witnesses prima facie reflected that the conspiracy and abetment for the offences committed on May 9 were perpetrated by the petitioner on May 4 at Chakri rest area, Rawalpindi, on May 7 and on May 9 at Lahore.
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This surprising gas could be causing deep seafloor earthquakes
Deep beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, scientists have recorded earthquakes at roughly 6 to 12 miles below the seafloor, far deeper than where rock should normally crack. The finding points to a new driver of seismicity far from familiar fault zones and volcanoes.
The culprit is not extra cold rock or a hidden megafault. It looks like carbon dioxide in hot mantle melt changing volume as pressure drops, a physical nudge that can make rock fail at depth.
Deep seafloor earthquakes
A research team deployed ocean-bottom seismometers, autonomous instruments that sit on the seafloor and record tiny vibrations, during the SMARTIES campaign in 2019.
Those sensors captured clusters of microearthquakes in the warm mantle directly under the ridge axis, well below the usual brittle layer.
The work was led by Satish C. Singh of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGB), a group with decades of experience imaging the oceanic crust and mantle.
In this study, the team focused on a slow-spreading equatorial ridge segment where seismic activity is usually modest.
Geochemical analyses of nearby basalts showed unusually high carbon dioxide in the primary melts, about 0.4 to 3.0 percent by weight. That enrichment is consistent with melts derived from a mantle source that carries extra volatiles.
The earthquakes sit at depths where temperatures are expected to be too high for rock to break in a brittle way. That mismatch pushed the team to look beyond temperature or fault geometry and consider the physical effects of gases in magma.
How CO2 triggers seafloor earthquakes
Degassing changes the volume of a fluid, and in a confined rock, even small pressure shifts can matter.
The solubility of CO2 in basaltic melt depends strongly on pressure, so as melt rises and pressure falls, bubbles form and the melt expands.
At depth, CO2 can stay dissolved at high concentrations, then separate as a gas as pressure eases, a process that stiffens and relaxes stresses along cracks in quick bursts.
Volatile solubility studies show this pressure control is a first-order effect in mafic magmas.
Seismologists often use mantle temperatures around 700 to 900 degrees Celsius as a practical ceiling for where brittle failure can occur, which puts these Atlantic events in notably hot conditions.
That is why a stress source tied to expanding gas, not a cold, thick lid, better fits the observations.
Why it matters for ocean crust
Volatiles do more than spark eruptions at volcanoes on land. They lower melting temperatures, steer where melts collect, and change how the new ocean crust forms beneath spreading ridges.
The Atlantic results suggest volatiles can also shape where and how earthquakes happen in the mantle beneath ridges.
If CO2 rich melts stall in the mantle before feeding the crust, they can evolve chemically and mechanically at depth.
That pause can increase heterogeneity in the lithosphere, the rigid outer shell, and near the asthenosphere, the weaker layer below it.
The study also helps explain seismic reflections and partial melt hints right at the lithosphere, asthenosphere boundary in the equatorial Atlantic.
Independent work indicates that a small percentage of melt, aided by volatiles, can persist there at temperatures below the dry peridotite solidus.
What makes this different from volcano swarms
Deep earthquakes linked to magma motion show up in active volcanic zones like Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula.
There, researchers documented deep long period events at about 6 to 7 miles depth around the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption, a very different tectonic setting.
Off Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, a seismic crisis revealed drainage of a huge reservoir from roughly 15 to 22 miles down, accompanied by deformation and very long period signals.
That sequence pointed to a developing submarine volcano rather than steady ridge accretion.
In Iceland’s Northern Volcanic Zone, several nests of unusually deep quakes, sometimes deeper than 20 miles, are tied to magma movement below the usual brittle layer.
Those cases involve thickened crust and a volcanic plumbing system, unlike the Atlantic ridge segment studied here.
Fresh look at volatile-rich ridges
The Atlantic ridge segment examined spreads slowly, a regime where melt pathways are complex and tectonics can expose mantle rocks on the seafloor.
In such settings, volatile rich melts may focus and linger, priming the conditions for gas driven stress changes at depth.
Global ridge studies show that mid ocean ridge basalt glasses are commonly depleted in CO2 by the time they erupt, which complicates efforts to reconstruct their original volatile content.
Trace element ratios such as CO2 to Ba and CO2 to Rb provide workarounds to estimate the pre-eruptive load.
More deep seafloor earthquakes studies
Better constraints on volatile content and pressure in the mantle will come from longer deployments and denser arrays of seafloor instruments.
Targeted sampling of fresh basalts and melt inclusions will tighten the links between chemistry, pressure, and the mechanics of these deep events.
Models that couple gas solubility, fracture mechanics, and ridge thermal structure can test how much CO2 is needed to tip rock into failure in hot mantle.
Those models can also explain why only some ridge segments host deep quakes while others stay quiet.
The study is published in Nature Communications.
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