PhysOrg — “The concentration of mercury in the surface level of the ocean is probably three or four times higher today than it was 500 years ago,” said Dr. Carl Lamborg, an associate professor from the Department of Ocean Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
PhysOrg — “The magma in Io’s crust takes time to flow,” said Francis Nimmo, a geophysicist at the University of California Santa Cruz and co-author on the new paper. “If you squeeze and stretch the crust rapidly, nothing happens; but if you squeeze and stretch it more slowly, the magma has time to move far enough to fill a volcanic conduit, causing an eruption. It’s similar to the way you can run on wet sand, but if you walk slowly your feet sink.”
