More Like this

1. Monitoring Volcanic Craters with Infrasound “Music”

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EO123979  

   Johnson, Jeffrey; Watson, Leighton (June 2019, Eos)

   Volcanic craters act as giant horns that emit intense low-frequency sounds. Changes in this infrasound may be used to track rising lava lakes and identify signals of future eruptions. 

   more » « less
2. Suction effects of craters under water

   https://doi.org/10.1039/c8sm01601a  

   Qiao, Shutao; Wang, Liu; Ha, Kyoung-Ho; Lu, Nanshu (October 2018, Soft Matter)

   Octopus-inspired cratered surfaces have recently emerged as a new class of reusable physical adhesives. Preload-dependent adhesion and enhanced adhesion under water distinguish them from the well-studied gecko-inspired pillared surfaces. Despite growing experimental evidence, modeling frameworks and mechanistic understanding of cratered surfaces are still very limited. We recently developed a framework to evaluate suction forces produced by isolated craters in air. In this paper, we focus on underwater craters. The suction force–preload relation predicted by this framework has been validated by experiments carried out with an incompressible fluid under small and moderate preloads. Our model breaks down under a large preload due to multiple possible reasons including liquid vaporization. A direct comparison between liquid and air-filled craters has been carried out and the dependence on the depth of water has been revealed. We find that the suction forces generated by underwater craters scale with the specimen modulus but exhibit non-monotonic dependence on the aspect ratio of the craters. 

   more » « less
3. The formation of peak rings in large impact craters

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah6561  

   Morgan, Joanna V.; Gulick, Sean P.; Bralower, Timothy; Chenot, Elise; Christeson, Gail; Claeys, Philippe; Cockell, Charles; Collins, Gareth S.; Coolen, Marco J.; Ferrière, Ludovic; et al (November 2016, Science)
4. Water striders are impervious to raindrop collision forces and submerged by collapsing craters

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2315667121  

   Watson, Daren A.; Thornton, Mason R.; Khan, Hiba A.; Diamco, Ryan C.; Yilmaz-Aydin, Duygu; Dickerson, Andrew K. (January 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   David Weitz (Ed.)

   Water striders are abundant in areas with high humidity and rainfall. Raindrops can weigh more than 40 times the adult water strider and some pelagic species spend their entire lives at sea, never contacting ground. Until now, researchers have not systematically investigated the survival of water striders when impacted by raindrops. In this experimental study, we use high-speed videography to film drop impacts on water striders. Drops force the insects subsurface upon direct contact. As the ensuing crater rebounds upward, the water strider is propelled airborne by a Worthington jet, herein called the first jet. We show the water strider’s locomotive responses, low density, resistance to wetting when briefly submerged, and ability to regain a super-surface rest state, rendering it impervious to the initial impact. When pulled subsurface during a second crater formation caused by the collapsing first jet, water striders face the possibility of ejection above the surface or submersion below the surface, a fate determined by their position in the second crater. We identify a critical crater collapse acceleration threshold ∼ 5.7 gravities for the collapsing second crater which determines the ejection and submersion of passive water striders. Entrapment by submersion makes the water strider poised to penetrate the air–water interface from below, which appears impossible without the aid of a plastron and proper locomotive techniques. Our study is likely the first to consider second crater dynamics and our results translate to the submersion dynamics of other passively floating particles such as millimetric microplastics atop the world’s oceans. 

   more » « less
5. Chicxulub and the Exploration of Large Peak-Ring Impact Craters through Scientific Drilling

   https://doi.org/10.1130/GSATG352A.1  

   Kring, David A.; Claeys, Philippe; Gulick, Sean P.S.; Morgan, Joanna V.; Collins, Gareth S. (September 2017, GSA Today)