Icequakes Are a Thing, Too
Earthquakes are so 20th century. We now live in the era of icequakes. While icequakes have always existed, climate change has destabilized ice even further. And because of intense research in ice-covered areas, from mountain glaciers to Antarctic ice shelves, we’re getting a better sense of just how shaky the ice is getting. Researchers have documented icequakes from Alaska to Antarctica, wobbles that can happen either due to freeze-thaw cycles or collapsing chunks of ice. You can even listen to them. (It’s freaky.)
The findings could help predict future ice shelf and glacial collapse, which I guess is handy for scientific and doomsday-y reasons. “Cryoseismology is breaking into a new realm of where we can be useful,” Douglas MacAyeal, an ice researcher at the University of Chicago, told Earther in 2019.
