thousands of people and leveling buildings in and around the capital city of Kathmandu.

You may have heard scientists quoted in the news, saying that this quake was “inevitable,”

and in a sense, it was.

Nepal is home to the tallest mountain in the world, after all, and the movements of the

earth’s crust are what help form mountains in the first place.

But geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey say that strong earthquakes are actually pretty

rare in this part of Nepal.

In the past hundred years, only four earthquakes of magnitude six or higher have occurred within

250 kilometers of the current quake.

Before last week, the most recent one happened in August of 1988, when a 6.9 quake struck,

causing about 1500 fatalities.

And a catastrophic quake occurred at almost the same spot in 1934, destroying a large

part of Kathmandu and killing nearly 11,000 people.

While rare, these quakes are reminders of Nepal’s precarious geological position:

It sits right on top of a subduction zone -- where one plate of the Earth’s crust

slides under another.

In this case, the Indian Plate is pushing itself to the north, under the rim of the

Eurasian Plate.

And Nepal’s southern border rests directly on the boundary between those two plates,

on a formation called a thrust fault.

As one giant plate slowly tries to slide under the other, stress gradually builds up in the

rock around the fault lines, until all that energy is released in the form of an earthquake.

Adding to the power of this latest quake was the fact that it was pretty shallow -- its

epicenter was just about 15 kilometers below the surface, while other quakes in the region

can happen as much as 200 kilometers down.

The closer to the surface that an earthquake strikes, the more severe its vibrations are,

and the more damage it can cause.

So, the forces that created the majesty of the Himalayas are also what caused the destruction

that we’re seeing now.

If you’d like to help victims of the Nepal earthquake, we’ve included a list of nonprofits

that are sending relief to the area, in the description below.

Now for some good news from underground.

One thing that the earth keeps giving us is fossils -- and last week a strange new addition

was made to the Dinosaur Family Tree.

Discovered in a 160-million-year-old fossil in China, it’s been named Yi qi -- and it

raises the question of whether some dinosaurs could actually fly.

Makes sense when you think about it, since birds are considered the modern descendants

of dinosaurs. Some ancient dinosaurs definitely had feathers, and a few -- like the lovely

Archaeopteryx -- even had wings.

But the general consensus among scientists is that, by definition, the extinct dinos

we know as non-avian dinosaurs couldn’t fly on their own -- though a few of the smaller

ones may have been able to glide.

But Yi qi might change that.

In this week’s issue of the journal Nature, paleontologists report that it’s the first

fossil dinosaur found to have some of the same bone structures as modern flying animals.

Specifically, they say, the bones in its wrist are just like those found in bats.

There were even the remains of an apparent membrane on the forelimb, kind of like a bat’s

wing. And part of the fossil included feathers -- although not the kind of feathers used

in flight.

Unfortunately, the fossil isn’t complete enough for scientists to tell whether this

dinosaur could actually fly by flapping its feathered wings, or whether it glided -- like

Archaeopteryx probably did.

Finally, one more thing to file under “weird stuff we’ve found in the ground:”

Scientists working in Antarctica this week announced that they’ve discovered a huge

network of subterranean saltwater lakes, stretching at least 12 kilometers long.

Geologists made the find while conducting electromagnetic surveys of Antarctica by helicopter,

when they picked up traces of brine, or salty water, up to 300 meters below the surface.

This isn’t the first time that water has been found trapped under Antarctica, though.

Our very first SciShow News update ever was about Lake Vostok, a subglacial Antarctic

lake which Russian scientists reached for the first time in 2012, after drilling through

4 kilometers of ice.

Scientists are intrigued by these deposits of water, because they’ve likely been there

for millions of years -- dating back to when the continents and the climate were different,

and Antarctica had liquid water on its surface.

With this water now trapped underground, it’s thought to be home to extreme forms of microbial

life -- including some forms that humans have probably never seen before.

So, there’s still much more about this planet, and the life on it, for us to learn about,

starting from the ground up.

Thank you for joining me for SciShow News. Which is brought to you by this episode’s

President of Space, Kevin Bealer who says “Don't forget to be awesome! And hi mom!”.

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