Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra.

The Indonesian Meteorological, Climatological, and Geophysical Agency recorded a Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake at a depth of about 29 km, off the West coast of Aceh Province, Sumatra, Indonesia slightly after 6.00 pm Western Indonesian Time (slightly after 11.00 am GMT) on Tuesday 31 January 2025. There have been no reports of any damage or casualties following this event, but people have reported feeling  tremors  across Aceh Province and parts of North Sumatra.

The approximate location of the 31 January 2025 Aceh Province Earthquake. USGS.

The Indo-Australian Plate, which underlies the Indian Ocean to the west of Sumatra, is being subducted beneath the Sunda Plate, a breakaway part of the Eurasian Plate which underlies Sumatra and neighbouring Java, along the Sunda Trench, passing under Sumatra, where friction between the two plates can cause Earthquakes. As the Indo-Australian Plate sinks further into the Earth it is partially melted and some of the melted material rises through the overlying Sunda Plate as magma, fueling the volcanoes of Sumatra.

The Subduction zone beneath Sumatra. NASA/Earth Observatory.

This does not happen at a 90° angle, as occurs in the subduction zones along the western margins of North and South America, but at a steeply oblique angle. This means that as well as the subduction of the Indo-Australian plate beneath the Sunda, the two plates are also moving past one-another. This causes rifting within the plates, as parts of each plate become stuck to the other, and are dragged along in the opposing plate's direction. The most obvious example of this is the Sumatran Fault, which runs the length of Sumatra, with the two halves of the island moving independently of one-another. This fault is the cause of most of the quakes on the island, and most of the island's volcanoes lie on it.

The movement of the tectonic plates around Sumatra. NASA/Earth Observatory.

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Apolithabatis seioma: A new species of stem-group Ray from the Late Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone.

Chondrichthyans, or Cartilaginous Fish, are among the most numerous Vertebrate fossils in the geological record, but almost all these fossils are of isolated teeth. Whole-body fossils of Chondrichthyans, in contrast are extremely rare, limiting our understanding of the morphology and biology of ancient members of this group. 

The oldest known body fossils of Batomorphs, or Rays, date back to the Jurassic Period, considered to be an important interval in Shark and Ray evolution, and come from a series of  'Konservat-Lagerstätten',  the most notable of which is the Solnhofen Limestone, of southern Germany, which records a series of deposits laid down in the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian (i.e. between 154.8 and 143.1 million years ago) in a series of islands, known as the Solnhofen Archipelago, on the edge of the Tethys Sea with many enclosed, placid, lagoons that had limited access to the open sea and where salinity rose high enough that the resulting brine could not support life. The Solnhofen Limestone records a range of Vertebrate fossils in exquisite detail, including Holocephalians (Chimeras), Hybodont Sharks, Selachimorph Sharks, and at least two genera of Batomorphs.

Until fairly recently, all Batomorphs from the Solnhofen Limestone were refered to the genera Asterodermus and Spathobatis, but recent studies have suggested that none of the Solnhoffen specimens can be assigned to Spathobatis, a genus originally described from French specimens, with the German specimens assigned to Spathobatis reassigned to a new genus, Aellopobatis. All known specimens of Asterodermus and Aellopobatis from the Solnhoffen Limestone are thought to be of Tithonian age, although many specimens were collected decades ago from working quarries, and may not be dated accurately.

In a paper published in the journal PLoS One on 23 January 2025, Julia Türtscher and Patrick Jambura of the Department of Palaeontology and the Vienna Doctoral School of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Vienna, Frederik Spindler of PALAEONAVIX, and Jürgen Kriwet, also of the Department of Palaeontology and the Vienna Doctoral School of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Vienna, deescribe a new species of Batomorph from the Kimmeridgian Painten site within the Franconian Alb of central Bavaria.

Geographical setting and stratigraphy of Painten. (A) Geographical map of the ’Solnhofen Archipelago’ and Nusplingen. (B) Stratigraphic section of the Upper Jurassic (upper Kimmeridgian to lower Tithonian) sediments of the ’Solnhofen Archipelago’ (southern Germany), the sequence exposed at Painten is indicated by a bracket. Note that the new Batomorph fossil is from the Ulmense rebouletianum-horizon within the Lithacoceras ulmense Subzone of the Kimmeridgian (highlighted). Türtscher et al. (2025).

The new species is described from a single specimen, DMA-JP-2010/007, and is named Apolithabatis seioma, where 'Apolithabatis' means 'Fossil Ray' in Greek, while 'seioma' derives from the Greek 'seismós', meaning 'shake', in reference to the way in which the fossil was extracted from the rock. The single known specimen of Apolithabatis seioma is at least 120 cm in length, with a heart-shaped disc and a long narrow tail. It has two dorsal fins, both behind the pectoral girdle (i.e. on the tail).

Overview of DMA-JP-2010/007, the holotype of Apolithabatis seioma. (A) Photograph of the specimen. (B) Illustration of the specimen showing the skeletal morphology. Abbreviations: ac, antorbital cartilage; bp, basipterygium; br, branchial arches; c, vertebral centra; cf, caudal fin; d1, first dorsal fin; d2, second dorsal fin; hs, haemal spine; mk, Meckel’s cartilage, ms, mesopterygium; mt, metapterygium; nc, nasal capsule; ns, neural spine; pb, puboischiadic bar; pp, propterygium; pq, palatoquadrate; r, ribs; ra, pectoral fin radials; rap, pelvic fin radials; ro, rostrum; sc, scapulocoracoid; syn, synarcual. The scale bar equals 10 cm. Türtscher et al. (2025).

Previous phylogenetic studies have recovered Jurassic Batomorphs as a part of the crown group (i.e. descended from the last common ancestor of all living members of the group), with the Torpediniformes (Electric Rays) forming the sister group to all other members of the group. However, Türtscher et al. recovered Apolithabatis seiomai, along with the other Jurassic genera Aellopobatis, Asterodermus, Belemnobatis, Kimmerobatis, and Spathobatis, in a distinct clade which has a sister group relationship to all extant Batomoph groups (including the Torpediniformes). Since this implies that this group is not descended from the last common ancestor of all living Batomorphs, Türtscher et al. regard this group, which they name the Order Apolithabatiformes, to stem group Batomorphs.

Majority-rule consensus tree with bootstrap and jackknife frequencies (jackknife values in parentheses). Daggers before taxon names indicate extinct taxa. Türtscher et al. (2025).

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Series of 'curse-amulets' found in burials at Romano-Gaulish cemetery in Orléans, France.

Archaeologists from Le Service Archaeologie Orléans have discovered a series of  'curse-amulets' in burials at a Romano-Gaulish cemetery beneath an eighteenth century hospital in the city of Orléans in north-central France, according to a press release issued on 7 January 2025. The cemetery, which was discovered in 2022, was already considered unusual, in that it comprises a single row of about 60 graves along a wall, and that all of those buried here appear to have been adult males, contrary to typical Roman practice. The burials are thought to date from the first-to-third centuries AD. All of the dead were buried in painted wooden coffins, with no sign of any cremations. Curiously, 21 of the graves also contained 'curse-amulets'.

Location of the 'curse-amulet', labelled as 'Tablette de défixion' within burial F2199 at the Orléans Romano-Gaulish cemetery. Le Service Archaeologie Orléans.

'Curse-amulets' (properly called 'defixion tablets') are sheets of lead upon which an inscription calling for supernatural intervention has been written. The use of lead was not just practical (although it was practical, since the soft nature of lead made it easy to inscribe and fold or roll up) but also served a symbolic purpose, lead being associated with the underworld and the gods who dwelt there in the Greek and Roman worlds. Thus, the invocations on these amulets were typically calling on these gods to cause harm to someone, with more benign prayers written on different materials. Curse amulets were often hidden somewhere on their intended victims property, or buried deep in the ground where they might better reach the chthonic deities.

The curse amulet recovered from grave F2199 in its folded state. Le Service Archaeologie Orléans.

To date, one of the curse amulets from Orléans has been partially deciphered. This amulet, from grave F2199, was carefully unrolled and then chemically treated to remove patches of corrosion and protect its surface from further degradation. The inscription thus revealed was to faint to be read by the Human eye, but has been largely revealed using Reflectance Transformation Imaging, a method which involves taking photographs from a large number of different angles, then using software to create a three-dimensional model of the surface. An online tool showing Reflectance Transformation Imaging of the amulet can be found here. 

The text revealed on the amulet from grave F2199 by Reflectance Transformation Imaging. Le Service Archaeologie Orléans.

The inscription revealed appears to be in the ancient Gallic language, written in Latin cursive, with some borrowed words from Greek and Latin. This has been interpreted as 'ib r…mi [m]arte rigisamu | a]nmantigIu, Se uiron bnanon uanderonado brixton sod-esti, Cisin…piSSlon atlon atemiston, Etic se-uiron banon canti piSSiantas, Sollebne(m), Marulliam, Sulpici(i), Claudia(m), Marulliam g., Curiatiu(m), Mat|(e)rno(n), Tiberium, Cantognati, Sulpici(i), (B)regesia, Regina Italica pri(uata) Sulpici(i), Regina Regina, Regina dona Tibe(rius), [..]ix, Ateporigis, Lecti, (Se)gouisu(m)'. 

Gallic is not a well-understood language, but can be deciphered to some extent by comparison to other ancient Celtic languages, such as Old Irish, Old Breton, and Old Welsh. The inscription  has been translated by the linguist Pierre-Yves Lambert as reading 'To Mars the Royal, who pierces names, It is the bewitchment of these men and women below (named) who accomplished the unfortunate and unjust feat, and also all those who were accomplices of these men and women', followed by a list of Latin names, then an invocation to 'Regina' (presumably a reference to a deity), then some more names in Gallic.

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At least 26 dead in flooding and landslides in the Vale do Aço metropolitan area of Minas Gerais State, Brazil.

At least 26 people have died, and several more are missing, after a series of floods and landslide events hit the Vale do Aço metropolitan area of Minas Gerais State, Brazil, on Sunday 12 and Monday 13 January 2025. Nine of the fatalies, including a nine-year-old boy, occurred when a landslide in the Betânia neighbourhood of the city of Ipatinga, where a landslide swept along a steeply inclined street, destroying a number of homes. Other fatalities, including in at least two further children, were caused by landslides in the Betânia, Canaã, and Vila Celeste neighbourhoods of the city, and another in the city of Santana do Paraíso, to the north of Ipatinga. The events followed several days of heavy precipitation in the area, with 326 mm of rain falling between Saturday 11 and Monday 13 January, including 80 mm in an hour on Saturday night. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall.

A rescue worker searching through debris following a landslide in the city of Ipatinga. Minas Gerais Fire Department. 

Southern Brazil has a rainy season that lasts from October to March, with peak rains from mid-November to mid-January, however, this year's rains have been exceptionally strong. Brazil has suffered a string of flood-related disasters in recent years, most notably in 2011, when over 800 people died. The country has a rapidly growing population, with little effective urban planning, which has led to sprawling urban developments springing up with little thought to natural hazards, and in particular poorer neighbourhoods often expanding up unstable hillsides, with the result that when floods occur (which is not unusual) communities are often quickly overwhelmed.

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Evacuations ordered after increase in activity from Mount Ibu on Halmahera Island, Indonesia.

Authorities in North Maluku Province, Indonesia, have ordered the evacuation of six villages close to Mount Ibu, a 1325 m stratovolcano on the northwest coast of Halmahera Island, following a series of eruptions in the first two weeks of 2025. Mount Ibu began its current eruptive cycle in June 2024, but January has seen a significant rise in activity, with more than a thousand eruptions have been recorded on the volcano this year, with the largest producing ash columns reaching as high as 4 km over the summit of the volcano. However, to date only one village, with a population of 517 people, has been evacuated, with about 2500 people in the remaining five villages reluctant to leave without first harvesting crops.

An eruption on Mount Ibu, Halmahera Island, on Wednesday 15 January 2024. Azzam/AFP.

The Halmahera Island chain is a volcanic arc formed where the Halmahera Plate, a northeaster extension of the Molucca Sea Plate is being subducted beneath Philippine Plate from the east and the Eurasian Plate from the west, with the underlying plate being melted by the heat of the Earth's interior, and lighter minerals bubbling up through the overlying plate to form volcanoes. The Halmahera volcanoes are located where the Philippine Plate is overriding the Molucca Sea Plate; to the west the Sangihe Islands lie where the Molucca Sea Plate is being overridden by the Eurasian Plate.

Diagrammatic representation of the subduction zones beneath Halmahera (middle), plus the Philippines (top) and Sulawesi (bottom), with the Eurasian Plate to the left, the Molucca Sea Plate in the middle, and the Philippine Plate to the right.  Hall & Wilson (2000).

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