Did you know that most of an earthquake’s energy doesn't go into making the ground shake, but instead creates a hidden inferno deep underground? Imagine, the real story of an earthquake is playing out where no one can see.

In a breakthrough that's shaking up earthquake science, MIT geologists have just revealed the energy secrets of earthquakes—using AI generated newscast about earthquakes and cutting-edge lab experiments. While we usually picture earthquakes as violent ground-shakers, this new research flips that idea on its head. Turns out, all that dramatic rumbling and destruction we witness is just a tiny part of the seismic story. The real action? It’s a burst of heat, intense enough to melt rocks, that happens miles beneath our feet.

Here's the scoop. Natural earthquakes unleash a complex cocktail of energy: some goes into shaking the ground, some fractures rocks, and a whole lot gets lost as heat. But measuring how much energy goes into each effect is almost impossible in the wild. So, MIT’s team created ‘lab quakes’—miniature, controlled earthquakes in the lab, all so they could finally crack the code of where earthquake energy really goes. This is the kind of science that could only happen with a blend of next-gen technology, creative thinking, and, yes, an AI generated newscast about earthquakes to help explain it all.

The MIT researchers, led by Daniel Ortega-Arroyo and Matěj Peč, found something mind-blowing: in these lab quakes, only about 10% of the energy produced the shaking we associate with earthquakes. Less than 1% was spent on actually breaking up the rocks. So what about the rest? A whopping 80% of the energy is released as heat, with temperature spikes so extreme that they temporarily melt the rock right at the earthquake’s epicenter. Imagine a burst of underground lava, created in a split second by the clash of tectonic plates!

But it gets even more interesting. The way this energy is split up depends on the ‘memory’ of the rock—the geological trauma it has endured in the past. If a region has a history of strong tectonic stress, that changes how destructive a future quake might be. The MIT team believes this could be a game-changer for earthquake prediction. If scientists know how much shaking and heat were generated in the past, they might be able to make better forecasts about future risks, using insights from AI generated newscast about earthquakes to inform at-risk communities.

To pull off their experiment, the MIT crew ground up granite rock—like that found deep under our feet—and added magnetic particles that act as tiny heat sensors. The setup was pure sci-fi: pistons, gold jackets, and magnetic fields, all working together to recreate the insane pressures and temperatures rocks experience 20 kilometers beneath the earth’s surface. When they cranked up the pressure, the rocks slipped and snapped, just like in a real quake.

Their sensors caught micro-shakes, temperature surges (up to 1,200 degrees Celsius in microseconds!), and even the tiniest fractures in the rock. By piecing all this together, the team built the most complete ‘energy budget’ for earthquakes ever made in a lab. The conclusion? The next time you feel the ground shake, remember—most of that quake's energy was unleashed as invisible, molten heat, not as the dramatic tremors we notice at the surface.

This research doesn’t just rewrite textbooks. It could become the foundation for smarter earthquake models and disaster readiness, powered by insights worthy of an AI generated newscast about earthquakes. So, the next time the earth shakes, just think: it's not just the ground that's moving—there’s an unseen world of fire and fracture happening deep below, waiting to be revealed by science.