Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot springs, which mimic the ancient oceans, to...
A massive quake struck Calama, Chile, in 2024, surprising scientists with its unusual depth and destructive power. Unlike typical deep quakes, it broke past thermal limits and triggered an intense “thermal runaway” rupture. Researchers...
In 2020, California’s Creek Fire became so intense that it generated its own thunderstorm, a phenomenon called a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. For years, scientists struggled to replicate these explosive fire-born storms in climate models,...
Ed Miliband’s move to bring forward ban is gambit to stop would-be Reform voters from backing Nigel Farage’s pro-fracking party Ed Miliband announced on Wednesday that Labour was speeding up plans to bring in a “total ban” on fracking....
Diamonds hitch a ride to the surface through explosive kimberlite eruptions, powered by volatile-rich magmas. New simulations show that carbon dioxide and water are the secret ingredients that make these eruptions possible.
South African diamonds have revealed nickel-rich metallic inclusions, offering the first direct evidence of reactions predicted to occur deep in Earth’s mantle. The study shows how oxidized melts infiltrated reduced rocks, trapping both...
MIT scientists have unraveled the hidden energy balance of earthquakes by recreating them in the lab. Their findings show that while only a sliver of energy goes into the shaking we feel on the surface, the overwhelming majority is...
America already mines all the critical minerals it needs for energy, defense, and technology, but most are being wasted as mine tailings. Researchers discovered that minerals like cobalt, germanium, and rare earths are discarded in...
The Dead Sea isn’t just the saltiest body of water on Earth—it’s a living laboratory for the formation of giant underground salt deposits. Researchers are unraveling how evaporation, temperature shifts, and unusual mixing patterns lead...
Hidden within Arctic ice, diatoms are proving to be anything but dormant. New Stanford research shows these glass-walled algae glide through frozen channels at record-breaking subzero temperatures, powered by mucus-like ropes and...
Barrels dumped off Southern California decades ago have been found leaking alkaline waste, not just DDT, leaving behind eerie white halos and transforming parts of the seafloor into toxic vents. The findings reveal a persistent and...
Cambridge scientists discovered that thin, weak zones in Earth’s plates helped spread Iceland’s mantle plume across the North Atlantic, explaining why volcanic activity once spanned thousands of kilometers. These ancient scars not only...
New research reveals that carbon made it possible for Earth’s molten core to freeze into a solid heart, stabilizing the magnetic field that protects our planet. Without it, Earth’s deep interior — and life above — might look very different.
Stanford researchers reveal meandering rivers existed long before plants, overturning textbook geology. Their findings suggest carbon-rich floodplains shaped climate for billions of years.
As the Great Salt Lake shrinks, scientists are uncovering mysterious groundwater-fed oases hidden beneath its drying lakebed. Reed-covered mounds and strange surface disturbances hint at a vast underground plumbing system that pushes...
In 1954, a powerful earthquake shook Northern California near Humboldt Bay, baffling scientists for decades. Most quakes in the region come from the Gorda Plate, but this one didn’t fit the pattern. After digging through old records,...
Ancient forests may have fueled a deep-sea oxygen boost nearly 390 million years ago, unlocking evolutionary opportunities for jawed fish and larger marine animals. New isotopic evidence shows that this permanent oxygenation marked a...
Astounding study of rocks formed from foundry waste on Cumbrian coast could throw geological precepts into doubt Rocks take thousands to millions of years to be made, right? Wrong. Researchers have discovered that industrial waste has...
Nämdö, Stockholm archipelago: A holiday to the Baltic has forced me to undergo a perspective shift to appreciate its scale and intricate wateriness By the third week in August, Swedish school terms have restarted and the thousands who...
My friend Michael Waldman, who has died aged 83, was a palaeontologist and an inspiring teacher of geology. He discovered one of the most productive and important fossil sites in Scotland, and named several new species of extinct...
Isotopes shows animal began life in Wales, adding weight to theory cattle used in hauling stones across country A cow’s tooth from a jawbone deliberately placed beside the entrance to Stonehenge at the Neolithic monument’s very beginning...
Scientists found that Great Salt Lake’s chemistry and water balance were stable for thousands of years, until human settlement. Irrigation and farming in the 1800s and a railroad causeway in 1959 created dramatic, lasting changes. The...
With its two tiny CubeSats, NASA’s PREFIRE mission is capturing invisible heat escaping from Earth, offering clues to how ice, clouds, and storms influence the climate system. The insights could lead to better weather forecasts and a...
The massive 2025 Myanmar earthquake revealed that strike slip faults can behave in surprising ways. Using satellite data, Caltech researchers found the Sagaing Fault ruptured more dramatically than expected, suggesting faults like the...
Beneath the North Sea, scientists have uncovered colossal sand formations, dubbed “sinkites,” that have mysteriously sunk into lighter sediments, flipping the usual geological order. Formed millions of years ago by ancient earthquakes or...
Over 15 years of fossil excavations in Tanzania and Zambia have revealed a vivid portrait of life before Earth s most devastating mass extinction 252 million years ago. Led by the University of Washington and the Field Museum, scientists...
Deep beneath the Antarctic seas lies a hidden network of 332 colossal submarine canyons, some plunging over 4,000 meters, revealed in unprecedented detail by new high-resolution mapping. These underwater valleys, shaped by glacial forces...
A surprising discovery emerged from a security camera video taken during Myanmar’s recent magnitude 7.7 earthquake. While the footage initially drew attention for showing the dramatic fault movement, scientists soon realized it revealed...
A long-forgotten fault in Canada's Yukon Territory has just revealed its dangerous potential. Scientists using cutting-edge satellite and drone data discovered that the Tintina fault, previously considered dormant, has produced multiple...
Scientists in Svalbard were shocked to find rain and greenery instead of snow during Arctic winter fieldwork. The event highlights not just warming—but a full seasonal shift with major consequences for ecosystems, climate feedback, and...
A colossal 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked central Myanmar in March 2025, marking the strongest quake in over a century. What makes this event groundbreaking isn't just the seismic power, it's the unprecedented footage captured by a CCTV...
Ancient river landscapes buried beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet have been uncovered by radar, revealing vast, flat surfaces formed over 80 million years ago before Antarctica froze. These hidden features, stretching across 3,500...
Beneath Yellowstone’s stunning surface lies a hyperactive seismic world, now better understood thanks to machine learning. Researchers have uncovered over 86,000 earthquakes—10 times more than previously known—revealing chaotic swarms...
An ancient glacier high in the French Alps has revealed the oldest known ice in Western Europe—dating back over 12,000 years to the last Ice Age. This frozen archive, meticulously analyzed by scientists, captures a complete chemical and...
Even in a warming climate, brutal cold snaps still hammer parts of the U.S., and a new study uncovers why. High above the Arctic, two distinct polar vortex patterns — both distorted and displaced — play a major role in steering icy air...
As glaciers melt around the world, long-dormant volcanoes may be waking up beneath the ice. New research reveals that massive ice sheets have suppressed eruptions for thousands of years, building up underground pressure. But as that icy...
Research in Chile suggests climate crisis makes eruptions more likely and explosive, and warns of Antarctica risk The melting of glaciers and ice caps by the climate crisis could unleash a barrage of explosive volcanic eruptions, a study...
Kenyan fig trees can literally turn parts of themselves to stone, using microbes to convert internal crystals into limestone-like deposits that lock away carbon, sweeten surrounding soils, and still yield fruit—hinting at a delicious new...
A massive and surprising change is unfolding around Antarctica. Scientists have discovered that the Southern Ocean is getting saltier, and sea ice is melting at record speed, enough to match the size of Greenland. This change has...
Parts of New Orleans are sinking at alarming rates — including some of the very floodwalls built to protect it. A new satellite-based study finds that some areas are losing nearly two inches of elevation per year, threatening the...
Beneath the Afar region in Ethiopia, scientists have discovered pulsing waves of molten rock rising from deep within the Earth — a geological heartbeat that could eventually split Africa in two. These rhythmic surges of mantle material...
Deep beneath our feet, the Earth holds a hidden treasure trove of gold and rare metals more than 99.999% of it locked away in the planet s core. But a surprising new discovery in Hawaiian lava is shaking up what scientists thought they...
The Winston Red, one of only 24 red diamonds of more than one carat publicly recorded, is on display in Washington DC Red diamonds are some of the rarest gems on the planet: only 24 stones of more than one carat (200 milligrams) have...
Ancient coral fossils from the remote Seychelles islands have unveiled a dramatic warning for our future—sea levels can rise in sudden, sharp bursts even when global temperatures stay steady.
During Earth's ancient Snowball periods, when the entire planet was wrapped in ice, life may have endured in tiny meltwater ponds on the surface of equatorial glaciers. MIT researchers discovered that these watery refuges could have...
A breakthrough study has uncovered that the Southern Ocean's power to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere fluctuates dramatically depending on winter sea ice. When sea ice lingers longer into winter, the ocean absorbs up to 20% more...
Some volcanoes erupt with little to no warning, posing serious risks to nearby communities and air traffic. A study of Alaska's Veniaminof volcano reveals how specific internal conditions like slow magma flow and warm chamber walls can...
Beneath Earth s surface, nearly 3,000 kilometers down, lies a mysterious layer where seismic waves speed up inexplicably. For decades, scientists puzzled over this D' layer. Now, groundbreaking experiments by ETH Zurich have finally...
In a world where over a billion smartphones are produced yearly, a team of researchers is flipping the script on electronic waste. Instead of tossing out older phones, they ve demonstrated a groundbreaking approach: turning outdated...
Scientists have built a lab model that visually tracks how microscopic contact points between fault surfaces evolve during earthquake cycles, revealing the hidden mechanics behind both the slow buildup of tectonic stress and the rapid...