Southern Alaska’s winter finale delivered a spectacular atmospheric display, captured by a NASA satellite. Cold Arctic air flowing over warmer ocean waters created long bands of clouds, swirling vortex patterns, and even a compact polar...
Two of the most dangerous fault systems on the U.S. West Coast may be more connected than scientists once thought. New research suggests the Cascadia subduction zone and the San Andreas fault can “sync up,” triggering earthquakes within...
For the first time, scientists have watched a subduction zone literally fall apart beneath the ocean floor. Using advanced seismic imaging, they found the Juan de Fuca plate splitting into fragments as it sinks beneath North America....
New experiments suggest that freezing and thawing on early Earth may have helped primitive cell-like structures grow and evolve. Tiny lipid bubbles behaved very differently depending on their membrane makeup—some fused into larger...
Beneath East Africa’s Turkana Rift, scientists have found the crust is thinning to a critical point, suggesting the continent is gradually breaking apart. This “necking” process marks an advanced stage of rifting that could eventually...
Ancient Antarctic ice is revealing a surprising new chapter in Earth’s climate story, stretching back 3 million years. By analyzing tiny pockets of trapped air and rare gases, scientists have discovered that while the planet cooled...
Gales stir up seabed and wash ashore jet and amber on North Yorkshire and Suffolk coasts respectively Storms can be good news for beachcombers, bringing not just driftwood and weed to shore but, occasionally, semiprecious stones. Amber...
Tectonic plate movements over millions of years have lifted and tilted the layers, with records of ancient earthquakes in the rocks Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily...
Beneath the dry farmland of New South Wales lies a hidden window into a lost rainforest teeming with life from 11-16 million years ago. At McGraths Flat, scientists have uncovered fossils preserved in astonishing detail—not in typical...
Scientists have mapped how Earth’s deepest mantle is being deformed—and the results point to long-lost tectonic plates buried thousands of kilometers underground. Using a massive global dataset of seismic waves, they found that most...
A new AI-driven method called GOFLOW is turning weather satellite images into highly detailed maps of ocean currents. By tracking how temperature patterns shift over time, it can reveal fast-moving, small-scale currents that were...
Analysis of video footage reveals how wave changed as it travelled over mud-rich rice paddies, exerting more force It is just over 15 years since the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, killing almost 20,000 people...
Many of the world’s largest river deltas—home to hundreds of millions of people—are sinking faster than rising seas, according to a sweeping global study. Using high-resolution satellite radar maps, researchers found that human...
After two centuries of failed attempts, scientists have finally grown dolomite in the lab, cracking a long-standing geological puzzle. They discovered that the mineral’s growth stalls because of tiny defects—but in nature, those flaws...
Scientists drilling deep beneath Greenland’s ice have uncovered a startling clue about its past—and future. Evidence shows that the Prudhoe Dome, a major high point of the ice sheet, completely melted around 7,000 years ago during a...
Long before rising seas swallowed Doggerland beneath the North Sea, this lost landscape may have been a surprisingly lush and life-friendly haven. New DNA evidence reveals that forests of oak, elm, and hazel were already thriving there...
Researchers have discovered lithium hidden in pyrite within ancient shale rocks—an unexpected find that could reshape how we source this critical battery material. It raises the possibility of extracting lithium from existing waste,...
A colossal ocean current encircling Antarctica—stronger than all the world’s rivers combined—played a far more complex role in shaping Earth’s climate than scientists once thought. New research shows it didn’t form just because ocean...
Asteroid impacts may have helped kick-start life on Earth by creating hot, chemical-rich environments ideal for early biology. These impact-generated hydrothermal systems could have lasted thousands of years—long enough for life’s...
Hundreds of millions of years ago, Earth’s magnetic field behaved in a way that has long baffled scientists, showing wild and seemingly chaotic shifts unlike anything seen before or since. A new study suggests this chaos may actually...
In the holiday hotspots of the Costa del Sol, the risks are rarely mentioned. But in neighbouring Cádiz, the country’s first tsunami-ready town is leading by example Even on a wet, wintry day in Málaga, the Mediterranean looks benign....
The more than 100 bat species living in the Mozambican reserve’s labyrinth of caves play a key role in maintaining a fragile ecosysytem that benefits wildlife and people • Words and photographs by Kang-Chun Cheng After wriggling gingerly...
Far beneath the ocean near Japan, scientists have discovered that the magma system linked to the most powerful eruption of the Holocene is slowly rebuilding. By using seismic imaging, researchers mapped a large magma reservoir under the...
A massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar in March 2025, but what makes this event extraordinary is what happened next. For the first time, a nearby CCTV camera captured the fault rupture in real time, giving scientists a rare,...
Sinkholes, storm drains, manmade labs miles underground … this documentary, based on Robert Macfarlane’s book, burrows deep into some of humanity’s great unknowns There are some arresting questions and potent images in Rob Petit’s...
Researchers believe rock samples taken from the Apollo missions gave scientists a misleading impression How magnetic is the moon? Analysis of rock samples from the Apollo missions suggested that the moon had an extremely strong magnetic...
We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2022: A wave of bestselling authors claim that global affairs are still ultimately...
A hidden freshwater system deep beneath the Great Salt Lake has been revealed using airborne electromagnetic surveys. Scientists found that freshwater extends much farther under the lake than expected, reaching depths of up to 4...
Scientists have uncovered the oldest direct evidence yet that Earth’s tectonic plates were on the move 3.5 billion years ago. By analyzing magnetic fingerprints in ancient rocks, they reconstructed how parts of the planet slowly drifted...
A mysterious spike of platinum buried deep in Greenland’s ice has long fueled theories of a catastrophic comet or asteroid strike 12,800 years ago—possibly triggering a sudden return to icy conditions known as the Younger Dryas. But new...
Pink granite boulders sitting mysteriously atop Antarctica’s Hudson Mountains have led scientists to a stunning discovery: a hidden granite mass buried beneath Pine Island Glacier, stretching nearly 100 km wide and 7 km thick. By dating...
A new detection method called “Jerk” could dramatically improve how scientists forecast volcanic eruptions. By using a single broadband seismometer, the system can detect extremely subtle ground movements caused by magma pushing...
The asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs didn’t keep life down for long. New research shows that microscopic plankton began evolving into new species within just a few thousand years—and possibly in under 2,000 years—after the...
Scientists may have finally solved the mystery of strange plume-like structures hidden deep inside the Greenland ice sheet. New research suggests they form through thermal convection—slow, swirling motions driven by temperature...
A long-running debate about the Silverpit Crater beneath the North Sea has finally been resolved. Scientists now confirm it formed when a roughly 160-meter asteroid struck the seabed about 43–46 million years ago. New seismic imaging and...
For the first time ever, scientists have uncovered a vast field of tektites in Brazil — mysterious glassy fragments forged when a powerful extraterrestrial object slammed into Earth about 6.3 million years ago. Named “geraisites” after...
Stone lifting | A good result | Gorton and Denton lessons | Metres v millions I must disagree with Prof Gray ( Letters, 20 February ) as to the origin of the rounded shapes of the boulders used in the ancient sport of stone lifting in...
Antarctica’s Hektoria Glacier stunned scientists by retreating eight kilometers in just two months, with nearly half of it collapsing in record time. The rapid breakup was driven by a flat, underwater bedrock surface that allowed the...
Earth’s magnetic shield is shifting in dramatic ways. New data from ESA’s Swarm satellites show that the South Atlantic Anomaly — a vast weak spot in Earth’s magnetic field — has grown by nearly half the size of continental Europe since...
Researchers discover rare periods of a few thousands years when climate unexpectedly awoke from slumber During the ”snowball Earth” period about 700m years ago, Earth’s climate shut down. The planet was encased in ice and insulated from...
Scientists have proposed a surprising connection between solar flares and earthquakes. When solar activity disturbs the ionosphere, it may generate electric fields that penetrate fragile fracture zones in Earth’s crust. If a fault is...
Deep in the Congo Basin, vast peatlands quietly store enormous amounts of Earth’s carbon — but new research suggests this ancient vault may be leaking. Scientists studying Africa’s largest blackwater lakes discovered that significant...
Far beneath the Atlantic Ocean, about 1,000 kilometers off Portugal’s coast, lies a colossal underwater canyon system that dwarfs even the Grand Canyon. Known as the King’s Trough Complex, this 500-kilometer stretch of trenches and deep...
Scientists at Stanford have unveiled the first-ever global map of rare earthquakes that rumble deep within Earth’s mantle rather than its crust. Long debated and notoriously difficult to confirm, these elusive quakes turn out to cluster...
My father, Desmond McConnell, who has died aged 95, made a great contribution to mineralogy, inspiring scientists around the world. At Cambridge University in the 1960s and 70s, with the excellent X-ray diffraction facilities in the...
When tens of thousands of earthquakes shook Santorini, the cause wasn’t just shifting tectonic plates—it was rising magma. Scientists tracked about 300 million cubic meters of molten rock pushing up through the crust, triggering intense...
Deep inside Earth, two massive hot rock structures have been quietly shaping the planet’s magnetic field for millions of years. Using ancient magnetic records and advanced simulations, scientists discovered that these formations...
Melting ice from West Antarctica once delivered huge amounts of iron to the Southern Ocean, but algae growth did not increase as expected. Researchers found the iron was in a form that marine life could not easily use. This means more...
Researchers say waste dumping and climate breakdown have contributed to rise in brick, concrete and glass on beaches As much as half of some British beaches’ coarse sediments may consist of human-made materials such as brick, concrete,...
Island’s mineral and resource wealth is result of mountain building, rifting and volcanic activity over 4bn years As recent manoeuvres over Greenland have made plain, this mostly ice-covered island contains some of the greatest stores of...