Lunar Radar Data From China’s Chang’e 3 Mission Uncovers New Clues About Moon’s Ancient Past
The dusty surface of the moon — immortalized in images of Apollo astronauts’ lunar footprints — formed as the result of asteroid impacts and the…
Geology News
Planetary Scientists Discover That Water Was Once Present in Arabia Terra on Mars
Team studied thermal inertia to understand how rock layers were formed. As part of a team of collaborators from Northern Arizona University and Johns Hopkins…
Crystal Clues: Earth’s Early Magma Oceans Detected in 3.7 Billion Year-Old Greenland Rocks
Earth hasn’t always been a blue and green oasis of life in an otherwise inhospitable solar system. During our planet’s first 50 million years, around…
NASA’s Mars Insight Lander Uses Wind-Induced Vibrations To Reveal the Red Planet’s Subsurface Layers
Seismic data collected in Elysium Planitia, the second largest volcanic region on Mars, suggest the presence of a shallow sedimentary layer sandwiched between lava flows…
Life on Mars – Or False Fossils?
Mars explorers searching for signs of ancient life could be fooled by fossil-like specimens created by chemical processes, research suggests. Rocks on Mars may contain…
Broad Survey of 1,800-Plus Monogenetic “Young” Volcanoes in the US Southwest
A study presents a broad survey of monogenetic volcanoes younger than 2.58 million years in the U.S. Southwest. They’re born. They live once, erupting for…
The Silent Build-Up to a Super-Eruption That Could Catastrophically Affect Global Climate
Geologists from the UNIGE and Peking University have developed a technique that makes it possible to estimate the maximum size of a future super-eruption of…
2.5-Billion-Year-Old Rocks Reveal Volcanic Eruptions Spurred First “Whiffs” of Oxygen in Earth’s Atmosphere
A new analysis of 2.5-billion-year-old rocks from Australia finds that volcanic eruptions may have stimulated population surges of marine microorganisms, creating the first puffs of…
Fractured Artificial Rock Helps Crack a Strange 54-Year-Old Fluid Mystery
Princeton researchers have solved a 54-year-old puzzle about why certain fluids strangely slow down under pressure when flowing through porous materials, such as soils and…
Ancient Exploding Comet Likely Source of Vast Glassy Rock Patches in Chilean Desert
Heat from a comet exploding just above the ground fused the sandy soil into patches of glass stretching 75 kilometers, a study led by Brown…
Ancient Traces of Life Discovered Encased in a 2.5 Billion-Year-Old Ruby
While analyzing some of the world’s oldest colored gemstones, researchers from the University of Waterloo discovered carbon residue that was once ancient life, encased in…
Challenging the Big Bang Puzzle of Heavy Elements: Earth Factories Creating Elements From Nuclear Transmutation
Rather than being created solely during supernova explosions, chemical elements could also be produced deep within the Earth’s lower mantle. It has long been theorized…
Sedimentary Repositories Suggest Environmental Variability Driven by Changes in Earth’s Orbit
Rift Valley lakes within eastern Africa range from freshwater to highly alkaline systems and are homes to diverse ecosystems. These Rift Valley lakes are also…
Fast and Furious Floods From Overflowing Craters Shaped the Surface of Mars
On Earth, river erosion is usually a slow-going process. But on Mars, massive floods from overflowing crater lakes had an outsized role in shaping the…
Fossil Footprints Reveal Humans Inhabited North America Over 21,000 Years Ago
Newly discovered fossil human footprints embedded in an ancient lakebed show that humans inhabited North America during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), occupying the region…
Massive Extinction of Species in the Late Cretaceous Was Not Caused by Extreme Volcanism
A study published in the journal Geology rules out that extreme volcanic episodes had any influence on the massive extinction of species in the late…
Viability of Large-Scale Hydrogen Storage in Geologic Formations
A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers, in partnership with two other national laboratories, has launched a project studying the viability of large-scale…
Exploring Earth From Space: Maharloo Lake, Iran [Video]
Maharloo sits at an altitude of around 1400 m above sea level and is located around 27 km southeast of Shiraz, in southwest Iran. Yearly…
