Arrival of Land Plants 400 Million Years Ago Changed Earth’s Climate Control System
The arrival of plants on land about 400 million years ago may have changed the way the Earth naturally regulates its own climate, according to…
Geology
New Evidence of Extreme Climate Change Thousands of Years Ago Revealed by Ancient Ostrich Eggshell
Evidence from an ancient eggshell has revealed important new information about the extreme climate change faced by human early ancestors. The research shows parts of…
A Comet Strike 13,000 Years Ago May Have Sparked Key Shift in Human Civilization
A cluster of comet fragments believed to have hit Earth nearly 13,000 years ago may have shaped the origins of human civilization, research suggests. Possibly…
Why Are There Gold Deposits at All? Scientists Discover the Answer
Why are gold deposits found at all? Gold is famously unreactive, and there seems to be little reason why gold should be concentrated, rather than…
A Potential Goldmine: “Fool’s Gold” Contains a Newly Discovered Type of Real Gold
The mineral pyrite was historically nicknamed fool’s gold because of its deceptive resemblance to the precious metal. The term was often used during the California gold rush…
“Invisible” Gold – Scientists Discover “Fool’s Gold” Is Not So Foolish After All
Curtin University research has found tiny amounts of gold can be trapped inside pyrite, commonly known as ‘fool’s gold’, which would make it much more…
New Geochemical Testing Confirms Cause of End-Permian Mass Extinction Event That Wiped Out Most Life on Earth
Results demonstrate the power of nickel isotope analyses, which are relatively new, to solve long-standing problems in the geosciences. The most severe mass extinction event…
Earth’s Mantle Provides New Clues To Explain Indonesia’s Explosive Volcanoes
Indonesia’s volcanoes are among the world’s most dangerous. Why? Through chemical analyses of tiny minerals in lava from Bali and Java, researchers from Uppsala University…
Signs of Geological Activity Discovered on Venus
The surface of Venus is cracked and moves like ice floating on the ocean – likely due to tectonic activity. The big idea Much of…
High Risk of Extreme Drought: Unchecked Climate Change Will Cause Severe Drying of the Amazon Rainforest
Amazon rain forests could be at far higher risk of extreme drought than previously thought, according to new research. An international study, led by the…
Signs of Awakening: Analyzing Volcanoes to Predict Future Eruptions
Geologists led by the UNIGE have reviewed the internal and external mechanisms that trigger volcanic eruptions to better anticipate the potential signs of a future…
Earth’s Meteorite Impacts Tracked Over Past 500 Million Years
For the first time, a unique research study conducted at Lund University in Sweden has tracked the meteorite flux to Earth over the past 500…
The Earth Has a Pulse: 27.5-Million-Year Cycle of Geological Activity Discovered
Analysis of 260 million years of major geological events finds recurring clusters 27.5 million years apart. Geologic activity on Earth appears to follow a 27.5-million-year…
The “Great Dying” – Rapid Warming Contributed to Abrupt Collapse of Forest-Mire Ecosystems
Rapid Warming and Monsoonal Intensification Contributed to the Abrupt Collapse of Forest-Mire (Glossopteris) Ecosystems in the High Southern Latitudes The Paleozoic era culminated 251.9 million…
New Hazards of Earth’s Largest Volcano Uncovered
Researchers find that a large earthquake could set off eruption of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano. Scientists from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of…
Scientists Sound Alarm: Unprecedented Mercury Accumulation in Pacific Ocean Trenches
Multi-national team of scientists discover amounts of mercury in the deepest trenches of the Pacific Ocean that exceed any value ever recorded in remote marine…
Solar Wind From the Center of the Earth: Solar Noble Gases in Metal of an Iron Meteorite
Model for the Earth’s core: Heidelberg researchers verify presence of solar noble gases in metal of an iron meteorite. High-precision noble gas analyses indicate that…
Glaciologists Measure, Model Hard Glacier Beds – Develop “Slip Law” to Estimate Glacier Speeds
The researchers’ field photos show the hard, rough country that some glaciers slide over: rocky domes and bumps in granite, rocky steps, and depressions in…
