Collaborate Disseminate
Geologists have studied tiny pockets of fluids trapped inside diamonds to get a better understanding of how old humanity’s favorite rocks might be. In doing so, they identified three distinct periods of diamond formation in Africa over the past few bil… Continue reading Diamond liquid impurities provide new insights into ancient Earth
Geologists have pieced together an uncertain part of Earth’s ancient history. A team in Australia has found new evidence that suggests the cycle of supercontinents forming and breaking up only started about two billion years ago.Continue ReadingCategor… Continue reading Paleomagnetism suggests supercontinent cycle began two billion years ago
Geologists have discovered a new type of rock. While drilling deep into the seafloor, a team of scientists found a new form of basalt that’s vastly different from any other on Earth, and the planet hasn’t produced any more of it for millions of years.C… Continue reading Geologists discover new “Limited Edition” rock deep beneath the sea
Mars may currently be a dusty desert, but that wasn’t always the case – a growing body of evidence points to the Red Planet being much bluer in its ancient past. Where all that water went is a key question, and now researchers at JPL and Caltech have p… Continue reading Most of Mars’ missing water may still be there – underground
It may be a cool, comfortable paradise nowadays, but Earth had a pretty hotheaded youth – some scientists speculate that for a while the surface was one big ocean of magma. Now, a team of researchers at Cambridge has found elusive evidence from that ti… Continue reading Ancient crystal graveyards carry clues of Earth’s magma ocean phase
The Earth has an expiry date – in about five billion years, the Sun will expand and swallow up our home world. But it turns out life on Earth could have a much earlier end point. A new study has found that in about a billion years’ time, the atmosphere… Continue reading Scientists calculate life expectancy of Earth’s atmospheric oxygen
A research team led by John Nabelek, a professor in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, has shown that it may be possible to use the songs of fin whales to produce seismic images of the Earth’s oceanic crust.Con… Continue reading Whale songs provide new way to survey the Earth’s crust
Venus may not have had Earth-like tectonic plates for the last billion years, according to the results of a new study. Instead, the planet, which is often referred to as Earth’s twin, may be covered in a single thick outer plate.Continue ReadingCategor… Continue reading Venus may have been without active tectonic plates for a billion years
Carbon comes in many different structures, most famously graphite and diamond. Other forms were predicted to exist at extremely high pressures, but now researchers have examined carbon under the highest pressure ever studied in the lab, and found that … Continue reading Diamond stays strong under highest pressure ever achieved in the lab
Ordinarily, if you want to know how soil properties change at different depths, you have to extract soil core samples. Scientists have now determined that the same data can be obtained much more easily, using ground-penetrating radar.Continue ReadingCa… Continue reading Ground-penetrating radar may be an easier alternative to soil sampling