Geology News

Two Enormous Blobs of Superheated Material Help Shape Earth’s Magnetic Field

Two enormous blobs of solid, superheated material located at the base of Earth’s mantle affect the underlying liquid outer core. Image credit: Biggin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41561-025-01910-1.
Feb 3, 2026 by News Staff

Two immense, ultrahot rock structures located at the base of Earth’s mantle, around 2,900 km beneath Africa and the Pacific, have been shaping Earth’s magnetic field for millions of years, according to a new study led by University of Liverpool’s Professor Andy Biggin. Two enormous blobs of solid, superheated material located at the base of Earth’s mantle affect the underlying liquid outer core. Image credit: Biggin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41561-025-01910-1. Both...

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Early Earth. Image credit: Peter Sawyer / Smithsonian Institution.

Massive Undersea Volcanism May Explain Frequent Extinctions in Triassic Period

Jan 29, 2026 by News Staff

A team of geologists from China and Australia has found evidence that episodic eruptions from vast marine large igneous provinces (LIPs) drove repeated...

Example photographs of primary, mixed, and secondary halite inclusion assemblages. Image credit: Park et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2513030122.

Scientists Find Ancient Air Bubbles in 1.4 Billion-Year-Old Salt Crystals

Dec 22, 2025 by News Staff

Researchers have found ancient gases and fluids trapped in 1.4-billion-year-old halite crystals from northern Ontario, Canada. Their analyses directly...

The illustration shows a cutaway revealing the interior of early Earth with a hot, melted layer above the boundary between the core and mantle. Image credit: Yoshinori Miyazaki / Rutgers University.

Geoscientists Find Explanation for Mysterious Structures within Earth’s Mantle

Nov 24, 2025 by News Staff

For decades, scientists have been baffled by two enormous structures buried deep inside Earth. These anomalies may retain geochemical signatures distinct...

Panoramic aerial drone image of the Jinlin crater, taken on May 12, 2025. Image credit: Chen et al., doi: 10.1063/5.0301625.

Well-Preserved Impact Crater Discovered in China

Nov 13, 2025 by News Staff

Researchers have discovered an impact crater formed on a granite mountain capped by a thick weathering crust in southern China. Located in Zhaoqing in...

An artist’s reconstruction of a newly-hatched troodontid-like dinosaur among fragments of its eggshell. Image credit: Eva Utsukiyouhei.

Dinosaur Eggshells Help Paleontologists Determine Age of Fossil-Bearing Rocks

Nov 11, 2025 by News Staff

Scientists from Stellenbosch University and elsewhere have used advanced uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating and elemental mapping to measure trace amounts of uranium...

Ancient ice from the ALHIC1902 ice core. Image credit: Shackleton et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2502681122.

6-Million-Year-Old Ice Found in Antarctica

Oct 28, 2025 by News Staff

Researchers have discovered 6-million-year-old-ice and air in shallow ice cores drilled in the Allan Hills region of East Antarctica. They speculate that...

Spectrally distinct units at the Juventae Plateau, Mars. Image credit: Bishop et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-61801-2.

Planetary Scientists Discover New Mineral on Mars

Oct 6, 2025 by News Staff

The newly-discovered mineral, named ferric hydroxysulfate, provides clues about the environment and history of the Red Planet, including the possibility...

Map of the ananguites strewn field, based on the tektite locations. Image credit: Musolino et al., doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2025.119600.

New Type of Tektite Reveals 11-Million-Year-Old Asteroid Impact in Australia

Sep 18, 2025 by News Staff

Tektites are nearly pure glasses (practically no crystalline inclusions) created when a space rock slams into Earth, melting surface material and hurling...

This map shows 332 submarine canyon networks on the seafloor of the Antarctic continent. Image credit: Riccardo Arosio & David Amblas, doi: 10.1016/j.margeo.2025.107608.

Researchers Create Catalog of Antarctic Submarine Canyons

Jul 21, 2025 by News Staff

Submarine canyons are deep, large-scale incisions found on most of the world’s continental margins. In Antarctica, they are widespread features driving...

Image of the entire NWA 16254 sample studied by Chen et al.: (a) a backscattered electron (BSE) image obtained by the TESCAN Integrated Mineral Analyzer (TIMA); (b) mineralogical mapping via TIMA; (c) distribution map of the iron content obtained via TIMA; (d) distribution map of the calcium content obtained via TIMA. Image credit: Chen et al., doi: 10.15302/planet.2025.25002.

Newly-Discovered Meteorite Offers Insights into Volcanic Processes on Ancient Mars

Jul 10, 2025 by Natali Anderson

The Martian meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 16254 is a 406-g gabbroic shergottite found two years ago in Algeria. Image of the entire NWA 16254 sample...

The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, Canada. Image credit: Jonathan O’Neil.

Canada’s Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt Harbors Fragments of Earth’s Oldest Crust, Study Shows

Jun 27, 2025 by News Staff

Geologists have discovered compelling evidence for preservation of Hadean rocks — dating back to 4.16 billion years old — in a complex geological...

A reconstruction of early Cambrian ocean life in South China. Image credit: Dongjing Fu.

Cambrian Explosion Occurred Millions of Years Earlier than Previously Thought: Study

Jun 26, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists have analyzed the body profiles of Ediacaran-Cambrian organisms by using trace fossils as proxies for body fossils. A reconstruction of...

The limestone boulder Maka Lahi. Image credit: Köhler et al., doi: 10.1016/j.margeo.2025.107567.

World’s Largest Cliff-Top Boulder Provides Evidence of Ancient Tsunami in Tonga

May 22, 2025 by News Staff

Locally known as Maka Lahi, meaning ‘Big Rock,’ this boulder was moved more than 200 m inland by a tsunami around 7,000 years ago. The limestone boulder...

An artist’s concept of active volcanoes on Venus, depicting a subduction zone where the foreground crust plunges into the planet’s interior at the topographic trench. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Peter Rubin.

Modeling Study Provides New Details about Venus’ Crust

May 12, 2025 by News Staff

Planetary scientists expected the outermost layer of the crust of Earth’s hotter twin would grow thicker and thicker over time given its apparent lack...

The Stac Fada Member. Image credit: Tony Prave.

Massive Meteorite Struck Northwestern Scotland 990 Million Years Ago

Apr 30, 2025 by News Staff

Previously believed to have occurred 1.2 billion years ago, this ancient impact created the Stac Fada Member, a layer of rock that holds vital clues to...

Artist’s impression of a volcano erupting on Venus. Image credit: ESA / AOES Medialab.

Venus May Be Even More Geologically Active Near Its Surface than Previously Thought

Apr 1, 2025 by News Staff

An unexpected phenomenon called convection could help explain many of the volcanoes and other features of the Venusian landscape. Artist’s impression...

An artist’s impression of a ‘Snowball Earth.’ Image credit: NASA.

Giant Glaciers Reshaped Earth’s Surface and Paved Way for Complex Life

Feb 26, 2025 by News Staff

By chemically analyzing crystals in ancient rocks, scientists from Curtin University, the University of Portsmouth and St. Francis Xavier University discovered...

Koll et al. report on the discovery of an anomaly in the beryllium-10 concentration profiles of several deep-ocean ferromanganese crusts (stars) from the Central and Northern Pacific during the Late Miocene. The major bottom (blue line) and surface (red line) ocean currents of the thermohaline circulation are indicated. Image credit: Koll et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-55662-4.

Researchers Discover Unusual Accumulation of Cosmogenic Beryllium in Pacific Ocean

Feb 11, 2025 by Natali Anderson

A team of scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, TUD Dresden University of Technology and the Australian National University, has discovered...

1:3M mapping (originally mapped at 1:200,000) of a portion of the Orientale basin. The small craters near ‘Pa’ (red and yellow stars) excavate Orientale melt from beneath the mare and serve as a useful type example for similar small craters in similar basins. Maunder, the large crater in the NW part of the map, is Eratosthenian in age. Image credit: Runyon et al., doi: 10.3847/PSJ/ad862f.

Planetary Scientists Create Geological Map of Moon’s Oriental Basin

Nov 20, 2024 by News Staff

Researchers at the Planetary Science Institute have compiled a 1:200,000-scale geological map of the lunar Orientale basin, focusing on identifying the...

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