Geology News

Apr 29, 2021 by News Staff

Reconstructing the emergence and weathering of Earth’s continental crust in the Archean eon is crucial for our understanding of early ocean chemistry, biosphere evolution and the onset of plate tectonics. An artistic conception of the early Earth. Image credit: Simone Marchi / NASA. Once land becomes established through dynamic processes like plate tectonics, it begins to weather and add crucial minerals and nutrients to the ocean. A record of these...

Apr 1, 2021 by News Staff

Researchers have found meteoritic spherules on top of Walnumfjellet in the Sør Rondane Mountains, Antarctica. The breakup of a giant asteroid in the main...

Mar 18, 2021 by News Staff

Phosphorus is one of the key elements for life, involved in biomolecules such as DNA, RNA, phospholipids, and adenosine triphosphate. Phosphide minerals...

Mar 16, 2021 by News Staff

The deep ice at Camp Century in northwestern Greenland entirely melted at least once within the last million years and was covered with vegetation, including...

Feb 25, 2021 by News Staff

Geologists believe they have closed the case of what killed non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. This painting depicts an asteroid...

Dec 24, 2020 by News Staff

Kernowite is a new mineral that has been found only in an old specimen collected at a single location in Cornwall, UK. Kernowite (green color). Image credit:...

Dec 3, 2020 by News Staff

The Islands of Four Mountains, a small group of volcanic islands in the central Aleutians, could actually be part of a single, undiscovered giant volcano...

Nov 5, 2020 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers in Europe has identified a new high-pressure mineral in a lunar meteorite called Oued Awlitis 001. Fragments of Oued Awlitis 001....

Sep 8, 2020 by News Staff

A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals a mechanism that may contribute to the formation of sharply pointed...

Aug 28, 2020 by News Staff

A type of meteorite called an enstatite chondrite has similar isotopic composition to terrestrial rocks and thus may be representative of the material...

Jun 23, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of geologists has found the first direct evidence that volcanic eruptions in the southern part of the Siberian Traps region 252 million...

May 15, 2020 by News Staff

Pūhāhonu (‘turtle rising for breath’ in Hawaiian), a 13-million-year-old volcano in the northwest Hawaiian Ridge, is twice the size of Mauna Loa...

Apr 23, 2020 by News Staff

An analysis of rocks from the Honeyeater Basalt of the East Pilbara Craton, a stable block of crust in Western Australia, provides strong evidence that...

Apr 23, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Lunar and Planetary Institute and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology has released...

Mar 3, 2020 by News Staff

The surface of Earth was likely covered by a global ocean 3.24 billion years ago (Archean Eon), according to a new study published in the journal Nature...

Feb 10, 2020 by News Staff

Zealandia — Earth’s seventh continent — experienced dramatic elevation changes between about 50 million and 35 million years ago, according...

Jan 22, 2020 by News Staff

The 70 km- (43.5-mile) diameter Yarrabubba impact structure in Western Australia is approximately 2.23 billion years old, according to new research led...

Jan 7, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey has mapped a rare earth element-bearning deposit in the Mountain Pass region of the eastern Mojave...

Dec 5, 2019 by News Staff

New research suggests that during the Late Cretaceous epoch to the Early Paleogene epoch (80-50 million years ago), much of the southwestern United States...

Nov 27, 2019 by News Staff

When and how the Earth evolved from a molten mass into a rocky planetary body continually resurfaced by plate tectonics remain some of the biggest questions...