You might think you know everything about the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, but the Great Salt Lake has been keeping secrets hidden for thousands of years. Picture stumbling across mysterious islands that shouldn’t exist, sprouting up from the lake’s shrinking bed like something out of a science fiction novel. That’s exactly what ...
Living on a volcano sounds like the kind of dangerous decision that only happens in movies. Yet millions of people worldwide wake up each morning with an active volcano as their neighbor, from the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in Italy to the volcanic fields beneath New Zealand’s Auckland. You might wonder what drives communities to ...
Picture this: you’re exploring the most mysterious frontier on Earth, not by launching into space, but by digging straight down through the very ground beneath your feet. While NASA was racing to reach the moon in the 1960s, Soviet scientists embarked on an equally ambitious journey in the opposite direction. Their destination wasn’t the stars ...
Across the American West, rivers and floods have sometimes sliced rock with astonishing speed, leaving canyons that look ancient yet tell stories measured in days, seasons, or a burst of catastrophic flow. The mystery is simple and thrilling: how can landscapes that usually evolve grain by grain suddenly leap forward in dramatic steps? Hydrology ...
Every morning, millions of Americans drive past invisible scars that tell Earth’s most dramatic story. You’ve walked over them, built above them, and probably never realized you were standing on ancient fractures that continue shaping the world beneath your feet. These fault lines have quietly sculpted the landscapes we take for granted, creating everything ...
They look like scars, thin and near-invisible from the surface, yet ocean trenches mark the places where Earth flexes its greatest muscle. In these drowned canyons, continents are nudged, oceans are recycled, and the seeds of tsunamis and volcanoes are set. Scientists chase faint signals rattling through rock and water to read what the ...
You’ve probably seen Mars in photographs as a dusty, rust-colored world that looks utterly lifeless. Yet beneath that barren facade lies one of the most compelling mysteries in planetary science. Recent satellite imaging has revealed an intricate web of ancient river systems that once flowed across the Red Planet’s surface, painting a radically different picture ...
Picture yourself standing on the endless sand dunes of the world’s largest hot desert. The sun beats down mercilessly, the landscape appears lifeless, and water seems like nothing more than a distant dream. Yet beneath your feet lies one of Earth’s most extraordinary secrets. Scientists have uncovered a vast network of groundwater reservoirs hidden beneath ...
Imagine walking across the scorching desert floor of Nevada or Utah, surrounded by endless stretches of sand and stark rock formations. The bone-dry landscape seems utterly hostile to marine life, yet beneath your feet lies one of geology’s most remarkable secrets. You’re standing on what was once the bottom of a vast ancient sea, teeming ...
If you thought the Earth was settling down in 2025, think again. This year has witnessed some of the most spectacular volcanic displays our planet has offered in recent decades. From underwater giants preparing to blow their tops to ancient systems awakening after centuries of slumber, volcanic activity has been reshaping landscapes and captivating scientists ...
