Picture this: you wake up one morning to find ash falling like snow across your city. The skies turn an ominous gray, temperatures plummet, and the sun becomes a dim memory hidden behind thick volcanic clouds. While it sounds like something from a disaster movie, this scenario has happened before in Earth’s history. Supervolcanoes – ...
Geologists have been studying rocks, fossils, and ice cores for hundreds of years to learn about Earth’s past climate. A new study has reconstructed 540 million years of sea level changes with an accuracy that has never been seen before. This study shows patterns that could change how we think about climate change. This research, ...
A stretch of streaked grey rock in a remote, windy part of northern Quebec has sparked one of geology’s most heated debates. The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt (NGB) is a rough outcrop on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay. It may have the oldest intact rocks on Earth, dating back an incredible 4.16 billion years14. If ...
An ancient geological force has been quietly shaping the planet for millions of years deep beneath Oman’s rough terrain. Scientists have found a “ghost” plume, a column of hot rock rising from the Earth’s core. This plume may have been very important in changing the direction of the Indian tectonic plate when it crashed into ...
Hells Canyon, a winding cut through the American West, has kept its origins a geological mystery for hundreds of years. Scientists have been trying to figure out how this 1.5-mile-deep (2.4 km) chasm, carved by the Snake River, came to be for a long time. It runs through Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. How could the ...
Under Naples, Italy’s busy streets, a sleeping titan stirs. For decades, the large, smoldering volcanic crater known as Campi Flegrei has been shaking, baffling researchers with its regular but non-eruptive movement. New studies now point to a secret offender: a brittle layer of tuff rock compromised by millennia of magma intrusions that absorbs volcanic gases ...
Benevolently hidden beneath our feet, the core of Earth is a seething sphere of molten and solid metal bursting with gold, platinum, and other precious metals. Scientists thought these treasures were locked away permanently, buried under thousands of miles of rock decades ago. New studies, however, point to something quite remarkable: gold is leaking from ...
