A thin slice of the ancient rocks collected from Gakkel Ridge near the North Pole, photographed under a microscope and seen under cross-polarized light. Field width ~ 14mm. Credit: E. Cottrell, ...

Earth’s early history is undergoing a quiet revolution. Long assumed to be dry at its core, new research suggests our planet ...

High in the Canadian wilderness, Smithsonian scientists search for ancient minerals that could explain the origins of the continents, oceans and life on Earth Emma Saaty NMNH research geologist ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Mantle plumes are important geologic processes—they interact with plate tectonics, create rich mineral deposits, and even contribute to mass ...

Earth’s deep interior still shapes the world above your feet. Water trapped far below the surface helps control how rocks move, melt, and recycle through the mantle. Some of that water carries a ...

For many years, Titan’s thick, methane- and nitrogen-rich atmosphere kept astronomers from seeing what lies beneath. Saturn’s largest moon appeared through telescopes as a hazy orange orb, in contrast ...

It was a respectable tenure, but the world’s oldest known meteorite site is no longer western Australia’s 2.2 billion-year-old, 43-mile-wide Yarrabubba crater. Researchers at Curtin University and the ...

Over four millennia ago, in the final days of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, a drought swept over the region, afflicting lands as far away as Greece and what’s now Pakistan. Probably driven by ...

A new analysis of computer simulations of Earth’s magnetic field suggests that its behavior was different early in Earth’s history, resulting in greater stability and fewer reversals of the magnetic ...

Menu Local Geology History, Resources, and Facilities Geologic History of Southwestern Ohio The same forces that cause volcanoes, mountains, and ocean basins also cause climatic changes that have ...

Our species likes it cold. Homo sapiens evolved in — and still inhabits — one of Earth’s rare and fragile ice ages, periods distinguished not by an abundance of saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths ...

A thin slice of the ancient rocks collected from Gakkel Ridge near the North Pole, photographed under a microscope and seen under cross-polarized light. Field width ~ 14mm. Analyzing rocks in thin ...