November 2019

Scientists Discover 'Ice Fossils' in a 4.6 Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Shard

XCT slice images of equant samples of the Acfer 094 matrix A 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite landed in Algeria in 1990…

Opalized Petrified Wood

Opalized petrified wood is a type of petrified wood that has been partially or completely replaced by opal. It is not a re…

What Are Lost Continents, and Why Are We Discovering So Many?

Lost continents, also known as sunken continents, are hypothetical continents that are believed to have existed at some poin…

Scientists Discover New Carbon as Hard as Diamonds

Superhard materials can slice, drill and polish other objects. They also hold potential for creating scratch-resistant …

35 Minerals That Are Critical To Our Society

Tungsten rods with evaporated crystals. Photo: Alchemist-hp Australia and the US' respective geoscience agencies…

Fabulous Azurite Crystals

Fabulous Azurite Crystals. Credit: Mintreasure.com Exceptional azurite crystals on matrix from the famed Clara Mine, …

Secret of Explosive Volcanism Unlocked

Hot lava spew from the crater of Mount Merapi as seen from Babadan village in Magelang in 2001. Credit: Dita Alangkara/AP…

The Gachalá Emerald

The Gachalá Emerald, one of the largest and valuable gem emeralds in the world, at 858 carats uncut. It was found in the min…

Newly Discovered Fossil Bird Fills in Gap Between Dinosaurs and Modern Fliers

Artist’s depiction of Fukuipteryx prima. Image: Masanori Yoshida The fossils of a bird that lived 120 million years …

The Mysterious 'Tully Monster' Just Got More Mysterious

Artist’s impression of Tullimonstrum, and The Tullimonstrum fossil. Ghedoghedo/Wikimedia Every now and again, scienti…

Pamukkale: Amazing Geological Wonder

Pamukkale is actually Turkish for “cotton castle”, a name that we think manages to characterize the true inner “fluffiness” …

Scientists Unearth Huge Claw From 110-million-year-old Carnivorous Dinosaur

Fossilised 20 centimetre long hand claw of theropod discovered at Eric the West site on Victoria’s Otway Coast. Credit: S…

New Way to Date Rocks

Photo: The Mineral Collective A new way to date a common mineral could help pinpoint ore deposits and improve mineral …

What Makes Earth's Surface Move?

Do tectonic plates move because of motion in the Earth's mantle, or is the mantle driven by the movement of the pla…