September 2019

Crinoids: The Fossils That Inspired 'Alien'

Crinoids  are commonly known as sea lilies due to their "flower-like" appearance , though they are animals, not pl…

What Percent of Earth is Water

What Percent of Earth is Water. Illustration showing all of Earth’s water, liquid fresh water, and water in lakes and riv…

Kimberlites: Enigmatic Origin of Diamond-bearing Rocks Revealed

Tiny inclusions in diamonds, such as this garnet, are evidence that they formed deep in the mantle. Credit: Anetta Banas/…

New Evidence of the Sahara's Age

Sahara Desert The Sahara Desert is vast, generously dusty, and surprisingly shy about its age. New research looking in…

Geochemists Measure New Composition of Earth's Mantle

Peridot crystals. Photos: right: pegmatite, left: Federico Barlocher What is the chemical composition of the Earth&#…

Lapis Lazuli - Composition and Color

Lapis lazuli is a blue metamorphic rock that has been used by people as a gemstone, sculpting material, and ornamental mater…

Gigantic Masses in Earth’s Mantle Untouched for More Than 4 Billion Years

This image shows the divisions between Earth’s layers. The ancient, continent-sized rock regions encircle the liquid oute…

Scientist Discovers Unusual New Mineral Inside a Diamond

Scientist Discovers Unusual New Mineral Inside a Diamond A Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta has discovered a …

What Happens When Magnetic North and True North Align?

The lines of the Earth’s magnetic field come vertically out of the Earth at the south magnetic pole and go vertically dow…

Scientists Uncover 550 Million-Year-Old Fossils of Bug Trails

A fossil of Yilingia spiciformis and the track it left as it moved. (Z. Chen et al. / Nature) A 550-million-year-old …

There's a Lost Continent Hiding Beneath Europe

Photo: The Sun Researchers uncovered traces of a lost continent that disappeared under what is today Europe about 120…

Rocks at Asteroid Impact Site Record First Day of Dinosaur Extinction

Asteroid as Powerful as 10 Billion World War II Atomic Bombs May Have Wiped Out the Dinosaurs When the asteroid that …

Pyrite: Fool's Gold

Pyrite is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula FeS 2 (iron(II) disulfide). Pyrite is considered the most common of t…

Researchers Unearth 'New' Mass-extinction

A team of scientists has concluded that earth experienced a previously underestimated severe mass-extinction event, whi…

Yellowstone’s Steamboat Geyser Breaks Yearly Eruption Record

The Steamboat Geyser at Yellowstone National Park just broke a record. According to the US Geologic Survey, the world…

What Drives Plate Tectonics?

Global paleomagnetic plate reconstructions a. 270 Ma, b. 180 Ma, and inset the Present Tethyan Realm. Credit: ©Science Ch…