Diamonds are popular gemstones surrounded by popular misconceptions. From antiquity to 2015, about 4.5 billion carats of diamonds have been ...
Pele's Hair and Pele's Tears
Pele's Hair is a natural spun glass formed by blowing-out during quiet fountaining of fluid lava, cascading lava falls, or turbulent flo...
Oxygen on Early Earth May Have Come From Quartz Crushed by Earthquakes
Billions of years ago, crushed quartz reacting with water could have created the conditions needed for the evolution of the photosynthetic m...
Arkansas Man Finds 3.29-carat "Big, Ugly Diamond" at State Park
A diamond discovered at an Arkansas state park has been dubbed "Bud" by the man who discovered it. An Arkansas man found a 3.29-c...
Rocks Made of Melted Plastic Waste Found on Remote Island
Rocks Made of Melted Plastic Waste Found on Remote Island. "Plastic rocks" found on Trindade Island in the state of Espirito Santo...
Cretaceous Amber Preserves Lizard Carcass With Necrophagous Insects
Cretaceous Amber Preserves Lizard Carcass With Necrophagous Insects. The researchers examined three excellently preserved Cretaceous amber s...
Oldest Fossils of Mysterious Animal Group Are Actually Seaweeds
Oldest Fossils of Mysterious Animal Group Are Really Seaweeds. (Photo: Zhang Xiguang/Yunnan University/PA) A new study has revealed that a ...
The Largest Ants That Ever Lived Are Challenging What We Know About Insect Sizes
The Largest Ants That Ever Lived Are Challenging What We Know About Insect Sizes. A fossil of a giant ant queen unearthed in Germany, the la...
Fulgurite: a Petrifying Flash of Lightning!
A petrifying flash of lightning! Fulgurites are natural hollow glass tubes often formed during lightning strikes, in quartzose sand, silica...
Scientists Solve Mystery of Salt Deserts’ Unusual Honeycomb Patterns
Scientists Solve Mystery of Salt Deserts’ Unusual Honeycomb Patterns. The Uyuni Salt Flat at sunrise, Bolivia. Photo: © Sara_Winter Salt Des...
Vanadinite: Gemmy Mineral
Vanadinite is formed as a secondary mineral in desert lead deposits often associated with mimetite and pyromorphite. When first found, van...
Deep Earthquakes Could Reveal Secrets of the Earth's Mantle
Deep Earthquakes Could Reveal Secrets of the Earth's Mantle Study uses 350-mile-deep earthquake to make elusive measurements of the Ear...