geology

2 giant blobs in Earth’s mantle may explain Africa’s weird geology

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Deep within Earth’s mantle, there are two giant blobs. One sits under Africa, while the other is almost precisely opposite the first, under the Pacific Ocean. But these two blobs are not evenly matched.  New research finds that the blob under Africa extends far closer to the surface — and is more unstable — than … Read more

Cambrian explosion: First burst of animal evolution altered chemical makeup of Earth’s mantle

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The Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago saw a huge variety of animals evolve – and also led to carbon being buried in the seabed and ultimately carried into the planet’s mantle Earth 4 March 2022 By Michael Marshall The explosion of new species in the Cambrian period saw the emergence of many familiar groups … Read more

Geology needs to reinvent itself as we fight against climate change

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Robbie Goodall/Getty Images “We learn geology the morning after the earthquake,” the 19th-century essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote. The quote has a pithy resonance as we grapple with the fallout of our inaction on so many fronts, from pandemic prevention to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Applied to geology itself, it is a … Read more

Christopher Jackson interview: How geologists can fight climate change

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By Abigail Beall Jennie Edwards FROM the breathtaking Atlas mountains in Morocco to the expansive deserts of the US, Christopher Jackson’s work has taken him to some incredible places. Incredible and sometimes risky, too: he has been held at gunpoint and put in prison in the line of duty. Why does he do it? Just … Read more

Anthropocene: Geologists will choose birthplace of a new epoch this year

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Whether we are in a new geological epoch is still up for debate, but geologists have almost decided where on Earth should be the official birthplace of the Anthropocene Earth 25 January 2022 By Adam Vaughan Crawford Lake in Ontario, one of the candidate sites to mark the dawn of the Anthropocene wildnerdpix / Alamy … Read more

Mars: Organic compounds were made by water interacting with rocks

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Molecules containing carbon atoms, called organics, have been found all over Mars and could hypothetically have been formed by living organisms, but it seems they were not Space 13 January 2022 By Leah Crane The Allan Hills 84001 meteorite NASA/JSC/Stanford University Organic compounds – those containing carbon atoms – found all over Mars were produced … Read more

The moon: Magnetic field may have been disrupted by huge sinking rocks

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There’s a new explanation for the moon’s former magnetic field, and it involves 60-kilometre-wide slabs of rock sinking through the lunar mantle Space 13 January 2022 By Matthew Sparkes The moon once had a relatively strong magnetic field NASA Moon rocks collected by the Apollo missions sparked a mystery because they showed signs of having formed … Read more

Moon rock: Apollo 17 rock sample hints lunar surface cooled faster than we thought

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A rock sample collected from the moon during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 has been re-examined, and the results suggest the lunar surface might have cooled in just 20 million years Space 14 December 2021 By Chen Ly NASA image of Troctolite 76535 NASA/Johnson Space Center A rock collected from the moon during the … Read more