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geology
Q&A
The New Historian of the Smash That Made the Himalayas
About 60 million years ago, India plowed into Eurasia and pushed up the Himalayas. But when Lucía Pérez-Díaz reconstructed the event in detail, she found that its central mystery depended on a broken geological clock.
geology
Scientists Pin Down When Earth’s Crust Cracked, Then Came to Life
New data indicating that Earth’s surface broke up about 3.2 billion years ago helps clarify how plate tectonics drove the evolution of complex life.
geophysics
Scientists Uncover the Universal Geometry of Geology
An exercise in pure mathematics has led to a wide-ranging theory of how the world comes together.
Abstractions blog
How Earth’s Climate Changes Naturally (and Why Things Are Different Now)
Earth’s climate has fluctuated through deep time, pushed by these 10 different causes. Here’s how each compares with modern climate change.
Q&A
He Found ‘Islands of Fertility’ Beneath Antarctica’s Ice
John Priscu’s search for life that thrives under ice took him to subglacial lakes at the South Pole. Now he has his eye on Mars and Europa.
Abstractions blog
New Earthquake Math Predicts How Destructive They’ll Be
The “pinball” model of a slipping fault line borrows from the mathematics of avalanches.
geology
Sudden Ancient Global Warming Event Traced to Magma Flood
A study has cemented the link between an intense global warming episode 56 million years ago and volcanism in the North Atlantic, with implications for modern climate change.
geophysics
Continents of the Underworld Come Into Focus
Giant blobs nestled deep in the Earth may influence everything from the structure of island chains to mass-extinction events.
geophysics
Artificial Intelligence Takes On Earthquake Prediction
After successfully predicting laboratory earthquakes, a team of geophysicists has applied a machine learning algorithm to quakes in the Pacific Northwest.