Geology

Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history. This series from Quanta Magazine guides you through basic climate science — from quantum effects to ancient hothouses, from the math of tipping points to the audacity of climate models.

Building an accurate model of Earth’s climate requires a lot of data. Photography reveals the extreme efforts scientists have undertaken to measure gases, glaciers, clouds and more.

New reconstructions of 540 million years of climate history show the planet tumbling between icehouse and hothouse states, revealing how rare and vulnerable our temperate moment is.

Strong new evidence suggests that primordial material from the planet’s center is somehow making its way out. Continent-size entities anchored to the core-mantle boundary might be involved.

Last year, an immense but brief outburst of seismic energy was soon followed by a long hum that made the world ring. Finding its cause took 68 scientists and an assist by the Danish military.

When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures became multicellular when the planet was frozen during “Snowball Earth,” according to experiments.

The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives.

Last spring, scientists retrieved a trove of mantle rocks from underneath the Atlantic seafloor — a bounty that could help write the first chapter of life's story on Earth.

The moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn appear to have subsurface oceans — tantalizing targets in the search for life beyond Earth. But it’s not clear why these seas exist at all.