geophysics

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.

Small and cold, Mars has long been considered a dead planet. But a series of recent discoveries has forced scientists to rethink how recently its insides stopped churning — if they ever stopped at all.

An exercise in pure mathematics has led to a wide-ranging theory of how the world comes together.

The “pinball” model of a slipping fault line borrows from the mathematics of avalanches.

The paleontologist Pincelli Hull has nailed down the timing and speed of the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs — details that carry ominous warnings for today.

Giant blobs nestled deep in the Earth may influence everything from the structure of island chains to mass-extinction events.

After successfully predicting laboratory earthquakes, a team of geophysicists has applied a machine learning algorithm to quakes in the Pacific Northwest.

An analysis of lunar craters has found that we’ve been living in a relatively violent period in cosmic history.

Subatomic particles called muons are thought to have streamed through the atmosphere and irradiated megafauna like the monster shark megalodon.