News
The Earth's Outer Core Changed Direction Beneath the Pacific Ocean Without Scientists Yet Being Able to Explain the Causes
6+ hour, 47+ min ago (727+ words) The circulation of molten iron, located about 2, 200 kilometers below the surface, shifted from a weak westward drift to an intense eastward movement, according to a study that combines data from ESA's Swarm and Cryo Sat satellites along with ground observations....
The Earth's crust has broken and mantle fluids are reaching the surface: a new tectonic plate is forming beneath southern Africa
2+ week, 1+ day ago (321+ words) Helium isotope measurements in hot springs of the Kafue Rift reveal a direct connection with the Earth's mantle, suggesting that the crust has broken and a new plate boundary is forming. Scientists from the University of Oxford have published a…...
Serpentinite, the Rock That Holds the Key to the Emergence of Life on Earth and Its Future Survival
7+ mon, 3+ week ago (968+ words) Serpentinite, a metamorphic rock of modest appearance, has not only been a material revered by ancient cultures, but modern science points to it as the possible setting for the planet's first biochemical reactions. The origin of the name "Serpentinite" is…...
Polar ice melt is slowing Earth's rotation and lengthening days at an unprecedented rate in the last 3. 6 million years
2+ mon, 2+ week ago (467+ words) A study by the University of Vienna and ETH Zurich reveals that rising sea levels caused by global warming are slowing Earth's rotation at a speed unmatched since the late Pliocene. The length of a day is not immutable. Factors…...
Earth's First Continents Emerged in an Inferno of Fire and Water, Making the Planet Habitable Hundreds of Millions of Years Earlier Than the Fossil Record Indicates
3+ mon, 3+ week ago (257+ words) Analyses of 4-billion-year-old minerals reveal active tectonics and crustal recycling in the Hadean, rewriting the planet's infancy. A comprehensive examination of the oldest minerals on the planet, microscopic grains of zircon more resistant than diamond, has provided the strongest chemical…...
Geologists solve the mystery of the Green River, which appears to flow uphill to cut through a mountain range
3+ mon, 3+ week ago (677+ words) The answer, as detailed in a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, does not lie at the surface, but in deep, dynamic processes within the Earth's lithosphere, specifically in a phenomenon known as lithospheric dripping....
An Unexpected Discovery beneath the Ishtar Temple in Assur Reveals the City's Founding Date and Its Relationship with a Hurrian Goddess
4+ mon, 8+ hour ago (688+ words) Investigations with coring samples reveal a layer of sand brought from the Zagros Mountains, dated around 28962702 BCE, which evidences foundation rites and connects traditions from southern and northern Mesopotamia. Now, thanks to a permit from the Iraqi State Board of…...
A Complete Byzantine Monastery Discovered Beneath the Desert Sands of Southern Egypt
4+ mon, 3+ week ago (550+ words) For his part, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khaled, has stressed the scientific relevance of the site, noting that the information recovered contributes substantially to understanding the true nature of monastic life in…...
A 3, 600-Year-Old City Found in Kazakhstan Changes the Narrative of a Eurasian Steppe Once Thought to Be Inhabited Only by Nomads in the Bronze Age
6+ mon, 1+ week ago (520+ words) A 140-hectare settlement dedicated to large-scale tin-bronze production challenges the idea that steppe communities were exclusively nomadic and reveals sophisticated urban and industrial planning 3, 500 years ago. The remains of an extensive Bronze Age settlement, which likely functioned as a regional…...
Two Mysterious Giant Anomalies at the Boundary Between Earth's Core and Mantle Explain Why Our Planet Is Different from Venus and Mars
6+ mon, 1+ week ago (625+ words) A study published in Nature Geoscience proposes that gigantic anomalies at the core boundary are the result of material leaking from the planet's metallic heart during its earliest eras, a process that may have determined the geological and atmospheric evolution…...