News
New research reveals how the twelve apostles formed and their true age
17+ hour, 2+ min ago (883+ words) One of the Twelve Apostle sea stacks. (CREDIT: Stephen Gallagher) The limestone at the Twelve Apostles does not sit flat. Look closely at the cliffs along Victoria's coast and the layers lean a little, broken here and there by small…...
'Bathtub Ring' points to vast ancient ocean on Mars
6+ day, 1+ hour ago (884+ words) This mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a series of sedimentary deposits in the Glenelg area of Gale Crater. Gale Crater is a paleolake located close to the putative coastal shelf....
The lost inland sea that dwarfed the Great Lakes and reshaped North America
1+ week, 5+ day ago (1053+ words) A vanished inland sea larger than the Great Lakes combined helped reshape North America's land, rivers, and climate. (CREDIT: CC BY-SA 4. 0) Long before Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario became the defining waters of North…...
Planetary scientists reveal where Earth's water and building blocks came from
3+ week, 5+ day ago (802+ words) New isotopic analysis suggests Earth formed almost entirely from inner Solar System material, not beyond Jupiter. (CREDIT: Alan Brandon/Nature) For years, planetary scientists have argued that some of the material that built Earth must have drifted in from beyond…...
Scientists discover freshwater hidden beneath Utah's Great Salt Lake
1+ mon, 4+ day ago (770+ words) New surveys reveal freshwater beneath Great Salt Lake, raising questions about dust control and hidden groundwater reserves. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) A helicopter flying over the Great Salt Lake last winter was looking for something that should have been hard to find:…...
Three million years of climate history, captured in Antarctic ice
1+ mon, 4+ day ago (806+ words) Antarctic ice reveals 3 million years of climate history, with cooling tied to only modest greenhouse gas changes. (CREDIT: OSU) Frozen air from Antarctica is giving scientists a longer look at a climate mystery that has lingered for decades: why Earth…...
Earth's tectonic plates were already shifting 3. 5 billion years ago
1+ mon, 5+ day ago (760+ words) Harvard study finds direct evidence that Earth's plates were moving 3. 5 billion years ago. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) The rocks didn't look like much from the outside. Scattered across a remote stretch of western Australia called North Pole Dome, they were ancient, weathered,…...
Earth's magnetic poles once took 70, 000 years to reverse
1+ mon, 3+ week ago (885+ words) Ancient sediments reveal Earth's magnetic poles once took 70, 000 years to reverse, far longer than scientists expected. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) Earth's magnetic field does not simply switch direction like a flipped light switch. It weakens, wanders, and reorganizes itself over…...
228-meter sediment core may predict future Antarctic ice sheet loss
2+ mon, 1+ week ago (568+ words) The geological material is discussed, documented and given a preliminary age assessment while still in the field. (CREDIT: Ana Tovey/SWAIS2 C) A tube of mud can look like nothing special at first. Pull it from half a kilometer under Antarctic ice,…...
Volcanic eruptions in the distant past may have led to ocean current collapse
2+ mon, 1+ week ago (972+ words) The June 12, 1991, eruption column from Mount Pinatubo was taken from the east side of Clark Air Base. (CREDIT: U. S. Geological Survey / Dave Harlow) A massive volcanic eruption can cool the planet within months. What happens next may take centuries. Currently, this…...