2+ hour, 15+ min 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…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago  (568+ words) The geological material is discussed, documented and given a preliminary age assessment while still in the field. (CREDIT: Ana Tovey/SWAIS2C) A tube of mud can look like nothing special at first. Pull it from half a kilometer under Antarctic ice,…...

1+ week, 3+ day 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…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago  (1078+ words) A study traces Antarctica's gravity hollow to slow mantle motion, with timing that overlaps major shifts in Antarctic glaciation. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0) Gravity feels steady. You drop a set of keys, and they fall the same way every time....

2+ week, 3+ day ago  (899+ words) New research suggests Earth's core may store up to 45 oceans' worth of hydrogen, reshaping theories of water's origin. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0) Scientists have known for many years that pure iron could not account for the density of the Earth's…...

2+ week, 4+ day ago  (1316+ words) Sediment drilled from beneath Greenland's Prudhoe Dome shows the ice cap vanished about 7,000 years ago, offering new clues about future melt. (CREDIT: Jason Briner/University at Buffalo) Deep under Greenland's ice, a thin layer of frozen dirt and rock has…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago  (958+ words) Stanford University researchers have pulled back a curtain on a hidden part of Earth that rarely makes headlines. Their new work maps a strange kind of earthquake that starts deep below the crust, inside the continental mantle. The team says…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago  (1284+ words) Deep layers of molten rock inside some super-earths could generate powerful magnetic fields'potentially stronger than Earth's'and help shield these exoplanets from harmful radiation. (CREDIT: University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics illustration / Michael Franchot) In addition to shaping the interior…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago  (531+ words) Ice conceals a rugged landscape. A view over the Wilson Piedmont in Antarctica shows examples of the ice surface and what the buried topography may look like. (CREDIT: Irina Filina) That lack of detail matters. The Antarctic ice sheet holds…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago  (1150+ words) Tiny quakes help scientists map hidden faults where the San Andreas meets Cascadia, reshaping quake hazard estimates. (CREDIT: Kluft/Wikimedia) Northern California's coast keeps you on alert, even on quiet days. Offshore, three tectonic plates meet near Humboldt County at…...