
An Ancient Asteroid Impact Both Harmed and Helped Life
A gigantic space rock that slammed into Earth more than three billion years ago grievously wounded the biosphere—and then helped it heal

An Ancient Asteroid Impact Both Harmed and Helped Life
A gigantic space rock that slammed into Earth more than three billion years ago grievously wounded the biosphere—and then helped it heal

Ancient Seafloor Discovered Slowly Sinking into Earth’s Mantle
A vast, ancient slab of seafloor plunged underneath the Pacific Ocean and has hovered in Earth’s mantle for more than 120 million years, a new study suggests


How ‘River Piracy’ Helped Give Mount Everest a Growth Spurt
A model suggests a massive uplift caused by a phenomenon called “river piracy” partly explains Everest’s impressive height

Why Appalachia Flooded So Severely from Helene’s Remnants
Inland flooding from tropical cyclones, even at high altitudes, is a major worry—and one that scientists don’t know enough about

An ‘Unidentified Seismic Object’ Shook Earth for Nine Days—Now We Know What It Was
Scientists have traced a baffling monotonous planetary hum that lasted for nine days back to a glacier in Greenland

Earthquakes May Forge Large Gold Nuggets
Scientists propose that large chunks of gold could form from earthquakes’ pressure

Complex, Hidden Landscape Mapped a Mile under Greenland Ice
A new Greenland map suggests how geology might shift and twist below the ice

Stonehenge’s Strangest Rock Came from 500 Miles Away
A new analysis of Stonehenge’s “Altar Stone” suggests Neolithic people walked or sailed some 500 miles to transport the six-ton boulder

‘Dark Oxygen’ Discovered Coming from Mineral Deposits on Deep Seafloor
Baffling new results show that rocklike mineral deposits in the deep sea can produce oxygen

Where Beach Sand Comes From Is a Wild Story
Beach sand is beautiful—and even more so when you understand the story it tells about our planet

Every Rock Tells a Story. This Is the Tale of a Meteor-wrong
We discovered a strange rock in the Sahara we thought was a meterorite. Figuring out what it was grounded me back to Earth

Ancient River System Discovered Beneath Antarctic Ice
Beneath the Antarctic ice, scientists find remnants of a giant river system that flowed for thousands of miles