Category: Earth

Earth has entered a grim new climate reality.

The planet has officially passed its first climate tipping point. Relentlessly rising heat in the oceans has now pushed corals around the world past their limit, causing an unprecedented…

Antarctic krill keep revealing new superpowers.

Euphausia superba, the Southern Ocean’s ubiquitous krill species, sequester large amounts of carbon via their profuse poop. Now, scientists have identified another way in which the…

The newly-discovered mineral, named ferric hydroxysulfate, provides clues about the environment and history of the Red Planet, including the possibility of former lava, ash or hydrothermal activity.

Tektites are nearly pure glasses (practically no crystalline inclusions) created when a space rock slams into Earth, melting surface material and hurling it hundreds or even thousands of km.

A mysterious disease has been turning sea stars into goo since 2013. Now, there’s a leading suspect behind the killings — a bacterium called Vibrio pectenicida, researchers report August 4 in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Knowing…

Submarine canyons are deep, large-scale incisions found on most of the world’s continental margins. In Antarctica, they are widespread features driving oceanographic processes with significant implications for global climate and circulation….

July has washed across the United States with unusually destructive, deadly torrents of rain.

In the first half of the month alone, historically heavy downpours sent rivers in Central Texas spilling far beyond their banks, causing…

The Martian meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 16254 is a 406-g gabbroic shergottite found two years ago in Algeria.

An underwater gold rush may be on the horizon — or rather, a rush to mine the seafloor for manganese, nickel, cobalt and other minerals used in electric vehicles, solar panels and more.

Meanwhile, scientists and conservationists…

Geologists have discovered compelling evidence for preservation of Hadean rocks — dating back to 4.16 billion years old — in a complex geological sequence called the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, opening a rare window into Earth’s…