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Ever since researchers started studying the Earth’s spin, they noticed that the spin isn’t perfect. Many believe this is a result of the different elements in the Earth’s core, mantle and crust, which have different densities and generate different friction. Most researchers studying this wobble agreed that the mantle would have to respond to the […]
The Stonehenge site, 5,000 years old (new discoveries place it far back in history), still remains of the world’s greatest archeological mysteries. One of its biggest question marks revolves around its conception. It’s fairly understood why it was build, as a site of sun worshiping, but how it was actually built remains unknown, considering these […]
NASA’s famous rover, Opportunity, seems to have stumbled upon clear evidence that water used to flow on Mars, a long long time ago. Opportunity was prowling around the Meridiani Planum on Mars, looking at hematite (an iron oxide) when it stumbled upon something which delighted researchers: gypsum. Why is this vein of gypsum so important […]
The great part of Earth’s liquid outer core comprises of molten iron, which is just swell for us and every inhabitant of our planet, because this layer generates a magnetic field which protects us from radiation which would be lethal. But common accepted theory suggests that there should also be some lighter ingredients down there, […]
Yesterday, NASA held a press briefing where scientists involved in a recently published study, of intense consequences to the scientific community, and people looking for signs of extraterestrial life alike, discussed how Jupiter’s icy satellite has great chances of fostering life in the warm oceans beneath its surface. Europa’s surface is covered in a […]
Fossilized moth wings, that are blue after death were yellow-green during lifetime, suggesting a colorful and creative method of camouflage. Camouflage and warning The moths lived in a difficult period, some 47 million years ago, in a period where life was still trying to fill the gaps left behind by the major dinosaur extinction; they […]
It’s only so often that you get to see geology in the making, and this is a remarkable event indeed. Volcanologists studying an undersea volcano erupting near the island of El Hierro announced that the volcano, which is located at just 70 meters below sea level, will probably create a new island. The Canarian hot […]
There is still a good chance we might find life on Mars, but if we really want to do this, we’re going to have to dig a little deeper – literally. A new study conducted by NASA claims that if there ever was any life on the red planet, then it probably thrived below the […]
A fresh look at some already known fossilized remains revealed quite a surprise: they turned out to be the earliest people in Europe. From analyzing stone tools and other such artifacts, researchers have long believed the earliest Homo Sapiens to settle on the continent some 42-44.000 years ago; the only problem is, there were no […]
A new massive research from SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory, funded by a grant from Google.org has documented significant geothermal resources across the US (especially in the West), a resource that has the potential, with today’s technology, to produce over three million megawatts of green power – that’s 10 times more than coal plants currently produce. Sophisticated […]
Scientists who observed an underwater eruption in 2009 concluded they observed a tear in the planetary crust that mimicks the birth of a subduction zone. Subduction takes place at convergent tectonic plate boundaries; basically, one plate slides below the other – an extremely complicated and complex process that drives along a series of other processes, […]
Another powerful seismic event has taken place, this time in Turkey; the 7.2 earthquake in case struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 60 people and turning most buildings into big chunks of concrete and metal. However, Turkish scientists grimly predict that the victim count could easily go above 1000, as housing conditions are […]
While the Earth is steadily being depleted of its natural resources, it might become imperative to look to the sky for alternatives. Studies so far alone has shown that the moon has twenty times more titanium and platinum than anywhere on Earth, along with helium 3, a rare isotope of helium, which is nonexistent on our planet, […]
If you think that T-Rex had laughable front limbs, you’re in for a treat: even he would be amused by upon such puny arms. However, the shortcomings Carnotaurus had more than made up for its very muscular and powerful tail, which made it one of the fastest hunters to ever walk the face of the […]
A dramatic overnight increase in seismic activity near the Katla volcano in southern Iceland has brought fears of a dramatic eruption, one that would make last year’s massive air-traffic disruption seem like a walk in the park. “It is definitely showing signs of restlessness,” commented Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of […]
A day or two ago, a whole lot of science websites (including ourselves, let’s be fair), wrote about the big Triassic ‘kraken’; basically, everyone was talking about a super intelligent predatory squid which fed on ichtyosaurs. Funny enough, but when I asked the paleontologists working at my University, they all smiled ironically. Why, you may […]
In the darkest caves of southwest China, one can experience fragments of the long set Ice Age and travel back in time 30,000 years. No, there isn’t any time machine or stargate of some sort (scientists say time travel is impossible, I beg to differ), instead what you’ll find in one of the darkest corners […]
Hundreds of millions of years ago the Earth surface and oceans were inhabited by fierce predators of huge proportions by today’s standards. In those times, more than ever maybe, the saying that there’s always a bigger fish was cruelly true. For instance, a recent study of the fossils remains of an ichthyosaur, a giant school bus-sized […]
Your earrings, your wedding ring, the platinum in your computer of phone – all of them might be alien artefacts. So send them over for future study. According to a team led by Matthias Willbold of the University of Bristol, U.K., gold, platinum, and other precious metals were brought to Earth by a massive meteor […]
Starting yesterday, the whole world has been abuzz about the giant river discovered 4 kilometers beneath the Amazon, ranging from 200 to 400 km in width. The river, named Rio Hamza, was located analyzing temperatures from 241 abandoned deep wells that were drilled in the Amazon region by the petrochemical company Petrobras in the 1970s […]
The oldest, up to now, fossil has been found recently by a team of Australian and UK geologists, who claim that they’ve managed to discover micro-organism remnants as old as 3.5 billion years. These tiny living cells were actually sulfur feeding bacteria, which didn’t need any kind of oxygen to survive. The fossils were found […]
A small, yet frightening earthquake, registered at 5.9 magnitude, sent shivers down people’s spines all the way from Ottawa, Canada to North Carolina as it hit the North American east coast. The earthquake first caused ground shacking at 1:51 p.m. ET, when it measured 5.9 in magnitude and lasted only 45 seconds, according to the […]
Despite an evident contrast, geologists claim that the region of modern day El Paso, Texas was once attached to the now icy continent of Antarctica, in an effort to piece together the giant pieces of a puzzle that formed a pre-Pangaea supercontinent. “Most people are familiar with Pangaea,” said study co-author Staci Loewy, a geochemist […]
It wasn’t just a devastating asteroid that killed off all the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Scientists from Boston University now claim that a massive eruption of lava fronts around the world, coinciding with the asteroid impact, sealed their fate forever. The controversial theory is betting on two unusually hot blobs of mantle 1,700 miles […]
Researchers from the University of Liverpool have found ancient footprints in Laetoli, Tanzania, suggesting the fact that human-like features of the feet and gait existed a couple of million years earlier than previously believed. Professor Robin Crompton, from the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, said: “It was previously thought that Australopithecus […]
The relatively new theory of plate tectonics is still uncertain about what is the driving force behind the tectonic movement; now, scientists working at the Kamioka Liquid-Scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND) and the Borexino Detector believe they are close to finding out the answer to that question, after using neutrino detectors and measuring the flow of […]
In the first ever-survey of its kind, geologists have managed to discover a chain of massive underwater volcanoes, some as tall as 2 miles, underneath the Antarctic waters near the South Sandwich Islands in the remote Atlantic Ocean. The South Sandwich Islands have always been known for their evident volcanic activity, ever since their discovery […]
Were dinosaurs slow and lazy, as you see most reptiles today, or active and quick like you see them in the movies? It pretty much depends on their body temperature – if they are cold blooded or not. The kingdom of T-Rex It seemed to be a no-brainer that dinosaurs are cold blooded, relying on […]
We are living epoch changing times – literally. According to an influential and evergrowing group of geologists, there are more and more signs that we are living in an epoch that is like no other in the history of the Earth, and therefore it is required that we acknowledge it as so – the Anthropocene. […]
Topping this week’s absurd news by far, this is one of the most preposterous things I’ve read in all my life. Seven seismologists are charged with manslaughter after they failed to predict the 2009 L’Aquila that made 300 victims. Earthquake prediction and other fairytales At the moment, and in the forseeable future, it is impossible […]
Anomalocaridids were extremely weird animals, by today’s standards; but by the standards of the Cambrian, they were the hot guys. They had a long spiny head, powerful limbs which were probably used to snag prey and a series of blade-like filaments in segments across the animal’s back, which could have functioned as gills. During the […]
An extremely old spider has showed its face for the first time in almost 50 million years; buried in a large chunk of amber, this Huntsman spider has descendants which live in the tropics and Southern Europe today. They can grow up to 30 centimeters, but they’re not aggressive and not poisonous for humans, despite […]
New analysis from NASA’s Galeileo spacecraft shows that there is an ocean of molten (or partially molten magma) beneath the surface of Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. The finding was published today, May 13, in Science magazine. Volcanic Io Io is the most active volcanic object in our solar system, and this confirmation of a […]
Bacteria and small plants at the bottom of the ocean require significant quantities of iron to survive and grow, just like us humans do. But their situation is extremely different, and they can’t just opt for an iron rich diet. So where does their iron come from ? Pyrite, or fool’s gold (as it […]
Some species of bacteria can survive virtually anywhere: in acids, in nuclear waste, at extremely low or high temperatures, at extreme pressures, and so on; extreme microbes that survive on gases thrown out by Siberian hot springs may have played an extremely important role in the formation of our planet’s atmosphere and its composition, a […]
Yellowstone is without a doubt one of the most fascinating places on the face of the planet. But it doesn’t only attract families or people who want to relax, but it attracts scientists as well, and among them, geologists and geophysicists hold a top spot. University of Utah researchers made the first large-scale picture of […]
Volcanoes have fascinated human beings since the dawn of time; thankfully, now we know enough not to think of them as powerful earth/fire gods, but to understand them as the magnificent phenomena they are. However, there are still many things we still haven’t been able to figure out them, and even if we would have, […]
The seismological events near Japan are far from reaching an equilibrium; a 7.4 or 7.5 earthquake on the Richter scale struck apan’s Miyagi Prefecture and its vicinity in northeastern Japan at 23:32 p.m. (1432 GMT) local Time Thursday, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. The area is not so far away from the major 9.0, […]
Ever since the 9.0 earthquake in Japan, there has been a growing mainstream interest for earthquakes, which will probably fade away as time passes, only to be revived when the next big temblor strikes. However, the good news is that, even for a brief period of time, seismologic studies are given the attention they […]
The massive 9.0 earthquake was the last in a series that devastated countries across the boundary of the Pacific plate. Even Japan, perhaps the country who was the most prepared in the world for this kind of seismic activity, was hopeless in front of the temblor and the tsunamis it created. But after the earthquakes […]
Fossil hunting is for anybody – no matter how old, or how knowledgeable; all you need is a little information and some basic equipment, and you’re good to go. For Andrew Carroll and Thomas Smith, two North Texas sixth-graders, it required even less. Their adventures started when they found a bone while off playing and […]
Plate tectonics is one of the most important theories, from the point of view of its practical effects on society – just look at the earthquake in Japan, or the iminent one in California, for example. More than 40 years ago, a man named J. Tuzo Wilson published a paper in Nature, describing how ocean […]
It is generally believed, and taught in paleontology courses that the oldest evidence of life on Earth is 3.5 billion years old, and was found in Australia, thanks to some bacterial fossils. However, geologists from the University of Texas conducted a study that concluded that the tiny gaps in the Australian chert are nothing more […]
You don’t get any country better prepared for an earthquake than Japan. They know they are at risk, they are prudent, they have the money, the technology, and the work force; and yet, when hit by an earthquake of this magnitude, no matter how well prepared you are, you are in for some massive trouble. […]
The 9.0 (it seems this is the actual magnitude) earthquake that hit Japan on the 11th of March created an absolutely incredible number of aftershocks, some of which were pretty intense on their own. However, a few days before it, as stress built up the subduction area between the Pacific and North American plates, one […]
The devastating seismic event that struck Japan is affecting the entire world, and even the entire planet. While smoke continues to rise from the catastrophic temblor, Japan seems to have moved 8 feet inland, or even more, according to the USGS. “That’s a reasonable number,” USGS seismologist Paul Earle told AFP. “Eight feet, that’s certainly […]
In the aftermath of the earthquake that violently struck Japan and the tsunamis it generated, the small, industrial city of Hitachi emerged unscathed from what Prime Minister Naoto Kan has described as Japan’s “worst crisis since the Second World War”, making it somewhat of a refuge for the hordes of refugees that flooded from many […]
It’s no mystery for anybody that the earthquake in Japan is one of the largest ever to be recorded in history, and it’s no mystery for anybody that Japan is an area with numerous seismic events, but the magnitude of this one exceeded greatly all expectations, even the most pessimistic one. The 8.9 magnitude (or […]
This picture, created by a computer model at NOAA displays the expected heights of the tsunamis created by the 8.9 earthquake in Japan (which may be “upgraded” to 9.0 – calculating magnitudes is a pretty delicate issue). Of course the largest wave heights are expected near the epicenter, off the coast of Sendai, Honshu, Japan. […]
The damage caused by the 8.9 earthquake in Japan is far from being over – asa matter of fact, unfortunately, it may very well just be starting. The earthquake and the tsunamis it created cut down power supply throughout a major part of Japan, and so the cooling system of several power plants was unable to […]
