As of today, the world might have changed forever. A fundamental assumption underpinning much of modern geochemistry is that the earth has the same composition as a class of meteorites called chondrites…
A year ago yesterday the Tōhoku-Oki earthquake and resultant tsunami hit the Japanese coastline, triggering the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster. A year on, many questions are being asked about how bad…
Earlier this year, an international team of scientists reported that a sample of natural “quasicrystal” found in a Russian mountain range had formed 4.5 billion years ago and arrived on Earth as a meteorite…
By the time the Apollo Program ended in 1972 it had cost NASA roughly US$170 billion dollars (in today’s terms). It was seen as a waste of money by some, but almost 40 years since the launch of Apollo…
We know a lot about how humans evolved. But when it comes to our planet, we’re on shakier ground. Inert (nonreactive) gases, such as helium, neon and argon, trapped inside the mantle (Earth’s thickest…
Since its discovery in August 2008, the site of Malapa in Johannesburg has yielded more than 220 bones of early hominins representing at least six individuals, including the remains of babies, juveniles…
A study published in Nature Geoscience yesterday reports the discovery of 3.4 billion-year-old microbial cells in ancient sandstones in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. Some headlines have suggested…
CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: Professor David Karoly goes down the rabbit hole of Bob Carter’s climate theories. In his book Climate: The Counter-consensus, Bob Carter describes three different realities…
The magnitude 9 earthquake that occurred in Japan in March this year caused a 400km long land rupture, releasing centuries of pent up energy caused by two tectonic plates pushing slowly against each other…