A man reacts as he inspects the damage caused by Monday’s earthquake in Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia.
Tatan Syuflana/AP
The Java quake was so devastating in part because it occurred so close to the surface.
InSight’s dusty solar panel.
NASA/JPL
A team of scientists have found a surprising amount of water ice on Mars.
Concept illustration for research robots that could bring samples of Mars rocks to Earth-based labs.
(NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Sophisticated equipment on the Perseverance rover is helping answer some of the many questions researchers have about Mars’ geology over time.
This is an enhanced satellite image of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. Yellow sand dunes cover the upper right, red splotches indicate burned areas, and other colours show different types of surface geology.
USGS/Unsplash
The United States Geological Survey has a vast collection of satellite images capturing breathtaking geological features of our planet. As a geologist, I’ve picked eight of the most fascinating.
The moon is currently moving 3.8 cm away from the Earth every year.
(Shutterstock)
Scientists have uncovered the long-term history of our receding moon. And it’s not from studying the moon itself, but from reading signals in ancient layers of rock on Earth.
A miner silhouetted as he works in the Stan Terg mine in northern Kosovo.
Armend Nimani/AFP via Getty Images
Our prospects of a better, fairer future are inextricably linked with the minerals and metals beneath our feet. Is it time to make peace with the industry that extracts them?
ImageBank4u/Shutterstock
Earth has liquid rock inside. Here’s what happens to that rock to make lava happen.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
In an extraterrestrial first, scientists have linked seismic waves on Mars to meteorite impact craters spotted via satellite.
Lipar et al.
Southern Australia’s Nullarbor Plain is offering up evidence of Earth’s past landscapes and ecosystems, exceptionally preserved for millions of years.
Triff/Shutterstock
There’s a curious 200-million-year rhythm to Earth’s crust production. Now, it seems like our very place in the galaxy is tied to it.
Solarseven / Shutterstock
Giant meteorite impacts may have created the land we live on
Shutterstock
Caves form over millions of years, as a result of flowing water slowly working away at ‘soft’ calcareous rock.
Lucapa Diamond Company/EPA
Geology experts explain why coloured diamonds are so much rarer than clear ones – and why the newly discovered Lulo Rose might become the most expensive diamond in history.
Slicing through the Jura, France’s youngest mountain range: stage 8, 2022.
Guillaume Horcajuelo / EPA
The world’s biggest cycling race is a great way to teach people about geology – and test our own ideas.
During ice ages, ice sheets like the one in Greenland have covered much of Earth’s surface.
Thor Wegner/DeFodi Images via Getty Images
The Earth has had at least five major ice ages, and humans showed up in time for the most recent one. In fact, we’re still in it.
Satellite image of the Irrawaddy River delta in Myanmar, a major rice growing area.
European Space Agency
Millions of people around the world live on river deltas and are vulnerable when those rivers shift direction. A new study shows why and where these events, called avulsions, happen.
Salvatore Allegra / AP
May 25, 2022
Dietmar Müller , University of Sydney ; Adriana Dutkiewicz , University of Sydney ; Andrew Merdith , University of Leeds ; Ben Mather , University of Sydney ; Christopher Gonzalez , The University of Western Australia ; Sabin Zahirovic , University of Sydney ; Tobias Keller , Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich , and Weronika Gorczyk , The University of Western Australia
New modelling shows how tectonic plate movements, carbon-rich deep-sea sediment, and mountain weathering have regulated Earth’s climate.
A panorama stitched together from about 100 individual Curiosity images. The ‘door’ is circled, and is tiny and hard to see at this scale.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
We should not be surprised that some of the innumerable rocks on Mars have weird shapes, because many have been sand-blasted by wind erosion for billions of years.
This aerial view shows the destruction at Umdloti beach north of Durban. Landslides and floods wreaked havoc.
Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images
Sloping ground, water and clay combined to leave devastation in its wake in Durban.
Earth’s interior 80 million years ago with hot structures in yellow to red (darker is shallower) and cold structures in blue (darker is deeper).
Ömer Bodur/Nature
Ancient blobs deep inside the Earth gather together and break apart like continents, according to new research.