Even in this fantasy world, geological processes like tectonic plate movement, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions would have built the mountains, carved the rivers, and created vast oceans.
Giant forces slowly move continents across a viscous layer of the Earth, like biscuits gliding over a warm toffee ocean. This stresses the continents, and twists and contorts the crust.
North Korea is a major military threat to the US and its Asian allies, but exactly how powerful are its nuclear weapons? An earth scientist explains why it’s hard to answer this question.
A paleooceanographer describes her ninth sea expedition, this time retrieving cylindrical ‘cores’ of the sediment and rock that’s as much as two miles down at the ocean floor.
In 2004 an underwater avalanche destroyed an oil platform off Louisiana, causing a 14-year spill. An expert on oil and gas seeps in the Gulf of Mexico warns that this could happen in other places.
Molluscs that have shells - like pipis, clams and oysters - have to build their own shell from scratch. And they keep building it their whole life, using chemicals from the sea and their own bodies.
When you study volcanoes at mid-ocean ridges, doing fieldwork means becoming an aquanaut – diving thousands of feet to the ocean floor in the submersible Alvin, trading tight quarters for amazing views.
When I was little, geologists worked out Earth’s surface was made of pieces, like a giant puzzle. Those pieces, called “tectonic plates”, move and bump into each other and mountains form.
Setting the scene for ancient Silk Road trading and now China’s Belt and Road initiative, the Tianshan has changed humanity. Geological evidence shows us how this incredible mountain range formed.