Antarctica was once covered in lush, subtropical forests, inhabited by diverse plants and animals including large dinosaurs. That’s going back many millions of years. These days, Antarctica is 99.7% covered…
Mercury has long been a mystery to scientists. Until recently, knowledge of the planet was limited to the grey, patchy landscape revealed by the Mariner 10 probe, NASA’s first mission to Mercury in the…
In January 2011, aboard a scientific drilling ship in the Pacific Ocean, I witnessed an enigmatic green flash before sunrise. This optical phenomenon has been recorded to occur if the conditions are just…
Devastating supervolcanoes can erupt simply due to changes that happen in their giant magma chambers as they slowly cool, according to a new study. This finding marks the first time researchers have been…
So serious are the effects of air pollution on human health - the WHO recently categorised it as carcinogenic, responsible for 223,000 deaths a year worldwide - that it is easy to neglect its wider impact…
Explosive eruptions from “supervolcanoes” may have changed the climate on ancient Mars, according to a study by the Planetary Science Institute (PSI). The study, published in the journal Nature, found…
A volcano in Indonesia may be the location of a massive “mystery eruption” that has perplexed volcanologists for decades, according to a new study. The eruption occurred in 1257, and it could also be one…
A megavolcano found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is being reported as the largest single volcano on Earth. Tamu Massif, as the megavolcano is called, may be as voluminous as Olympus Mons on Mars…
Because of their location’s geology, Icelandic volcanoes are known to be directly connected to the Earth’s mantle. New research shows that a volcano in Costa Rica may have a direct connection to the mantle…
Earthquakes, volcanoes and movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates influence coral diversity patterns more than short-term environmental changes, a new study by Australian researchers has found. The study…
The Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico is throwing out plumes of smoke and ash, an eruption that threatens the one million inhabitants of the towns and villages nearby. Mexico City, the world’s third largest…
It’s long been known that massive increases in emission of CO2 from volcanoes, associated with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean in the end-Triassic Period, set off a shift in state of the climate which…
No-one alive today has witnessed a volcanic eruption remotely as big as the Toba “super” eruption. But our ancestors may have done, tens of thousands of years ago, when northern Sumatra exploded, creating…