More than 90% of the world’s pink diamonds came from a single mine that closed in 2020. Geologists are only now beginning to understand the forces that create the rare, highly prized gems.
A man works his way through the rubble of buildings in Marrakesh, Morocco, after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake on Sept. 8, 2023.
Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images
Starting at the surface, you would have to dig nearly 2,000 miles before reaching the Earth’s core. No one could survive that trip – and the 10,000-degree F heat once there would vaporize you anyway.
Magma fountains through a fissure on Mauna Loa, becoming lava, on Nov. 30, 2022.
K. Mulliken/USGS
A scientist who led one of the first projects to map the Hawaiian Islands’ deep volcanic plumbing explains what’s going on under the surface as Mauna Loa erupts.
An artist’s impression of the Earth around 2.7 billion years ago in the Archean Eon. With green iron-rich seas, an orange methane-rich atmosphere and a surface dominated by oceans, the Archean Earth would have been a very different place.
(Illustration by Andrey Atuchin)
Oral histories talk about a major tectonic event 250 years ago, which changed the course of a river flowing through Lae today.
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
Dating of rocks that once formed some of the world’s first beaches suggests the first large continents grew large enough to rise above sea level roughly 3 billion or so years ago.
Stunning mosaic of oxidised copper in the form of azurite (blue) and malachite (green) in a rock.
Dimitri Houtteman
Using geology and AI, a virtual model of how the Earth’s tectonic plates have evolved can help reveal deposits of copper.
New research suggests that Venus’ crust is broken into large blocks – the dark reddish–purple areas – that are surrounded by belts of tectonic structures shown in lighter yellow–red.
Paul K. Byrne/NASA/USGS
Researchers used decades-old radar data and found that some low-lying areas of Venus’ crust are moving and jostling. This evidence is some of the strongest yet of tectonic activity on Venus.
4 billion years ago, the Earth was composed of a series of magma oceans hundreds of kilometres deep.
Larich/Shutterstock
Earth’s magnetic field locks information into lava as it cools into rock. Millions of years later, scientists can decipher this magnetic data to build geologic timelines and maps.