Sophisticated equipment on the Perseverance rover is helping answer some of the many questions researchers have about Mars’ geology over time.
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Articles on Rocks
Displaying 1 - 20 of 24 articles
Without intervention, the rock may have been destroyed by high tides and storm surges.
A biologist explains how researchers nail down the age of ancient fossils thanks to a physical process called radioactive decay.
Crystals are part of a larger tradition of metaphysical religions that have a long history in the U.S.
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.
Perseverance and its helicopter sidekick, Ingenuity, have been on Mars for nearly nine months. The duo have taken rock samples, performed first flights and taken images of the delta in Jezero Crater.
When borders reopen, take an Aussie road trip and explore the continent’s unique geology, from meteorites in the Nullarbor Plain to rock formations that are billions of years old.
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.
The presence of water on the Earth’s surface is the result of a subtle balance between different mechanisms in the atmosphere and below the surface.
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.
To avoid global warming on a catastrophic scale, nations need to reduce emissions and find ways to pull carbon from the air. One promising solution: spreading rock dust on farm fields.
There are memorial stones scattered along songlines throughout the Australian landscape, victims and transgressors transformed into rock following epic struggles to stand as cautionary tales.
As strange as it sounds, rocks are made from stardust.
Researchers can more easily compare heated rocks from different studies and areas.
Trackways made by vertebrates during the Pleistocene era, dating back to between 36 000 and 140 000 years helps with research into ancient animals.
2018 brought the announcement of a new geologic age that covers the last 4,200 years. How do scientists divide up Earth’s timeline and what do these demarcations mean?
A new array of seismometers provides a glimpse of what’s happening deep beneath this geologic fault. New data help explain why the north and south of the region are more seismically active than the middle.
Scientists have long thought most nitrogen in Earth’s ecosystems comes from the air, but new research shows it also is released as rocks weather. This could boost plant growth and help sequester carbon – but not fast enough to avert climate change, as some pundits have claimed.
The earth’s own magnetic field offers a useful way to measure the age of rocks - information that can help unpack ancient events and aid our understanding of the present.
Lightning strikes are powerful – but we haven’t had solid estimates of their energy until now. Researchers turned to the hollow stone tubes they create by vaporizing sand for more precise calculations.
Top contributors
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Professor of Global Environmental Studies, Chancellor's Fellow and Director, John Muir Institute of the Environment, University of California, Davis
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Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University
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Associate Professor of Earthquake Science, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Geology, University of Adelaide
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Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State University
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Australian Research Council Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia
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Director, Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences, University of the Witwatersrand
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Postdoctoral Fellow, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
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Senior Lecturer in Earth System Science, University of Hull
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Research Geologist, US Geological Survey
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Associate Professor of Geosciences, University of South Florida
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PhD candidate in geology, University of Canterbury
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Senior Lecturer Indigenous Knowledges, Deakin University
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Postdoctoral research fellow, Jurassica Museum
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Senior Lecturer in Geology, University of Aberdeen
