Author: Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University How do you explore a place where the Sun never shines? China’s space programme will soon embark on one of the most innovative lunar exploration missions in recent years. We’ve known for nearly two decades that some form of water exists on the Moon. What we […]
How much ice is stored in the world’s glaciers? And where exactly is it located? A new study led by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISP), provides an updated global map of glacier ice volume. The study introduces IceBoost v2.0 […]
Arctic terrestrial permafrost ecosystems store around 1,300 gigatonnes of carbon from organic sources, such as from the remains of plants. Sediments in oceans and river deltas contain a further 400 gigatonnes. Global warming, however, is taking its toll on this natural freezer: temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than anywhere else on our planet […]
Author: Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geochronology, Curtin University In the Pilbara of Western Australia, some of Earth’s oldest rocks lie beneath the sky, as they have for billions of years. They are dark, weathered volcanic rocks, close to 3.5 billion years old, cut by veins and stewed by deep time. Their survival is remarkable. Most […]
Biochemistry • Biology • Chemistry • Geosciences • Planetary Science
Asteroids and planetesimals regularly bombarded Earth between about 4.6 billion and 3.5 billion years ago, during the Hadean and Archean eons. Because few rocks today are more than 4 billion years old, our understanding of the planet’s environment during that time is limited. However, samples from the moon and its cratered surface hint at the […]
Isotope analysis of gas from geothermal springs in Zambia could show that a new continental rift is forming . Unexpectedly high helium isotope ratios indicate that a weakness in Earth’s crust has broken through to reach the mantle beneath. This rift could eventually become a new tectonic plate boundary. In the meantime, opportunities for geothermal […]
Two years ago, in March 2024, I wrote in this blog about a decision that surprised many: the rejection of the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch. After fifteen years of work by an international team of experts, the proposal to declare that we are now living in a new chapter of Earth’s history—one defined […]
Author: Alexander Lewis Peace, Associate Professor, Structural Geology, McMaster University Recent seismic imaging off Vancouver Island has revealed something extraordinary: a tear in the subducting oceanic plate beneath the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The finding briefly raised the public’s hopes that Cascadia might be “shutting down,” potentially lowering earthquake risk in North America’s Pacific Northwest. A […]
Earth’s atmosphere is a vast, swirling engine of weather and climate. Jet streams race across continents, storms spin into hurricanes, and invisible eddies churn the air at every scale. For decades, scientists have struggled to understand exactly how energy and swirling motion flow through these turbulent systems, especially in the layered zones where the air […]
Chemistry • DIPC Biochemistry • Evolution • Geosciences • Materials
The classic chemical garden experiment is a staple of introductory chemistry, where colorful, plant-like structures sprout from metal salt crystals dropped into a solution of sodium silicate. While these vibrant tubes look like biological life, they are entirely inorganic, driven by the physics of osmosis and the chemistry of precipitation. For decades, scientists have admired […]