The further back in time you go, the patchier our understanding of life on Earth gets. Now, British scientists have used a different method known as a molecular clock to plot out a rough timeline of all life on Earth, tracing the first organisms back to about 4.5 billion years ago.
Continue Reading
The International Chronostratigraphic Chart has officially been revised. That means our current point in Earth’s geological timeline has been updated so that we’re now living in the Meghalayan age, which began 4,200 years ago with a two-century drought that destroyed several civilizations.
Continue Reading
The next blow to Big Diamond might have just arrived. Using sound waves, geologists have discovered a gigantic stash of the so-called precious stones deep in the Earth's interior, possibly to the tune of a quadrillion tons.
Continue Reading
They might seem like boring rocks, but asteroids and meteorites have fascinating stories to tell about the history of the solar system. New research from the University of Florida has now traced back the origins of almost all asteroids in the inner belt to just five or six ancient minor planets.
Continue Reading
Scientists have long sought an explanation as to why stable conditions on Earth have persisted long enough for life to evolve over millions of years. Now a team has hit upon two mechanisms, "sequential selection" and "selection by survival alone," as a possible solution to this "Gaia puzzle."
Continue Reading
According to the results of a new study, Uranus may have survived a dramatic collision with a protoplanet twice, or even three times the size of Earth roughly four billion years ago, back when the solar system was young.
Continue Reading
To say “Antarctica is cold” will surprise nobody, but just how cold it can get might. Researchers from NSIDC have now identified the coldest places on the planet, where the mercury plummets to almost -100° C (-148° F) under specific conditions.
Continue Reading
If you feel like you’ve had some drawn-out breakups, think of the supercontinent of Pangaea, which took tens of millions of years to split up. Now a unique fossil skull might readjust the timeline, with a strange creature turning up on a different continent to its previously-discovered relatives.
Continue Reading
Models have long suggested that Earth's orbit shifts from circular to elliptical and back again over hundreds of thousands of years, which plays a part in natural climate swings. Now, scientists have found the first physical evidence for the cycle, and traced it back to before the dinosaurs.
Continue Reading
Scientists have proposed a whole range of theories for what might have caused the world to freeze over in the "Snowball Earth" period 700 million years ago, and a new study has now suggested the root of them all could have been the beginnings of plate tectonics.
Continue Reading
See the stories that matter in your inbox every morning