Geology

Volcanic islands may be scenic, but they're also short-lived by geological standards. By looking at 14 volcanic island chains, a team of MIT scientists have gained insights into why some islands last longer than others.

New evidence suggests that snow may be falling within the broiling hot core of planet Earth. Of course, this isn’t your everyday surface snow – these flakes would be made of iron, settling onto the solid inner core through the more fluid outer core.

Despite raising the alert level weeks prior to the devastating events of Monday, the violent eruption on White Island was not one authorities were able to predict with any precision, owing to the type of delicate, steam-driven processes that led to its explosion.

In some ways, the most Earth-like world in our solar system is Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. And now, astronomers from NASA JPL and Arizona State University have used years of Cassini data to construct the first global map of Titan.

About 65 million years ago, a huge asteroid slammed into the Earth and wiped out three quarters of all life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. Now, Yale researchers have found evidence that oceans became too acidic for marine animals to take.

South African researchers found new evidence supporting the hypothesis that Earth was struck by an asteroid 12,800 years ago, causing global cooling.

Scientists have found some of the earliest direct evidence of life, in the form of organic remains in 3.5-billion-year-old stromatolites in Australia.

A drilling expedition to the Chicxulub crater turned up new details of the immediate aftermath of the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.

The magnetic north and true north will synch at Greenwich, England over the next two weeks for the first time in 360 years.

A huge raft of volcanic rock is floating towards Australia – and scientists say it'll help the ailing Great Barrier Reef.

Compasses point north – that’s a pretty constant fact of life. But it hasn’t always been the case, as the north and south poles flip on a semi-regularly basis. Exactly how long this process takes has been up for debate, and now a new study suggests it happens far more slowly than previously thought.

A new study has used simulations to show that even Earth-like planets completely encased in ice could still have areas warm enough for life, muddying up the already-murky definition of habitable worlds.