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Researchers have discovered the earliest evidence of a bird pollinator visiting flowers, presumably to feed on the nectar – if true, this means that bird pollinator/plants interactions were already taking place 47 million years ago. When you think about pollinators, you mostly think about bees or butterflies – but birds are significant pollinators too. Birds, particularly […]
French researchers say they are close to developing seismic ‘invisibility cloaks’ which would cancel out potentially hazardous earthquake shockwaves, protecting key buildings or even entire cities. Nuclear power plants especially, and potentially entire cities could be cloaked using this technology – if the researchers’ theories are true (which seems highly likely). They believe that by drilling boreholes […]
A new type of Tyrannosaur with a very long “nose” has been nicknamed “Pinocchio rex” – but this dinosaur was nothing to laugh about. It measured some 9 meters in length, was a ferocious carnivore, and had a long, distinctive snout – which possibly made it even more dangerous. Interestingly enough, the skeleton was found at […]
A geological study has revealed that the massive ice sheet has fixed the landscape in place, rather than destroying it. Ice is usually really good at scouring stuff away – it doesn’t take a scientist to tell you that. But according to this new study, some of the sub-glacial landscape may have remained unchanged for almost 3 million […]
The Grand Canyon is a favorite for tourists all over the world – but if you think it’s cool to see it from the ground level, you haven’t seen it from above – the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona is also a favorite for astronauts shooting photos from the International Space Station. The Grand Canyon is […]
Remote, cold, rugged, and fiedy – that’s the Kamceatka Peninsula for you! Out of all the 1,550 volcanoes that have erupted in the recent geologic past, 113 are found on Kamchatka. Of those, 40 Kamceatkan volcanoes are active, either erupting now or capable of erupting anytime, without any notice. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured […]
The Red Planet is dear to many of us. There’s a sort of brethren feeling, something that relates Earth and Mars together which makes people fond of the planet, but also at the same time weary. Weary because it’s dead planet, and because people don’t want the same thing to happen to Earth. The Martian […]
Arctic sea ice has seen a sharp decline over the past four decades, as the sea ice cover is shrinking and thinning, making scientists think an ice-free Arctic Ocean during the summer might be reached this century. According to researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA the arctic region is experiencing longer […]
A new massive computer model that simulates the formation of the solar system from its early days when all it used to comprise was a huge disk of matter to present day shows that Earth’s moon formed some 65 million years later than previous estimates led us to believe. The method provides a new way […]
An 8.2-magnitude earthquake hit near the coast of Chile last night, triggering multiple strong aftershocks and a 6-foot (3 meter) tsunami. There have been at least five confirmed casualties, with the victims being crushed or suffering from heart attacks. “The fact is, we will know the extent of the damage as time goes by and […]
Seismologists working at the University of Utah reported an earthquake occurring at 06:34 AM on March 30, 2014 (MDT). The epicenter of the magnitude 4.8 shock was located 4 miles north-northeast of Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. A supervolcano This was not a singular event, but was a part of a series […]
Cambrian fossil is earliest example of large swimming filter-feeder. An evolutionary explosion Half a billion years ago, the world was extremely different. We’re in the Cambrian, the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, which lasted from about 541 to 485 million years ago. Life is diversifying at an incredibly fast rate, into what we […]
Scientists have used one of the brightest light sources in the Universe that we know of to expose the biochemical structure of a 50 million-year-old fossil plant to stunning visual effect. The mixed team of paleontologists, geochemists and physicists bombarded the fossils with extremely bright X-rays and showed that the chemical makeup of the plant […]
An eminent team of US researchers found that it is highly unlikely that the moon ever once harbored important quantities of water, after studying a mineral called apatite. Generally speaking, scientists have always though the moon was water barren, a theory confirmed by the initial rock samples brought back by the Apollo missions, however in […]
An international team of geologists captured a prehistoric portrait of parental care deep in the fossil record. The team led by Leicester geologist Professor David Siveter revealed a ‘sea nursery’ which features a species new to science. This new species was found with specimens preserved incubating their eggs together with probable hatched individuals. As a […]
The first ever terrestrial discovery of ringwoodite seems to confirm the existence of massive amounts of water hundreds of kilometers below the Earth’s surface. Let me explain how. Under pressure Ringwoodite is a high-pressure polymorph of olivine; it’s basically olivine, but with a different crystal structure. The mineral is thought to exist in large quantities […]
A researchers from the University of Southampton has developed a a wireless network of sensors that is set to revolutionize soil-based salinity measuring. Testing the salinity levels in soils is a big deal – any salty water infiltrations can have massive effects on agriculture and sometimes, even on soil stability. At the moment, you can […]
New analyses of NASA airborne radar data collected in 2012 reveal the radar detected indications of a huge sinkhole before it collapsed and forced evacuations near Bayou Corne, La. that year. Researchers believe that they can use this type of data, usually routine gathered, to foresee at least some of the sinkholes. I’ve written a […]
In a new study conducted by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey, researchers showed that the human-induced magnitude 5.0 earthquake near Prague, Oklahoma in November 2011 further caused a larger M5.7 earthquake less than a day later. We’re talking about two human induced earthquakes with magnitudes of 5 and above, in less than a day, […]
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake off the coast of Northern California struck Sunday night, on the 9th of March. It was the largest on the West Coast since the 7.2 Baja California quake in 2010 and it was followed by a series of at least 13 aftershocks, the largest of which had magnitude of 4.6, according […]
The Stonehenge is one of the most impressive and mysterious constructions left behind by our ancestors. Now, scientists have found the exact source of Stonehenge’s smaller bluestones: over 200 km away from Stonehenge. The stones’ composition revealed that they came from a relatively nearby outcrop about 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) away from the site originally. […]
Using two different dating technique, geologists have come across what they believe to be the oldest piece of Earth discovered thus far. The zircon crystal, found on a sheep ranch in Western Australia , was confirmed to be 4.4 billion years old and offers tantalizing clues and insights on how our planet must have looked like in […]
Some 252 million years ago, 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of life on land became extinct following a yet unconfirmed series of cataclysmic events. Around this time, billions and billions of organisms were killed and life on Earth faced its most dire moments. This is known as the end-Permian extinction, and many theories […]
We could exploit energy from deep down in the earth, as a report from a geothermal borehole suggests. The project developed under the name of Icelandic Deep Drilling Project (also known as IDDP), and the shafts have been drilled to almost five kilometers deep, with the purpose of harnessing the heat in the volcanic bedrock […]
During the Mesozoic, dinosaurs weren’t just roaming the land – giant reptiles, such as mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs, ruled the seas. But while scientists have a fairly good idea about how they looked like, until now, they had no idea what colors they featured. Paleontologists conducted new analysis at the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden […]
Imagine salmon in reverse: long-snouted Bandringa sharks migrated downstream from freshwater swamps to a tropical coastline to spawn 310 million years ago – leaving behind a fossil nursery, which researchers found. The bandringa sharks The surprising conclusion was drawn by University of Michigan paleontologist Lauren Sallan and a University of Chicago colleague; they analyzed every […]
Cats, dogs, as well as many well known and loved wild animals such as seals, lions, tigers and bears trace their ancestry to primitive carnivorous mammals dating back to 55 million years ago, at the beginning of a time period called the Eocene. A study, published in the most recent issue of the Journal of […]
A cluster of 18 flowering plants from the Cretaceous (100 million years ago) has been found preserved in amber Among the flowers, one shows the earliest reproduction of flowering plants Based on microscopic imaging, paleontologists conclude that the pollination mechanism has remained virtually unchanged Amber is fossilized tree resin, valued as a gem since prehistoric […]
Scientists have developed a new catalogue of earthquake lights, glows sometimes reported during the seismic shaking, and sometimes even before it. The phenomenon has been reported by eyewitnesses for centuries, but only recently did scientists start taking them seriously. The science of glowing earthquakes Even though they have been described both before and during the […]
A huge megaflood may have carved the U-shaped canyons we can now see in Idaho some 46,000 years ago. The similarities suggest that the same phenomenon occurred on Mars as well were similar geological formations were found. After studying several U-shaped canyons in south-central Idaho, US, geologists at Caltech propose that these characteristic formations were […]
In 1959, an American geologist built a rock cairn 1.2 meters away from this glacier; he left a note, asking whoever finds it to measure the distance to the glacier. Today, that distance has grown up to 101.5 meters. Researchers who found the incredibly creative and unusual note say it’s highly unexpected for a scientist […]
A song of ice and fire Antarctica is split in two different areas: East Antarctica and West Antarctica – and East Antarctica wears the pants in this relationship: it’s pushing West Antarctica around – literally. Since the Western part is losing weight due to melting and ice loss (billions of tons of ice per year), […]
Dating rocks is not really something new – it’s been conducted on Earth for decades now; researchers have also determined the age of rocks from outer space, but the experiments always took place on Earth. Now, for the first time, this procedure took place on Mars. The work, led by geochemist Ken Farley of the […]
The Permian extinction was the biggest extinction ever, killing 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates Possible causes include: impact, loss of oxygen and volcanic eruptions Researchers tested the validity of the last hypothesis, finding it likely The biggest extinction – ever MIT Researchers believe that rain as acidic as undiluted lemon […]
When herbivorous dinosaurs went to sleep, they had bad dreams about Tyrannosaurs. But what where Tyrannosaurs afraid of? If you’re thinking “Nothing”, then you’re really wrong. A new species of carnivorous dinosaur (one of the three largest ever discovered in North America) competed with them 98 million years ago – the newly discovered species, Siats […]
Chesapeake Bay is one of the few oceanic impact craters on Earth When the huge impact took place ~35 million years ago, it sealed the ancient oceanic water The water has remained virtually unchanged since then A new study published in Nature provides chemical, isotopic and physical evidence that groundwater found at about 1.5 […]
Most fossils are very fragile, difficult to handle and transport Researchers conducted CT scans on fossils still trapped in sedimentary material, creating 3D models The models were then 3D printed – an accurate, non invasive method to replicate fossils for schools, museums and other researchers Doctors and dinosaurs Being a paleontologist and working […]
An international team of researchers led by Ralf Tappert, from the University of Innsbruck, reconstructed the composition of Earth’s atmosphere of the last 220 million years by analyzing modern and fossil plant resins. Their results indicate that atmospheric oxygen was considerably lower in Earth’s geological past than previously assumed – providing valuable information about current […]
To say that finding evidence of how life on Earth was 3.5 billion years ago is hard would be an understatement. Reconstructing the rise of life in its early stages is a monumental challenge – the evidence is only preserved in Earth’s oldest sedimentary rocks, and sedimentary rocks of that age are very hard to […]
A study published earlier this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy correlated 93 small earthquakes in Texas (near a city called Snyder) with underground injection of large volumes of gas, primarily carbon dioxide, in a technique called CO2 flooding. Not fracking, but flooding CO2 flooding is a technique that doesn’t refer to extraction, […]
A laudable, ambitious initiative is nearing fruition: the US$90-million Transportable Array, a moveable grid of seismometers that blankets America. Since 2004, the set of 400 seismometers, loaded on trucks, have gradually marched, from the Pacific coast across the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains and is finally reaching the eastern coastline. Whenever they arrive at […]
A giant platypus fossil, measuring more than 1m long (3ft) was discovered in Queensland, Australia. The animal lived 5-15 million years ago, as paleontologists explain in the journal Vertebrate Paleontology. Until now, the oldest fossil was dated 100.000 years ago. As if the evolutionary status of the platypus wasn’t extraordinarily complicated as it is, this […]
A group of paleontologists believe that the same event that killed off the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago also caused a widespread extinction in bee populations. Currently, the widely accepted theory is that an asteroid or comet struck our planet 66 million years ago (the Cretaceous-Paleogene event, or K-Pg event), the impact and its […]
Finding mosquitoes trapped in amber is truly exciting, but it’s not really unique – there have been several reported cases all around the world, and some people are even selling such samples (which I don’t think is a good thing, but that’s another discussion). But finding a fossilized mosquito in sediment… now that’s unique! It […]
For the first time, researchers have found evidence of a comet entering Earth’s atmosphere and exploding, obliterating everything in its path before ultimately crashing down into the Sahara. Comets and asteroids Many people will probably be asking themselves “Didn’t we find comet evidence on Earth before?”. No, not really – if you did wondeer that, […]
Even an area so studied as Hawaii sometimes yields surprises – a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and the University of Rhode Island (URI) changes the very foundation of how the Hawaii islands were formed: it is the eruptions […]
A tiny chip already used in smartphones for the orientation of your screen could serve to create a real-time urban seismic network, easily increasing the amount of strong motion data collected during a large earthquake, helping responders know where the most damage has been done and where the strongest intervention is needed. Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) […]
A few days ago, we were telling you about the Pakistan earthquake which created a new island just off the shore. The magnitude-7.7 earthquake was likely centered on a southern strand of the Chaman Fault, and in the hours after it, a new island suddenly rose in the nearby shallow waters. The Chaman Fault is […]
This defensive strategy has been used for a very long time, but if you were to take a guess, how long would do you think that time was? A thousand years, ten thousand years, one million years? According to a new fossil unearthed by paleontologists, the answer is at least 510 million years! Trilobites and […]
Paleontologists have scratched the surface of what appears to be a very promising dinosaur site near the Arctic circle, in Alaska. When these dinosaurs roamed the Earth, they stepped in mud; their footprints quickly filled with sand, and were preserved in the form we see them today, like blubs with toes. In July, the scientists […]
