Earth Science

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Get Up Close And Personal With a Terrifying Supercell

Stormchasers in Wyoming captured footage of a beautiful supercell storm

How Do We Know the Earth Is 4.6 Billion Years Old?

We know the Earth is old. But how do we know its age?

Hurricane Felix off Grand Cayman Island, September 3, 2007.

The Tropics are Moving, And They’re Bringing Their Cyclones With Them

Over the past 30 years hurricanes have been hitting their peak intensities nearer to the poles

Waves breaking on a coral reef in Hawaii.

Coral Reefs Absorb 97 Percent of the Energy From Waves Headed Toward Shore

This finding applies to reefs around the world

Water extracted from beneath California’s San Joaquin Valley keeps farm fields green. But it may also be affecting earthquakes in the region.

Pulling Water Out of the Ground May Lead to Quakes on the San Andreas Fault

Ground movements linked to water extraction may change stresses on the fault famously responsible for California earthquakes

One More Way Cities Might Mess With Birds—By Throwing Radio Waves at Them

Radio waves disrupt birds' migratory patterns, but birds may have a natural work-around

Superstorm Sandy's aftermath on the Jersey Shore. With climate change, extreme weather events, like Sandy, could become more common.

Why Doesn't Anyone Know How to Talk About Global Warming?

The gap between science and public understanding prevents action on climate change—but social scientists think they can fix that

Antarctica Was Once As Warm As Sunny California

Nearby polar regions got up to Florida-level temperatures

Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, by Simon de Myle

Ten Ancient Stories and the Geological Events That May Have Inspired Them

If you dig deep enough, say scientists, you can find some truth to legends and creation stories

The projected tsunami propagation for last night's Chile earthquake.

It Is Now Technically Possible to Stop an Earthquake

Scientists have devised a way to reflect seismic waves

Colorful archaea grow in in ponds.

How a Single Act of Evolution Nearly Wiped Out All Life on Earth

A single gene transfer event may have caused the Great Dying

When viewed from space, Earth looks like a water planet. But nearly all of that is saltwater and undrinkable.

A World of Water Woes

From the Middle East to the Caribbean to Australia, people around the world are dealing with water scarcity

There May Be a Second Massive Ocean Deep Beneath the Surface

Chemically bonded to minerals in the transition zone, Earth's mantle may be rather wet

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If We're Going to Climb Mountains, First the Earth Needs to Make Them

Temujin Doran's video explores the processes that affect mountain evolution

These Stunning Light Pillars Are The Polar Vortex's Way of Saying Sorry

Not all winter phenomena are problems

A photo of the 4.4 billion-year old zircon.

This Little Gem Is the Oldest Piece of the Earth We’ve Ever Found

A tiny zircon from western Australia is 4.4 billion years old

Exposed tree stumps dot the landscape off the coast of Borth, Wales.

Those U.K. Storms Revealed the Remains of a 4,500 Year Old Forest

The ancient preserved forest is tied to the fable of Cantre'r Gwaelod

Plumes of steam rise up from many spots along the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone Belches Ancient Helium

Gas stored in the Earth’s crust for hundreds of millions of years is released by volcanic hotspot

A pair of Ammonite fossils, about 4 inches across, within a limestone bed very close to the Permian-Triassic boundary.

How Long Does Mass Extinction Take?

By figuring out the timing and rate of the world's most massive extinction 252 million years ago, scientists hope to figure out how such lethal events work

A Swarm of Tumbleweed-Like Robots Might Be the Ideal Desert Data Gatherers

The hardy robots can traverse places that would be difficult or very expensive to send human data-gatherers

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