News tagged with geologic history

Messenger orbital data confirm theories, reveal surprises

On March 18, 2011, the MESSENGER spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury to become that planet's first orbiter. The spacecraft's instruments are making a complete reconnaissance of the planet's geochemistry, ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jun 16, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (16) | comments 24 | with audio podcast

Climate played big role in Vikings' disappearance from Greenland

The end of the Norse settlements on Greenland likely will remain shrouded in mystery. While there is scant written evidence of the colony's demise in the 14th and early 15th centuries, archaeological remains ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 30, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Chemistry on Mars reveals cooling rate

(PhysOrg.com) -- French researchers from the University of Toulouse have published a paper in Nature, that describes how they used data from NASA's Mars Odyssey (currently orbiting the planet) to ascertain the am ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 07, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Darwin's theory of gradual evolution not supported by geological history, scientist concludes

Charles Darwin's theory of gradual evolution is not supported by geological history, New York University Geologist Michael Rampino concludes in an essay in the journal Historical Biology. In fact, Rampino notes that a more ...

Biology / Evolution

created Nov 09, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (38) | comments 477 | with audio podcast

Arctic ice at low point compared to recent geologic history

Less ice covers the Arctic today than at any time in recent geologic history. That's the conclusion of an international group of researchers, who have compiled the first comprehensive history of Arctic ice.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jun 02, 2010 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (23) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Fossil find fills in picture of ancient marine life

Paleontologists have discovered a rich array of exceptionally preserved fossils of marine animals that lived between 480 million and 472 million years ago, during the early part of a period known as the Ordovician. ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 13, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Ammonites found mini oases at ancient methane seeps

Research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History shows that ammonites—an extinct type of shelled mollusk that's closely related to modern-day nautiluses and squids—made homes ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Geologists discover new class of landform -- on Mars

(PhysOrg.com) -- An odd, previously unseen landform could provide a window into the geological history of Mars, according to new research by University of Washington geologists.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (12) | comments 47 | with audio podcast

Mercury's surprising core and landscape curiosities

(PhysOrg.com) -- On March 17, the tiny MESSENGER spacecraft completed its primary mission to orbit and observe the planet Mercury for one Earth-year. The bounty of surprises from the mission has completely ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 21, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

X-rays of synthesized moon rocks illuminate the interior of the Moon

Contrary to Earth, our Moon has no active volcanoes, and the traces of its past volcanic activity date from billions of years ago. This is surprising, because recent Moonquake data suggest that there is plenty ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Feb 19, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Cassini sees the two faces of Titan's Dunes

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new analysis of radar data from NASA's Cassini mission, in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, has revealed regional variations among sand dunes on Saturn's ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 24, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Polar dinosaur tracks open new trail to past

Paleontologists have discovered a group of more than 20 polar dinosaur tracks on the coast of Victoria, Australia, offering a rare glimpse into animal behavior during the last period of pronounced global warming, about 105 ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Aug 09, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Reservoirs of ancient lava shaped Earth

Geological history has periodically featured giant lava eruptions that coat large swaths of land or ocean floor with basaltic lava, which hardens into rock formations called flood basalt. New research from Matthew Jackson ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 27, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The three ages of Mars

There is no place on Earth that is a perfect copycat of Mars as it is now, or as it was at any specific point in the past. But scientists suggest Earth has little versions of Mars as it might have been over ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 10, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

New explanation for the origin of high species diversity

An international team of scientists have reset the agenda for future research in the highly diverse Amazon region by showing that the extraordinary diversity found there is much older than generally thought.

Biology / Evolution

created Nov 11, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast