Ask anyone what first springs to mind when they think of Australia and they'll most likely say a kangaroo; the marsupial is ingrained in our national identity. But have you ever wondered why kangaroos never ventured beyond ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 6, 2023
0
23
The seemingly stable regions of the Earth's continental plates—the so-called stable cratons—have suffered repetitive deformation below their crust since their formation in the remote past, according to new research from ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 12, 2023
2
202
Geologists have long contested the structure of the Red Sea. Many regard it as an extended rift basin where two continental plates are actively moving apart, while others see it as a fully developed ocean with a mid-ocean ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 21, 2023
0
135
Pangaea was the name Alfred Wegener gave to the supercontinent that existed on Earth 250 million years ago. Over the course of many millions of years, this supercontinent broke into different pieces, which became the landmasses ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 14, 2023
0
29
At the far edges of continents, where the continental shelf transitions into the deep ocean, continental and oceanic plates come face to face. At many of these margins, the denser oceanic plate is pushed below the continental ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 24, 2022
0
519
A University of Wyoming professor has used computer modeling to propose that sand and mud subducted off the coast of California around 75 million years ago returned to the Earth's crust by rising up through the mantle as ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 4, 2021
3
553
From a human perspective, earthquakes are natural disasters—in the past hundred years, they have caused more than 200,000 deaths and enormous economic damage. Mega-earthquakes with a magnitude of nine or higher on the Richter ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 25, 2021
0
10
The first emergence and persistence of continental crust on Earth during the Archaean (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) has important implications for plate tectonics, ocean chemistry and biological evolution. This happened ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 26, 2021
0
161
A new study from scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and the University of Chicago sheds light on a hotly contested debate in Earth sciences: when did plate subduction begin?
Earth Sciences
Dec 9, 2020
0
633
Analysis of an ancient meteorite from Mars suggests that the mineral zircon may be abundant on the surface of the red planet.
Astronomy
Nov 17, 2020
1
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