Geology

Today, the entire globe is broken up into tectonic plates that are shifting past each other, causing the continents to drift slowly but steadily. But this has not always been the case.

The heights of La Soufrière de Guadeloupe volcano can be hellish, sweltering at more than 48 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) and swathed in billows of acidic gas.

Geologists from Florida State University's Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science have discovered how carbon-rich molten rock in the Earth's upper mantle might affect the movement of seismic waves.

Ancient sediment found in a central Texas cave appears to solve the mystery of why the Earth cooled suddenly about 13,000 years ago, according to a research study co-authored by a Texas A&M University professor.

An international team of volcanologists working on remote islands in the Galápagos Archipelago has found that volcanoes which reliably produce small basaltic lava eruptions hide chemically diverse magmas in their underground plumbing systems - including some with the potential to generate explosive activity.

The activity of the solid Earth - for example, volcanoes in Java, earthquakes in Japan, etc - is well understood within the context of the ~50-year-old theory of plate tectonics.

Research by the University of Liverpool has revealed that strange behaviour of the magnetic field in the South Atlantic region existed as far back as eight to 11 million years ago, suggesting that today's South Atlantic Anomaly is a recurring feature and unlikely to represent an impending reversal of the Earth's magnetic field.

A rock core from Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, has given scientists a powerful new tool to understand how catastrophic events shaped Earth's ecosystems before the rise of the dinosaurs.

Plato, the Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century B.C.E., believed that the universe was made of five types of matter: earth, air, fire, water, and cosmos. Each was described with a particular geometry, a platonic shape. For earth, that shape was the cube.

An ancient European volcanic region may pose both a greater long-term volcanic risk and seismic risk to northwestern Europe than scientists had realized, geophysicists report in a study in the Geophysical Journal International.

Scientists have discovered a new tool to predict the location of base metal deposits buried too deep beneath the Earth’s surface to be found using current exploration methods.

Most volcanic eruptions take place unseen at the bottom of the world's oceans. In recent years, oceanography has shown that this submarine volcanism not only deposits lava but also ejects large amounts of volcanic ash.