Tag Archives: earths

After years of digging across Africa, scientists have built a clearer picture of life just before Earth’s worst die-off. New fossils reveal bustling ecosystems in southern Pangea, from burrowers to tusked plant-eaters to saber-toothed hunters. The fossils show which species thrived before the “Great Dying” and hint at why so many vanished. A team led by researchers at the University …

In a groundbreaking study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, an international team of paleontologists has uncovered a rich treasure trove of Permian fossils from southern Africa. These fossils, excavated over 15 years, offer unprecedented insights into the life forms that inhabited Earth just before the planet’s largest mass extinction, known as the Great Dying. This extinction event occurred …

Australia is on an inevitable path toward a collision with Asia, and the pace of this continental drift is happening faster than many might expect. According to Curtin University’s Professor Zheng-Xiang Li, this tectonic movement is not merely a far-off, theoretical phenomenon; it is already underway and will have a profound impact on the planet’s geography, ecosystems, and even technological …

Deep-Sea Fish Are Secretly Shaping Earth’s Carbon Cycle  SciTechDaily Source link

The large-scale deposits of salt around the Dead Sea, known as salt giants, are built up as the lake’s highly saline water evaporates, and a new study of their formation has revealed some of the secrets of these mounds of halite. That’s exciting for geologists, because salt giants can be found in several other places, including under the Mediterranean Sea. …

The solar day we experience is exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds. Small variations occur naturally, caused by shifts in wind patterns, ocean currents, and movements within Earth’s interior. Over the long term, the Moon’s tidal pull gradually slows Earth’s rotation. Source link

Scientists have found new evidence that a massive comet trail may have caused climate upheaval on Earth more than 12,000 years ago. Tiny particles detected in ocean sediment cores suggest that dust from a large, disintegrating comet entered Earth’s atmosphere around the beginning of the Younger Dryas event, a period of abrupt cooling that caused temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere …

Georgina Rannard Science correspondent NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC) An artist’s drawing of what the new planet might look like. Our Sun is the small dot of light between the two bright stars on the left and right. Scientists have found strong evidence of a giant gas planet in the nearest star system to our own. At four-and-a-half …

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A large impact crater in Arizona. | Credit: NASA Earth Observatory via Wikimedia Commons This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Ever been late because you misread a clock? Sometimes, …

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Ever been late because you misread a clock? Sometimes, the “clocks” geologists use to date events can also be misread. Unravelling Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history with rocks is tricky business. Case in point: the discovery of an ancient meteorite impact crater …