What is the chemical composition of the Earth’s interior? Because it is impossible to drill more than about ten kilometres deep into the Earth, volcanic rocks formed by melting Earth’s deep interior ...

Continental clues: Modern continental rocks carry chemical signatures from the very start of our planet’s history, challenging current theories about plate tectonics. Researchers have made a new ...

“To see a world in a grain of sand,” the opening sentence of the poem by William Blake, is an oft-used phrase that also captures some of what geologists do. We observe the composition of mineral ...

Earth’s surface environment hosts large reservoirs of hydrogen (H, mainly in the form of water, H2O), nitrogen (in atmospheric N2) and carbon (mainly in carbonate rocks). H, N and C are sometimes ...

A new study involving an international team of researchers has found that the evolution of land plants caused a sudden shift in the composition of Earth's continents. The discovery was made by linking ...

Extinct volcanoes are hard to study – we never see them erupt. Using a unique experimental technique, we were able to recreate a certain type of extinct volcano in a lab, learning more about the magma ...

The crust has survived massive amounts of upheaval and change. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. A 4-billion-year-old piece of ...