News
The Origin of the Euphrates Discovered: The Great River of Mesopotamia Was Born 6 Million Years Ago and Flowed Into an Almost Dry Mediterranean
8+ hour, 24+ min ago (890+ words) A study reveals that the legendary river was formed by two river systems that emptied into a partially desiccated Mediterranean basin before diverting toward the Persian Gulf. The research has solved the dilemma. The scientists demonstrated that both submarine deposits…...
The Earth's crust has broken and mantle fluids are reaching the surface: a new tectonic plate is forming beneath southern Africa
2+ week, 6+ day ago (321+ words) Helium isotope measurements in hot springs of the Kafue Rift reveal a direct connection with the Earth's mantle, suggesting that the crust has broken and a new plate boundary is forming. Scientists from the University of Oxford have published a…...
Earth's First Continents Emerged in an Inferno of Fire and Water, Making the Planet Habitable Hundreds of Millions of Years Earlier Than the Fossil Record Indicates
3+ mon, 3+ week ago (257+ words) Analyses of 4-billion-year-old minerals reveal active tectonics and crustal recycling in the Hadean, rewriting the planet's infancy. A comprehensive examination of the oldest minerals on the planet, microscopic grains of zircon more resistant than diamond, has provided the strongest chemical…...
A legendary fossil forces a rethink of human origins: A new species in the family tree?
4+ mon, 3+ week ago (380+ words) This fossil remains one of the most crucial discoveries within the hominin record, and its true identity is a key piece for understanding our evolutionary past, Dr. Martin stated. Our assessment shows that it is not the case that it…...
Two Mysterious Giant Anomalies at the Boundary Between Earth's Core and Mantle Explain Why Our Planet Is Different from Venus and Mars
6+ mon, 1+ week ago (625+ words) A study published in Nature Geoscience proposes that gigantic anomalies at the core boundary are the result of material leaking from the planet's metallic heart during its earliest eras, a process that may have determined the geological and atmospheric evolution…...
The Discovery That Solves a 600-Million-Year-Old Enigma: When Earth's Magnetic Field Wobbled Out of Control
6+ mon, 4+ week ago (418+ words) During the Ediacaran period, approximately between 630 and 540 million years ago, Earth has remained a persistent and puzzling anomaly in the geological record'a magnetic riddle that for decades has resisted scientists" efforts to find a coherent explanation. While in earlier and…...
Tides Were Key to the Rise of the Sumerian Civilization, the First Urban Culture in History
7+ mon, 4+ day ago (252+ words) A new interdisciplinary study shows that the rise of the first urban civilization was not solely a product of human ingenuity, but a complex response to coastal dynamics and the predictable rhythms of the tides in a now-vanished landscape. The…...
Analysis of animal remains hunted with the Sch'ningen spears recovers the oldest genome that redefines the origins of the modern horse
7+ mon, 4+ week ago (333+ words) A team from the University of T'bingen sequences for the first time 300, 000-year-old DNA of the species Equus mosbachensis, a direct ancestor of today's equids, at a German site whose exceptional preservation conditions challenge the known limits of paleogenetics. The…...
Scientists find rare spores inside a fossil from the supercontinent Gondwana predating the dinosaurs
8+ mon, 1+ day ago (296+ words) The fossil, originally described decades ago under the generic name Lycopodites riograndensis, underwent a thorough reanalysis using microscopy techniques unavailable at the time of its discovery. The key to the discovery lay in the application of a specialized protocol for…...
The impossible is happening: an oceanic plate is peeling away under the sea near Portugal, and that could explain Europe's largest earthquakes
8+ mon, 3+ week ago (1219+ words) An international study reveals for the first time a geological process never before observed: the delamination of the oceanic lithosphere. This mechanism, facilitated by a layer of weakened rocks, would be behind the devastating Lisbon earthquakes of 1755 and 1969, and could…...