Geology, features and articles | Educational Science

Nov 30, 2004

Rumbles in 2004: Mount St. Helens Wakes Up

The Calm Before The Storm (Image credit: USGS/John S. Pallister)This Image Gallery highlights some of the notable activity, which has occurred at Mount St. Helens this year, since it has “roared back to life”. This picture was taken in the summer, on June 23, 2004, before there was any significant...

Oct 31, 2004

Fool's Gold Preserves Skin and Hair Fossils

Dentists use gold inlays to save rotting teeth. Nature uses the fool's variety to save rotting flesh. Commonly known as fool's gold, pyrite deposits have preserved the soft tissues, such as hair and skin, of animals that died 500 million years ago in the Chengjiang sediments of China. Unlike most...

Dec 31, 2003

Ancient Sunken Islands Found Off California

Sandy beaches are plentiful along the California coast, but not many are found below the ocean. Scientists just added three to the list. What were once volcanic islands off the coast of California now sit at the bottom of sea. With the help of a robotic submersible, a team of...

Aug 31, 2005

Slow Seismic Slip Event Underway in Pacific Northwest

Updated 2:35 p.m. ET Sept. 14 An important seismic event imperceptible to humans has begun in the Pacific Northwest as predicted, according to the government agency Geological Survey of Canada. The chance of a major earthquake is 30 times higher now for a roughly two-week period, but the odds are...

Jul 31, 2005

Earth's Core Rotates Faster than Surface, Study Confirms

The giant orb of iron and nickel that anchors Earth's center is spinning faster than the planet's surface, according to a new study that confirms scientists' expectations. The finding is based on analyses of earthquake pairs that occur at roughly the same spot on Earth but at different times. On...

Jul 31, 2005

First-ever Chimp Fossils Found

The first ever chimpanzee fossils were recently discovered in an area previously thought to be unsuitable for chimps. Fossils from human ancestor were also found nearby. Although researchers have only found a few chimp teeth, the discovery could cause a shake-up in the theories of human evolution. “We know today...

Jun 30, 2005

Mount St. Helens' Lava Dome Partly Collapses

MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Wash. (AP) _ A large part of the growing lava dome on Mount St. Helens fell Saturday, sending an ash plume above the crater rim, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. A rock fall had caused what scientists called a substantial seismic signal'' and knocked the...

Mar 31, 2005

Finally, a Solid Look at Earth's Core

Scientists have long thought Earth's core is solid. Now they have some solid evidence. The core is thought to be a two-part construction. The inner core is solid iron, and that's surrounding by a molten core, theory holds. Around the core is the mantle, and near the planet's surface is...

Dec 31, 2004

Dinosaur Fossil Found in Mammal's Stomach

In China, scientists have identified the fossilized remains of a tiny dinosaur in the stomach of a mammal. Scientists say the animal's last meal probably is the first proof that mammals hunted small dinosaurs some 130 million years ago. It contradicts conventional evolutionary theory that early mammals couldn't possibly attack...

Nov 30, 2006

Scientist Fights Church Effort to Hide Museum's Pre-Human Fossils

Famed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey is giving no quarter to powerful evangelical church leaders who are pressing Kenya's national museum to relegate to a back room its world-famous collection of hominid fossils showing the evolution of humans' early ancestors. Leakey called the churches' plans the most outrageous comments I have ever...

Apr 30, 2006

Climate Change, Not Humans, Killed Large Beasts

Failure to adapt to a drastically changing climate, and not overkill by humans or disease, most likely lead to the extinction of mammoths, wild horses, and other large mammals after the last Ice Age, a new study suggests. But this fresh take on an old argument might not be the...

Mar 31, 2006

Scientists Find the Elusive Gabbro

It's not quite the center of the Earth, but scientists have drilled nearly a mile into the planet's ocean crust, retrieving samples from the pristine layer of igneous rock for the first time. Scientists onboard the drilling ship JOIDES Resolution in the Pacific Ocean, about 500 miles west of Costa...

Feb 28, 2006

Back From the Dead: Living Fossil Identified

A few months after researchers on one team thought they had discovered a new family of rodent, another group snatched their glory by identifying the critter as a member of a family thought long extinct. Last year scientists described the body of a squirrel-like rodent found for sale in a...

Jan 31, 2006

Fossils Never Looked So Good

Scientists have produced the first-ever three-dimensional images of 850-million-year-old microscopic fossils using preexisting laser technology. They don't even have to break open the rocks. In the future, the technique could help researchers figure out when exactly life began on Earth and determine whether life has ever existed on Mars. Hard...

Sep 30, 2007

Prehistoric Humans Hit the Beach During Cold Spell

A band of early Homo sapiens survived an ancient bout of global cooling by hunkering down in a cave on the coast of South Africa and living off shellfish plucked from nearby tide pools, a new study suggests. The cave overlooks the Indian Ocean, and inside it, scientists have found...