Geology, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 5, 2023

Mushroom-shaped superplume of scorching hot rock may be splitting Africa in 2

A giant plume of super-heated rock rising up from near Earth's core could help explain mysterious distortions linked with a giant tear in the planet's surface that appears to be splitting Africa in two, a recent study finds. Across the planet, huge gashes in Earth's surface known as continental rifts...

Jul 6, 2023

Swirls of liquid iron may be trapped inside Earth's 'solid' core

Earth's solid inner core may not be solid after all — at least not all the way through. Instead, it’s a hodgepodge patchwork of solid and liquid that reaches all the way to the center. New research based on the faint echoes of earthquake waves bouncing back to Earth's surface...

Jul 26, 2023

Earth's plate tectonics traced back to 'tipping point' 3.2 billion years ago

Earth's surface is ever-changing, with tectonic plates grinding and shifting, building mountain ranges, pulling apart sea floors and causing dramatic earthquakes. Now, new research adds to the growing body of evidence that these dynamics started 3.2 billion years ago. While there is controversy within the geoscience community about exactly when...

Aug 4, 2023

14 of the deepest sinkholes on Earth

Sinkholes are wonders of nature: They can appear suddenly and be enormous, sometimes large enough to swallow whole buildings. Sinkholes form when the rock beneath the surface, such as limestone, can naturally be dissolved by the groundwater within it. As the rock dissolves, caverns develop. When these caverns get so...

Aug 10, 2023

A single massive tectonic collision? That's not how the Himalayas came to be, scientists say

The Himalayas, which include the world's tallest mountains, weren't born the way geoscientists thought. The tectonic plates that collided to form the peaks 45 million to 59 million years ago were already pushing against each other, causing the Himalayan mountains to rise to more than half their current elevation, before...

Aug 18, 2023

Fountains of diamonds erupt from Earth's center as supercontinents break up

The breakup of supercontinents may trigger explosive eruptions that send fountains of diamonds shooting up to Earth's surface. Diamonds form deep in Earth's crust, approximately 93 miles (150 kilometers) down. They are brought up to the surface very quickly in eruptions called kimberlites. These kimberlites travel at between 11 and...

Oct 1, 2023

Why are rare earth elements so rare?

Rare earth elements have a number of useful properties that make them highly sought after by the tech and energy industries. This collection of 17 metals includes the 15 metallic elements found at the bottom of the periodic table, as well as the elements yttrium and scandium. The most valuable...

Oct 5, 2023

Earth's solid inner core is 'surprisingly soft' thanks to hyperactive atoms jostling around

Scientists recently discovered that Earth's inner core, which was long thought to be an unmoving ball of solid metal, might be a lot less rigid than we expected. Now, a new study suggests this surprising softness may be caused by hyperactive atoms that move around within their molecular structure much...

Oct 9, 2023

What's inside Earth?

The center of the Earth is almost 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) beneath our feet. To put that into context, the deepest humans have ever drilled is 7.6 miles (12.2 km) down, and it took geologists nearly 20 years to get that far, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Fortunately, scientists don't have...

Oct 10, 2023

Zealandia, Earth's hidden continent, was torn from supercontinent Gondwana in flood of fire 100 million years ago

The lost continent of Zealandia, which includes New Zealand and the French islands of New Caledonia, have been mapped out in full in a world first, providing scientists with a new understanding of how it formed tens of millions of years ago. Zealandia, known as Te Riu-a-Māui in the Māori...

Oct 10, 2023

China discovers never-before-seen ore containing a highly valuable rare earth element

Scientists in China have unearthed a never-before-seen type of ore that contains a rare earth element sought after for its superconductive properties. The ore, dubbed niobobaotite, is made of niobium, barium, titanium, iron and chloride, the South China Morning Post reported. It's the niobium that is causing excitement: This light-gray...

Oct 11, 2023

Earth's crust swallowed a sea's worth of water and locked it away beneath Pacific seafloor

A massive water reservoir is hidden deep beneath the ocean floor off the coast of New Zealand — and it may explain why the region experiences slow-motion earthquakes, scientists have found. A sea's worth of water became locked inside volcanic rocks that formed 120 million to 125 million years ago...

Oct 11, 2023

Scientists discover ghost of ancient mega-plate that disappeared 20 million years ago

A long-lost tectonic plate that once underpinned what is today the South China Sea has been rediscovered 20 million years after disappearing. The plate is known only from a few rock fragments from the mountains of Borneo and the ghostly remnants of its huge slab detected deep in Earth's mantle....

Oct 12, 2023

How many tectonic plates does Earth have?

Billions of years ago, Earth's surface was a sea of molten rock. As this simmering magma gradually cooled, it formed a continuous, rocky shell, with the denser minerals coalescing toward the planet's interior and the less-dense minerals rising to the surface. That is how the plates formed at the surface...

Oct 14, 2023

Is anything harder than a diamond?

Diamonds are prized for their hardness. In jewelry, they can last generations and resist scratches during day-to-day wear. As blades or drill bits, they can penetrate almost anything without getting destroyed. As a powder, diamonds polish up gemstones, metals and other materials. So is anything harder than diamond? It turns...