For many years, planetary scientists have believed that water-rich meteorites arriving late in Earth's history (OK, the time ...

Learn how geological clues preserved in ancient oceans link repeated volcanic eruptions to Triassic marine extinctions.

For decades, geologists labeled a billion-year stretch of Earth’s history—from 1.8 to 0.8 billion years ago—as the “Boring Billion.” They assumed not much occurred during the time: mountain building ...

Ever since its formation around 4.5 billion years ago, Earth's rotation has been gradually slowing down, and its days have gotten progressively longer as a result. While Earth's slowdown is not ...

Long before Earth was stable, a Mars-sized planet may have slammed into our world in a collision so violent it reshaped the ...

Carbon released from Earth's spreading tectonic plates, not volcanoes, may have triggered major transitions between ancient ...

Billions of years ago, Earth was an uninhabitable rock covered in magma. Scientists are still working to decipher the tale of how it transformed into a blue and green orb teeming with life. However, ...

Scientists have uncovered an unexpected witness to Earth’s distant past: tiny iron oxide stones called ooids. These mineral snowballs lock away traces of ancient carbon, revealing that oceans between ...

Tiny bits of Earth’s atmosphere have been drifting to the moon for billions of years, guided by Earth’s magnetic field. Rather than blocking particles, the magnetic field can funnel them along ...