Recently in the Geobiology Category

inds of many evolutionary biologists, the continents were irrelevant early in the Earth's history, because they are assumed to have been barren of life until the first plants appeared, around 0.4 billion years ago.

The amount of biomass -- life -- in Earth's ancient oceans may have been limited due to low recycling of the key nutrient phosphorus, according to new research by the University of Washington and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Reservoirs of oxygen-rich iron between the Earth's core and mantle could have played a major role in Earth's history, including the breakup of supercontinents, drastic changes in Earth's atmospheric makeup, and the creation of life, according to recent work from an international research team published in National Science Review.

ANU scientists say the early Earth was likely to be barren, mountainless and almost entirely under water with a few small islands, following their analysis of tiny mineral grains as old as 4.4 billion years.

Hunting for habitable exoplanets now may be easier: Cornell University astronomers report that hydrogen pouring from volcanic sources on planets throughout the universe could improve the chances of locating life in the cosmos.

A new study is the first to show that living organisms can be persuaded to make silicon-carbon bonds--something only chemists had done before. Scientists at Caltech "bred" a bacterial protein to have the ability to make the man-made bonds, a finding that has applications in several industries.

The introduction and concentration of electron donors and acceptors in the subsurface biosphere is controlled by the mixing of subsurface fluids, but the mechanisms and rates at which microbial communities respond to changes induced by fluid mixing and transport are relatively unknown.

They live several kilometers under the surface of the earth, need no light or oxygen and can only be seen in a microscope.

An international team of scientists recently returned from a 47-day research expedition to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean have collected an unprecedented sequence of rock samples from the shallow mantle of the ocean crust that bear signs of life, unique carbon cycling, and ocean crust movement.

Around 720-640 million years ago, much of the Earth's surface was covered in ice during a glaciation that lasted millions of years.