From the highest mountains to the deepest ocean, the driest desert to the lushest jungle, Earth displays a dazzling array of lifeforms. And eukaryotes account for many of these lifeforms, […]
A new study by Earth scientists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) offers an explanation for one of Earth’s great climate puzzles: how […]
![Maps of GEOCLIM simulation (two time slices). “0” maps (left column) are the initial condition, “1” maps (right column) are at the perturbation peak (3 Myr of run time, cf Fig. 4a). (a0–1) Topography and oceanic O2 concentration at bottom of water column, (b0–1) physical erosion rate, showing enhanced physical erosion around the Variscan orogeny, and (c0– 1) regolith depletion quantified by the proportion of unweathered mineral at top of regolith. The uplifted area is contoured in magenta on each map. The boundaries of oceanic boxes, and their corresponding continental drainage basins are drawn on each map (white solid and blue dotted lines). GEOCLIM computes one mean O2 concentration for each of the 21 boxes. The maps panels (a0–1) show the mean concentrations of GEOCLIM bottom boxes drawn on the full geographic extent of these boxes at the oceanic resolution of the FOAM ocean-atmosphere general circulation model [90] simulations, which were used as GEOCLIM forcing. -- Science China Press](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/What-triggered-Earths.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Scientists have debated for decades what caused the Late Paleozoic climate transition from a greenhouse to an icehouse state ~350 million years ago. Some invoke a pronounced increase in continental […]
It has been hypothesized that the Earth may have experienced snowball events in the past, during which its surface became completely covered with ice. Previous studies used general circulation models […]
Between 2.4 and 0.6 Gy ago, our planet underwent several episodes of global glaciations, including the Snowball Earth case that ended 635 My ago.
A new study led by researchers at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Institute of Science Tokyo challenges a long-standing assumption about Earth’s most extreme ice ages. Using numerical geochemical […]
In the whole history of Earth’s climate, few events are as extreme as those that geologists call “Snowball Earth.”
Scientists at the University of Southampton have uncovered evidence from ancient rocks that the Earth’s climate continued to fluctuate during its most extreme ice age – known as Snowball Earth.
UC Riverside researchers have discovered a piece that was missing in previous descriptions of the way Earth recycles its carbon. As a result, they believe that global warming can overcorrect […]
Determining the habitability of terrestrial exoplanets is a complex problem that represents the next major step for the astrophysical community.
