Is it possible for a rocky planet to have too much internal heating to maintain a habitable surface environment? In the Solar System, the best example of a world with […]
By studying prehistoric rocks and fossils emerging from the side of Mount Ashibetsu in Japan, researchers have precisely refined the timing and duration of Ocean Anoxic Event 1a (OAE 1a), […]
A new study from USGS describes a previously unknown process of marine mineral formation in the Arctic Ocean, driven by frictional heating along tectonic faults rather than by hydrothermal activity.
Due to its size and tidal heating, Europa may potentially possess active volcanism and hydrothermal circulation at its seafloor.
Many super-Earths are on very short orbits around their host star and, therefore, more likely to be tidally locked.
New research by University of Texas at Dallas geoscientist Dr. Robert Stern and a colleague suggests a geological explanation for why conclusive evidence for advanced extraterrestrial (ET) civilizations has not […]
Hydrothermal vents are seeps on the sea floor from which hot liquids escape. “Water penetrates into the ocean floor where it is heated by magma. The overheated water then rises […]
As life on Earth rapidly expanded a little over 500 million years ago during the “Cambrian explosion,” Earth had tectonic plates slowly crashing into each other, building mountains and starting […]
Direct geological evidence of recent volcanic activity on Venus has been observed for a second time. Scientists in Italy analyzed archival data from NASA’s Magellan mission to reveal surface changes […]
The Atacama in northern Chile is the oldest and driest desert on Earth. While tectonic activity reconfigured the shape and arrangement of land masses over the last 150 million years, […]
