Earth news stories

Continents on Ancient Earth Were Created by Giant Meteorite Impacts, Scientists Find
11th August 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth

To date, Earth is the only planet we know of that has continents. Exactly how they formed and evolved is unclear, but we do know – because the edges of continents thousands of miles apart match up – that, at one time long ago, Earth’s landmass was concentrated in one big supercontinent.

Can artificial intelligence really help us talk to the animals?
2nd August 2022 | theguardian.com | Animal Life, Earth, Tech, Weird

A California-based organisation wants to harness the power of machine learning to decode communication across the entire animal kingdom. But the project has its doubters

Crustaceans Discovered ‘Pollinating’ Seaweeds in Scientific First
2nd August 2022 | sciencealert.com | Animal Life, Earth, Humans

The study, conducted by research groups based in France and Chile, is the first to document a seaweed species that depends on small marine crustaceans bespeckled in pollen-like spores to reproduce.

‘Never seen anything like it’: Impeccably preserved Jurassic fish fossils found on UK farm
31st July 2022 | livescience.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

A farm in England was the unlikely source of a Jurassic jackpot: a treasure trove of 183 million-year-old fossils.

Earth’s ancient water cycle was key to making continents, study shows
29th July 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Earth

A new Curtin University study has found that water was transported much deeper in the early Earth than previously thought, shedding new light on how the continents were originally formed.

Magnetism in Ancient Crystals Reveals When Earth’s Inner Core Emerged
28th July 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth

Researchers have been able to use an analysis of ancient rock crystals – and the magnetism records locked inside them – to trace back the history of Earth’s inner core across hundreds of millions of years.

Terrawatch: how mass extinctions can spur on evolution
28th July 2022 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Evidence from 252m years ago shows surviving animals bounced back stronger, fitter, faster and smarter.

Ancient ‘Canyon Diablo’ Meteorite Reveals Mysterious Diamond Crystal Structure
26th July 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth, Weird

While studying diamonds inside an ancient meteorite, scientists have found a strange, interwoven microscopic structure that has never been seen before.

1.2 billion-year-old groundwater is some of the oldest on Earth
19th July 2022 | livescience.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

Groundwater that was recently discovered deep underground in a mine in South Africa is estimated to be 1.2 billion years old. Researchers suspect that the  groundwater is some of the oldest on the planet, and its chemical interactions with the surrounding rock could offer new insights about energy production and storage in Earth’s crust.

To know the history of mammals is to know ourselves
17th July 2022 bigthink.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

The death of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to become ascendant. But the history of mammals stretches far deeper than that. The first mammals go back about 325 million years, when the ancestral mammal lineage split from the reptile line.

New fungi species unearthed in Cairngorms mountains
15th July 2022 | bbc.co.uk | Earth, Humans

The previously unknown species uncovered is from a group called Squamanita.The group includes a rare parasitic fungus nicknamed the strangler, due to its ability to take over other fungi.

 

A 4-Billion-Year-Old Piece of Earth’s Crust Has Been Identified Beneath Australia
12th July 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth

Scientists can use various clues to figure out what’s under Earth’s surface without actually having to do any digging – including firing super-fine lasers thinner than a human hair at minerals found in beach sand.

New genetic research on remote Pacific islands yields surprising findings on world’s earliest seafarers
3rd July 2022 | eurekalert.org | Ancient, Earth, Humans

New genetic research from remote islands in the Pacific offers fresh insights into the ancestry and culture of the world’s earliest seafarers, including family structure, social customs, and the ancestral populations of the people living there today.

Image from: Image:Oceania ISO 3166-1.svg (Wiki Commons)

Explosion of life on Earth linked to heavy metal act at planet’s centre
3rd July 2022 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Formation of solid iron core 550m years ago restored magnetic field and protected surface.

Scientists decipher, catalog the diverse origins of Earth’s minerals; will inform models of life’s history, help find new minerals,​ habitable planets, extraterrestrial life
2nd July 2022 | eurekalert.org | Earth, Humans

An innovative new perspective on mineralogy, findings rank amongst the field’s most important in the last century.

Rise of the dinosaurs traced back to their adaptation to cold
2nd July 2022 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Fossil hunters have traced the rise of the dinosaurs back to the freezing winters the beasts endured while roaming around the far north

News stories covering the environment, plant life, and the Earth itself.