Could the oldest rocks under our feet be the remains of a planet that is now extinct? This is the kind of question that ...

A team of scientists digging up some of the Earth’s oldest rocks has uncovered new chemical evidence that Earth’s first animals were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. The discovery relies on ...

For roughly 2 billion years of Earth's early history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen, the essential ingredient required ...

Oxygen began entering Earth's oceans around 2.32 billion years ago, and shallow seas followed within a few million years.

In a first, researchers have discovered fragments of Earth's precursor that contain distinctive chemical fingerprints in ancient rocks from Greenland, Canada and Hawaii. When you purchase through ...

When the early Earth’s magma ocean crystallized 4.4 billion years ago, the deep mantle trapped an ocean’s worth of water, ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. At a certain point in Earth’s distant past, the planet’s ...

These altered, hydrogen-producing rocks behave like natural reactors. They offer clues to how deep-ocean chemistry works today and to how early life may have first powered itself billions of years ago ...

The story of Earth is the story of change. The 4.5 billion years of this planet’s history saw it transformed from a hellish world of magma oceans and poisonous air to a temperate, habitable home ...

Before sunlight ever reached the planet, another force may have sparked life—electricity. Deep beneath the ocean floor, ancient hydrothermal vents might have generated natural electric fields strong ...

For decades, helium has been produced with natural gas, generating huge carbon emissions. Now, geologists are looking for new helium sources — and finding enormous "carbon-free" reservoirs that could ...