Geology

Earth may not have possessed the continents it does now if not for life, instead becoming a planet covered nearly entirely in ocean.

New research finds that the 4.3 billion-year-old diamonds reported in two papers in 2007 and 2008 could actually be contaminants introduced into geological samples from Australia.

A new study challenges the idea that mineral species on Earth today are much the same as they were billions of years ago when life first arose on our planet.

Scientists have proposed a new theory for how the contents of Earth formed as a by-product of mountain-building.

A new study is helping scientists better-understand the behavior of methane deep inside planetary interiors.

Astrobiologists have discovered ancient pockets of water that have been isolated deep underground for billions of years. The water is trapped in rocks that are similar to rocks known to be on Mars, and it contains abundant chemicals known to support life.

Scientists have provided new information about the relationship between oxygen in Earth's early atmosphere and the sulfur cycle. The study could shed light on how oxygen accumulated in Earth's atmosphere - an event that had profound implications for life on our planet.

A new study suggests that the way carbon moves from within a planet to the surface plays a big role in the evolution of a planet’s atmosphere. If Mars released much of its carbon as methane, for example, it might have been warm enough to

NASA researchers have deployed repurposed military UAVs to study a volcano. The technology could be effective for gathering data about volcanic ash and gases from otherwise inaccessible locations.

Earth scientists have determined why the movement of Earth's crust doesn't always happen smoothly.