Geology

Steam and heat from volcanoes may have allowed plants and animals to survive during ancient ice ages on Earth.

A new study on the effect of frequent impacts on the crust of the early Earth could help determine whether or not evidence of these violent events can still be found in the planet's geological record.

MIT researchers find that the end-Permian extinction happened in 60,000 years — much faster than earlier estimates.

Earth's crust was unstable in the Archean eon and dripped down into the mantle. Model calculations indicate that the extreme density of the base of the thickened primary crust caused it to subside into Earth's mantle.

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.