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The early Earth was hotter than it is today and this affected the strength of the crust and mantle.

The Earth has a pulse — a 27.5-million-year cycle of geological...

An artistic representation of the potentially habitable planet Kepler 422-b (left), compared with Earth (right). Credit: Ph03nix1986 / Wikimedia Commons

Earth-like biospheres on other planets may be rare

Zircons studied by the research team, photographed using cathodoluminescence, a technique that allowed the team to visualize the interiors of the crystals using a specialized scanning electron microscope. Dark circles on the zircons are the cavities left by the laser that was used to analyze the age and chemistry of the zircons.Scientists led by Michael Ackerson, a research geologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, provide new evidence that modern plate tectonics, a defining feature of Earth and its unique ability to support life, emerged roughly 3.6 billion years ago. The study, published May 14 in the journal Geochemical Perspective Letters, uses zircons, the oldest minerals ever found on Earth, to peer back into the planet's ancient past.The team tested more than 3,500 zircons, each just a couple of human hairs wide, by blasting them with a laser and then measuring their chemical composition with a mass spectrometer. These tests revealed the age and underlying chemistry of each zircon. Of the thousands tested, about 200 were fit for study due to the ravages of the billions of years these minerals endured since their creation. Credit: Michael Ackerson, Smithsonian.

Earth’s oldest minerals date onset of plate tectonics to 3.6 billion...

McGill Colloidal Au research team study a mineralized (gold-bearing) vein underground at the Brucejack mine. Credit: Duncan McLeish

Clues from soured milk reveal how gold veins form

The quantitative model used in the study explains the enigmatic melt degrees and layered structures observed in most cratons on Earth.

Where on Earth is all the water?

Karen Heeter overlooks Yellowstone from Republic Pass on a tree coring excursion in July 2018. Credit: Grant L. Harley

Yellowstone National Park is hotter than ever

This study site was used by researchers to examine a portion of the Oman–United Arab Emirates ophiolite’s metamorphic sole. Credit: Tyler Ambrose

A closer look at the creation of a metamorphic sole

The Earth has a layered internal structure with the crust, upper mantle, mantle transition zone, lower mantle, outer core, and inner core from the surface to the center. In the Earth’s formation stage at approximately 4.6 billion years ago, the heavy metal components were separated from silicates and sank in the magma ocean, and a core formed at the center of the Earth. In this core-mantle separation process, partitioning of noble gases between the core and mantle occurred. Credit: Taku Tsuchiya, Ehime University

A deep reservoir of primordial helium in the Earth

From left, University of Wyoming students Shane Scoggin, Adam Trzinski and Jessie Shields are part of new research investigating crustal melting in western North America. Here, they examine igneous rocks in the Snake Range of Nevada. Credit: Jay Chapman

Scientists probe mysterious melting of Earth’s crust in western North America

DeMMO field team from left to right: Lily Momper, Brittany Kruger, and Caitlin Casar sampling fracture fluids from a DeMMO borehole installation. Credit: ©Matt Kapust

Earth’s crust mineralogy drives hotspots for intraterrestrial life

Isua in Greenland Credit: Hanika Rizo

Traces of Earth’s early magma ocean identified in Greenland rocks

Despite ESA’s GOCE mission ending over seven years ago, scientists continue to use this remarkable satellite’s gravity data to delve deep and unearth secrets about our planet. Recent research shows how scientists have combined GOCE data with measurements taken at the surface to generate a new model of Earth’s crust and upper mantle. This is the first time such a model has been created this way – and it is shedding new light on the processes of plate tectonics. The new model produced in ESA’s 3D Earth study shows for the first time how dissimilar the sub-lithospheric mantle is beneath different oceans, and provides insight as to how the morphology and spreading rates of mid-oceanic ridges may be connected with the deep chemical and thermal structure. Credit: ESA/Planetary Visions)

Gravity mission still unearthing hidden secrets

A transmitted light view through a 200-micron section of a peridotite sample, showing the three main minerals - olivine (clear-green), orthopyroxene (grey-green) and garnet (pink). Credit: Dr Emma Tomlinson, Trinity College Dublin.

A new, clearer insight into Earth’s hidden crystals

The colorful banded Tepees are part of the Blue Mesa Member, a geological feature about 220 million to 225 million years old in the Chinle Formation in Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Credit: NPS

How rocks rusted on Earth and turned red

A graphic showing the convective heat cycle (red arrows) that drives plate tectonic motion (black arrows) on Earth. Heat flows toward subduction zones through the uppermost mantle layer, the asthenosphere. A computer model from Rice University finds that the asthenosphere can locally drag plates along with it rather than acting exclusively as a brake on plate movements as had been widely believed. (Image courtesy of Surachit/Wikimedia Commons)

Former piece of Pacific Ocean floor imaged deep beneath China

Fragments of the Oued Awlitis 001 meteorites acquired by the Ludovic-Ferrière. Credit: University of Manchester

Donwilhelmsite : New mineral from the moon could explain what happens...

Planet Earth. and You!

Geologist helps confirm date of earliest land plants on Earth

Structure layers of the earth.

A new way of looking at the Earth’s interior

Brazilian emeralds in a quartz-pegmatite matrix. (Photo courtesy of Madereugeneandrew/Wikimedia Commons)

Earth grows fine gems in minutes

Pioneering new research has helped geologists solve a long-standing puzzle that could help pinpoint new, untapped concentrations of some the most valuable rare earth deposits. Credit: Michael Anenburg, ANU.

Geologists solve puzzle that could predict valuable rare earth element deposits

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