"A previously overlooked factor — the position of continents — helps fill Earth’s oceans with life-supporting oxygen. Continental movement could ultimately have the opposite effect, killing most deep ocean creatures. 'Continental drift seems so slow, like nothing drastic could come from it, but when the ocean is primed, even a seemingly tiny event could trigger...

"Geology Professor Andy Ridgwell has been named a 2021 fellow of the American Geophysical Union, or AGU, one of the most significant honors a scientist in earth sciences can receive. AGU is a large international society dedicated to promoting Earth and space science. It elects fewer than 0.1% of its 60,000 members each year to...

Tiny, seemingly harmless ocean plants survived the darkness of the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs by learning a ghoulish behavior — eating other living creatures. Vast amounts of debris, soot, and aerosols shot into the atmosphere when an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the planet into darkness, cooling the climate...

"The earliest instrumental records of Earth’s climate, as measured by thermometers and other tools, start in the 1850s. To look further back in time, scientists investigate air bubbles trapped in ice cores, which expands the window to less than a million years. But to study Earth’s history over tens to hundreds of millions of years...