“The timing and rate of early crustal growth on Earth remains contentious due to the scarcity of very ancient rocks,” are quite rare, but I think the history of the first crustal growth was much ...

Sapphires are among the most precious gems, yet they consist solely of chemically 'contaminated' aluminum oxide, or corundum. It is widely assumed that these crystals with their characteristically ...

A study published on March 24 by two researchers from Yale’s Earth and planetary sciences department adjusts the timeline of continental crust formation to start approximately 650 to 750 million years ...

For years, scientists have wondered if a certain stretch of rock in Canada could be home to the world’s oldest rocks, and now ...

The ChemCam laser instrument on NASA’s Curiosity rover has turned its beam onto some unusually light-colored rocks on Mars, and the results are surprisingly similar to Earth’s granitic continental ...

(Left) Schematic illustration of a kink structure. (Center) Kink bands observed in mudstone near Fort Island, Rhode Island. (Right) Large-scale kink structure in Southern California, USA. Your first ...

An ocean that opened up in what is now Mongolia 410 million years ago was created by a hot upwelling of rock known as a mantle plume. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

Astronomers have carried out the first estimates of rock types that exist on planets orbiting nearby stars. The team found the rock types are composed of exotic and diverse materials not found ...

I recently participated in a three-week-long, National Science Foundation-funded research cruise to the Mariana Trench. Our target was an east-to-west transect starting near Guam, over the Challenger ...