November 26, 2020 Looking down from the International Space Station (ISS), an astronaut captured this view of the northwest coastline of Saudi Arabia, where up to 260 coral reef species thrive. The salty, warm waters off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula create an optimal environment for coral reefs to grow, mainly […]
New data indicating that the planet’s surface broke up about 3.2 billion years ago helps clarify how shifting plates drove the evolution of complex life. Igneous rocks that formed (from left) 3.43, 3.24, 3.18, 3.07, and 2.74 billion years ago span from before to after the onset of plate tectonics. […]
Archean Maniitsoq structure in Greenland. Credit: University of Waterloo Several years after scientists discovered what was considered the oldest crater a meteorite made on the planet, another team found it’s actually the result of normal geological processes. During fieldwork at the Archean Maniitsoq structure in Greenland, an international team of […]
March 20, 2020. (Click HERE for high-resolution view.) In the vastness of one of the world’s oldest deserts lies a relatively recent geologic feature: the Roter Kamm crater (“Red Comb” in German). An astronaut onboard the International Space Station photographed the crater while orbiting over the Namib Desert. It is […]
This image, also featured on the Earth from Space video program, was captured on January 12, 2020 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission – a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus program. Credit: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA […]
ANIMATION While there are efforts to reinforce its beaches and marshes, some of Barataria Bay is slowly slipping away Sandwiched between the Mississippi River and Bayou Lafourche, the Barataria Bay in Louisiana is a latticework of shrinking marsh, swamp, and islands. Few other coastlines in the Mississippi River Delta—or anywhere […]
January 5, 2021 In spring and summer, conditions are often just right for populations of the plant-like organisms explode into enormous blooms. The Goldilocks zone typically refers to the habitable area around a star where conditions are right for the existence of liquid water and possibly life. But on Earth, […]
ANIMATION After two years of quiet, Kilauea, Hawaii’s youngest and most active volcano, is erupting again. In the early days of the volcano’s latest eruption, water that had pooled in the volcano’s summit crater (Halema‘uma‘u) since July 2019 was replaced by a lava lake. The water boiled off on December 20, 2020, […]
Overview of the study area and the schematic illustration of interaction of fault motion and the seafloor subsidence. Credit: University of Tsukuba University of Tsukuba researchers have developed a state-of-the-art model, which has revealed major complexity in rupture processes even in simple oceanic faults. Researchers from the University of Tsukuba […]
August 15, 2020. (Click here for wide, high-resolution image.) If you accidentally stumbled upon the town of Huacachina, you might think it is a mirage. Huacachina is centered around a lagoon lined with lush vegetation—all located in the driest desert in the world. Snuggled between the biggest sand dunes in […]