Geology

The MESSENGER spacecraft has been orbiting Mercury since March 2011 and has been revealing new information about the surface chemistry and geological history of the innermost planet in the solar…

If you are flying an airplane and detect an unusual odor in a confined space 5 miles up in the air, what can it be? Burritos for lunch?    Not this time. The foul smell with traces of…

An 8.6 magnitude earthquake occurred 62 miles off the coast of Sumatra on April 11th, 2012.  Along with being severe by any measure, in one way it was the largest earthquake in observed human…

Reading media accounts, it seems the past decade has witnessed what seems to be a cluster of large earthquakes, with massive events in Sumatra, Chile, Haiti and Japan since 2004. Some hypothesize…

The earthquake that shook Sumatra on on April 11, 2012 is distinct, not just because it was  magnitude-8.6 but also because it was both larger than scientists thought an earthquake of its…

Compared to most moons in our solar system, Titan is relatively smooth. It has few craters  but Titan is around four billion years old, about the same age as the rest of the solar system - so it…

A new study says a portion of the groundwater in the upper Patapsco aquifer underlying Maryland is truly ancient- over a million years old.  The work from the US Geological Survey, the Maryland…

Space is an extremely hostile environment. You knew that, though no one wants to think about exploding instantly as their blood boils without an atmosphere (or it does not - like how airplanes fly,…

Molecules containing large chains of carbon and hydrogen, which happen to be the building blocks of all life on Earth, have been found in meteorites from Mars but scientists have been unsure how this…

Based on new fossil evidence, the age of the Rhine river is five million years older than previously believed. The famous Rhine of song and legend flows through Switzerland, Austria,…