Red jasper cored from layers 3.46 billion years old suggests that not only did the oceans contain abundant oxygen then, but that the atmosphere was as oxygen rich as it is today, according to geologists. This jasper or hematite-rich chert formed in ways similar to the way this rock forms around hydrothermal vents in the deep oceans today. "Many people have assumed that the hematite in ancient...

The discovery by Indian and British scientists that the Earth’s strong outer shell – the ‘lithosphere’ – within the central Indian Ocean began to deform and fracture 15.4–13.9 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought, impacts our understanding of the birth of the Himalayas and the strengthening of the Indian-Asian monsoon. India and Asia collided ...

The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) was lofted into a near-Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit by a Rockot launcher lifting off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia on March 17. 2009. With this launch, a new chapter in the history of Earth observation in Europe has begun. GOCE is the first of a new fami...

University of Montana researcher Scott Mills and his students have noticed an exceptional number of white snowshoe hares on brown earth. He contends that climate change and the color mismatch are causing much more hare mortality. On an unseasonably warm May afternoon, University of Montana wildlife biology Professor Scott Mills treks into the shadowy forests above the Seeley-Swan Valley in pursuit...

A Monash geoscientist and a team of international researchers have discovered the existence of an ocean floor was destroyed 50 to 20 million years ago, proving that New Caledonia and New Zealand are geographically connected. Using new computer modelling programs Wouter Schellart and the team reconstructed the prehistoric cataclysm that took place when a tectonic plate between Australia and New Zea...

Astrobiologists have often pondered "life as we do not know it" in the context of extraterrestrial life, says Paul Davies, an internationally acclaimed theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Arizona State University. "But," he asks, "has there been a blind spot to the possibility of `alien` life on Earth?" Davies challengeed the orthodox view that there is only one ...

A major mystery about the origins of life has been resolved. According to a study published in the journal Nature, two Université de Montréal scientists have proposed a new theory for how a universal molecular machine, the ribosome, managed to self-assemble as a critical step in the genesis of all life on Earth. "While the ribosome is a complex structure it features a clear hier...

Space scientists from the University of Leicester are keeping a close eye on a ‘green comet’ fast approaching the Earth – reaching its nearest point to us on February 24. Comet Lulin will streak by the earth within 38 million miles – 160 times farther than the moon -and is expected to be visible to the naked eye. Discovered only a year ago, the comet gains its green colour ...

By controlling emissions of fossil fuels we may be able to greatly delay the start of the next ice age, new research from the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen concludes. From an Earth history perspective, we are living in cold times. The greatest climate challenge mankind has faced has been surviving ice ages that have dominated climate during the past million years. Therefore it i...

Ecology and conservation biologist at the University of Leicester, Dr David Harper, who has conducted research for over 25 years at Lake Naivasha in Kenya, has warned that cut-price Valentine roses exported for sale in the UK were ‘bleeding that country dry’. Dr Harper, of the University’s Department of Biology where he is a senior lecturer, claimed that cheap roses grown by comp...