Geology, ecosystems, land systems, and the forces shaping our planet.
A study in The Seismic Record has revealed a striking underground feature in south-central Alaska. Researchers led by Meghan Miller of the Australian National University used machine learning to identify thousands of tiny earthquakes, including about 1,750 that trace a nearly straight 250-kilometer line beneath the Alaska Range. That line appears to mark the sharp…
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A study in Nature Geoscience has identified a giant fan-shaped province of buried basins beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The structure connects some of the continent’s best-known hidden landscapes and may preserve a deep record of the breakup of Gondwana. The research team named the feature the East Antarctic Fan-Shaped Basin Province. It lies…
NOAA’s National Ocean Service explains that Earth’s highest point depends on the ruler being used. Mount Everest remains the world’s highest peak above global mean sea level, while Ecuador’s Chimborazo reaches farther from Earth’s center because the planet bulges near the equator. The finding turns a familiar classroom fact into a sharper lesson about measurement.…
A study in Communications Earth & Environment found that the buried hot-water system beneath the dinosaur-killing Chicxulub crater lasted for at least 8 million years. The result pushes the crater’s hidden afterlife far beyond earlier estimates and gives scientists a rare, measurable window into how impact craters can remain warm, wet and potentially habitable long…
