Was Early Earth a Fiery Hell or Packed with Life?

Conventional wisdom among geologists has always been that the first several million years in Earth's 4.5 billion-year history were an age of lava and fire. Nothing could possibly live in on the burning planet until at least 3.2 billion years ago - or so scientists thought. A new study of 4 billion-year-old rocks (at left above) published in Nature reveals the early Earth (right) may have been fairly chilly, and also packed with life. More »

Magnetic Anomaly Map of the World

This map shows areas on the globe where there are disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field. Here, red indicates a stronger magnetic tug, and blue a weaker one (white lines are the edges of tectonic plates). As you can see, disturbances are fairly regularly distributed, but that doesn't stop UFO enthusiasts from saying aliens have a hand in these magnetic fluctuations. Science, however, has a slightly different explanation for why certain objects (including submarines) create a shift in the magnetic field. More »

Why Mount St. Helens Has Been Erupting Continuously for Four Years

Mount St Helens, a volcano long believed to be dormant in Washington State in the U.S., freaked people out back in 1980 when it suddenly erupted and spewed tons of lava and boiling mud into the air (as you can see in this picture). It calmed down for a few years, but in 2004 it started slowly erupting, and has been oozing sticky clumps of lava continuously since then. As it erupts, it also unleashes constant small earthquakes in the areas nearby. Now a Michigan Tech researcher has braved the lava-slicked slopes of Mount St Helens do do some of the most detailed seismic research on the volcano ever. And he thinks he knows what's causing all the shakes. More »