As conceived by Charles Darwin in the 1800s, evolution is a slow, gradual process during which species adaptations are inherited incrementally over generations. However, today biologists can see how evolutionary changes unfold on much more accelerated tim

Geochemist Alexandra Phillips has sulfur on her mind. The yellow element is a vital macronutrient, and she's trying to understand how it cycles through the environment. Specifically, she's curious about the sulfur cycle in Earth's ancient ocean, some 3

In the 1800s, some of the strongest earthquakes in recorded U.S. history struck North America's continental interior. Almost two centuries later, the central and eastern United States may still be experiencing aftershocks from those events, a new study f

A few decades ago, seismologists imaging the deep planet identified a thin layer, just over a few hundred kilometers thick. The origin of this layer, known as the E prime layer, has been a mystery -- until now.

Scientists know very little about conditions in the ocean when life first evolved, but new research published in Nature Geoscience has revealed how geological processes controlled which nutrients were available to fuel their development.

Textbooks on biology and forestry make it clear that large parts of Europe would naturally be covered by dense forests.

As the primary element of life on our planet, carbon is constantly journeying from living creatures down into the Earth's crust and back up into the atmosphere, but until recently, quantifying this journey was virtually impossible.

New dates provide detailed insights into the timing of events in the ancient city of Gezer, according to a study published November 15, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lyndelle Webster of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and colleague

In the geological past, several groups of crocodiles evolved towards a morphology adapted to marine life. However, the extent of these adaptations and their evolutionary trajectories remained unknown. An exhaustive study of their morphology by a scientifi

Once a favored food of grazing dinosaurs, an ancient lineage of plants called cycads helped sustain these and other prehistoric animals during the Mesozoic Era, starting 252 million years ago, by being plentiful in the forest understory. Today, just a few

The story of Ekgmowechashala, the final primate to inhabit North America before Homo sapiens or Clovis people, reads like a spaghetti western: A grizzled and mysterious loner, against the odds, ekes out an existence on the American Plains.

The discovery of 27 avian footprints on the southern Australia coast -- dating back to the Early Cretaceous when Australia was still connected to Antarctica -- opens another window onto early avian evolution and possible migratory behavior.