Earth and Planetary Sciences Content

Hayabusa-2 Sample Return Mission Suggests Protracted Wetter Asteroids

Andy Fell — September 16, 2025 - 4:36pm

New results from the Hayabusa-2 space probe show that asteroids formed at the very beginnings of our Solar System retained substantial amounts of water for hundreds of millions of years, potentially delivering water to Earth and other planets for much longer than previously thought. The work by a large international team, including Professor Qing-Zhu Yin at the ɫ��ɫ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, was published Sept. 10 in Nature.

How Did Animals Eat Before Mouths?

Andy Fell — September 12, 2025 - 11:09am

More than half a billion years ago, during the Ediacaran Period, animal life looked nothing like today. Strange cup- and disk-shaped creatures sat and crawled along an ocean floor covered in thick microbial mats made of bacteria and algae. The only clues these organisms left to their lifestyles exist in the fossil record.

Nowcasting and the Kamchatka Earthquake

Andy Fell — August 07, 2025 - 9:54am

The July 29 earthquake on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula was among the most powerful recorded by modern instruments, setting off tsunami warnings around the Pacific rim. The magnitude 8.8 earthquake caused part of the peninsula to sink by about six feet and set off volcanic eruptions, according to the Unified Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Fortunately, there do not appear to have been any fatalities or major damage.

Rainy Tropics Could Face Unprecedented Droughts as an Atlantic Current Slows

Andy Fell — July 30, 2025 - 8:00am

New research warns that global rainfall patterns could shift dramatically as a result of climate change

Massive Burps of Carbon Dioxide Led to Oxygen-less Ocean Environments in the Deep Past

Andy Fell — June 23, 2025 - 12:00pm

New research from the ɫ��ɫ, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Texas A&M University reveals that massive emissions, or burps, of carbon dioxide from natural earth systems led to significant decreases in ocean oxygen concentrations some 300 million years ago.

Diving in Antarctica

Andy Fell — February 11, 2025 - 2:06pm

The McMurdo Dry Valleys don’t look like they belong in Antarctica. Largely devoid of snow, the landscape is mostly dirt and rock. When explorer Robert Falcon Scott trekked the area in 1903, he referred to it as “the valley of the dead.”

But that name is a misnomer. While life may not be evident to the naked eye, beneath the icy surface of Lake Fryxell, microscopic communities teem with life. Microbes, nematode worms and tardigrades thrive in this environment.

Buried Alive: Carbon Dioxide Release From Magma Deep Beneath Ancient Volcanoes a Hidden Driver of Earth’s Past Climate

Andy Fell — October 30, 2024 - 2:34pm

An international team of geoscientists led by a volcanologist at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and including Maxwell Rudolph, associate professor in the ɫ��ɫ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has discovered that, contrary to present scientific understanding, ancient volcanoes continued to spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from deep within the Earth long past their period of eruptions.

Taking the Earth’s Temperature Over the Past 485 Million Years

Andy Fell — September 19, 2024 - 10:36am

Palm trees in Alaska, crocodiles in Wyoming: Fossils show that Earth’s temperature has changed over hundreds of millions of years. Now a new study co-led by the Smithsonian and the University of Arizona, with Professor Isabel Montañez of the ɫ��ɫ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has produced a curve of global mean surface temperatures over the past 485 million years. The new curve, published Sept. 19 in Science, reveals that Earth’s temperature has varied more than previously thought as life has diversified, populated land and endured multiple mass extinctions.

Recent Volcanoes on the Moon?

Andy Fell — September 04, 2024 - 3:09pm

New results from China’s Chang’e 5 lunar samples returned to Earth provide evidence for active volcanoes on the Moon as recently as 120 million years ago. Previously, scientists had thought that any activity with magma (molten rock) rising to the Moon’s surface ended billions of years ago.

No Evidence of a Common Set of Regeneration Genes

Andy Fell — August 19, 2024 - 2:57pm

Some animals, especially those that have been around for a long time in evolutionary terms, possess extraordinary abilities to regenerate lost limbs or organs. These animals, such as flatworms, salamanders and zebrafish, are not at all closely related, suggesting that the ability to regenerate goes far back in evolutionary time. Is it possible to find a common set of genes for regeneration, that could unlock a new understanding of this process?