Geology
Early rocks to reveal their ages
A new technique has been helping scientists piece together how the Earth’s continents were arranged 2.5 billion years ago. The novel method allows scientists to recover rare minerals from rocks.
By analysing the composition of these minerals, researchers can precisely date ancient volcanic rocks for the first time. By aligning rocks that have a [...]
Space rock yields carbon bounty
Formic acid, a molecule implicated in the origins of life, has been found at record levels on a meteorite that fell into a Canadian lake in 2000. Cold temperatures on Tagish Lake prevented the volatile chemical from dissipating quickly.
An analysis showed four times more formic acid in the fragments than has been recorded on [...]
Geological mapping gets joined up
The world’s geologists have dug out their maps and are sticking them together to produce the first truly global resource of the world’s rocks. The OneGeology project pools existing data about what lies under our feet and has made it available on the web.
Led by the British Geological Survey (BGS), the project involved geologists [...]
