The Conversation organised a public question-and-answer session on Reddit in which James Dyke, a lecturer in Complex System Simulation, discussed planetary boundaries and whether global industrialised…
The planet Earth’s inner core is not a single solid mass but comprised of two layers, and new evidence about the core’s composition from a team of US and Chinese geophysicists suggests that the innermost…
A British volcanologist has won one of the most prestigious awards in science – the Vetlesen Prize, which is considered to be the earth sciences equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Stephen Sparks of the University…
The Earth’s climate has always changed. All species eventually become extinct. But a new study has brought into sharp relief the fact that humans have, in the context of geological timescales, produced…
Ten years on from the devastating Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami, our understanding of very large earthquakes has grown enormously. From satellites monitoring changes on the Earth’s surface to drilling…
Plate tectonics – the large-scale movement of Earth’s lithosphere or outer layers – started around three billion years ago, but how those movements started was a bit of a mystery – until today. With colleagues…
Environmentalism is undergoing a radical transformation. New science has shown how long-held notions about trying to “save the planet” and preserve the life we have today no longer apply. Instead, a growing…
AUSTRALIA 2025: How will science address the challenges of the future? In collaboration with Australia’s chief scientist Ian Chubb, we’re asking how each science discipline will contribute to Australia…
Our planet’s interior is complex and has many layers. Their formation and structure contain many unsolved mysteries. But new research is providing some clues about how Earth’s internal structure may have…
Injecting fluids into the Earth, whether to recover natural gas or to obtain thermal energy from the planet, can cause earthquakes. New reports that look at American fracking, deep waste-water injection…
For centuries, the shallow parts of the earth’s crust have provided us with fuels to burn in our fireplaces, foundries and generators. Now, as we try to break free from our reliance on some of the dirtier…
You’ll know by now that six scientists and a government official have been found guilty of manslaughter (as reported yesterday) and sentenced to six years in prison for how they assessed and communicated…
A hole in the Arctic ozone layer grew at unprecedented levels this year, a new study has found, exposing densely populated northern hemisphere countries to potentially harmful levels of UV radiation. The…
We know a lot about how humans evolved. But when it comes to our planet, we’re on shakier ground. Inert (nonreactive) gases, such as helium, neon and argon, trapped inside the mantle (Earth’s thickest…