In the whole history of Earth's climate, few events are as extreme as those that geologists call "Snowball Earth." ...

Tiny zircon crystals are revealing that Earth’s earliest history may have included surprisingly complex tectonic activity.

Millions of people around the world will pause on Tuesday, at least for a moment, to mark Earth Day. It's an annual event founded by people who hoped to stir activism to clean up and preserve a planet ...

Researchers studying the deep biosphere, Earth’s largest ecosystem, have found evidence that life thriving miles below the ...

It's tough accomplishing everything we want to get done in a day. But it would have been even more difficult had we lived earlier in Earth's history. Although we take the 24-hour day for granted, in ...

Life made the modern Earth as much as the Earth made life, a new book by a philosopher of consciousness argues. That dynamic leaves humans with a unique set of moral questions, Peter Godfrey-Smith of ...

Earth froze over 717 million years ago. Ice crept down from the poles to the equator, and the dark subglacial seas suffocated ...

Earth's magnetic field preserved the planet's habitability at two key points in its history, scientists have said. By developing a strong shield around the planet early after it formed, the magnetic ...

Learn about how Earth’s history is written in its rocks with this excerpt from “How to Read a Rock” Jan Zalasiewicz The pine tree, in this age-old relationship, is supported by the rock, and gains ...

Over four millennia ago, in the final days of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, a drought swept over the region, afflicting lands as far away as Greece and what’s now Pakistan. Probably driven by ...

Ultimately, to understand how the Earth’s carbon cycle works is to appreciate the human influence currently impacting it. Getty Images, James Cawley This is the second in a five-part series written by ...