Our species likes it cold. Homo sapiens evolved in — and still inhabits — one of Earth’s rare and fragile ice ages, periods distinguished not by an abundance of saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths ...

The history of Earth is written on the great tablets of tectonic plates. The motions of plates shaped land masses, formed oceans, and created the varied climates and habitats that set the stage for ...

Earth’s Ediacaran Period, roughly 630 to 540 million years ago, has always been something of a magnetic minefield for scientists. During earlier and later time periods, tectonic plates kept a steady ...

As a kid, it was tough for me to grasp the massive time scale of Earth’s history. Now, with nearly two decades of experience as a geologist, I think one of the best ways to understand our planet’s ...

When you think about a large asteroid impact, you might imagine a moment of devastation: a violent collision, a blast of heat and debris, and then years of atmospheric disruption and damage left ...