Geology News

October 25, 2025

Top Headlines

Earth Is Splitting Open Beneath the Pacific Northwest

Oct. 25, 2025 — For the first time, scientists have seen a subduction zone actively breaking apart beneath the Pacific Northwest. Seismic data show the oceanic plate tearing into fragments, forming microplates in a slow, step-by-step collapse. This process, once ...

China’s Coastal Cities Are Sinking as Seas Rise at Record Speed

Oct. 23, 2025 — Sea levels are rising faster than at any time in 4,000 years, scientists report, with China’s major coastal cities at particular risk. The rapid increase is driven by warming oceans and melting ice, while human activities like groundwater pumping ...

They Were Drilling Off Oregon. What They Found Could Shake All of California

Oct. 23, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered evidence that megaquakes in the Pacific Northwest might trigger California’s San Andreas Fault. A research ship’s navigational error revealed paired sediment layers ...

The Red Sea That Vanished and the Catastrophic Flood That Brought It Back

Oct. 8, 2025 — Researchers at KAUST have confirmed that the Red Sea once vanished entirely, turning into a barren salt desert before being suddenly flooded by waters from the Indian Ocean. The flood carved deep channels and restored marine life in less than ...

Japan’s Hot Springs Hold Clues to the Origins of Life on Earth

Oct. 3, 2025 — Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot springs, which mimic the ancient oceans, to uncover how ...

Scientists Just Recreated a Wildfire That Made Its Own Weather

Oct. 2, 2025 — In 2020, California’s Creek Fire became so intense that it generated its own thunderstorm, a phenomenon called a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. For years, scientists struggled to replicate these explosive fire-born storms in climate models, leaving major ...

Scientists Crack the Explosive Secret of How Diamonds Reach the Surface

Sep. 24, 2025 — Diamonds hitch a ride to the surface through explosive kimberlite eruptions, powered by volatile-rich magmas. New simulations show that carbon dioxide and water are the secret ingredients that make these eruptions ...

America Is Throwing Away the Minerals That Could Power Its Future

Sep. 18, 2025 — America already mines all the critical minerals it needs for energy, defense, and technology, but most are being wasted as mine tailings. Researchers discovered that minerals like cobalt, germanium, and rare earths are discarded in massive amounts, ...

Scientists Stunned by Salt Giants Forming Beneath the Dead Sea

Sep. 18, 2025 — The Dead Sea isn’t just the saltiest body of water on Earth—it’s a living laboratory for the formation of giant underground salt deposits. Researchers are unraveling how evaporation, temperature shifts, and unusual mixing patterns lead to ...

Tiny Skaters Beneath the Arctic Ice Rewrite the Limits of Life

Sep. 12, 2025 — Hidden within Arctic ice, diatoms are proving to be anything but dormant. New Stanford research shows these glass-walled algae glide through frozen channels at record-breaking subzero temperatures, powered by mucus-like ropes and molecular motors. ...

Scientists Finally Solve the Mystery of Ghostly Halos on the Ocean Floor

Sep. 10, 2025 — Barrels dumped off Southern California decades ago have been found leaking alkaline waste, not just DDT, leaving behind eerie white halos and transforming parts of the seafloor into toxic vents. The findings reveal a persistent and little-known ...

Scientists Just Cracked a 60-million-year-old Volcanic Mystery

Sep. 7, 2025 — Cambridge scientists discovered that thin, weak zones in Earth’s plates helped spread Iceland’s mantle plume across the North Atlantic, explaining why volcanic activity once spanned thousands of kilometers. These ancient scars not only shaped ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:20pm EDT

A Clue to Ancient Life? What Scientists Found Inside Mars’ Frozen Vortex

Oct. 19, 2025 — Mars’ north polar vortex locks its atmosphere in extreme cold and darkness, freezing out water vapor and triggering a dramatic rise in ozone. Scientists found that the lack of sunlight and moisture ...

MIT Finds Traces of a Lost World Deep Within Planet Earth

Oct. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered chemical fingerprints of Earth's earliest incarnation, preserved in ancient mantle rocks. A unique imbalance in potassium isotopes points to remnants of “proto Earth” ...

Forged in Fire: The 900°C Heat That Built Earth’s Stable Continents

Oct. 16, 2025 — New research reveals that Earth’s continents owe their stability to searing heat deep in the planet’s crust. At more than 900°C, radioactive elements shifted upward, cooling and strengthening ...

California’s Next Big One Could Be Faster and Far More Destructive

Oct. 12, 2025 — Supershear earthquakes, moving faster than seismic waves, could cause catastrophic shaking across California. USC researchers warn that many faults capable of magnitude 7 quakes might produce these ...

New Simulation Reveals How Earth’s Magnetic Field First Sparked to Life

Oct. 12, 2025 — Geophysicists have modeled how Earth’s magnetic field could form even when its core was fully liquid. By removing the effects of viscosity in their simulation, they revealed a self-sustaining ...

Scientists Just Found the Shocking Reason Chile’s Quake Shook So Hard

Oct. 2, 2025 — A massive quake struck Calama, Chile, in 2024, surprising scientists with its unusual depth and destructive power. Unlike typical deep quakes, it broke past thermal limits and triggered an intense ...

Diamonds Reveal Hidden Chemistry Deep Inside Earth

Sep. 23, 2025 — South African diamonds have revealed nickel-rich metallic inclusions, offering the first direct evidence of reactions predicted to occur deep in Earth’s mantle. The study shows how oxidized melts ...

Earthquakes Release Blistering Heat That Can Melt Rock in an Instant

Sep. 19, 2025 — MIT scientists have unraveled the hidden energy balance of earthquakes by recreating them in the lab. Their findings show that while only a sliver of energy goes into the shaking we feel on the ...

Earth’s Inner Core Exists Only Because of Carbon

Sep. 4, 2025 — New research reveals that carbon made it possible for Earth’s molten core to freeze into a solid heart, stabilizing the magnetic field that protects our planet. Without it, Earth’s deep interior ...

Geologists Got It Wrong: Rivers Didn’t Need Plants to Meander

Aug. 31, 2025 — Stanford researchers reveal meandering rivers existed long before plants, overturning textbook geology. Their findings suggest carbon-rich floodplains shaped climate for billions of ...

Earlier Headlines

The Ancient Oxygen Flood That Forever Changed Life in the Oceans

Aug. 27, 2025 — Ancient forests may have fueled a deep-sea oxygen boost nearly 390 million years ago, unlocking evolutionary opportunities for jawed fish and larger marine animals. New isotopic evidence shows that ...

Mysterious Earthquake Reveals Cascadia’s Hidden Dangers

Aug. 29, 2025 — In 1954, a powerful earthquake shook Northern California near Humboldt Bay, baffling scientists for decades. Most quakes in the region come from the Gorda Plate, but this one didn’t fit the ...

Scientists Reveal How Just Two Human Decisions Rewired the Great Salt Lake Forever

Aug. 19, 2025 — Scientists found that Great Salt Lake’s chemistry and water balance were stable for thousands of years, until human settlement. Irrigation and farming in the 1800s and a railroad causeway in 1959 ...

NASA’s PREFIRE Satellites Reveal a Secret Glow Escaping from Our Planet

Aug. 17, 2025 — With its two tiny CubeSats, NASA’s PREFIRE mission is capturing invisible heat escaping from Earth, offering clues to how ice, clouds, and storms influence the climate system. The insights could ...

Myanmar’s Massive Quake Hints at Bigger Earthquakes to Come

Aug. 17, 2025 — The massive 2025 Myanmar earthquake revealed that strike slip faults can behave in surprising ways. Using satellite data, Caltech researchers found the Sagaing Fault ruptured more dramatically than ...

Ancient Predators and Giant Amphibians Found in African Fossil Treasure Trove

Aug. 13, 2025 — Over 15 years of fossil excavations in Tanzania and Zambia have revealed a vivid portrait of life before Earth s most devastating mass extinction 252 million years ago. Led by the University of ...

Scientists Stunned by Colossal Formations Hidden Under the North Sea

Aug. 14, 2025 — Beneath the North Sea, scientists have uncovered colossal sand formations, dubbed “sinkites,” that have mysteriously sunk into lighter sediments, flipping the usual geological order. Formed ...

332 Colossal Canyons Just Revealed Beneath Antarctica’s Ice

Aug. 9, 2025 — Deep beneath the Antarctic seas lies a hidden network of 332 colossal submarine canyons, some plunging over 4,000 meters, revealed in unprecedented detail by new high-resolution mapping. These ...

Snowless Winter? Arctic Field Team Finds Flowers and Meltwater Instead

July 23, 2025 — Scientists in Svalbard were shocked to find rain and greenery instead of snow during Arctic winter fieldwork. The event highlights not just warming—but a full seasonal shift with major consequences ...

Watch the Earth Split in Real Time: Stunning Footage Reveals a 2.5-Meter Fault Slip in Seconds

July 22, 2025 — A colossal 7.7 magnitude earthquake rocked central Myanmar in March 2025, marking the strongest quake in over a century. What makes this event groundbreaking isn't just the seismic power, ...

The Earth Didn’t Just Crack, It Curved. "It Sent Chills Down My Spine!"

Aug. 6, 2025 — A surprising discovery emerged from a security camera video taken during Myanmar’s recent magnitude 7.7 earthquake. While the footage initially drew attention for showing the dramatic fault ...

AI Uncovers 86,000 Hidden Earthquakes Beneath Yellowstone’s Surface

July 21, 2025 — Beneath Yellowstone’s stunning surface lies a hyperactive seismic world, now better understood thanks to machine learning. Researchers have uncovered over 86,000 earthquakes—10 times more than ...

Scientists Just Found a Massive Earthquake Threat Hiding Beneath Yukon

Aug. 6, 2025 — A long-forgotten fault in Canada's Yukon Territory has just revealed its dangerous potential. Scientists using cutting-edge satellite and drone data discovered that the Tintina fault, previously ...

Frozen for 12,000 Years, This Alpine Ice Core Captures the Rise of Civilization

July 16, 2025 — An ancient glacier high in the French Alps has revealed the oldest known ice in Western Europe—dating back over 12,000 years to the last Ice Age. This frozen archive, meticulously analyzed by ...

What Radar Found Beneath Antarctica Could Slow Ice Melt and Rising Seas

July 22, 2025 — Ancient river landscapes buried beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet have been uncovered by radar, revealing vast, flat surfaces formed over 80 million years ago before Antarctica froze. These hidden ...

Why America’s Still Freezing — Even as the World Heats Up

July 12, 2025 — Even in a warming climate, brutal cold snaps still hammer parts of the U.S., and a new study uncovers why. High above the Arctic, two distinct polar vortex patterns — both distorted and displaced ...

Scientists Stunned as Strange Islands and Hidden Springs Appear in the Great Salt Lake

Aug. 31, 2025 — As the Great Salt Lake shrinks, scientists are uncovering mysterious groundwater-fed oases hidden beneath its drying lakebed. Reed-covered mounds and strange surface disturbances hint at a vast ...

Melting Glaciers Are Awakening Earth's Most Dangerous Volcanoes

July 8, 2025 — As glaciers melt around the world, long-dormant volcanoes may be waking up beneath the ice. New research reveals that massive ice sheets have suppressed eruptions for thousands of years, building up ...

From Air to Stone: The Fig Trees Fighting Climate Change

July 6, 2025 — Kenyan fig trees can literally turn parts of themselves to stone, using microbes to convert internal crystals into limestone-like deposits that lock away carbon, sweeten surrounding soils, and still ...

Antarctica’s Ocean Flip: Satellites Catch Sudden Salt Surge Melting Ice from Below

July 2, 2025 — A massive and surprising change is unfolding around Antarctica. Scientists have discovered that the Southern Ocean is getting saltier, and sea ice is melting at record speed, enough to match the size ...