Acidic volcanic lakes may have harbored early life go.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from go.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
How can we study crustal development?
Scientists have long sought to understand the development of the Earth in particular, what exactly has allowed it to transform into the only known life-harboring planet? Yale graduate student Meng Guo and her advisor Jun Korenaga have aimed to build a piece of this complex puzzle in a recent publication in
Science Advances. In the paper, Guo looks into understanding the development of Earth’s crust through a process known as argon degassing.
The development of Earth’s crust has been an important area of study since the 1960s; an accurate look into the evolution of crust can shed light on much about the geology and nature of early Earth. Because of this, there have been many different models made to try to accurately predict how Earth’s crust came to be; however, there has been tremendous variation in these estimates. To track the evolution of continental crust is a complicated task, with many different factors. “[Crustal development]
et al.,
Fossilized lightning bolts reveal when ancient storms struck
Dec. 16, 2020 , 12:10 PM
When a lightning bolt strikes a mountaintop, it can melt rocks in a flash, leaving a narrow glassy scar called a fulgurite. Now, researchers have shown that these fossilized thunderbolts are geological clocks that record the passage of time. The technique offers geologists a way to date thunderstorms from tens of thousands of years ago, and could give them a window into ancient climate patterns.
“It’s a very interesting and ingenious method,” says Rafael Navarro González, a chemist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, University City, who was not involved in the study.