The GeoNerd News 2021-2022
Geology (along with mineralogy and paleontology) is fascinating, there’s no end to the amazing things that Mother Earth comes up with. This page shares some of the exciting geological discoveries and events that are in the news. This list is updated periodically, so check back for more browsing fun.
12/29/22 El Ali: 2 new minerals found in 15-metric ton meteorite that crashed in Africa
12/28/22 How Animals May Have Conquered Snowball Earth
12/25/22 This 120-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil Had a Mammal Hiding in Its Stomach
12/19/22 Paleontologists May Have Solved the Mystery Behind a Prehistoric Reptile Graveyard
12/17/22 The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2022
12/8/22 We Finally Know How Much the Dino-Killing Asteroid Reshaped Earth
12/5/22 World's first swimming dinosaur fossil discovered in Mongolia
12/5/22 Fossil Hunters Uncover 71-Million-Year-Old Trove in Antarctica
12/5/22 A Surprising Amount of Magma Is Under Yellowstone’s Supervolcano
12/1/22 How a 67-million-year-old fossil turned the theory of bird evolution upside down
11/29/22 Why Frog's Survived the Meteorite that Wiped Out the Dinosaurs
11/28/22 What made Indonesia's recent earthquake so deadly?
11/28/22 Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Volcano Erupts for the First Time Since 1984
11/21/22 Drought Reveals Rare American Lion Fossil in Dried-Up Mississippi River
11/18/22 Meteorites May Have Brought Water to Earth and Mars
11/14/22 T. Rex Skull Named Maximus Could Sell for $20 Million
11/04/22 Rare Emerald Discovered in 300-Year-Old Shipwreck Could Sell for $70,000
11/01/22 Three Near-Earth Asteroids Were Hiding in the Sun’s Glare
10/27/22 The Science Behind Six Spooky Lakes and Other Tales of Haunting Hydrology
10/19/22 Giant Ostrich-Like Dinosaurs Once Roamed North America
10/17/22 The Story Behind the New 8,000-Pound Quartz at the Smithsonian
10/15/22 Rare ‘Mummified Dinosaur’ Formed in an Unexpected Way
9/28/22 Haul of Fossil Fish Pushes Back the Origin of Teeth and Jaws
9/27/22 Volcanic Eruption Creates a New Island in the South Pacific
9/27/22 NASA Successfully Crashed a Spacecraft Into Its Asteroid Target
9/23/22 What the Demise of Mammoths Can Teach Us About Future Extinctions
9/22/22 The Breathtaking Glen Canyon Reveals Its Secrets
9/19/22 Mysterious Martian "Cauliflower" May Be the Latest Hint of Alien Life
9/16/22 Oldest Vertebrate Fossil Heart Found in Australia
9/12/22 King Tut’s Dagger Was Made From a Meteorite
9/9/22 Scientists Discover a Planet With the Potential to Support Life
9/8/22 The 1540 Megadrought That Devastated Europe
9/1/22 Melting Greenland Ice Sheet Will Cause at Least Ten Inches of Sea-Level Rise
8/24/22 Flash Floods Submerge Cars, Strand Carsbad National Park Visitors
8/24/22 The 50 Million-Year-Old Treasures of Fossil Lake
8/22/22 What New Tech Is Revealing About Squishy, Prehistoric Cephalopods
8/19/22 The Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid May Have Had a Companion
8/19/22 Western States Are Fighting Over How to Conserve Shrinking Water Supply
8/17/22 Remembering James Lovelock, Whose ‘Gaia Theory’ Shaped Our Understanding of Global Warming
8/16/22 Why Birds Survived, and Dinosaurs Went Extinct, After an Asteroid Hit Earth
8/15/22 Construction Crews Stumble Upon Mastodon Skeleton in Michigan
8/9/22 Tonga Volcanic Eruption Blasted an Enormous Plume of Water Vapor Into the Atmosphere
8/4/22 Plug in Your Address to See How It Looked 750 Million Years Ago
8/3/22 The Earth Had Its Shortest Day in Recorded History
8/3/22 See the James Webb Space Telescope's Dazzling New Photo of the Cartwheel Galaxy
8/1/22 Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park Is Expanding by 16,000 Acres
7/27/22 Rio Grande Runs Dry in Albuquerque
7/26/22 The James Webb Space Telescope Might Have Spotted the Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen
7/22/22 American Tourist Rescued After Falling Into Mount Vesuvius Crater
7/14/22 Mile-High Tsunami Caused by Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Left Behind Towering 'Megaripples' (first published 7/21/21).
7/14/22 Oldest Martian Meteorite on Earth Traced to Its Origin on the Red Planet
7/13/22 Utah's Great Salt Lake Is Drying Out
7/12/22 First image from NASA's Webb telescope is our deepest view of the universe
7/7/22 Paleontologists Uncover New Dinosaur With Tiny Arms Like T. Rex
7/6/22 The Southwest is bone dry. Now, a key water source is at risk
6/24/22 Building Blocks of Life Found on Samples Collected From an Asteroid
6/24/22 Whale-Sized Marine Reptiles Once Ruled the Seas
6/21/22 How the Earth's Mantle Sends Water Up Toward the Surface
6/15/22 Re-imagining Megalodon
6/8/22 Five Places to See Trilobites in the United States
5/27/22 Scientists Map Yellowstone’s Underground ‘Plumbing’
5/25/22 Paleontologists Find Biggest Pterosaur Species Ever Unearthed in South America
5/19/22 Minerals Used in Kitty Litter Could Help Fight Climate Change
5/18/22 The biggest living thing on Earth is being nibbled to death. Can it be saved?
5/9/22 Earth Is Running Out of Sand, Spurring a Cutthroat Black Market
5/6/22 Unique Agates on a Panamanian Island Reveal Submarine Volcanic Activity
5/4/22 An Ancient 'Harbor' Was Actually a Sacred Pool Designed for Scanning the Stars
4/19/22 Devastating Ice Age Floods That Occurred in the Pacific Northwest Fascinate Scientists
4/19/22 More Than 50 Billion Tons of Topsoil Have Eroded in the Midwest
4/28/22 World's largest blue diamond to come to auction has sold for $57.5 million
4/21/22 Europa's Icy Shell May Be Habitable for Life
4/18/22 Iconic Portraits and Tiaras Tell the Stories of Britain's Indomitable Queens
4/12/22 Black Lights Turn This North Carolina Mine Into a Psychedelic Wonderland
4/11/22 The Tyrannosaurus Rex Has a Damn Good Reason for Its Puny Arms
Hint: It has to do with its massive, bone-crushing jaws.
3/25/22 The True Story of the Koh-i-noor Diamond - and why the British won't give it back
3/24/22 New clues reveal the devastation the day the dinosaurs died
Unusual traces found in Texas show what happened when the Chicxulub asteroid vaporized a thick bed of rock, unleashing superheated gas that kicked off a calamitous period of climate changes.
3/15/22 Paleontologists Uncover the Oldest Sabertoothed Predator
3/11/22 Did Ancient Nomads Seize Control of a Roman Emerald Mine in Egypt?
3/4/22 Fossils Help Scientists Identify a "Lost" Continent
2/18/22 Record Breaking Rogue Wave ...
2/15/22 Meet Dolly, the First Dinosaur Discovered With a Case of the Sniffles
2/14/22 Five Functions of Diamonds Beyond Rings
2/10/22 Why Smuggled Fossils Are Hurting Paleontology
2/7/22 Five Fascinating Ice Age Finds Discovered in Yukon Permafrost
2/2/22 Construction Trucks May Have Damaged 112-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Tracks
1/21/22 A Huge Black Diamond, Purportedly From Outer Space, Is Now Up for Sale
1/18/22 Why the Eruption in Tonga Was a 'Once-in-a-Millennium' Event for the Volcano
01/16/22 How the Tonga volcano generated a shock wave around the world
12/23/21 This Ancient, Nine-Foot-Long, 100-Pound Millipede Could Be the Largest Invertebrate to Ever Live
01/04/22 This Metal-Rich, Potato-Shaped Asteroid Could Be Worth $10 Quintillion
01/12/22 Naturalists Accidentally Discover Britain's Largest Ever, Near-Complete Marine Reptile Fossil
12/16/21 How Turquoise Replaced Emeralds in This Royal Diadem
01/11/22 Get to Know the Geologist Collecting Antarctic Meteorites
01/12/22 East Africa's Oldest Modern Human Fossil Is Way Older Than Previously Thought
12/06/21 Volcanic Eruptions Helped the Ancestral Puebloan Culture Flourish
11/19/21 In 19th-Century New England, This Amateur Geologist Created Her Own Cabinet of Curiosities
11/18/21 Earliest Evidence of Mercury Poisoning in Humans Found in 5,000-Year-Old Bones
11/25/19 How Scientists Resolved the Mystery of the Devil's Corkscrews
11/12/21 How Pearls Obtain Their Remarkable Symmetry
11/11/21 A 300-Million-Year-Old Fossil Discovered in Utah Could Be a New Species