The GeoNerd News 2021-2022

Volcanic eruption Iceland Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/de/@tetiana_grypachevska?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Tetiana Grypachevska</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/volcanic-eruption?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>

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

6/21/22 How the Earth's Mantle Sends Water Up Toward the Surface6/13/22 First Dinosaur Belly Button Discovered in Fossil From China

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

5/24/22 This 12,000-Year-Old Wyoming Quarry Could Be North America's Oldest Mine | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine

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 

11/16/21  From Deep Within Earth's Mantle, This Never-Before-Seen Mineral Hitched a Ride to the Surface in a Diamond 

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