Phys.org: Earth science

Magnetic data collected in the late 1960s has been brought back to life by a research team including a Keele scientist, who have used it to learn more about how the continent of Africa is stretching and splitting apart.

The tectonic plates under Africa and Asia are slowly drifting apart, as the Gulf of Suez that separates these two land masses continues to widen at a rate of about 0.26–0.55 millimeters per year.

If heat-trapping pollution from burning coal, oil and gas continues unchecked, thousands of hazardous sites across the United States risk being flooded from sea level rise by the turn of the century, posing serious health risks to nearby communities, according to a new study.

Soil stores more carbon than Earth's atmosphere and plants combined, which makes the speed of soil carbon's decomposition an important variable in models used to predict changes to our climate.

Scientists have revealed that ancient bogs in the Southern Hemisphere hold clues to a major shift in Earth's climate thousands of years ago.

Climate history recorded in a calcite deposit in a southern Nevada cave indicates that the hot, arid southwestern United States experienced significant shifts in temperature and rainfall over the last 580,000 years.