Linkmarks

Water was once widespread on Mars, data from a Nasa spacecraft shows, raising the prospect that the Red Planet could have supported life. ... Rocks of this age have largely been destroyed on Earth by plate tectonics. They are preserved on the Moon, but were never exposed to liquid water. So rocks containing phyllosilicates on Mars preserve a unique record of watery environments in the early Solar System, some of which could have been...

Life on Earth may have driven the evolution of the planet itself. The idea is that ancient microbes provided the chemical energy to create the Earth's continents - a nod to the Gaia hypothesis, in which life helps create the conditions it needs to survive. The theory would solve the puzzle of why the Earth's continental crust appeared when it did, and explain the presence of granite, a substance not found anywhere else in our...

Research has revealed details of the catastrophic Zanclean flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea more than five million years ago. The flood occurred when Atlantic waters found their way into the cut-off and desiccated Mediterranean basin. The researchers say that a 200km channel across the Gibraltar strait was carved out by the floodwaters. Their findings, published in Nature, show that the resulting flood could have filled the basin...

They agreed that the world's highest mountain - which traverses the border of the two countries - should be recognised as being 8,848m tall. ... But geologists say that the estimates of both countries over the height of Mount Everest could be wrong. They say that the mountain is becoming higher as India is gradually pushed beneath China and Nepal because of shifting continental plates. In May 1999 an American team used GPS technology...

A coalition of geologists are challenging the way we look at global stone reserves, claiming that, unless smarter methods of preservation are developed, mankind will eventually run out of rocks.