Earth and Atmospheric Sciences News

Like a stream of air shooting out of an airplane's broken window to relieve cabin pressure, scientists say lava formations in eastern Oregon are the result of an outpouring of magma forced out of a breach in a massive slab of Earth

New study, which uses data from over 6,000 earthquakes, shows the 11 March tremor caused a seismic fault close to the nuclear plant to reactivate.

The American West has seen a recent increase in large wildfires due to droughts, the build-up of combustible fuel, or biomass, in forests, a spread of fire-prone species and increased tree mortality from insects and heat.

Even if the current weather situation may seem to speak against it, the probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer

A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred on Jan. 17, 2012, just days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection (CME) seen in nearly a decade

A new international study may answer contentious questions about the onset and persistence of Earth's Little Ice Age, a period of widespread cooling that lasted for hundreds of years until the late 19th century

Scientists suggest that the large changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates which occurred prior to the major climatic event more than 500 million years ago, known as 'Snowball Earth,' are unrelated to worldwide glacial events.

Discoveries made in some underwater caves by researchers in the Bahamas could provide clues about how ocean life formed on Earth millions of years ago, and perhaps give hints of what types of marine life could be found on distant planets and moons.

In California's Death Valley, death is looking just a bit closer. Geologists have determined that the half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater, formed by a prehistoric volcanic explosion, was created far more recently than previously thought -- and that conditions f

A powerful solar eruption, the largest since May 2005 according to NOAA, is expected to blast a stream of charged particles toward Earth, which could force planes to be re-routed