There's a billion-year gap in Earth's geological history. A new study seeks to explain the mystery.

In 1869, John Wesley Powell was studying layers of rock in the Grand Canyon when he noticed an unconformity in the layers. Around a billion years were missing, and the problem turned out to be global.

A layer of rock just 520 million years old sat directly on top of ancient rock dating back 1.4 to 1.8 billion years.

Much of our understanding of Earth's past is derived from stratigraphic records exposed in rock outcrops or recovered from drilled cores. These records span immense time intervals, from thousands to ...

The discovery could usher in a wave of investigations into the evolution of Earth’s mantle, a layer of material about 1,800 miles deep that extends from just beneath the planet’s thin crust to its ...

Researchers have made a new discovery that changes our understanding of Earth's early geological history, challenging beliefs about how our continents formed and when plate tectonics began. A study ...

According to a recent study, events geologists use to distinguish transitions between geological chapters in Earth's story follow a hidden hierarchical pattern, one that could shed light on both past ...

A thin slice of the ancient rocks collected from Gakkel Ridge near the North Pole, photographed under a microscope and seen under cross-polarized light. Field width ~ 14mm. Analyzing rocks in thin ...

A thin slice of the ancient rocks collected from Gakkel Ridge near the North Pole, photographed under a microscope and seen under cross-polarized light. Field width ~ 14mm. Credit: E. Cottrell, ...