Geology
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Every now and then, I get to write about a topic that combines geology, history, art, and a little bit of mystery. One of my favourite examples of this is a SciShow video I wrote about azurite, a striking blue mineral that humans have been using to make art for thousands of years. Unlike many
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Every so often, I come across a story in geology that reminds me how much of Earth we still don’t fully understand. Take the Younger Dryas: a sudden, sharp return to ice-age cold about 13,000 years ago. It coincided with the disappearance of mammoths, and with the vanishing of the Clovis people in North America.
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On May 5th 2024, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook New Jersey. It was the first sizeable quake the region had seen in years, and it made headlines across the US. What struck me, though, was how different the response was compared to the west coast, where quakes of that size happen fairly often without much
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Like many children, I was captivated by museum gift shops, especially the shelves of glittering geodes. Crack one open and you’re rewarded with a surprise display of crystals hidden inside. Those pocket-sized treasures, though, are nothing compared to the largest geode in the world – one so vast it could swallow the entire gift shop
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At first glance, epidote might look like a perfectly ordinary rock: greenish, slightly glassy, nice enough to put on your bookshelf. But this mineral is far more than just decoration. Epidote could help unlock the mystery of life’s earliest origins on Earth, and perhaps even beyond. The fossil record is our best archive for understanding
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Trapped in ancient glass, 800,000-year-old plant molecules may hold clues to life’s survival—and its cosmic origins. Formed by a fiery meteorite impact in Tasmania, Darwin Glass isn’t just beautiful—it’s a natural time capsule that could reveal whether life can travel between planets, and maybe even how it began.
Leila Battison 