Geology

Very few gems can withstand the intense pressure of Earth's mantle, but some require it to crystallize.

The gold and platinum that came from giant space rocks should have sunk into Earth's core instead of rising to the crust. Scientists have now worked out how this happened — and it may explain some really weird blobs deep in our planet's mantle.

Diamonds are naturally hard, but is there anything from Earth, space or even a lab that's harder?

The number varies from a dozen to almost 100 — and most of these don't even appear on official maps.

A long-lost tectonic plate dubbed 'Pontus' that was a quarter of the size of the Pacific Ocean was discovered by chance by scientists studying ancient rocks in Borneo.

Porous rock that formed during one of Earth's biggest volcanic eruptions absorbed so much water as it eroded that it created a huge reservoir over the eons, now buried deep in Earth's crust.

A new ore, dubbed niobobaotite, was discovered in Inner Mongolia's Bayan Obo deposit and contains the rare earth element niobium — a valuable metal that acts as a superconductor and could revolutionize battery technology.

Scientists have fully mapped the lost continent of Zealandia in a world first, discovering new details about how it broke away from the supercontinent Gondwana through the ignition of a huge volcanic region tens of millions of years ago.

The center of Earth lies around 4,000 miles beneath our feet — but what lies beneath the outer crust and the inner core?

Atoms within the enormous ball of iron in Earth's inner core may move around much more than previously thought, which could explain recent findings about the core's surprising softness.