Research in ecology and biogeography often assumes that ecological communities are shaped primarily by recent drivers, such as current climate and human activity. Geographically divergent evolutionary and ecological legacies shape mammal…

New research into the chemistry of the oceans during ice ages is helping to solve a puzzle that has engaged scientists for more than two decades. New study show that an Fe-induced stimulation of dinitrogen (N2) fixation can induce a low latitude…

Micromorphology can help identify areas of sedimentary deposit that are most conducive to ancient DNA preservation and could be usefully integrated with DNA analyses of sediments at archaeological sites to illuminate features of their human and…

It is the 55,500 year old ash layer Z2 that one of the most distinct ash layers in the Greenland ice cores which is believed to originate from an enormous eruption in Iceland. The same ash layers is also found in many sediment cores from the North…

Geologists float an answer to the mystery of salt flurries beneath Dead Sea: New computer simulation and research helps scientists understand how salt makes its way down rather than up, providing a glimpse into formation of massive deposits around…

Nonequilibrium evolution of volatility in origination and extinction explains fat-tailed fluctuations in Phanerozoic biodiversity

Oldest meteorite collection found in the Atacama Desert... 222 meteorites larger than 10 g per squared kilometer per million year... Researchers have uncovered a wealth of well-preserved meteorites that allowed them to reconstruct the rate of falling…

Demosponge steroid biomarker 26-methylstigmastane provides evidence for Neoproterozoic animals... The oldest clue of animal life, dating back at least 100 million years before the Cambrian period, when most major types of animals appear, has been…

Tooth oxygen isotopes reveal Late Bronze Age origin of Mediterranean fish aquaculture and trade... The analyses showed that some of the gilthead sea bream originated from the southeastern Mediterranean but that roughly three out of every four must…