RPI Professor Karyn Rogers, director of the Rensselaer Astrobiology Research and Education Center, and graduate student Meri ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Plate tectonics may have played a larger role in the evolution of life on Earth than we ...

Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, during the geological eon known as the Hadean. The name “Hadean” comes from the Greek god of the underworld, reflecting the extreme heat that likely ...

Before so much as the first microbe existed, there had to be amino acids thought to have formed in one of the primordial oozes of early Earth. It was previously thought that lightning might have ...

A more detailed investigation of the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt has strengthened Canada’s claim to host rocks that date back to the Hadean Eon. This would make them strong favorites to be the oldest ...

A team of Canadian and French researchers has confirmed that northern Quebec is home to the oldest known rocks on Earth, dating back 4.16 billion years. O’Neil, who supervised the original study, ...

Hydrosphere interactions and alteration of the terrestrial crust likely played a critical role in shaping Earth’s surface, and in promoting prebiotic reactions leading to life, before 4.03 Ga (the ...