Some minerals in rocks and organic matter (e.g., wood, bones, and shells) can contain radioactive isotopes. The abundances of parent and daughter isotopes in a sample can be measured and used to ...

Minerals are typically formed when molten rock, or magma, cools, or by separating out of mineral-rich water, such as that in underground caverns. In general, mineral particles are small ...

That's because rocks are made of different minerals and rocks get their names (mostly) from what minerals they contain. Now, much of the time, once you've been trained to identify minerals, you can ...

Igneous rocks contain randomly arranged interlocking crystals. The size of the crystals depends on how quickly the molten magma solidifies and can form extrusive igneous rocks or intrusive igneous ...

Wild Earth Rocks is where crystals sparkle, people find gifts and young geologists dream. 11-year-old Paul Stevens became ...

A weathered sign in the Minnesota River Valley proudly proclaims: “World’s Oldest Rock.” Erected in 1975, it marks a 3.8-billion-year-old gneiss — or so scientists thought.

When it comes to the fall of the Roman Empire, this climate shift may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.” ...