Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum

As the Atlantic grew wider, the ancestral population of all of today's oaks may have been straddling the continents of the Northern Hemisphere. If so, the ancestor of the oaks we know today was a widespread population that was cleaved in half as North America inched westward.

We long suspected that passing stars are what send distant comets sunward. But could passing stars also change Earth's orbit? A recent study says yes. The post Did passing stars change Earth's orbit? first appeared on EarthSky.

As the Earth continues to warm at a worrying rate, scientists continue to work to understand the processes and mechanisms at play. Amidst the myriad of climate-related theories and discussions, the cl...

Placental mammals -- the evolutionary lineage that includes humans -- co-existed with non-avian dinosaurs for a short time before the dinosaurs went extinct, according to new research.

Could blending of crushed rock with arable soil lower global temperatures? Researchers of Mainz University have studied global warming events from 40 and 56 million years ago to find answers. Their research paper has recently been published in Nature Geoscience.

The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is a period of global warming that occurred ~56 million years ago, lasting approximately 200,000 years, when the Earth experienced global surface temperature elevations of ~5°C.

Crater under Greenland glacier likely formed 58M years ago: study

Oxygen is fundamental to sustaining life on Earth. The ocean gets its oxygen from its uppermost layers in contact with the atmosphere. As our planet continues to warm, the ocean is gradually losing its capacity to absorb oxygen, with severe consequences on marine ecosystems and human activities that depend on them. While these trends will likely continue in the future, it remains unclear how ocean oxygen will…

About 55 million years ago, the Atlantic Ocean was born. Until then, Europe and America were connected. As the continents began to move apart, the Earth's crust between them ruptured, releasing large volumes of magma. This rift volcanism has led to the formation of large igneous provinces (LIPs) in several places around the world.

A Cretaceous origin for placental mammals, the group that includes humans, dogs and bats, has been revealed by in-depth analysis of the fossil record, showing they co-existed with dinosaurs for a short time before the dinosaurs went extinct.

By David Spratt Prof. James Hansen is sometimes affectionately referred to as the "godfather" of modern climate science, so when he drops a bomb, there is bound to be shock and awe. And that's what has happened with the recent release by Hansen and his colleagues of a draft of a new paper which finds that the climate is much more sensitive to increases in greenhouse gas that generally thought. This new analysis…

Maps of climate in the distant past could provide insight into the future as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase.

Four key climate indicators set new records in 2021, underscoring the importance to curb emissions from human activity and sparking criticism from the United...

During another time in which Earth warmed rapidly in conjunction with a spike in atmospheric carbon similar to our modern climate, seawater temperature and chemical changes decimated an important piece of the food web in the tropical Pacific Ocean, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

With one exception, a strong link between carbon dioxide and global temperatures.

A long-term record of global mean surface temperature (GMST) provides critical insight into the dynamical limits of Earth's climate and the complex feedbacks between temperature and the broader Earth system. Here, we present PhanDA, a reconstruction of ...

At the end of the Paleocene and beginning of the Eocene epochs, between 59 to 51 million years ago, Earth experienced dramatic warming periods, both gradual periods stretching millions of years and sudden warming events known as hyperthermals.

Greta Thunberg's war on the working class is not supported by the facts. Here's why.

The Department of Geology of the UPV/EHU has examined sediments dating back 56 million years in the Tremp-Graus basin (on the border between Lleida and Huesca). It can be deduced from the study that the global warming episode at that time consisted of three phases in which the distribution of precipitation was different. The data from the study can be used to adjust mathematical models used to predict the effects…

An ancient bout of global warming 56 million years ago that acidified oceans and wiped-out marine life had a milder effect in the Gulf of Mexico, where life was sheltered by the basin's unique geology—according to research by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).