Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ignis meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the ...

If you’ve ever studied geography, looked at fossils in a museum, or even looked up at a craggy cliffside or a steep mountain, you’ll know that rocks usually take millions of years to form. However, ...

This picture shows a very famous outcrop where nearly horizontal black and white layers are observed. The BIC made of layers of igneous rock in a basin shape, formed over a period of about 1 million ...

The trick to a successful search for fossils is finding the proper place. After all, paleontologists rarely select their sites at random. Instead, they consider an assortment of areas — comparing the ...

THE closing years of the nineteenth century witnessed a revival of interest in the petrology of gneous rocks, which must be regarded as marking an important stage in the development of that subject.

During the nearly 14 months that it has spent on the red planet, Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, has scooped soil, drilled rocks, and analyzed samples by exposing them to laser ...

The multi-coloured layers of banded iron formations could connect ancient changes on earth’s surface—like the emergence of photosynthetic life—to planetary processes like volcanism and plate tectonics ...

The first rock that scientists analyzed on Mars with a pair of chemical instruments aboard the Curiosity rover turned out to be a doozy -- a pyramid-shaped volcanic rock called a "mugearite" that is ...

The rocks on Earth are constantly changing due to many different processes. There are three main types of rock, with rocks changing between each type over millions of years. This rock recycling is a ...

Scientists report on the analysis of a surprisingly Earth-like Martian rock, discovered by the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, that offers new insight into the history of Mars's interior and ...