Diamonds may be the hardest of gemstones, but it’s zircons that last forever. So durable are these birthstones of December that they represent Earth’s oldest known material: Some zircons from ...

The oldest known Earth stuff that remains on the surface of our planet is a mineral that’s been called the “Time Lord” because it’s so incredibly good at keeping geologic time. The mineral is zircon, ...

NASA announced this week that rocks made of pure sulfur have been discovered on the Red Planet. The yellow sulfur crystals in a pure form have never been seen before on Mars. Earlier findings have ...

Continent-size islands deep inside Earth's mantle could be more than a billion years old, a new study finds. Known as large low-seismic-velocity provinces (LLSVPs), these blobs are both hotter and ...

It may be a cool, comfortable paradise nowadays, but Earth had a pretty hotheaded youth – some scientists speculate that for a while the surface was one big ocean of magma. Now, a team of researchers ...