Beth Geiger

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All Stories by Beth Geiger
- Earth
Explainer: Our atmosphere — layer by layer
Earth’s five layers extend from the ground up and into outer space. Each has its own distinct features and serves as the site of different activities and phenomena.
- Earth
On an Alaskan glacier, little green moss balls roll in herds
Oval balls of moss, nicknamed ‘glacier mice,’ roll across some glaciers. A new study explores the mysteries behind their herd-like motion.
- Earth
Explainer: Earth — layer by layer
Explore the sizzling heat, unimaginable pressures — and some surprise diamonds — that sit beneath our feet. This is the side of Earth that you can’t see.
- Earth
Reliving the last day of the dinosaurs
The Chicxulub crater is helping reveal what happened on the day a 12-kilometer-wide asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico, 66 million years ago.
- Earth
Explainer: Understanding geologic time
Geologic time is unimaginably long. Geologists puzzle it out using a calendar called the Geologic Time Scale.
- Animals
Is ocean acidification knocking the scents out of salmon?
In more acidic water, salmon don’t seem to recognize the smell of danger. Will their populations take a nosedive as carbon-dioxide levels rise?
- Climate
A wave of change is coming to our planet’s water resources
How will climate change affect you most? Check your kitchen sink.
- Climate
Explainer: Earth’s water is all connected in one vast cycle
Water on Earth is connected in an endless loop called the water cycle.
- Earth
Hot on the trail of Antarctic meteorites
For intrepid scientists, spotting meteorites against Antarctica’s dazzling whiteness is easy. Then what?
- Earth
Giant volcanoes lurk beneath Antarctic ice
One of the largest volcanic areas on Earth was recently discovered hiding beneath West Antarctic’s ice sheet. What does it spell for the future of that ice?
- Oceans
How the Arctic Ocean became salty
The Arctic Ocean was once a huge freshwater lake, separated from the Atlantic by a ridge of land. Scientists explore how salt water overtook it.
- Earth
Ancient Arctic ‘gas’ melt triggered enormous seafloor explosions
Methane explosions 12,000 years ago left huge craters in bedrock on the Arctic seafloor. Scientists worry more could be on the way today as Earth’s ice sheets melt.