July 2026

For decades, scientists have known that the Ontong Java Plateau, the world’s largest oceanic plateau, was created by an extraordinary burst of volcanic activity more than 100 million years ago. What remained uncertain was how enormous volumes of magma travelled through the Earth’s lithosphere during that event. According to the study published in Advancing Earth…

Scientists have discovered the deepest known animal ecosystem on Earth, thriving almost 10 kilometres beneath the Pacific Ocean where sunlight never reaches. At depths of up to 9,533 metres, researchers found dense colonies of blood-red tubeworms, white clams and other marine animals living around methane-rich cold seeps on the ocean floor. The discovery ‘Flourishing chemosynthetic…