Bad news on the climate should lead neither to despair nor unfounded optimism. Instead, we need to roll up our sleeves and prepare for life on a drastically changing planet

Jason Statham’s new film The Meg looks gloriously silly and good luck to it, but it got us thinking about what its giant prehistoric shark was really like and why it died out

The oldest rocks ever found are over four billion years old and we don’t know how they formed – but a massive asteroid bombardment may be responsible

Not only are deep-sea coral ecosystems thriving on oil and gas rigs in the North Sea, their larvae may be helping repopulate damaged natural reefs

A new timeline of early evolution suggests life on Earth began 100 million years earlier than we thought, while meteorites were still pummelling the planet

The unique metal asteroid Psyche may be a space miner's fantasy – but there are better reasons to want to visit it, says mission leader Lindy Elkins-Tanton

The “Equal Earth” projection shows the true area of continents such as Africa without greatly distorting their shapes and is already being adopted by NASA

Self-educated ice sage James Croll cracked the conundrum of why Earth periodically freezes over. He was feted in his time, so why did the world forget him?

The planet’s largest areas of undisturbed wilderness in Siberia and tropical rainforests are under threat from huge waves of development. Here’s what it looks like

Across the world, new roads, railways, dams and power lines are encroaching on previously virgin territory – with untold consequences for Earth’s wildlife

Mountainsides are becoming less stable as glaciers retreat, leading to more landslides that can trigger massive - but localised - tsunamis

At Unseen Amsterdam, striking images of a melting glacier are stirring visitors to action

The weird ‘Ediacaran’ fossils have stumped scientists for decades - now fatty molecules found inside some of them confirm they are the most ancient animals we know

Extreme storms Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut have caused destruction and taken lives across the globe this week, forcing millions to evacuate their homes

The far-right winner of the first round of Brazil's presidential election wants to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and cut down the Amazon rainforest

If big rocks fall far enough they can explode with more energy than any non-nuclear bomb – and the ensuing shockwave can snap large trees half a kilometre away

Vast machines have left the subterranean world of a potash mine in the Urals with ammonite-like whorls, photographed for a project to highlight lasting human impacts on the planet.

The next generation of geothermal plants will unlock more of Earth's bountiful, underground energy and could allow the technology to finally fulfil its promise

Some rocks in Tasmania, Australia, look out of place. Now an analysis suggests they were once part of the rocks that form the Grand Canyon in the US

A rash of recent earthquakes in Lancashire, UK has prompted fracking operations to halt temporarily on six separate occasions

How did water survive Earth's searingly hot birth? A radical new answer turns planetary history on its head – and could revolutionise the search for alien life

Radar surveys have revealed a crater left when a kilometre-wide asteroid hit Greenland – and the impact could explain a climate mystery

If you want to save Earth, argues a new book, quit sitting around in the present hoping for the best and learn to think really long term, like a geologist

From Kenyan children picking through plastic waste to swathes of Germany laid waste for coal mining, a film shows why we are in a new, human-created epoch

A tsunami kept pinging back and forth for three days after being triggered by the 8 September 2017 Mexico earthquake, posing even more risk to human life

Exciting tales of heroic polar explorers make a great exhibition, but a book on the North Pole shows that times are too changed not to seek deeper narratives

A fossil so well preserved that its skin is still flexible is revealing much more about the marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs that swam in the sea during the age of dinosaurs

Armed with drones, helicopters and military-grade software, a British photographer has developed a new way to remember glaciers

On Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 became the first crewed spacecraft to circle the moon. Emerging from its dark side, one astronaut reached for his camera

The ancient practice of water divining is still used across the world to locate water sources. Forty years ago, we wondered whether it might actually work

The most detailed ever look at Earth's prehistoric climate suggests many habitats changed in the past 800,000 years – and this may be why we evolved big brains

Sea level rise estimates are moving upwards. There could be at least a 1.3 metre rise by 2100, which would spell disaster for coastal communities

Many people assume an asteroid triggered the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs, but geologists say massive volcanic eruptions occurred at the same time

If you read a book painting the very worst-case scenarios about what global warming means for human life you could easily panic. Here’s why you shouldn’t

Fossil traces hidden deep underground may solve the mystery of dark matter, the elusive substance that makes up 80 per cent of the universe

Megafloods, broken backstops and retreating ice sheets combine in a geological epic: the dramatic story of Britain's protracted original exit from Europe

We often think waterfalls indicate ancient tectonic or glacial activity – but it turns out they can form all by themselves without these external influences

Check out new books charting the state of our planet, see a movie thriller with a quantum physics twist, and launch your own robot uprising against humankind

A dead whale found in the Philippines with 40 kilograms of plastic inside its body is the latest example of the problem of plastic pollution

The controversial Gaia hypothesis sees Earth as a superorganism adapted to be perfect for life. A weird type of evolution may finally show how that actually happens

Some of the first dinosaurs may have lived and hunted on the largest delta plain ever discovered, which was 10 times the size of the Amazon river delta

The landscape of Banks Island in the far north of Canada is being reshaped by global warming-triggered land slumps, and the situation is set to get much worse

For 30 years, one man has been obsessed with the whisperings of the aurora borealis. His search for its origins may finally be over

Scientists are setting out to drill for the world’s oldest ice, in a bid to shed light on a dramatic tipping point in the world’s climate 900,000 years ago

A study of what will happen to glaciers in the Alps under various climate scenarios suggests they will almost completely disappear if we keep pumping out carbon dioxide

Watch a new series charting our planet from above, read all about the biggest living things, fend off space rocks for fun, plus more picks for your diary

From the development of our remarkable brains to the geographic divides in the way we vote, our shape-shifting planet has guided the path of humanity

Dozens of people have died in Indonesia and Mozambique as a result of storms and flooding, possibly driven by climate change

No matter how deep we dig, life has always found a way to survive. The remarkable story of these impossible microbes can teach us about how life evolved

Through the jungle, airborne lasers have spotted ruins of long-lost ancient civilisations in Asia. Archaeologist Damian Evans reveals all.