• About
  • Sections
  • Topics
    • Climate
    • Earth Science
    • Oceans
    • Space & Planets
    • Health & Ecosystems
    • Culture & Policy
    • Education & Careers
    • Opinions
  • Projects
    • ENGAGE
    • Editors’ Highlights
    • Editors’ Vox
    • Eos en Español
    • Eos 简体中文版
    • Print Archive
  • Blogs
    • Research & Developments
    • The Landslide Blog
  • Newsletter
  • Submit to Eos
  • AGU.org
  • Career Center
  • Join AGU
  • Give to AGU
  • About
  • Sections
  • Topics
    • Climate
    • Earth Science
    • Oceans
    • Space & Planets
    • Health & Ecosystems
    • Culture & Policy
    • Education & Careers
    • Opinions
  • Projects
    • ENGAGE
    • Editors’ Highlights
    • Editors’ Vox
    • Eos en Español
    • Eos 简体中文版
    • Print Archive
  • Blogs
    • Research & Developments
    • The Landslide Blog
  • Newsletter
  • Submit to Eos
Skip to content
  • AGU.org
  • Career Center
  • Join AGU
  • Give to AGU
Eos

Eos

Science News by AGU

Support Eos
Sign Up for Newsletter
  • About
  • Sections
  • Topics
    • Climate
    • Earth Science
    • Oceans
    • Space & Planets
    • Health & Ecosystems
    • Culture & Policy
    • Education & Careers
    • Opinions
  • Projects
    • ENGAGE
    • Editors’ Highlights
    • Editors’ Vox
    • Eos en Español
    • Eos 简体中文版
    • Print Archive
  • Blogs
    • Research & Developments
    • The Landslide Blog
  • Newsletter
  • Submit to Eos

quartz

Three Major League Baseball baseballs arranged in a row angling away from the camera. The baseball in the foreground is in focus; the others blur into the background.
Posted inNews

Geoscientists Demystify Baseball’s Magic Mud

by Elise Cutts 5 December 20245 December 2024

Taking baseball’s mysterious Rubbing Mud into the lab revealed no magic ingredients—but plenty of useful natural properties from geomaterials.

Gold specks on quartz
Posted inNews

Earthquakes May Lace Quartz Veins with Gold

by Carolyn Wilke 8 October 202419 December 2024

Seismic activity may kick off chemical reactions that seed nuggets of gold.

An earthworm crawls atop dark brown soil.
Posted inNews

Quartz-Gobbling Worms Are Weathering Earth’s Soils

by Grace van Deelen 14 December 202314 December 2023

New research in mineral weathering shows that earthworms may be an important contributor to Earth’s weathering cycle.

A young woman in a forest recently burned by wildfire squats to collect a soil core sample using a tube and a mallet.
Posted inNews

Fire Histories May Be Written on Grains of Sand

by Carolyn Wilke 21 November 202321 November 2023

Tiny bits of quartz record the intensity of fires from hundreds or even thousands of years ago, potentially offering new ways to study historic fires and how heat affects soil.

Simulations of crack initiation in a quartz grain.
Posted inEditors' Highlights

CO2 Reduces the Onset of Fracturing at the Nanoscale in Quartz

by François Renard 9 February 20238 February 2023

Large scale molecular dynamics simulations unravel the coupled processes at work during fracturing and flow of carbon dioxide and water in quartz grains at the nanoscale.

A circular hole drilled into Gale Crater on Mars.
Posted inNews

Unraveling the Mystery of a Rare Mineral on Mars

by Clarissa Wright 7 September 20223 January 2023

The discovery of tridymite in Mars’s Gale Crater triggered debate about the rare mineral’s origins. A research team recently suggested a scenario with explosive implications.

Photo of rock outcrop showing foliation-parallel quartz veins.
Posted inEditors' Vox

The Kinetics of the Seismic Cycle

by Randolph T. Williams and Åke Fagereng 7 June 202214 September 2022

Large earthquakes are necessarily punctuated by some degree of strength recovery, such as “fault healing”, but does quartz cementation during fluid-fault interactions facilitate that process?

The Sun sets at Stonehenge
Posted inNews

State-of-the-Art Technology, Serendipity, and Secrets of Stonehenge

Richard Sima, freelance science writer by Richard J. Sima 8 September 202129 March 2023

The first comprehensive analysis of what the sarsen stones are made of came about with new technology—and good old-fashioned luck.

Greenery forefronts an image of a dust storm clouding the horizon
Posted inNews

Dusting Off the Arid Antiquity of the Sahara

Sarah Derouin, Science Writer by Sarah Derouin 14 October 20192 March 2023

New research on the geochemistry of Canary Islands paleosols shows that the Sahara has been an arid dust producer for at least 4.8 million years.

New mathematical modeling suggests lightning strikes may leave traces similar to those of meteorites
Posted inResearch Spotlights

Lightning Strikes May Leave Traces Like Those of Meteorites

Sarah Stanley, Science Writer by Sarah Stanley 20 September 20174 October 2021

Scientists have long interpreted shocked quartz as definitive evidence of a past meteorite impact, but the shock wave caused by lightning striking granite also produces this distinctive feature.

Posts pagination

1 2 Older posts
A view of a Washington, D.C., skyline from the Potomac River at night. The Lincoln Memorial (at left) and the Washington Monument (at right) are lit against a purple sky. Over the water of the Potomac appear the text “#AGU24 coverage from Eos.”

Features from AGU Publications

Research Spotlights

Deforestation Is Reducing Rainfall in the Amazon

19 May 202519 May 2025
Editors' Highlights

Bringing Storms into Focus

19 May 202515 May 2025
Editors' Vox

Decoding Crop Evapotranspiration

6 May 20256 May 2025
Eos logo at left; AGU logo at right

About Eos
ENGAGE
Awards
Contact

Advertise
Submit
Career Center
Sitemap

© 2025 American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved Powered by Newspack