Houchin and his colleagues studied dozens of zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia. These are the oldest ...

There are many open questions about how our planet formed 4.55 billion years ago: When did plate tectonics start? When did the Earth's mantle begin to vigorously circulate in a process called ...

Tiny, tooth-sized fossils have just reshaped the story of our deepest ancestry. Paleontologists have discovered the southernmost remains ever found of Purgatorius—the earliest-known relative of all ...

New minuscule fossils of Purgatorius, the earliest-known relative of all primates—including humans—have been unearthed in a ...