Known today as the “Black Belt,” the southeastern United States was once covered by an ancient sea—one that continues to ...

I tried to hide my surprise. For months I'd been on the trail of the greatest natural disaster in Earth's history. About 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, something killed ...

Scientists have created a groundbreaking map of strontium isotopes found across sub-Saharan Africa—which could help ...

The climate and early human societies were changing quickly during the fall of our closest evolutionary relative—and are big clues to the causes of their demise.

As they meticulously removed layer after layer of earth, they found the first figurine lying face down. Working late into the evening, they cleaned off the dirt, and a face emerged. Archaeologists ...

four light-years from Earth. This story appears in the March 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine. In her office on the 17th floor of MIT’s Building 54, Sara Seager is about as close to ...

New discoveries are breaking old assumptions about Viking women, rewriting history by restoring them ... Photographer and National Geographic Explorer Rena Effendi learned that a little-known ...

Frustrations over the exclusion of women from America’s national narrative boiled over in the 1970s—leading to the creation of Women’s History Month. Observed throughout the United States ...

Geologists and other scientists at the Smithsonian work to understand the processes that have shaped the Earth and other planets. Scientists at the National Museum of Natural History study ...