Seventeenth-century Danish geologist Nicolas Steno earned his chops at a young age, studying cadavers and drawing anatomic connections between species. Steno made outsized contributions to the field of geology, influencing Charles Lyell, James Hutton and Charles Darwin. Addison Anderson recounts Steno's little-known legacy and lauds his insisten...

Whether or not you realize it, surfers are masters of complicated physics. The science of surfing begins as soon as a board first hits the water. Surfers may not be thinking about weather patterns in the Pacific, tectonic geology or fluid mechanics, but the art of catching the perfect wave relies on all these things and more. Nick Pizzo dives in...

Penelope Boston studies caves and karst formations, and the special biology that lives in them -- both here on Earth and possibly on other planets.

Many crystals have signature shapes— like the cascade of pointed quartz or a pile of galena cubes. Every crystal's atoms have a defining feature: their organized, repeating pattern. The pattern isn't restricted to minerals- sand, ice, metals and DNA also have crystalline structures. So what causes them to grow into these shapes again and again? ...

In his quest to understand the largest dinosaurs to have walked the Earth, Lacovara blends exploration with the latest imaging and modeling techniques from engineering to medicine.

With each step, you slide 400,000 years back in time. Where are you? Behind a hardware store in New Jersey -- which also happens to be a massive prehistoric graveyard. The only thing that can save it from turning into an apartment complex is geologist Ken Lacovara and a community effort unlike any attempted before. Hear how this town of 15,000 t...

The ground beneath your feet is home to a massive, mysterious world of microbes -- some of which have been in the earth's crust for hundreds of thousands of years. What's it like down there? Take a trip to the volcanoes and hot springs of Costa Rica as microbiologist Karen Lloyd shines a light on these subterranean organisms and shows how they c...

Humanity's increasingly permanent mark on the planet has spurred a new geological age in earth's history: the Anthropocene. Learn how we got to this point -- and what our footprint means to the future of the planet.

In November 1986, Australian miners climbed Lunatic Hill and bored 20 meters into the Earth. They were rewarded with a fist-sized, record breaking gemstone, which they named the Hailey's Comet opal. Thanks to a characteristic called "play of color," no two opals look the same. So what causes these vibrant displays? Jeff Dekofsky digs into the ro...

Andrés Ruzo investigates the Earth's heat and the mystery of a boiling river in the Peruvian rainforest.

David Biello is TED's science curator and the author of "The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth's Newest Age."

With vibrant video clips captured by submarines, David Gallo takes us to some of Earth's darkest, most violent, toxic and beautiful habitats, the valleys and volcanic ridges of the oceans' depths, where life is bizarre, resilient and shockingly abundant.

Exactly when and where did life on Earth begin? Scientists have long thought that it emerged three billion years ago in the ocean -- until astrobiologist Tara Djokic and her team made an unexpected discovery in the western Australian desert. Learn how an ancient rock found near a hot volcanic pool is shifting our understanding of the origin-of-l...

Liz Hajek studies sedimentary rocks to understand how landscapes change and evolve.

Tara Djokic discovered direct evidence that indicates some of Earth's oldest life once thrived in hot springs on land.

Cave explorer and geologist Francesco Sauro travels to the hidden continent under our feet, surveying deep, dark places inside the earth that humans have never been able to reach before. In the spectacular tepuis of South America, he finds new minerals and insects that have evolved in isolation, and he uses his knowledge of these alien worlds to...

Planet Krypton's leading scientific genius, Jor-El invented a widely used hovercraft and discovered a parallel world called the Phantom Zone.

So the Mars Rovers didn't scoop up any alien lifeforms. Scientist Penelope Boston thinks there's a good chance -- a 25 to 50 percent chance, in fact -- that life might exist on Mars, deep inside the planet's caves. She details how we should look and why.

When Andrés Ruzo was a young boy in Peru, his grandfather told him a story with an odd detail: There is a river, deep in the Amazon, which boils as if a fire burns below it. Twelve years later, after training as a geoscientist, he set out on a journey deep into the jungle of South America in search of this boiling river. At a time when everythin...

While the weather in Iceland is often cold, wet, and windy, a nearly endless supply of heat bubbles away below the surface. In fact, almost every building in the country is heated by geothermal energy in a process with virtually no carbon emissions. So how exactly does this renewable energy work? Jean-Baptiste P. Koehl explores the two primary m...

Kristin Poinar uses remote sensing and numerical models to study the interaction of meltwater with ice flow, especially on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

While the Earth's oceans are known as five separate entities, there is really only one ocean. So, how big is it? As of 2013, it takes up 71% of the Earth, houses 99% of the biosphere, and contains some of Earth's grandest geological features. Scott Gass reminds us of the influence humans have on the ocean and the influence it has on us. [Directe...

In this short talk, TED Fellow Sarah Parcak introduces the field of "space archaeology" -- using satellite images to search for clues to the lost sites of past civilizations.

What happens when you discover a dinosaur? Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara details his unearthing of Dreadnoughtus -- a 77-million-year-old sauropod that was as tall as a two-story house and as heavy as a jumbo jet -- and considers how amazingly improbable it is that a tiny mammal living in the cracks of the dinosaur world could evolve into a se...

Human beings are everywhere. With settlements on every continent, we can be found in the most isolated corners of Earth's jungles, oceans and tundras. Our impact is so profound, most scientists believe humanity has left a permanent mark on Earth's geological record. So what would happen if suddenly, every human on Earth disappeared? Dan Kwartler...

About this event: What happens when you combine art with technology? How about medicine? Geology? Mathematics? We often see art as a field separate from all others— as an independent pursuit of creativity. However, combining art with different areas leads to fascinating results! Join our line-up of speakers at UWA's Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery as they explore ...

Alan Stern is excited. The planetary scientist has been working on sending a probe to Pluto since 1989. During that time, he's seen his planet downgraded to "dwarf planet" status (in 2006) ... but now he's optimistic that Pluto will be reinstated with full planetary honors. Why? Because just-released close-up pictures from the New Horizons probe...

Brewster Kahle is an inventor, philanthropist and digital librarian. His Internet Archive offers 85 billion pieces of deep Web geology -- a fascinating look at the formation of the Internet over the years, and a challenge to those who would keep knowledge buried.

A memorable conversation with Oliver Sacks reveals what might have been his greatest attribute: undying curiosity. I remember knocking at his door, nervously clutching an inscribed copy of my book The Philosophical Breakfast Club and a bag from a local chocolatier. I hoped I had chosen my gifts well. He had written to tell me how much he enjoye...

A year ago, Sarah Parcak revealed her TED Prize wish: a citizen science platform for archaeology to let people around the world help find and protect ancient sites. Yesterday night, she returned to the TED stage to share what’s happened since. After a year of work with partners National Geographic and DigitalGlobe, GlobalXplorer launched in ...