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The first British gravestone in the American colonies, a slab of black limestone with an engraving of a knight.

America’s Oldest Surviving Tombstone Probably Came From Belgium

How researchers analyzed limestone to determine the age and origins of the grave maker, which marked the final resting place of a prominent Jamestown colonist.
by Sarah Kuta via Smithsonian on September 25, 2024
Three workers taking a break inside a salt mine in the 1940s.

Salt of the Earth

In Winn Parish, an ancient salt dome has sustained life for centuries.
by Kelby Ouchley via 64 Parishes on September 1, 2024
An oil well at Signal Hill near Long Beach.

It’s Oil That Makes LA Boil

I never knew I lived in an oil town until I went looking for the concealed infrastructure of fossil fuel production.
by Jonathan S. Blake via Noema on July 30, 2024
Woman and man looking at the fiji mermaid

Nineteenth-Century Clickbait

The exhibition “Mermaids and Monsters” explores hoaxes of yore.
by Deb Lucke via The New Yorker on January 20, 2024
A miner carries a sack of ore at the Shabara mine near Kolwezi.

First They Mined for the Atomic Bomb. Now They’re Mining for E.V.s.

Miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo face few protections in the global rush for metals in energy transition—a toxic legacy from mining nuclear weapons.
by Roger Peet via The New Republic on August 30, 2023
Addressing the problem, some scientists believe, may require reimagining agriculture from the ground up.

Phosphorus Saved Our Way of Life—and Now Threatens to End It

Fertilizers filled with the nutrient boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today, they’re creating vast and growing dead zones in our lakes and seas.
by Elizabeth Kolbert via The New Yorker on February 27, 2023
Footprints dated to 23,000-21,000 years ago at the White Sands National Park, New Mexico.

The First Americans – A Story of Wonderful, Uncertain Science

Archaeology and genetics can’t yet agree on when humans first arrived in the Americas. That’s good science, and here’s why.
by Jennifer Raff via Aeon on December 22, 2022
People swimming along the Hawaiian coast.

My Whole Life Is Empty Without You

A necessarily abridged perspective of place in Hawai‘i.
by J. Matt via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 14, 2022
A field of manoomin - wild rice - in northern Minnesota, with water and trees in the background.

What Minnesota's Mineral Gaze Overlooks

The tendency to favor interest in resource extraction over the protection of the state’s waters, vital to the native Ojibwe population, has deep historical roots.
by Andrew Hoyt via Edge Effects on July 14, 2022
original

High Domes and Bottomless Pits

Exploring the homes of two presidents, the birthplace of another, and a natural wonder that once drew visitors from far and wide.
by Ed Ayers on July 6, 2022
1827 Finley Map of the Western Hemisphere

Land that Could Become Water

Dreams of Central America in the era of the Erie Canal.
by Jessica Lepler via Commonplace on April 5, 2022
Photograph of an American Northwest forest.

The Long-Lost Tale of an 18th-Century Tsunami, as Told by Trees

Local evidence of the cataclysm has literally washed away over the years. But Oregon’s Douglas firs may have recorded clues deep in their tree rings.
by Max G. Levy via Wired on September 23, 2021

America’s Conflicted Landscapes

A nation that identifies itself with nature begins to fall apart when it can no longer agree on what nature is.
by David E. Nye via The MIT Press Reader on April 20, 2021
Fishing boats an debris deposited in an Alaska village by the earthquake.

At the Very Beginning of the Great Alaska Earthquake

People’s stories described a sluggish process of discovery: you had to discover the earthquake, even though it had already been shaking you for what felt like a very long time.
by Jon Mooallem via Literary Hub on March 24, 2020
Left: Place de la Concorde. Number 6 in the series Curiosités Parisiennes, early 20th century. Postcard; offset lithography. Courtesy Leonard A. Lauder. Right: Monolite Mussolini Dux, via Wikimedia Commons

The 20th-Century Obelisk, From Imperialist Icon to Phallic Symbol

Amid all the imperial aspiration, wooly-minded New Age mythologizing, and pure unadulterated commerce, the obelisk stands tall.
by Anthony Grafton, Brian A. Curran, Pamela O. Long, Benjamin Weiss via The MIT Press Reader on December 16, 2019

The Pirate Map That Launched My Career

Oceanographer Dawn Wright on how "Treasure Island" led her to map the bottom of the sea.
by Dawn Wright via CityLab on November 15, 2019

Historians Expose Early Scientists’ Debt to the Slave Trade

Key plant and animal specimens arrived in Europe on slavers’ ships
by Sam Kean via Science on April 3, 2019
Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon National Park Turns 100: How a Place Once Called 'Valueless' Became Grand

As Grand Canyon National Park celebrates its centennial, it’s worth recalling the peculiar way the canyon became grand.
by Stephen Pyne via The Conversation on February 6, 2019
Painting of the mouth of a cave.

Down in the Hole: Outlaw Country and Outlaw Culture

Country music has often stood, as it were, with one foot in and one foot out of the cave.
by Max Fraser via Southern Cultures on October 16, 2018

The Visionary John Wesley Powell Had a Plan for Developing the West, But Nobody Listened

Powell’s foresight might have prevented the 1930s dust bowl and perhaps, today’s water scarcities.
by John F. Ross via Smithsonian on July 3, 2018
A graphic featuring Zonia Baber and the Earth.

The Woman Who Transformed How We Teach Geography

By blending education and activism, Zonia Baber made geography a means of uniting—not conquering—the globe.
by Leila McNeill via Smithsonian on January 18, 2018
Walden Pond.

'Walden' Wasn’t Thoreau’s Masterpiece

In his 2-million-word journal, the transcendentalist balanced poetic wonder and scientific rigor as he explored the natural world.
by Andrea Wulf via The Atlantic on November 1, 2017
Magellan’s ship, the Victoria, in the Pacific Ocean on the map of the New World.

The Land Divided, The World United

Building the Panama Canal.
via Linda Hall Library on April 8, 2014
Manhattan Island, half with buildings and half wooded as it looked before New York City was built.

New York - Before the City

Mannahatta's fascinating pre-city ecology of hills, rivers, wildlife when Times Square was a wetland and you couldn't get delivery.
by Eric W. Sanderson via TED on July 1, 2009
Armed miners at the military headquarters of the United Mine Workers, in Trinidad, Colorado, the month of the Ludlow massacre.

There Was Blood

The Ludlow massacre revisited.
by Caleb Crain via The New Yorker on January 12, 2009

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