Geologists from UNLV have confirmed some unsettling suspicions, namely, that an estimated one million acres in Clark County has asbestos in the rocks and soil.

An undated photo at Grand Canyon National Park shows the fossilized tracks of an unidentified creature that researchers believe lived about 315 million years ago.

When Americans celebrated the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the planet's atmosphere was markedly different than it is today. Nearly 50 years ago, scientists measured Earth's levels of carbon dioxide — the planet's most important greenhouse gas — at around 325 parts per million, or ppm.

Asbestos is no longer ubiquitous in building materials, and since it's proven to cause cancer, many Americans likely assumed the substance had been banned entirely. But not only is asbestos a naturally occurring mineral, it is also still used to make some household products. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports on "broken" U.S. regulation and why we continue to import the carcinogen.

Quicksand may not be as common as adventure movies might lead one to believe, but that doesn't mean that getting stuck in the stuff is entirely inconceivable.

The Fenner Valley Water Authority (FVWA) has released a new analysis by water chemistry expert Dr. David K. Kreamer, a professor of Hydrology & Geosciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas critiquing two opposition-funded papers to the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project. FVWA is the public agency charged with operating and pre-project monitoring of the Cadiz Water Project in coordination with San Bernardino County.

No one knows when the big one will hit Las Vegas, but that's not stopping researchers at UNLV from trying to predict if and when it could happen.

Forty-two centuries ago, the flourishing Akkadian Empire—spread across modern-day Iraq, Turkey, and Syria—suddenly disappeared. Paleoclimatologists and other geoscientists now have one possible explanation for why. Using precisely age dated chemical measurements from a stalagmite collected in a cave in Iran, researchers found an abrupt uptick in dust at that point in history. This heightened dust activity, which persisted for 300 years, might have made for uncomfortable living conditions and difficulties in farming, the researchers suggest.

When you’re out hiking in the Grand Canyon, you never know what you might see. You could cross paths with lizards, tarantulas or maybe even something bigger like a javelina. More likely, you’ll also come across the tracks of these critters.

Fossilized reptile prints older than any dinosaur were recently discovered in the Grand Canyon.

When you’re out hiking, you never know what you might see. You could cross paths with lizards, tarantulas or maybe even something bigger like a javelina. More likely, you’ll also come across the tracks of these critters.

Professor Matt Lachniet spends hours looking for clues. This Thursday, he shows us samples in his laboratory of stalagmites from Nevada caves. Some are thousands of years old, pointing to a time when this desert was actually hotter and drier, which coincides with a time when the oceans we now call the Pacific and the Arctic were warmer.