Earthquakes may cause gold nuggets to form in quartz by generating an electric field that attracts gold dissolved in fluid forced up from deep underground. Enormous gold nuggets are often associated ...

Gold has always been a hot commodity. But these days, finding a nugget isn’t too tricky: Much of the world’s gold is mined from natural veins of quartz, a glassy mineral that streaks through large ...

Living under a translucent rock can be quite comfortable -- if you're a moss in the Mojave Desert. A graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, found that some mosses in the ...

Desert conditions are harsh, and mosses often spend much of the year in a dormant condition, desiccated and brown, until rain comes. Researchers discovered two species of moss that found a hiding ...