The Earth and all her sciences were a big deal in 2014. Although this blog – the Mountain Mystery Blog – started in May 2014, it still caught some of the best stories of the year. In chronological order, here are links to some of this blogger’s favourites:

• May 2014.    The discovery of the Santa Maria, the ship that Columbus led across the sea.
• June 2014.   Oklahoma – America’s new earthquake hotspot. Fracking, oil, and all that shaking.
• July 2014.   The demise of the Earth’s magnetic field. Are we all going to die? Or just get lost on the highway? The European Space Agency’s SWARM magnetosphere project shows a steep drop in the field.
• August 2014.   Remembering the birthday anniversary of John Scopes gave us a chance to indulge in a retrospect of the Scopes’ Monkey Trial. So, whatever happened to John Scopes?
• August 2014.   Exxon, Rosneft, and Vladimir Putin begin drilling the world’s most northerly oil well. Who says we can’t all just get along?
• August 2014.   Dry, rising crust. Scripps reports that the drought in the US southwest is drying out the crust and – no longer weighted by water – it is rising.
• September 2014.   Will Sunday be Armageddon Day? I predict that it won’t be, but it is rather surprising that a (potentially) killer asteroid just suddenly and unexpectedly dropped by.
• October 2014.  A fast trip through the center of the Earth. This post was a little different – just a cool look at what would happen if we fell through the center of our planet.
• October 2014.   The Nobel Prize in Geophysics. It doesn’t exist. Why are geophysics, geology, oceanography, geodesy, and all the other Earth sciences ignored by those folks in Sweden?
• October 2014.   Pope Francis and the Magic Wand. This pope continues to surprise and impress. See what he said back in October.
• November 2014.   In Russia’s Growing Pains we looked at Russia’s claim on the North Pole and what it means to the rest of us.
• November 2014.   In recognition of mankind’s phenomenal footprint on our world, geologists are debating renaming our current Holocene geological epoch as the Anthropocene.
• November 2014.   We kissed a comet. This post celebrates landing on a comet and looks at the way humans once feared and loathed those shiny harbingers of doom.
• November 2014.   A review of the best movie of the year – Stephen Hawking and The Theory of Everything.
• December 2014.   The greatest science quotes that were never said. And one you’ve never heard before today.
• December 2014.   A Wonderful Life – What would life be like if Sir Isaac Newton (born on December 25th) had never been born?