It is a mineral used to make types of plaster which coat our homes, schools and offices - and in Cumbria sits the world's deepest gypsum mine. Outside the small village of Long Marton, against the ...

briny lakes surrounded by mile after mile of salt and gypsum. Today, scientists call this the Messinian Salinity Crisis: in the dying days of the Miocene epoch, most of the Mediterranean died.

thanks to a new study of Earthly microbial fossils embedded in the mineral gypsum that was produced when the Mediterranean Ocean dried up over 5 million years ago. Mars was once wet, with rivers ...