Resting in the Karakoram Range between northern Pakistan and western China, the Karakoram glaciers are stumping scientists. Unlike most mountain glaciers, the Karakoram glaciers, which account for 3 percent of the total ice-covered area in the world, excluding Greenland and Antarctica, are not shrinking. On the contrary, a team of French glaciologists has recently confirmed that these glaciers on average have remained stable or may have even grown slightly in recent years.

What are today's biggest unanswered questions in earth science? In the July issue of EARTH Magazine, experts from a variety of disciplines weigh in on what they consider to be the biggest unsolved mysteries across the geosciences and how they think we may solve them.

Big Ideas in Geoscience, a DVD created by AGI to bring the Nine Big Ideas from the Earth Science Literacy Principles to life, has just won three prestigious awards: Digital Video (DV) Winner in Education, DV Winner in Nature/Wildlife and Videographer Award of Excellence.

In the Late Quaternary, Australia was home to an array of megafauna. The half-ton Palorchestes azael, the rhinoceros-sized Diprotodon, and even the giant koala, Phascolarctos stirtoni, roamed Australia's interior. However, between 50,000 and 45,000 years ago, they all vanished. Although recent studies indicate human colonization as a potential cause of their extinction, the exact mechanism has never been resolved. Now, geologist Gifford Miller from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues believe they have uncovered the answer.