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High pressures may have enabled ferric iron-rich silicate melts to coexist with iron metal near the base of magma oceans early in the history of large rocky planets like Earth. This suggests a relatively oxygen-rich atmosphere during the late stages of core formation on these planets.
NASA’s DART mission showed how a kinetic impact can be deployed to enhance the momentum change of a near-Earth asteroid while giving us the first up-close view of a binary asteroid system.
Deep overturning circulation in the North Atlantic strongly influences the global climate system. Combined proxy record compilations and modelling refine our understanding of the behaviour of this circulation over the last 20,000 years.
The Montreal Protocol has successfully guided the world’s transition from chlorofluorcarbons that deplete ozone to hydrofluorocarbons that pose no direct threat to the ozone layer. A study suggests that a recent rise in atmospheric chlorofluorcarbons is linked to the inadvertent release of these gases during the production of hydrofluorocarbons.
A field-based study of 4.5 years of whole-soil warming reveals that warming stimulates loss of structurally complex organic carbon at the same rate as that for bulk organic carbon in subsoil.
The devastating intensity of exceptional floods in some rivers can be anticipated, and surprisingly traces back to the river basins themselves, rather than the amount of rain they receive.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation strongly impacts climate, but its variability remains difficult to predict. A conceptual model based on shifting circulation patterns offers a simple explanation for this complex behaviour.
Long-lasting eruptions of some subduction zone volcanoes may be regulated by their magma sources in the mantle. This suggests that direct connections between the mantle and surface are possible through a relatively thick crust.
Satellite data are revolutionizing coastal science. A study revealing how the El Niño/Southern Oscillation impacts coastal erosion around the Pacific Rim shows what is possible.
A global analysis of seismic waves has identified a widespread sharp velocity anomaly at the base of the low seismic velocity zone that is consistent with partial melting, closing a decades-long debate about the origin of this zone.
Some coastal marshes may have a hard time building soil elevation under future climate conditions, although this may reduce methane emissions, according to four years of field manipulation of warming and elevated CO2 in a coastal wetland.
Venus and Earth have remarkably different surface conditions, yet the lithospheric thickness and heat flow on Venus may be Earth-like. This finding supports a tectonic regime with limited surface mobility and dominated by intrusive magmatism.
Widespread injection of deep water from the Barents Sea into the Nansen Basin makes a substantial contribution to carbon sequestration in the Arctic Ocean, and feeds the deep sea community.
The biological processes that control the release of carbon stored in land are dependent on water availability. A global analysis of temperature sensitivity reveals how hydrometeorological processes modulate the response of land carbon turnover to temperature.
Mediation by iron minerals in the non-biological production of nitrous and nitric oxides may have driven the nitrogen cycle in the Archean ocean. This system may also have shaped the function and composition of the early marine ecosystem.
Greening of the planet has increased global surface water availability, but vegetation changes can have diverse local and remote impacts across different regions.
In rare and sometimes highly destructive cases, faults rupture faster than the seismic waves generated can travel. A global investigation of earthquake rupture speeds reveals that these events occur much more frequently than previously thought.
Submarine gas hydrates in temperate and tropical oceans are probably not large sources of atmospheric methane emissions at present, suggests a study of methane sources along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the USA.
Enhanced formation of clay in marine sediments in the lead up to the end-Permian mass extinction likely pulled the Earth back into a hot, high-CO2 state similar to that of the Precambrian.
