Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
A late onset of inner-core growth is inferred from ultra-low palaeomagnetic field strengths about 565 million years ago, as measured in magnetic inclusions in Ediacaran crystals.
A separate mantle domain, distinct from both the Pacific and Indian domains, exists beneath the Southern Ocean, according to isotope compositions of samples from the Australian–Antarctic ridge.
Explosive volcanic eruptions in the extratropics have cooled the climate in their hemisphere more than tropical eruptions, suggests an analysis of reconstructions since ad 750 and simulations with an atmosphere–aerosol model.
Earthquakes in the crust and mantle at transform faults are distinct yet coupled, with seismic swarms in the mantle apparently preceding large earthquakes, according to ocean-bottom seismic monitoring of the Blanco Transform Fault.
A large reservoir of organic carbon persists in oxic pelagic sediments for millions of years as demonstrated by samples from the North Atlantic and South Pacific. This predominantly proteinaceous carbon persists due to physical protection and adsorption to mineral surfaces.
Fires and logging alter soil composition and result in a significant reduction of soil nutrients that lasts for decades after the disturbance, suggests an analysis of soil samples across a multi-century sequence in mountain ash forests.
Any influence of the 11-year solar cycle on the North Atlantic Oscillation is insignificant, and could have been a chance occurrence, suggest analyses of the instrumental record and of chemistry–climate model simulations.
Microbial degradation is a key process for removing aromatic hydrocarbons from the oceans, according to measurements in plankton and seawater with 64 types of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their microbial degradation genes in four ocean basins.
The sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheet to obliquity increases when ice-sheet margins are exposed to the ocean, suggests an analysis of sediment core oxygen isotope records.