Built for stability -

Paul Valdes

doi:10.1038/ngeo1200

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How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world -

Jan Willem Erisman, Mark A. Sutton, James Galloway, Zbigniew Klimont & Wilfried Winiwarter

doi:10.1038/ngeo325

On 13 October 1908, Fritz Haber filed his patent on the "synthesis of ammonia from its elements" for which he was later awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A hundred years on we live in a world transformed by and highly dependent upon Haber-Bosch nitrogen.

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Palaeozoic landscapes shaped by plant evolution -

Martin R. Gibling & Neil S. Davies

doi:10.1038/ngeo1376

Throughout the Palaeozoic era, about 540 to 250 million years ago, plants colonized land and rapidly diversified. An analysis of the palaeontologic record shows that this diversification irrevocably altered the shape and form of fluvial systems.

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Slight mass gain of Karakoram glaciers in the early twenty-first century -

Julie Gardelle, Etienne Berthier & Yves Arnaud

doi:10.1038/ngeo1450

The mass balance of Hindu-Kush–Karakoram–Himalaya glaciers has been debated, partly because of a severe lack of observations from the region. An analysis of the regional mass balance of Karakoram glaciers by comparison of digital elevation models from 1999 to 2008 reveals a small glacier mass gain in the area.

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Reconciling the hemispherical structure of Earth's inner core with its super-rotation -

Lauren Waszek, Jessica Irving & Arwen Deuss

doi:10.1038/ngeo1083

Earth's solid inner core is separated into two distinct hemispheres and is thought to rotate faster than the Earth. An analysis of seismic travel time data allows quantification of the displacement of the hemisphere boundary with time, and results in an estimated super-rotation several orders of magnitude smaller than previously reported.

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Hydrogen isotope ratios in lunar rocks indicate delivery of cometary water to the Moon -

James P. Greenwood, Shoichi Itoh, Naoya Sakamoto, Paul Warren, Lawrence Taylor & Hisayoshi Yurimoto

doi:10.1038/ngeo1050

Water has been found in many lunar rock samples, but its sources are unknown. Isotopic analyses of Apollo samples of lunar mare basalts and highlands rocks suggest that a significant volume of water was delivered to the Moon by comets shortly after its formation by giant impact.

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The age of the Solar System redefined by the oldest Pb–Pb age of a meteoritic inclusion -

Audrey Bouvier & Meenakshi Wadhwa

doi:10.1038/ngeo941

The age of the Solar System is defined by the formation of the first solid grains in the solar nebula. Pb–Pb age dating of these solids, which were later trapped in a meteorite, indicates that the Solar System is 0.34–1.91 million years older than previously thought.

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Deforestation driven by urban population growth and agricultural trade in the twenty-first century -

Ruth S. DeFries, Thomas Rudel, Maria Uriarte & Matthew Hansen

doi:10.1038/ngeo756

Reducing tropical deforestation is at present considered a cost-effective option for mitigating climate change. Satellite-based estimates of forest loss suggest that urban population growth and urban and international demand for agricultural products are key drivers of deforestation in the tropics.

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Two-stage subduction history under North America inferred from multiple-frequency tomography -

Karin Sigloch, Nadine McQuarrie & Guust Nolet

doi:10.1038/ngeo231

The ancient Farallon plate subducted under North America in two distinct stages. High-resolution tomographic images show large pieces of the plate, including the currently active piece, which descends from the Pacific Northwest coast to 1,500 km depth, and its stalled predecessor, which now occupies the transition zone and lower mantle beneath the eastern half of the continent.

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Climate and human influences on global biomass burning over the past two millennia -

J. R. Marlon, P. J. Bartlein, C. Carcaillet, D. G. Gavin, S. P. Harrison, P. E. Higuera, F. Joos, M. J. Power & I. C. Prentice

doi:10.1038/ngeo313

A compilation of wildfire records spanning six continents and 2,000 years reveals global patterns in biomass burning to be temporally linked with changes in climate, population and land use. An abrupt decline in biomass burning beginning about 150 years ago may be related to the expansion of intensive grazing, agriculture and fire management activities.

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