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Volume 9 Issue 6, June 2016

The global transport and fate of semivolatile aromatic hydrocarbons and their relevance for the carbon cycle are poorly quantified. Global measurements in paired atmospheric and ocean samples suggest that air–sea fluxes are substantial. The image shows research vessel Hespérides during the Malaspina 2010 expedition.

Letter p438; News & Views p415

IMAGE: JOAN COSTA – CSIC

COVER DESIGN: TULSI VORALIA

Editorial

  • Billions of years ago, high atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were vital to life's tenuous foothold on Earth. Despite new constraints, the composition and evolution of Earth's early atmosphere remains hazy.

    Editorial

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Commentary

  • The New Horizons mission has revealed Pluto and its moon Charon to be geologically active worlds. The familiar, yet exotic, landforms suggest that geologic processes operate similarly across the Solar System, even in its cold outer reaches.

    • Paul Schenk
    • Francis Nimmo

    Focus:

    Commentary
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News & Views

  • Frequent storms on the young Sun would have ejected energetic particles and compressed Earth's magnetosphere. Simulations suggest that the particles penetrated the atmosphere and initiated reactions that warmed the planet and fertilized life.

    • Ramses Ramirez
    News & Views
  • Liquid water on Mars may be an agent of surface change, but it is unstable under the thin atmosphere. Experiments suggest water percolating though Martian hillslopes ejects sediment as it boils under the low pressure, and modifies the landscape.

    • Wouter A. Marra
    News & Views
  • Semivolatile organic compounds from fossil fuels or incomplete combustion are ubiquitous. A suite of circumglobal measurements of their oceanic and atmospheric concentrations reveals large carbon fluxes through the deposition of these compounds.

    • Christopher M. Reddy
    News & Views
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Perspective

  • Atmospheric oxygen levels increased in two stages. This two-step rise of oxygen may be a natural consequence of lowered oxidative capacity caused by the emergence of felsic continents and the growth of a continental carbon reservoir.

    • Cin-Ty A. Lee
    • Laurence Y. Yeung
    • Adrian Lenardic
    Perspective
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Letter

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Article

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Corrigendum

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