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An investigation of global trace-element data suggests that the parental melts of hotspot lavas are uniform in their elemental composition, consistent with derivation from a common depleted and outgassed mantle reservoir.
China’s second phase of clean air actions proved less effective than the first, highlighting the need to adapt and update policies to enable continued progress, according to an assessment combining chemical transport modelling and emission inventories.
Enhancing nitrogen use efficiency can effectively reduce soil nitrogen losses from fertilizer use in the production of maize and wheat, according to a global analysis of field measurement data on crop-specific soil nitrogen losses.
Anthropogenic ground-level ozone substantially reduces the productivity of tropical forests and so their carbon drawdown, according to ozone susceptibility experiments and dynamic global vegetation modelling.
Clinopyroxene offers clues about the inner workings of volcanic systems, as Teresa Ubide explains. Its ability to track where and when magma is stored may also help forecast eruptions.
Sand is an overlooked resource and is being depleted at an alarming rate. Improved management of sand extraction and consumption is imperative to protect sand resources and reduce the impacts of extraction.
Large-ensemble simulations suggest that strong regional trends in precipitation and temperature extremes will be common over the next two decades, even under stringent mitigation measures.
The processes that control the deformation and eventual destruction of Earth’s oldest continental crust are unclear. Mantle flow models suggest subduction played a role in the deformation of the North China Craton.
Summer snow accumulation and its albedo effect on Arctic sea ice are controlled by the Arctic Oscillation atmospheric circulation pattern, according to a combined modelling and remote sensing analysis.
Mesozoic deformation of the North China Craton occurred via lithospheric thickening followed by thinning and extension triggered by flat-slab subduction and rollback, according to four-dimensional mantle flow models of the plate–mantle system.
A re-evaluation of global land-to-ocean carbon exports using a multi-model ensemble and a database of observations reveals that the export of carbon by rivers is 20% higher than that reported in the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment. These findings underscore the important contribution of riverine carbon to the carbon budget.
Global riverine carbon export to the ocean may exceed previous estimates, underscoring the important role of riverine carbon to the carbon budget, according to a multi-model ensemble assessment constrained by a global dataset.
A global analysis of post-fire vegetation productivity recovery reveals that the recovery time shows spatial variations across vegetation types and regions. The dominant factors that influence the recovery time in the majority of the global burned area are the post-fire climate conditions, such as soil moisture, vapour pressure deficit and air temperature.
This study investigates the history of graphitic carbon in two ancient North American mountain belts related to Nuna supercontinent assembly. Using rhenium–osmium and uranium–lead dating, the research reveals that biogenic graphite was hydrothermally remobilized in shear zones during late orogenesis, indicating periodic carbon cycling over 200 million years.
Deformation experiments and piezoelectric modelling show that the electric charge generated by quartz crystals is capable of depositing dissolved gold. These results suggest that the piezoelectric activity of quartz might drive gold nugget formation from hydrothermal solutions in earthquake settings.
Wildfires are a natural disturbance in Arctic and boreal regions, but unprecedented wildfire extremes over the past decade have been linked to climate warming. Tracking fires at high temporal resolution reveals a large spatial variability in Arctic–boreal fire regimes driven by environmental and anthropogenic factors, which also modulate the climate sensitivity of different regions.
Quartz emits a piezoelectric charge during deformation that may promote the formation of gold nuggets within veins in orogenic settings that experience earthquakes, according to a study using quartz deformation experiments and piezoelectric modelling.
Arctic–boreal biomes vary regionally in the sensitivity of their fire regime to climate, according to an analysis of properties of individual fires measured by satellite radiometry.
The upwelling mantle beneath Iceland underwent melt depletion at least 1 billion years ago and is therefore compositionally buoyant, according to a study of neodymium and hafnium isotope ratios in peridotites from the Charlie Gibbs Transform Zone.
