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The age of the oldest Jack Hills zircons — Earth's oldest minerals — is contentious. Atomic-scale mapping of the distribution of radiogenic isotopes within a Jack Hills zircon confirms that the oldest known continental crust formed just after the Earth–Moon system.
The end-Permian extinction decimated marine life on an unprecedented scale. However, an analysis of the lifestyles of the surviving genera shows that very little functional diversity was lost at the sea floor.
Feedbacks between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate change could affect many ecosystem functions and services. A synthesis of global air temperature data reveals non-uniform rates of climate warming on diurnal and seasonal timescales, and heterogeneous impacts on ecosystem carbon cycling.
Despite reports of no trends in snow- and rainfall, rivers in the northwest USA have run lower and lower in recent decades. A closer look at high- and low-altitude precipitation suggests that observational networks have missed a decline in mountain rain and snow that can explain the discrepancy.
Global mean surface temperatures have not risen much over the past 15 years, despite continuing greenhouse gas emissions. An attempt to explain the warming slow-down with Arctic data gaps is only a small step towards reconciling observed and expected warming.
Little is known about the presence of high-latitude sea ice before 2.6 million years ago. A reanalysis of marine sediments from the Arctic Ocean indicates an intermittent presence of perennial sea ice as early as 44 million years ago.
Wind systems determine the transport pathways of air pollutants such as ozone. Simulations with a chemistry-climate model suggest that decadal shifts in atmospheric circulation have helped shape season-specific trends in surface ozone levels in Hawaii since the 1990s.
A slowing Atlantic overturning circulation during the last deglacial warming caused abrupt cooling in the Northern Hemisphere. Lake sediment records suggest that hydrological change in Europe lagged the temperature drop by almost 200 years.
Volcanic plumes can be hazardous to aircraft. A correlation between plume height and ground deformation during an eruption of Grímsvötn Volcano, Iceland, allows us to peer into the properties of the magma chamber and may improve eruption forecasts.
Eruptions come in a range of magnitudes. Numerical simulations and laboratory experiments show that rare, giant super-eruptions and smaller, more frequent events reflect a transition in the essential driving forces for volcanism.
