Biogeochemistry articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • News & Views |

    Massive amounts of natural gas catastrophically released into the Gulf of Mexico last year are missing. Two investigations suggest that a bloom of tiny specialized bacteria is responsible for this heavy-duty scrubbing job.

    • Gérard Nihous

  • News & Views |

    The neurotoxin methylmercury accumulates in marine biota and their predators. An analysis of seabird egg shells suggests that sea-ice cover reduces the breakdown of this highly toxic compound in sea water.

    • Joel D. Blum

  • Progress Article |

    Hydrothermal vents in the sea floor release large volumes of hot, metal-rich fluids into the deep ocean. Mounting evidence suggests that organic compounds bind to and stabilize metals in hydrothermal fluids, thereby increasing metal flux to the open ocean.

    • Sylvia G. Sander
    •  & Andrea Koschinsky

  • Article |

    Atmospheric deposition of mercury to remote areas has increased threefold since pre-industrial times. Reductions in sea-ice cover accelerate the photodegradation of biologically accessible mercury in Arctic waters, according to an analysis of the isotopic composition of bird eggs in northern latitudes.

    • D. Point
    • , J. E. Sonke
    •  & P. R. Becker

  • News & Views |

    The existence of a microbial community in the ocean crust has long been hypothesized. Isotopic evidence indicates that a deep biosphere of microbes both scrubs oceanic fluids of organic matter and produces new, yet old, organic carbon in situ.

    • Katrina J. Edwards

  • News & Views |

    Bromine facilitates the oxidation of elemental mercury in the lower atmosphere in polar and subpolar regions. Measurements over the Dead Sea suggest that bromine also generates large quantities of oxidized mercury in the mid-latitudes.

    • Parisa A. Ariya

  • Letter |

    Marine sediments contain large quantities of carbon, primarily in the form of gas hydrate. Isotopic analyses suggest that carbon derived from fossil methane accounts for up to 28% of the dissolved organic carbon in sea water overlying hydrate-bearing seeps in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.

    • John W. Pohlman
    • , James E. Bauer
    •  & N. Ross Chapman

  • Letter |

    In the polar atmosphere, non-reactive gaseous elemental mercury is converted to a highly reactive form of mercury by halogens such as bromine. Measurements over the Dead Sea suggest that bromine also triggers reactive mercury formation over the mid-latitude ocean.

    • Daniel Obrist
    • , Eran Tas
    •  & Menachem Luria

  • News & Views |

    Model projections of future climate are highly sensitive to the assumed response of organic matter decomposition to changes in temperature. Incubation experiments on North American soils suggest that the decisive factors lie at the molecular level.

    • Ivan A. Janssens
    •  & Sara Vicca

  • News & Views |

    Wetlands are home to microorganisms that produce and emit methane. Very small wetlands, tucked into unexpected places, might be making a larger contribution to the global methane budget than previously thought.

    • Joseph B. Yavitt

  • Letter |

    Methane concentrations above tropical forests in the neotropics are high, according to space-borne observations. Flux measurements in the field suggest that tank bromeliads, herbaceous plants common throughout tropical forests, emit methane and may contribute to the tropical source.

    • Guntars O. Martinson
    • , Florian A. Werner
    •  & Edzo Veldkamp

  • Review Article |

    Iron controls phytoplankton growth in large tracts of the global ocean, and thereby influences carbon dioxide drawdown. Recent advances reveal the importance of iron-binding ligands and organic matter remineralization in regulating ocean iron levels.

    • P. W. Boyd
    •  & M. J. Ellwood

  • News & Views |

    Peat bogs release large quantities of methane to the atmosphere. A global survey of peat mosses reveals a ubiquitous symbiotic relationship with methane-oxidizing bacteria.

    • Yin Chen
    •  & J. Colin Murrell

  • Backstory |

    Nardy Kip, Julia F. van Winden, Huub J. M. Op den Camp and an array of colleagues braved hostile acidic peat bogs around the world in a feat of truly collaborative research.

  • News & Views |

    Reconstructions of atmospheric chemistry and microbial life early in the Earth's history have been contentious. Observations increasingly point to the evolution of complex and variable environments earlier in time.

    • Andrew D. Czaja

  • Review Article |

    The terrestrial biosphere is a key regulator of atmospheric chemistry and climate. Total positive radiative forcing resulting from biogeochemical feedbacks between the terrestrial biosphere and atmosphere could be equally as important as that resulting from physical feedbacks.

    • A. Arneth
    • , S. P. Harrison
    •  & T. Vesala

  • News & Views |

    The formation and burial of calcium phosphate minerals removes large quantities of phosphorus from the ocean. Radiotracer experiments reveal that bacteria in marine sediments mediate the production of these mineral phases at remarkably fast rates.

    • Ellery D. Ingall

  • Letter |

    Organic phosphorus is removed from the ocean by its conversion to phosphorite. Laboratory incubations suggest that bacteria catalyse phosphorite formation, and that the rate of conversion is greatest under anoxic conditions.

    • Tobias Goldhammer
    • , Volker Brüchert
    •  & Matthias Zabel

  • News & Views |

    The timing and nature of changes in the chemistry of the early oceans are intensely debated. Geochemical analyses show that a prominent transition to sulphidic marine conditions 1.8 billion years ago may have been restricted to near-shore environments.

    • David Fike

  • Letter |

    The deposition of iron formations ceased about 1.84 billion years ago. Reconstructions of ocean chemistry suggest that the advent of euxinic conditions along ocean margins preferentially removed dissolved iron from the water column in the form of the mineral pyrite, inhibiting widespread iron-oxide mineral deposition.

    • Simon W. Poulton
    • , Philip W. Fralick
    •  & Donald E. Canfield

  • News & Views |

    The ocean's nitrogen budget has escaped quantification. A modelling study shows how a small shift in the nitrate-to-phosphate uptake ratio of phytoplankton has a large effect on calculated nitrogen fixation rates.

    • Wolfgang Koeve
    •  & Paul Kähler

  • News & Views |

    The organic matter stored in frozen Arctic soils could release significant quantities of carbon dioxide and methane on thawing. Now, laboratory experiments show that re-wetting of previously thawed permafrost could increase nitrous oxide production by 20-fold.

    • Hermann F. Jungkunst

  • News & Views |

    Increasing temperatures stimulate the decomposition of soil organic matter in the short term. But a shift in microbial carbon allocation could mitigate this response over longer periods of time.

    • Göran I. Ågren

  • Letter |

    Nitrous oxide is a potent atmospheric greenhouse gas that is thought to be produced in soils through biological processes. Field measurements reveal nitrous oxide fluxes near Don Juan Pond, Antarctica — of comparable magnitude to those found in tropical soils — which may result from abiotic water–rock reactions.

    • Vladimir A. Samarkin
    • , Michael T. Madigan
    •  & Samantha B. Joye

  • Letter |

    The loss of carbon dioxide from soils increases initially under climate warming, but tends to decline to control levels within a few years. Simulations of the soil-carbon response to warming with a microbial-enzyme model show that a decline in both microbial biomass and the production of degrading enzymes can explain this attenuation response.

    • Steven D. Allison
    • , Matthew D. Wallenstein
    •  & Mark A. Bradford

  • Review Article |

    The use of fossil fuels and fertilizers has increased the amount of biologically reactive nitrogen in the atmosphere over the past century. A meta-analysis suggests that nitrogen deposition typically impedes the decomposition of carbon in forest soils, significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

    • I. A. Janssens
    • , W. Dieleman
    •  & B.E. Law

  • Progress Article |

    Soils are the main terrestrial reservoir of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and of organic carbon. Data synthesis reveals that soil erosion can result in lateral fluxes of these nutrients at comparable magnitudes to those induced by fertilizer application and crop removal.

    • John N. Quinton
    • , Gerard Govers
    •  & Richard D. Bardgett

  • Letter |

    The impact of thawing permafrost on the nitrogen cycle is uncertain. Laboratory experiments using permafrost cores from northeast Greenland reveal that rewetting of thawed permafrost increases nitrous oxide production over 20-fold.

    • Bo Elberling
    • , Hanne H. Christiansen
    •  & Birger U. Hansen

  • Letter |

    Mineral dust and marine sediment resuspension are generally considered the primary sources of the nutrient iron to the oceans. Numerical model results suggest that iron released by hydrothermal activity is also an important source of dissolved iron, particularly in the Southern Ocean.

    • Alessandro Tagliabue
    • , Laurent Bopp
    •  & Catherine Jeandel

  • News & Views |

    About 94.5 million years ago, oxygen levels in the deep ocean dropped while carbon burial rapidly increased. Geochemical analyses suggest that the release of sulphate from extensive volcanism set off a sequence of biogeochemical reactions that led to ocean anoxia.

    • Haydon P. Mort

  • Letter |

    Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in sea water are driving a progressive acidification of the ocean, with as yet unclear impacts on marine calcifying organisms. Simulations with an Earth system model suggest that future changes in the marine environment could be more severe than those experienced during the Palaeocene–Eocene thermal maximum, both in the deep ocean and near the surface.

    • Andy Ridgwell
    •  & Daniela N. Schmidt

  • Letter |

    Ninety-four million years ago, during Ocean Anoxic Event 2, there was a marked increase in the burial of organic carbon in marine sediments. Measurements of stomata in fossil leaves show that the two main pulses of carbon burial were associated with a decline in atmospheric CO2 levels of up to 26%.

    • Richard S. Barclay
    • , Jennifer C. McElwain
    •  & Bradley B. Sageman

  • Letter |

    In the Arctic spring, sunlight-induced reactions convert gaseous elemental mercury into compounds that are rapidly deposited on the snowpack. Analysis of the isotopic composition of mercury in snow samples collected during an atmospheric mercury depletion event suggests that sunlight triggers the re-emission of mercury from the snowpack.

    • Laura S. Sherman
    • , Joel D. Blum
    •  & Thomas A. Douglas

  • Letter |

    Several periods of global ocean anoxia punctuated the Cretaceous period. Marine-sediment chemistry indicates that extensive volcanism at the beginning of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 released sulphur to the oceans, triggering a biogeochemical cascade that led to enhanced surface productivity and depletion of oxygen in the underlying waters.

    • Derek D. Adams
    • , Matthew T. Hurtgen
    •  & Bradley B. Sageman

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