Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • Letter |

    The global geoid is characterized by a semi-continuous belt of minima that surround the Pacific Ocean. Simulations with mantle flow models suggest that these geoid lows are correlated with high-velocity anomalies near the base of the mantle and low-velocity anomalies in the mid-to-upper mantle.

    • Sonja Spasojevic
    • , Michael Gurnis
    •  & Rupert Sutherland

  • Editorial |

    The world's soils are under pressure from climate change and population growth. Investors' interest is surging, but scientists have yet to pay soils due tribute.

  • Commentary |

    A multitude of organisms makes soils the fertile factories of food and fibre production, decomposition and nutrient cycling that they are. But tying changes in soil biodiversity to shifts in ecosystem function is a daunting task.

    • Diana H. Wall
    • , Richard D. Bardgett
    •  & Eugene Kelly

  • 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

  • News & Views |

    The amount of pore space in most unweathered granite is too small to support a plant-based ecosystem. But porosity grows as intact rock interacts with surface waters beneath the soil.

    • Susan L. Brantley

  • Commentary |

    Between 1960 and 2000, Asian and Latin American food production tripled, thanks to the use of high-yielding varieties of crops. Africa can follow suit, but only if depletion of soil nutrients is addressed.

    • Pedro A. Sánchez

  • Backstory |

    Vladimir Samarkin, Michael Madigan and colleagues travelled to Don Juan Pond in Antarctica, in an attempt to understand life on Mars. Instead, they discovered an unexpected link between the geosphere and atmosphere.

  • 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

  • Letter |

    Natural petroleum seepage emits large volumes of oil and methane to the oceans every year, accompanied by the formation of asphalt volcanoes on the sea floor. The discovery of seven asphalt volcanoes off the coast of southern California may help to explain high methane emissions recorded during the late Pleistocene.

    • David L. Valentine
    • , Christopher M. Reddy
    •  & Morgan Soloway

  • News & Views |

    The formation and flow of deep water around Antarctica contributes to the global ocean circulation. New measurements report the strongest flow speeds recorded so far in a current below 3,000 m depth, and help to document a pathway for Antarctic Bottom Water.

    • Alejandro H. Orsi

  • Article |

    Seismotectonic studies seek to provide ways of assessing the timing, magnitude and spatial extent of future earthquakes. Numerical simulations of seismic and aseismic fault slip in a fully dynamical numerical model open the possibility of predicting a fault system’s seismic rupture patterns from observations of its slip properties.

    • Yoshihiro Kaneko
    • , Jean-Philippe Avouac
    •  & Nadia Lapusta

  • 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

  • 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

  • Letter |

    Deep western boundary currents east of the Antarctic Peninsula and the Kerguelen plateau are important pathways for transporting deep Antarctic water masses to the global ocean. An array of moored current meters, used to quantify the water transport in this system, reveals a flow that is stronger than any measured in a deep western boundary current at similar depths so far.

    • Y. Fukamachi
    • , S. R. Rintoul
    •  & M. Wakatsuchi

  • 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 sedimentary deposits at Meridiani Planum on Mars were formed in acidic surface waters. Geochemical calculations show that the oxidation of dissolved iron and the precipitation of oxidized iron minerals in the surface waters could be sufficient to generate the inferred acidity.

    • Joel A. Hurowitz
    • , Woodward W. Fischer
    •  & Ralph E. Milliken

  • Letter |

    The 100,000-year glacial cycles are generally thought to be driven by the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit. Statistical analyses of climate variability and orbital forcing over the past five million years indicate that the glacial cycles are the result of an internal climate oscillation phase locked to the 100,000-year eccentricity cycle.

    • Lorraine E. Lisiecki

  • 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

  • Books & Arts |

    Anna Armstrong reviews Dirty Oil by Leslie Iwerks, Dogwoof: 2010. UK release date: 19 March 2010.

    • Anna Armstrong

  • News & Views |

    Many species of nannoplankton with carbonate shells vanished during the mass extinction 65 million years ago. An analysis of extinction rates from the world's oceans reveals a geographic bias in the demise and recovery of nannoplankton species.

    • Paul B. Wignall

  • News & Views |

    The fragmentation of continents at convergent plate boundaries is thought to be influenced by the subducting lithosphere. Numerical modelling suggests that instead, the forces exerted by the underlying mantle can drive the formation of continental microplates.

    • Christine Siddoway

  • Commentary |

    Twitter messages offer first-hand accounts of earthquakes within minutes. Analyses of their content and geographic distribution can be a useful supplement to instrument-based estimates of quake location and magnitude.

    • Paul Earle

  • Backstory |

    After dodging icebergs and flying fish, Jeff Standish and colleagues collected a suite of basalts from the Southwest Indian Ridge, to try and determine the mechanisms of mid-ocean-ridge formation.

  • News & Views |

    Oceanic crust forms through the addition of volcanic rock to mid-ocean ridges. Widely dispersed, young lavas observed at an ultraslow-spreading ridge provide impetus for the redevelopment of models of oceanic magmatism.

    • John Maclennan

  • Letter |

    The cause of the Laramide phase of mountain building remains uncertain. Modelling and plate reconstructions show that Laramide events coincide with subduction of the Shatsky oceanic plateau, implicating surface rebound after removal of the subducting plateau in Laramide uplift.

    • Lijun Liu
    • , Michael Gurnis
    •  & Jennifer M. Jackson

  • Article |

    Stratospheric water vapour affects Earth’s radiation budget. A 19-month record of the hydrogen isotopic composition of water in the tropical stratosphere, collected through remote sensing measurements, shows a clear seasonal cycle in the isotopic composition that propagates upwards in this region, and is most likely created in the tropical tropopause layer.

    • Jörg Steinwagner
    • , Stephan Fueglistaler
    •  & Thomas Röckmann

  • Article |

    Mid-ocean ridges grow through tectonic and volcanic processes. Uranium-series dating of volcanic rocks at the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge reveals widely dispersed, young, off-axis volcanism that is spatially coincident with fault surfaces. Faults may therefore provide a mechanism for the wide dispersal of magma at ultraslow-spreading ridges.

    • Jared J. Standish
    •  & Kenneth W. W. Sims

  • News & Views |

    Decision makers are in need of decadal climate forecasts, for example, to help plan infrastructure investments. When — or whether — climate modellers will be able to deliver is not yet clear.

    • Mark A. Cane

  • Letter |

    Ice clouds in the tropical tropopause layer have a key role in dehydrating air that is entering the stratosphere. Cloud-chamber measurements suggest that their high humidity can be explained if heterogeneous ice nucleation on glassy aerosols is a significant nucleation mechanism in this region.

    • Benjamin J. Murray
    • , Theodore W. Wilson
    •  & Bernd Kärcher

  • News & Views |

    The surface layer of the Southern Ocean connects the atmosphere with the deep subtropical ocean. Ocean observations reveal that the thickness of this layer — important for biological productivity — is controlled by the strength and position of the southern circumpolar winds.

    • Sarah Gille

  • Article |

    Interactions between the atmosphere and ocean are mediated by the mixed layer at the ocean surface. Analyses of ocean temperature and salinity data from Argo floats show that changes in the Southern Annular Mode, including recent and projected trends attributed to human activity, drive variations in mixed-layer depth in the Southern Ocean.

    • J. B. Sallée
    • , K. G. Speer
    •  & S. R. Rintoul

  • 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

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