Environmental chemistry articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • News & Views |

    Subduction processes may have operated very early in Earth’s history according to the heavy silicon isotope compositions of Archaean igneous rocks. The silicon that precipitated out of the Archaean oceans as chert was subducted and melted to yield seawater-like heavy isotope signatures in early granitic rocks.

    • Franck Poitrasson

  • Article |

    Pyrogenic carbon produced from vegetation fires could be a globally important carbon sink, which amounts to 12% of the carbon emitted from wildfires annually, according to a global fire emission database that incorporates the estimate of pyrogenic carbon.

    • Matthew W. Jones
    • , Cristina Santín
    •  & Stefan H. Doerr

  • Editorial |

    China’s rigorous air-pollution control has greatly reduced the levels of fine particles in the atmosphere. Further progress for air quality more broadly will rely on fully accounting for complex chemical reactions between pollutants.

  • News & Views |

    Confidence that banded iron formations record oxic conditions during deposition is established, as a model demonstrates that they are formed of primary iron oxides rather than secondarily altered silicate minerals.

    • Eva E. Stüeken

  • News & Views |

    Nitrogen deposition in China has stabilized over the past decade, thanks to efficient regulation of fertilizer use, suggests an analysis of wet and dry deposition.

    • Maria Kanakidou

  • Article |

    Microbial degradation is a key process for removing aromatic hydrocarbons from the oceans, according to measurements in plankton and seawater with 64 types of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their microbial degradation genes in four ocean basins.

    • Belén González-Gaya
    • , Alicia Martínez-Varela
    •  & Jordi Dachs

  • News & Views |

    Atmospheric levels of chloroform, an ozone-depleting substance not part of the Montreal Protocol, have risen. The increase may be attributable to industrial emissions in Eastern China.

    • Susann Tegtmeier

  • News & Views |

    Much of the carbon in rivers originates from wildfires and is ultimately buried in the oceanic carbon sink, suggest measurements from 18 rivers globally. Rivers transport almost a gigaton of carbon to the oceans every year.

    • Lars J. Tranvik

  • Editorial |

    Human manipulation of hydrocarbons — as fuel and raw materials for modern society — has changed our world and the indelible imprint we will leave in the rock record. Plastics alone have permeated our lives and every corner of our planet.

  • Article |

    Depending on their connectivity to the river network, wetlands can be much more efficient at removing nitrate in a watershed than common nitrogen mitigation strategies according to an analysis of the Minnesota River basin.

    • Amy T. Hansen
    • , Christine L. Dolph
    •  & Jacques C. Finlay

  • News & Views |

    The first of two stepwise increases in atmospheric oxygen occurred at the end of the Archaean eon. Analyses of sulfur and iron isotopes in pyrite reveal a near-shore environment that hosted locally oxygenated conditions in the Mesoarchaean era.

    • Maya L. Gomes

  • News & Views |

    The composition of the oceans is altered by hydrothermal circulation. These chemical factories sustain microbial life, which in turn alters the chemistry of the fluids that enter the ocean. A decade of research details this complex interchange.

    • Susan Q. Lang

  • News & Views |

    Progress in the post-combustion treatment of diesel vehicle exhaust has led to shifting proportions of the constituents of nitrogen oxides. Observations from 61 European cities suggest that the outlook on attaining NO2 standards is more optimistic than expected.

    • Drew R. Gentner
    •  & Fulizi Xiong

  • News & Views |

    Estimates of carbon in the deep mantle vary by more than an order of magnitude. Coupled volcanic CO2 emission data and magma supply rates reveal a carbon-rich mantle plume source region beneath Hawai'i with 40% more carbon than previous estimates.

    • Peter H. Barry

  • Editorial |

    The emerging field of geohealth links human well-being and ecosystem health. A deeper understanding of these linkages can help society mitigate the health costs of economic growth before they become crises.

  • Article |

    Dissolved inorganic carbon is buried in dryland basins that do not drain to the sea. Based on measurements of sediment chemistry in twelve of these sites, closed basins are estimated to store 0.15 Pg of dissolved inorganic carbon annually.

    • Yu Li
    • , Chengqi Zhang
    •  & Wangting Ye

  • News & Views |

    Phosphorus loading can cause eutrophication of lakes. Analyses of lake chemistry in China reveal that policies have led to lower phosphorus levels overall, but increasing trends in some lakes suggest that expanded policies may be needed.

    • Jessica Corman

  • Article |

    Glacial systems are important sources of dissolved organic carbon to downstream ecosystems. Observations of carbon dynamics on the Greenland ice sheet reveal substantial melt season production and export of microbial dissolved organic carbon.

    • Michaela Musilova
    • , Martyn Tranter
    •  & Alexandre M. Anesio

  • Editorial |

    Air pollution in large cities remains a persistent public health problem. Adapting air quality forecasts for use by decision makers could help mitigate severe pollution events.

  • News & Views |

    Atmospheric oxygen was maintained at low levels throughout huge swathes of Earth's early history. Estimates of phosphorus availability through time suggest that scavenging from anoxic, iron-rich oceans stabilized this low-oxygen world.

    • Simon W. Poulton

  • News & Views |

    Large quantities of organic carbon are stored in the ocean, but its biogeochemical behaviour is elusive. Size–age–composition relations now quantify the production of tiny organic molecules as a major pathway for carbon sequestration.

    • Rainer M. W. Amon

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