Environmental sciences articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • Letter |

    High Arctic soils can act as sources or sinks of methane. Scaled-up field measurements suggest that northeast Greenland’s ice-free soils currently act as a net sink for methane, and may take up more methane with rising temperatures.

    • Christian Juncher Jørgensen
    • , Katrine Maria Lund Johansen
    •  & Bo Elberling

  • News & Views |

    Nitrous acid can initiate photochemical air pollution events, but it is not clear where it comes from. Laboratory experiments now suggest that surface-bound nitrite accumulated overnight can release nitrous acid during the daytime.

    • Jonathan Raff

  • Commentary |

    The ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus in organic matter is close to that in seawater, a relationship maintained through a set of biological feedbacks. The rapid delivery of nutrients from human activities may test the efficacy of these processes.

    • Nicolas Gruber
    •  & Curtis A. Deutsch

  • News & Views |

    Shorelines are vulnerable to the destructive waves and water levels of increasingly frequent extreme storm events. Wave tank experiments demonstrate that salt marsh vegetation dissipates wave energy and withstands extreme storm conditions.

    • Sergio Fagherazzi

  • Letter |

    Salt marshes protect coastlines against waves. Wave flume experiments show that marsh vegetation causes substantial wave dissipation and prevents erosion of the underlying surface, even during extreme storm surge conditions.

    • Iris Möller
    • , Matthias Kudella
    •  & Stefan Schimmels

  • News & Views |

    Particles of smoke from natural and human-made fires absorb sunlight and contribute to global warming. Laboratory experiments suggest that smoke is often more absorbing than current numerical models of global climate assume.

    • Nicolas Bellouin

  • Editorial |

    The successful launch of a carbon-observing satellite could make a start on tracking emissions shifts around the globe.

  • News & Views |

    Rapid deposition of wind-borne silt after the end of the last glacial period buried a large reservoir of organic carbon in the deep soil. Geochemical analyses suggest that this sequestered soil carbon could be released to the atmosphere if exposed to decomposition.

    • William C. Johnson

  • News & Views |

    Microbes quickly consumed much of the methane released in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Time-series measurements now suggest that, after a steep rise, methane oxidation rates crashed while hydrocarbon discharge was still continuing at the wellhead.

    • Evan A. Solomon

  • Letter |

    River water circulates through river bed and bank sediments. Model simulations suggest that practically all of the river water that reaches the mouth of the Mississippi River network has circulated laterally through its banks.

    • Brian A. Kiel
    •  & M. Bayani Cardenas

  • Article |

    Ethanol-based vehicles are thought to generate less pollution than gasoline-based vehicles. An analysis of pollutant concentrations in the subtropical megacity of São Paulo, Brazil, reveals that levels of ozone pollution fell, but levels of nitric oxide and carbon monoxide rose, during periods of prevailing gasoline use relative to ethanol use.

    • Alberto Salvo
    •  & Franz M. Geiger

  • Letter |

    Dams have starved the lower Mississippi River of sediment over recent decades, suggesting that the drowning of the delta is inevitable. Analysis of the rivers suspended sediment load and morphodynamic modelling suggest that the amount of sand essential for land building has not significantly decreased since dam construction, with sand remaining available for several centuries.

    • Jeffrey A. Nittrouer
    •  & Enrica Viparelli

  • Letter |

    The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis should have occurred some time before the oxidation of Earth’s atmosphere 2.5 billion years ago. The molybdenum isotopic signature of shallow marine rocks that formed at least 2.95 billion years ago is consistent with deposition in waters that were receiving oxygen from photosynthesis at least half a billion years before the oxidation of the atmosphere.

    • Noah J. Planavsky
    • , Dan Asael
    •  & Olivier J. Rouxel

  • Article |

    Low levels of iron limit primary productivity across much of the Southern Ocean. Measurements of dissolved iron levels combined with hydrographic data suggest that much of the iron in the surface waters of the Southern Ocean is supplied by deep mixing during winter.

    • Alessandro Tagliabue
    • , Jean-Baptiste Sallée
    •  & Philip W. Boyd

  • Review Article |

    The oxygenation of the Earth's deep oceans is often thought to have triggered the evolution of simple animals. A review article proposes that instead, the evolution of animal life set off a series of biogeochemical feedbacks that promoted the oxygenation of the deep sea.

    • Timothy M. Lenton
    • , Richard A. Boyle
    •  & Nicholas J. Butterfield

  • Letter |

    The flux of methane from the sea bed to the overlying water column is mitigated by the sulphate-dependent anaerobic oxidation of methane by marine microbes. Laboratory experiments point to the equilibration of stable carbon isotopes during the anaerobic oxidation of methane under sulphate-limited conditions.

    • Marcos Y. Yoshinaga
    • , Thomas Holler
    •  & Marcus Elvert

  • Letter |

    Chlorine radicals function as a strong atmospheric oxidant, particularly in polar regions, where levels of hydroxyl radicals are low. Measurements in the Arctic reveal high levels of molecular chlorine during the day, consistent with a photochemical source.

    • Jin Liao
    • , L. Gregory Huey
    •  & John B. Nowak

  • Letter |

    Field measurements have revealed much higher concentrations of hydroxyl radicals than expected in regions with high loads of the biogenic volatile organic compound isoprene. Results from isoprene oxidation experiments suggest that the additional recycling of radicals in the presence of isoprene contributes to hydroxyl radical enhancement in these regions.

    • H. Fuchs
    • , A. Hofzumahaus
    •  & A. Wahner

  • Review Article |

    The leakage of cold, methane-rich fluids from subsurface reservoirs to the sea floor sustains some of the richest ecosystems on the sea bed. These cold-seep communities consume around two orders of magnitude more oxygen than the surrounding sea floor as a result of the microbial consumption of seep methane.

    • Antje Boetius
    •  & Frank Wenzhöfer

  • Article |

    Mercury enters marine food webs in the form of microbially generated monomethylmercury. An analysis of the mercury isotopic composition of nine species of North Pacific fish suggests that microbial production of monomethylmercury below the surface mixed layer contributes significantly to the mercury contamination of marine food webs.

    • Joel D. Blum
    • , Brian N. Popp
    •  & Marcus W. Johnson

  • Letter |

    Between about 50 and 10 thousand years ago, almost 100 genera of large animals went extinct. Mathematical analyses suggest that the extinctions in Amazonia have led to a reduction in the lateral flux of the limiting nutrient phosphorus—by transport of dung and bodies—by 98%.

    • Christopher E. Doughty
    • , Adam Wolf
    •  & Yadvinder Malhi

  • Letter |

    Sediment grains in rivers are often bound together and stabilized by bacterial films. Experiments and mathematical models show that sediments bound by biofilms behave like a single elastic membrane that can rip catastrophically if the river flows fast enough.

    • Elisa Vignaga
    • , David M. Sloan
    •  & William T. Sloan

  • Letter |

    Methane is abundant in marine sediments. Analysis of sediment cores and seismic images of marine sediments obtained off the coast of Pakistan show fracturing of gas hydrates and an increase in upward methane flux in the decades following a large earthquake in the Arabian Sea in 1945, suggesting that quakes can trigger hydrocarbon seepage.

    • David Fischer
    • , José M. Mogollón
    •  & Sabine Kasten

  • Letter |

    Submarine seeps release substantial amounts of methane into the overlying water column at continental margins, leading to the formation of calcium carbonate deposits. Analyses of methane-derived carbonate build-ups on the Nile Delta suggest that their formation coincided with the development of deep-water anoxic or suboxic conditions.

    • Germain Bayon
    • , Stéphanie Dupré
    •  & Gert J. de Lange

  • Article |

    Ocean Anoxic Event 2 was marked by rapid global warming and loss of O2 from the ocean. Lithium isotope data suggest that the warming was accompanied by enhanced silicate weathering, which stimulated marine productivity and helped stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels.

    • Philip A. E. Pogge von Strandmann
    • , Hugh C. Jenkyns
    •  & Richard G. Woodfine

  • Letter |

    The frequency of North Atlantic tropical storms varies markedly on decadal timescales. An analysis of climate model simulations suggests that anthropogenic aerosols lowered the frequency of tropical storms in the North Atlantic over the twentieth century.

    • N. J. Dunstone
    • , D. M. Smith
    •  & R. Eade

  • Article |

    Hydrogen is commonly produced during the high-temperature hydration of mafic and ultramafic rocks. Laboratory experiments suggest that water–rock reactions also generate hydrogen at lower temperatures, potentially fuelling microbial life in ultramafic aquifers in oceanic and terrestrial crust.

    • L. E. Mayhew
    • , E. T. Ellison
    •  & A. S. Templeton

  • Editorial |

    The oceans have long accumulated the waste products of civilization. Dumping at sea is banned, but to protect the marine environment we must also monitor litter on coastal lands and rivers.

  • Letter |

    Deposits of highly vesicular pumice that blanket submarine volcanoes are often attributed to explosive eruptions. Density and textural analysis of clasts dredged from the submarine Macauley Volcano, southwest Pacific Ocean, however, reveal an eruptive style that is neither explosive nor effusive, with clasts instead forming from buoyant detachment of a magma foam.

    • Melissa D. Rotella
    • , Colin J. N. Wilson
    •  & Ian C. Wright

  • Feature |

    Readily available O2 is vital to life as we know it. James Kasting looks at how and when the first whiffs of oxygen began to reach the Earth's atmosphere.

    • James Kasting

  • Feature |

    Ocean acidification, caused by the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, is a significant stressor to marine life. Ulf Riebesell charts the rapid rise in ocean acidification research, from the discovery of its adverse effects to its entry into the political consciousness.

    • Ulf Riebesell

  • News & Views |

    Ocean acidification is predicted to harm the ocean's shell-building organisms over the coming centuries. Sea butterflies, an ecologically important group of molluscs in the Arctic and Southern oceans, are already suffering the effects.

    • Justin B. Ries

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