Geochemistry articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • Article |

    Under conditions of Earth’s deep lower mantle, hydrogen ions diffuse freely through the FeOOH lattice framework and electrical conductivity increases rapidly, according to electrical conductivity experiments and first-principles simulations.

    • Mingqiang Hou
    • , Yu He
    •  & Ho-Kwang Mao

  • Article |

    Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere will probably persist for only one billion more years before it sharply deoxygenates to low-level oxygen similar to those of the Archaean, according to a combined biogeochemistry and climate model.

    • Kazumi Ozaki
    •  & Christopher T. Reinhard

  • Article |

    The presence of large rivers in North Africa critical for Quaternary human migrations were controlled by a combination of orbital forcing and Mediterranean storminess, according to terrestrial proxy records from a marine core off Libya integrated with paleoclimate modelling.

    • Cécile L. Blanchet
    • , Anne H. Osborne
    •  & Martin Frank

  • Article |

    Constraints on the denudation of the Southern Alps over the last glacial cycle indicate a nonlinear influence of climate on landscape evolution in glaciated areas, according to a beryllium isotope record measured from quartz in a sequence of Mediterranean turbidites.

    • Apolline Mariotti
    • , Pierre-Henri Blard
    •  & Karim Keddadouche

  • Article |

    A link between post-thickening lithospheric extension and the differentiation of continental crust is implied by granulite conditions beneath the Rio Grande Rift, inferred from analysis of lower-crustal xenoliths and thermobarometric modelling.

    • Jacob H. Cipar
    • , Joshua M. Garber
    •  & Andrew J. Smye

  • News & Views |

    Time capsules of fluid, trapped within the oxide minerals from two iron ore deposits reveal an important role for sediment-derived carbonate–sulfate-rich melts in the concentration of iron, a crucial element for humanity’s development.

    • James M. Brenan

  • News & Views |

    The Archaean atmosphere may have been well oxygenated, according to a reconsideration of sulfur cycling at that time. This challenges the view that sedimentary sulfur records oxygen-poor conditions during Earth’s first two billion years.

    • Desiree Roerdink

  • News & Views |

    Compositional signatures of subducted crust in the deep-mantle sources of ocean island volcanoes in the Atlantic Ocean but not the Pacific reveal that plate motions on Earth’s surface influence the characteristics of Earth’s deepest interior.

    • Richard W. Carlson

  • Article |

    Long-term Himalayan erosion rates remained stable through the global climatic changes of the past six million years, according to the cosmogenic nuclide composition of terrestrial sediments recovered from the Bay of Bengal.

    • Sebastien J. P. Lenard
    • , Jérôme Lavé
    •  & Karim Keddadouche

  • Article |

    The Earth’s core may host most of the planet’s water inventory, according to calculations of the partitioning behaviour of water at conditions of core formation.

    • Yunguo Li
    • , Lidunka Vočadlo
    •  & John P. Brodholt

  • Article |

    Mars’s mantle is chemically heterogeneous and contains multiple primordial water reservoirs, according to an analysis of the hydrogen isotopic composition of minerals in Martian meteorites.

    • Jessica J. Barnes
    • , Francis M. McCubbin
    •  & Carl B. Agee

  • Article |

    The oceans probably remained well-oxygenated for millions of years after the Palaeoproterozoic Lomagundi–Jatuli Event, according to high concentrations and isotope signatures of redox-sensitive metals in the 2-billion-year-old Zaonega Formation, Russia.

    • Kaarel Mänd
    • , Stefan V. Lalonde
    •  & Kurt O. Konhauser

  • Article |

    High-precision measurements suggest that the Earth and Moon have distinct oxygen isotope compositions. This implies distinct oxygen isotopic compositions of the proto-Earth and its impactor that were not fully homogenized by the Moon-forming impact.

    • Erick J. Cano
    • , Zachary D. Sharp
    •  & Charles K. Shearer

  • News & Views |

    Differential cycling of carbonate and organic carbon in the mantle may link the Great Oxidation Event and the subsequent increase in carbon isotope values, according to a model that links the Earth’s surface and interior.

    • Jeremy K. Caves Rugenstein

  • Article |

    Brines from evaporation of a lake in Gale crater on Mars are inferred from bulk enrichments of Ca- and Mg-sulfates in Hesperian sedimentary rocks, identified by geochemical analyses and observations by NASA’s rover Curiosity.

    • W. Rapin
    • , B. L. Ehlmann
    •  & A. R. Vasavada

  • Article |

    Depleted mantle is a volumetrically dominant component of the Azores plume and possibly of oceanic basalt sources more generally, according to neodymium isotope compositions of olivine-hosted melt inclusions from lavas of the Azores mantle plume.

    • Andreas Stracke
    • , Felix Genske
    •  & Janne M. Koornneef

  • 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

  • News & Views |

    The distribution of iron-loving elements between the mantles of the Moon and Earth may differ from established belief, suggest two studies that determine the hafnium–tungsten ratio and sulfide–silicate melt partitioning of elements in the lunar mantle.

    • Philipp Gleißner

  • 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

  • Article |

    The Moon formed around 50 Myr after the Solar System, suggests a lunar silicate Hf/W ratio higher than that of Earth, from high-precision compositional analysis of lunar rock samples.

    • Maxwell M. Thiemens
    • , Peter Sprung
    •  & Carsten Münker

  • News & Views |

    Earth’s formation by the accretion of volatile-rich carbonaceous chondrite-like materials, without a need for exotic building blocks or secondary volatile loss, is supported by recognition of a plateau pattern for highly volatile elements.

    • Zaicong Wang

  • 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

Browse broader subjects

Browse Geochemistry across other nature.com journals