Planetary science articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • Research Briefing |

    There are no good models for the chemical evolution of the Earth’s surface over the planet’s lifetime, because models typically overlook the progressive build-up of carbonate rocks in the crust. A new model that includes this accumulation enables the reconstruction of major oxygen and temperature trends throughout Earth’s history.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The accumulation and subsequent recycling of carbonate in the crust may have helped to drive the oxygenation of the early Earth, according to an ocean and atmosphere box model incorporating the inorganic carbon cycle.

    • Lewis J. Alcott
    • , Craig Walton
    •  & Benjamin J. W. Mills

  • News & Views |

    The Moon’s primordial solidification is believed to have produced a layer of dense ilmenite cumulates beneath the crust. Remnants of this layer have now been detected under the lunar nearside.

    • Peter B. James

  • News & Views |

    Pollution by per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) is widespread in global water resources and likely to be underestimated, according to global analysis of available PFAS data.

    • Mark Strynar

  • All Minerals Considered |

    Schreibersite is found in meteorites and thought to dwell in planetary cores. Tingting Gu explains how it may also have supported life on the early Earth.

    • Tingting Gu

  • Research Briefing |

    Earthquakes not only affect tree growth directly by causing physical injury to individual trees but also indirectly by inducing changes in forest habitats. We established linkage between tree-ring series and seismic disturbances and found that prominent and lasting seismic legacies in drier areas may be due to an increased infiltration of precipitation through earthquake-induced soil cracks.

  • Article |

    Wind tunnel experiments and numerical modelling reveal the existence of two distinct ripples on Earth: centimetre-scale impact ripples and decimetre-scale hydrodynamic ripples, akin to those in water and on Mars.

    • Hezi Yizhaq
    • , Katharina Tholen
    •  & Itzhak Katra

  • Comment |

    Human exploration of the Solar System began on the Moon during the space race of the mid-twentieth century. To facilitate documentation and study of the human influence on the Moon, we argue it is time to designate a ‘Lunar Anthropocene’.

    • Justin Allen Holcomb
    • , Rolfe David Mandel
    •  & Karl William Wegmann

  • All Minerals Considered |

    While it may feel cold to the touch, Sheng Fan and David Prior explain that ice on Earth is relatively hot. Understanding ‘hot’ ice physics during deformation is critical in determining future sea-level rise.

    • Sheng Fan
    •  & David J. Prior

  • All Minerals Considered |

    Carbonates are key minerals for understanding fluids and their interactions with near-surface environments. Ashley King explores their significance on Earth, and beyond.

    • Ashley J. King

  • Article |

    Fine silicate dust generated by the Chicxulub impact had a dominant role in the global cooling and disruption of photosynthesis that followed, according to palaeoclimate simulations constrained by grain-size analysis of Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary sediments.

    • Cem Berk Senel
    • , Pim Kaskes
    •  & Özgür Karatekin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The widespread occurrence of young grabens associated with larger compressional structures on Mercury’s surface suggests contractional tectonism has continued on the planet into geologically recent times.

    • Benjamin Man
    • , David A. Rothery
    •  & Jack Wright

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laboratory experiments suggest that bursting bubbles enhance ice melt from tidewater glaciers, and consequently, glacier-ice structure needs to be accounted for in projections of ice loss and sea-level rise.

    • Meagan E. Wengrove
    • , Erin C. Pettit
    •  & Eric D. Skyllingstad

  • Research Briefing |

    Two contrasting sinuosity patterns were identified in lowland rivers on Earth and Mars. The channel sinuosity either substantially increases or remains constant towards the coast. These bimodal patterns reflect the age of the channels and their lateral migration rates, which are associated with sediment supply and discharge variability.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The long duration of the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum, compared with other transient Eocene warming events, can be explained by an increase in clays forming from the weathering of silicate minerals, according to lithium isotope records of marine carbonates.

    • Alexander J. Krause
    • , Appy Sluijs
    •  & Philip A. E. Pogge von Strandmann

  • Brief Communication
    | Open Access

    Analysis of changes in the Earth’s rotation in the Precambrian suggests that day length stabilized at 19 h for 1 billion years due to tidal resonance, which may have been linked to a relatively quiescent period of tectonic activity and biological evolution.

    • Ross N. Mitchell
    •  & Uwe Kirscher

  • Article |

    The formation of continental crust may have trapped —and thus not degassed—substantial amounts of magmatic nitrogen over Earth’s history, according to geochemical analyses of igneous rocks from the Hekla volcanic system in Iceland.

    • Toby J. Boocock
    • , Sami Mikhail
    •  & Eva E. Stüeken

  • Research Briefing |

    Lightning can produce bioavailable nitrogen oxides, but it is unknown whether this was a substantial nutrient source for Earth’s earliest biosphere. Comparison of nitrogen isotope measurements from spark discharge experiments to those from the rock record suggests that lightning was likely not the main source of bioavailable nitrogen for the biosphere throughout most of Earth’s history.

  • News & Views |

    High pressures may have enabled ferric iron-rich silicate melts to coexist with iron metal near the base of magma oceans early in the history of large rocky planets like Earth. This suggests a relatively oxygen-rich atmosphere during the late stages of core formation on these planets.

    • Fabrice Gaillard

  • News & Views |

    NASA’s DART mission showed how a kinetic impact can be deployed to enhance the momentum change of a near-Earth asteroid while giving us the first up-close view of a binary asteroid system.

    • Adriano Campo Bagatin

  • Review Article |

    A review of aqueous phosphorus availability on the Earth’s early surface suggests a range of phosphorus sources supplied the prebiotic Earth, but that phosphorus availability declined as life evolved and altered geochemical cycling.

    • Craig R. Walton
    • , Sophia Ewens
    •  & Matthew A. Pasek

  • Article |

    Small-scale compositional alteration of the mantle wedge by fluids may regulate eruptive activity of individual arc volcanoes, according to an analysis of the isotopic composition of ashes erupted by Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador from 1999 to 2016.

    • I. Vlastélic
    • , N. Sainlot
    •  & A. Gannoun

  • Article |

    The lunar basalts sampled by the Chang’e-5 mission originated from melting of a clinopyroxene-rich mantle source enhanced in radioactive elements, potentially explaining this late lunar volcanism, according to sample analysis and crystallization modelling.

    • Biji Luo
    • , Zaicong Wang
    •  & Hongfei Zhang

  • All Minerals Considered |

    Following on from insights gleaned from iron meteorites, Claire Nichols explains why tetrataenite, with its unique magnetic properties, could be key for future renewable energy technologies.

    • Claire I. O. Nichols

  • Research Briefing |

    The environmental sensors aboard the Perseverance rover on Mars are gathering meteorological data at Jezero crater. These data capture an active atmospheric surface layer that responds to multiple dynamical phenomena, ranging in spatial and temporal scales from metres to thousands of kilometres and from seconds to a Martian year, respectively.

  • News & Views |

    Venus and Earth have remarkably different surface conditions, yet the lithospheric thickness and heat flow on Venus may be Earth-like. This finding supports a tectonic regime with limited surface mobility and dominated by intrusive magmatism.

    • Diogo L. Lourenço

  • Article |

    Manganese oxidation experiments in Mars-like fluids suggest that chlorate and bromate may have been more effective oxidants of manganese on early Mars than atmospheric oxygen and explain observed manganese oxide deposits.

    • Kaushik Mitra
    • , Eleanor L. Moreland
    •  & Jeffrey G. Catalano

  • News & Views |

    Mediation by iron minerals in the non-biological production of nitrous and nitric oxides may have driven the nitrogen cycle in the Archean ocean. This system may also have shaped the function and composition of the early marine ecosystem.

    • Manabu Nishizawa

  • Article |

    Marine emissions of N2O could have sustained an early Archaean atmosphere of 0.8–6.0 ppb N2O without a protective ozone layer, according to mineral incubations combined with diffusion and photochemical modelling.

    • Steffen Buessecker
    • , Hiroshi Imanaka
    •  & Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz

  • Q&A |

    Nature Geoscience spoke with Dr Qingyang Hu, a high-pressure mineralogist at HPSTAR; Prof. Suzan van der Lee, a geophysicist at Northwestern University; and Prof. Katherine Kelley, a geochemist at the University of Rhode Island about their work and what the future of deep-water research might bring.

    • Rebecca Neely

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