Planetary science articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • Article |

    Some valleys in the southern highlands of Mars may have formed by subglacial erosion, consistent with a cold and icy early Mars, according to a statistical analysis of valley morphometry.

    • Anna Grau Galofre
    • , A. Mark Jellinek
    •  & Gordon R. Osinski

  • Review Article |

    A review of the organic carbon cycle explores the interactions between the Earth’s surface and deeper reservoirs, the expanding inorganic controls on the organic carbon cycle, and how these links have strengthened through geological time.

    • Matthieu E. Galvez
    • , Woodward W. Fischer
    •  & Timothy I. Eglinton

  • 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

  • Article |

    Pluto’s subsurface ocean may have formed early due to accretionary heating, a comparison of thermal evolution modelling with observed tectonic structures suggests.

    • Carver J. Bierson
    • , Francis Nimmo
    •  & S. Alan Stern

  • 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

  • News & Views |

    Whether Earth’s water was delivered early or late in its formation is debated. The composition of Venus’s atmosphere may indicate that late accretion, the final stage of planet formation, delivered little water to the terrestrial planets.

    • Ramon Brasser

  • 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 |

    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

  • Editorial |

    The first marsquakes detected by NASA’s InSight mission mark just the start of seismology on Mars. Both Earth and planetary scientists alike should embrace this new frontier of geophysics.

  • News & Views |

    Mars’s newest seismometer needed to separate marsquakes from meteorology. Continuous weather observations to keep it honest are revealing new facets of Mars’s churning atmosphere.

    • Nicholas Heavens

  • Comment |

    The InSight mission on Mars is currently providing us with the first seismic data from a planetary body other than our own Earth since the 1970s. Past efforts will inform this next chapter in planetary seismology.

    • Yosio Nakamura

  • Perspective |

    Geophysical and meteorological measurements by NASA’s InSight lander on Mars reveal a planet that is seismically active and provide information about the interior, surface and atmospheric workings of Mars.

    • W. Bruce Banerdt
    • , Suzanne E. Smrekar
    •  & Mark Wieczorek

  • Article |

    The magnetic field measured by the InSight lander on Mars varies daily and is ten times stronger than expected. The field is inferred to originate from components of basement rocks magnetized by an ancient dynamo of Earth-like strength.

    • Catherine L. Johnson
    • , Anna Mittelholz
    •  & William B. Banerdt

  • Article |

    Mars is seismically active: 24 subcrustal magnitude 3–4 marsquakes and 150 smaller events have been identified up to 30 September 2019, by an analysis of seismometer data from the InSight lander.

    • D. Giardini
    • , P. Lognonné
    •  & C. Yana

  • Article |

    The InSight lander has expanded our knowledge of the atmosphere of Mars by observing various phenomena, including airglow, bores, infrasound and Earth-like turbulence.

    • Don Banfield
    • , Aymeric Spiga
    •  & W. Bruce Banerdt

  • Article |

    River meanders migrate much faster in barren than in vegetated landscapes, according to global analyses of active meander migration of both unvegetated and vegetated rivers. The difference in migration rates suggests that the rise of land plants had a significant influence on landscapes.

    • Alessandro Ielpi
    •  & Mathieu G. A. Lapôtre

  • 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

  • Editorial |

    The geological similarities between icy and rocky worlds invite comparison and cross-fertilization of knowledge.

  • News & Views |

    The large domes found on the dwarf planet Ceres may not result from cryovolcanism, but from solid-state flow analogous to salt doming on Earth, according to numerical simulations of gravitational loading.

    • Michael Küppers

  • Article |

    Some lake basins in the polar regions of Titan may be craters from nitrogen vapour explosions due to past warming, according to analysis of their morphology in comparison to terrestrial explosion craters from magma–water interaction.

    • Giuseppe Mitri
    • , Jonathan I. Lunine
    •  & Valerio Poggiali

  • 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 |

    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 |

    Ocean-floor plateaus are not voluminous lava flows from central volcanoes as thought, but anomalously thick oceanic crust, suggest magnetic anomaly patterns from the Shatsky Rise, in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

    • Joanne M. Whittaker

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