Solid Earth sciences articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • News & Views |

    The chemical signatures of granitic continental crust from the earliest Archean are consistent with formation during subduction, indicating some form of plate tectonics was active at the time.

    • Allen P. Nutman

  • Research Briefing |

    The post-garnet transition has been found to have a curved phase boundary, with negative slopes in cold regions and positive slopes in hot regions of the Earth’s mantle. This varying slope could be a reason for the puzzling dynamics of subducting slabs and upwelling plumes observed seismically in the upper part of the lower mantle.

  • All Minerals Considered |

    More than just a gemstone, Jon Pownall and Kathryn Cutts explore the history and future directions of garnet as a recorder of pressure, temperature, and time.

    • Jonathan M. Pownall
    •  & Kathryn A. Cutts

  • Research Briefing |

    Icequake observations were combined with an analytical friction model to measure friction and slip at the bed of an Antarctic ice stream. Friction and slip are found to be highly variable in space and time, controlled by higher-than-expected normal stresses at the ice–bed interface.

  • Article |

    Post-subduction downwelling of lithosphere—or drips—can lead to extension and crustal thinning, influencing the tectonic evolution of continental crust after subduction termination, according to thermo-mechanical simulations.

    • S. Pilia
    • , D. R. Davies
    •  & N. Rawlinson

  • 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

  • All Minerals Considered |

    Inspired by the mineralogist Shulamit Gross’s studies of one of the world’s unique mineral factories, Michael Anenburg discusses the pyrometamorphic minerals formed by fire in the Dead Sea desert.

    • Michael Anenburg

  • News & Views |

    Deciphering the contribution of mantle convection to Earth’s surface elevation remains challenging, but it may have a dominant influence on mountain-building at subduction zones, according to a new study reconstructing the topographic evolution of Calabria.

    • Gregory A. Ruetenik

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Research Briefing |

    Analogue experiments show that powerful eruption columns deliver material to the sea surface and seabed in periodic annular sedimentation waves. Depending on the water depth, the impact and spread of these waves at the sea surface and seabed can excite tsunamis, drive radial pyroclastic density currents, and build concentric terraces.

  • News & Views |

    Long-lasting eruptions of some subduction zone volcanoes may be regulated by their magma sources in the mantle. This suggests that direct connections between the mantle and surface are possible through a relatively thick crust.

    • Jorge E. Romero

  • 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 source of highly oxidized arc magmas may rely on the infiltration of sediment-derived fluids that contain oxidized aqueous species—notably sulfate—into deserpentinization fluids, according to thermodynamic modelling.

    • José Alberto Padrón-Navarta
    • , Vicente López Sánchez-Vizcaíno
    •  & Carlos J. Garrido

  • All Minerals Considered |

    From the tools of Stone Age ancestors to records of Earth’s history, Yang Li and Xian-Hua Li explore how the properties of quartz place it at the heart of human innovation.

    • Yang Li
    •  & Xian-Hua Li

  • News & Views |

    A global analysis of seismic waves has identified a widespread sharp velocity anomaly at the base of the low seismic velocity zone that is consistent with partial melting, closing a decades-long debate about the origin of this zone.

    • Geeth Manthilake

  • Research Briefing |

    Seismic observations reveal that the Earth’s inner core oscillates with a period of approximately seven decades. The multidecadal periodicity coincides with that of several other geophysical observations, particularly the variations in the length of day and the Earth’s magnetic field, suggesting dynamic interactions between the major layers of the Earth.

  • Article |

    Multidecadal oscillation of the Earth’s inner core, coinciding with length of day and magnetic field variations, is experiencing a pause and reversing, according to analysis of repeating seismic waves traversing the inner core since the 1960s.

    • Yi Yang
    •  & Xiaodong Song

  • Article |

    Simulated earthquakes on metre-scale laboratory faults reveal that fault surfaces with more heterogeneous topography are stronger, and rupture at a wider range of propagation speeds, than those that are less heterogeneous.

    • Shiqing Xu
    • , Eiichi Fukuyama
    •  & Shigeru Takizawa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mixing dynamics at river confluences where shallow flows merge in rivers consist of switching between wake and mixing-layer modes, as shown in theoretical and field-scale physical modelling.

    • A. N. Sukhodolov
    • , O. O. Shumilova
    •  & B. L. Rhoads

  • All Minerals Considered |

    Earth’s most abundant mineral — bridgmanite — lies hidden in the lower mantle, but Li Zhang is hopeful that advances in analytical techniques may reveal the inner workings of our world.

    • Li Zhang

  • 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

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