10th Anniversary Focus

Great Earth science has been published over the ten years since the launch of Nature Geoscience. The field has also become more interdisciplinary and accountable, as well as more central to society and sustainability.

Tectonic controls on atmospheric oxygenation are frequently invoked — but whether geochemical records support these ties is an unsettled question.

The slowdown in surface warming in the early twenty-first century has been traced to strengthening of the Pacific trade winds. The search for the causes identifies a planetary-scale see-saw of atmosphere and ocean between the Atlantic and Pacific basins.

The elemental ratios of marine phytoplankton and organic matter vary widely across ocean biomes, according to a catalogue of biogeochemical data, suggesting that climate change may have complex effects on the ocean’s elemental cycles.

The composition of the oceans is altered by hydrothermal circulation. These chemical factories sustain microbial life, which in turn alters the chemistry of the fluids that enter the ocean. A decade of research details this complex interchange.

A compilation of hundreds of palaeoclimate records highlighted the extent of regional variability during the past 2,000 years, and therein the uniqueness of recent warming.

Advances in high-precision isotopic analysis have provided key constraints on the origin and early evolution of the Earth and Moon. Measurements of the isotopes of tungsten provide the most stringent constraints on this history.

Atmospheric oxygen levels on Earth rose in at least six distinct steps and an examination of the timing of the steps suggests that they coincided with the formation of supercontinents and supermountains. This leads to the hypothesis that increased erosion of these supermountains released large amounts of nutrients to the oceans, stimulating productivity and the release of oxygen to the atmosphere. The subsequent burial of organic carbon along with the mountain sediments would have sustained the increased oxygen levels.

The Pacific trade winds have strengthened since the late 1990s, and there has been related strengthening of the atmospheric Walker circulation. Although the impacts of these changes are becoming known, their cause has not been identified. This study, using observations and models, shows that warming of the Atlantic sea surface and corresponding displacement of atmospheric pressure centres are key drivers.

The elemental composition of marine organic matter is used to infer a variety of oceanic ecosystem processes. A compilation of observational data suggests that elemental ratios differ substantially from the Redfield ratio, but exhibit a clear latitudinal trend.

Mineral dust and marine sediment resuspension are generally considered the primary sources of the nutrient iron to the oceans. Numerical model results suggest that iron released by hydrothermal activity is also an important source of dissolved iron, particularly in the Southern Ocean.

Hydrothermal vents along mid-ocean ridge systems host highly productive communities of microbes. Measurements along the Juan de Fuca ridge suggest that subsurface microbes consume hydrogen in low-temperature hydrothermal fluids, before discharge of these fluids at the sea floor.

Temperature change over the past 2,000 years has shown pronounced regional variability. An assessment of all available continental temperature reconstructions shows a clear twentieth century warming trend, but no evidence of a coherent Little Ice Age or Medieval Warm Period.

Examination of three lunar samples reveals that the Moon’s mantle has an excess of the tungsten isotope ¹⁸²W of about 20 parts per million relative to the present-day Earth’s mantle; this suggests that the two bodies had identical compositions immediately following the formation of the Moon, and that the compositions then diverged as a result of disproportional late accretion of chondritic material to the Earth and Moon.

Precise measurements of the tungsten isotopic composition of lunar rocks show that the Moon exhibits a well-resolved excess of ¹⁸²W of about 27 parts per million over the present-day Earth’s mantle: this excess is consistent with the expected ¹⁸²W difference resulting from a late veneer with a total mass and composition inferred from previously measured highly siderophile elements.

The Indonesian seas provide the only connection between ocean basins in the tropics. A review of observational data and model results concludes that vertical mixing determines the physical properties of water in the Indonesian throughflow.

The western Pacific warm pool and the Indonesian throughflow affect tropical climate and atmospheric convection. Marine sediment records reveal uniformly elevated temperatures from 10,000 to 7,000 years ago, despite the initiation of modern Indonesian throughflow circulation about 9,500 years ago.

Upwelling within the highly productive Benguela current off the Namibian coast began in, and intensified throughout, the Neogene epoch. Model simulations indicate its development was intimately connected to evolving topography and mountain uplift in Africa.