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Shocked phosphates can record the collisional history of asteroid parent bodies, according to texture-age relationships from microstructural observations and geochronological measurements of apatite and merrillite grains in the Chelyabinsk meteorite
South Atlantic deep-sea temperatures across two early Eocene hyperthermal events, reconstructed from clumped isotope thermometry on benthic foraminifera, were around 3 °C warmer than suggested by previous estimates based on oxygen isotopes.
Flood impacts on the functioning of a transport network are substantially exacerbated by indirect effects such as congestion due to changing traffic patterns, suggests an analysis of the impact of Hurricane Harvey on transport in Harris County, Texas using network percolation theory.
True inherited zircon grains, that are older than the rocks in which they are found, may be discriminated from zircon grains that represent contamination by analysing radiation damage determined by Raman spectroscopy
The growth of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was inhibited by incursions of relatively warm circumpolar deep water as early as the Eocene-Oligocene transition, according to seismic imaging of a sediment drift on the shelf of the Amundsen Sea Embayment.
A combination of high-resolution mass spectrometry and computational molecular characterization techniques can structurally annotate up to 17% of organic compounds in fine particulate matter in highly polluted air sampled in the Maldives.
More frequent large wildfires and a lengthening of the fire season in southern California are projected under future emission and climate scenarios, according to machine learning and climate model projections.
Negative phases of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, which alters hydroclimatic risk across the Pacific, have been shorter and less frequent than inferred from the instrumental record, suggests a 2,000-year ice core reconstruction.
A four-year program to support community rangeland management in Namibia led to improved resource governance but had no effect on environmental and economic outcomes, which suggests alternative policies are needed to combat environmental degradation.
Frost susceptibility of permafrost sediments is strongly influenced by unfrozen water content, which is dependent on sediment type, soil water chemistry, and temperature, according to field observations and ensemble modeling prediction of ground ice formation in Arctic-Antarctic sediments.
Karst hydrology exerts a key influence on oxygen isotopic compositions in cave speleothems, according to a global analysis of in-cave differences. The effect of flowpaths through fractures could affect speleothem-based reconstructions of past hydroclimates.
Symmetric instability can occur in the ocean interior, and reveals a previously unrecognized route to energy dissipation in the ocean, suggest direct microstructure measurements from the Northwestern Equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Following large tundra fires, bacteria colonize soil regions previously occupied by slower-growing fungi and enhance nitrogen cycling through organic matter degradation, according to a mechanistic model of the Anaktuvuk River tundra fire in Alaska.
Black carbon accumulation rates in hadal trenches in the deepest regions of the oceans could be seven-fold higher than the global ocean average, according to geochemical and isotopic analyses of sediments from six trenches in the Pacific Ocean.
South Patagonian speleothems yield chemical volcanogenic signals and tephra, which can be used to date regional volcanic eruptions and correlate them with the existing tephrochronology, according to geochemical analyses and micro-/nanoscale observations.
Large scale wind patterns govern the seasonality of dust loading and transport in the upper troposphere dust belt, according to a source and uplift mechanism climatology based on remotely sensed dust layer distribution and back trajectory analysis.
Rockwall erosion from glacier retreat, permafrost and frost cracking increases in intensity at higher elevations in a pattern that is sensitive to climate change, according to field observations, models and a rockwall erosion compilation in the European Alps.
Isoprene loss through chemical and biological consumption in the surface ocean is comparable or greater than loss via outgassing to the atmosphere, according to seawater incubation experiments conducted across contrasting regions of the global ocean.
The oceanic plateau of the Rio Grande Rise, South Atlantic, was formed by mantle plume- and rift-related volcanism and shows no evidence of a continental crustal component, according to petrological and geochemical analyses of dredged volcanic rocks.
Pink and white raft pumice from the 2012 Havre deep-sea eruption experienced prolonged high-temperature atmospheric oxidation of magnetite to hematite which suggests a short but powerful explosive phase, according to microanalytical investigation.