Mosses support carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, organic matter decomposition and plant pathogen control in soils across the globe, according to a global survey of soil attributes in ecosystems with and without mosses.

The triple oxygen isotope composition of quartz veins indicates that the southern Tibetan Plateau was already around 3.5 km high by 60 million years ago, showing that substantial surface uplift started before collision of the Eurasian and Indian plates.

A 3D global marine plastic mass budget suggests that larger items contribute more than 95% of buoyant plastics by mass and are longer lived than previously estimated, which suggests there is no missing sink of marine plastic pollution.

Atmospheric short-wave absorption due to wildfire smoke is caused predominantly by dark brown carbon particles, according to observations from smoke plumes in the United States.

Spatial patterns of channel sinuosity near river outlets reflect the interplay between the channel migration rate and the avulsion timescale, according to sinuosity measurements of lowland rivers on Earth and Mars and channel evolution simulations.

The warm Last Interglacial led to a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean and a transformation to Atlantic conditions, according to planktic foraminifera records from central Arctic Ocean sediment cores.

Widespread shallow-water hydrothermal venting in the North Atlantic, probably a source of methane, coincided with the onset of the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, according to borehole proxy records and seismic imaging.

Tackling plastic pollution not only requires improved understanding of environmental dynamics of plastics, but also needs turning scientific insights into actions.

Admission to doctoral study is a crucial step in the academic pipeline, but discriminatory procedures can disproportionately impact students from ethnic minority backgrounds. We show how these policies contribute to inequity in the geosciences and propose strategies for change.

One journal’s reject may be another journal’s gem. Our editors aim to direct rejected manuscripts towards a more suitable destination journal in our transfer network.

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.