Browse Articles

Jadarite is a lithium-bearing mineral with the potential to facilitate the green energy transition. However, the route to form it is so specific that it is only known from one deposit on Earth, as Francesco Putzolu and colleagues explain.

Cuts at US government agencies are disrupting monitoring critical to tracking Earth system changes and natural hazards. Data gaps threaten geoscience progress and the safety of society.

Mass balance measurements from inland East Antarctica suggest a negative trend in surface mass balance from 2005 to 2020, probably associated with enhanced zonal winds.

Analysis of ground motion velocity measurements recorded close to the Narli splay fault indicates an early transition to supershear rupture during the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake.

Earth has been degassing volatiles since its accretion. Insights from the noble gases helium and argon in groundwater suggest an underappreciated role for degassing from the subcontinental mantle lithosphere below the continental roots.

The sub-continental lithospheric mantle passively degasses volatiles to Earth’s surface, including from regions unaffected by volcanism, according to a study of helium and argon isotopes in young groundwater.

The mountain ranges of northeast Japan were formed by the Ryukyu/Izu–Bonin–Marianas same-dip double subduction system in a process that may have driven other non-collisional orogens, according to geologically constrained three-dimensional geodynamic simulations.

New experiments shed light on the complex interplay between rock deformation and metamorphism. Slab stagnation in Earth’s mantle transition zone may be explained by transient weakening during the olivine–spinel phase transition.

Flash droughts that are accompanied by extreme heat drive more severe and prolonged impacts on global ecosystems, according to analysis of global reanalysis data and satellite observations.

A utility-based assessment shows that the global installation of photovoltaic plants to harness solar energy between 2000 and 2018 led to an increase in terrestrial ecosystem carbon pools of 2.1 TgC.

Metamorphic soles beneath ophiolites record rapid subduction initiation, with high-temperature metamorphism that may be driven by relative motion across the plate interface, according to diffusion speedometry of garnets combined with isotopic data.

Observational constraints, along with a better understanding of climate model behaviour, suggest that the projected weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation in the twenty-first century will be less severe than previously anticipated.

Model simulations suggest that the 2023–2024 El Niño was mainly driven by oceanic processes and that this type of El Niño may become more frequent with warming.

Subducted slabs may experience transient weakening during mineral phase transitions, consistent with slab stagnation in the mantle transition zone, according to a synchrotron beamline study of the quartz-to-coesite and olivine-to-ringwoodite phase transitions.

Short-term sea-level fluctuations during climatic oscillations result in divergent variations in global mangrove growth across ocean basins, according to analyses of satellite observations from 2001 to 2020.

Seawater buffering via pyrite burial removes CO₂ from the atmosphere and helps to stabilize climate by providing a negative feedback on warming, according to coupled carbon–sulfur cycle modelling.

The oxygenation of the atmosphere was a pivotal point in Earth’s evolution. Punctuated environmental perturbations in its run-up laid the foundations for this event.

Presolar moissanite grains are stellar fossils that act as messengers from the cosmos. Nan Liu explores the ways moissanite enables cosmochemists to investigate the origin and evolution of our Solar System and beyond.