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Nature Geoscience spoke with Dr Shlomit Sharoni, an ocean biogeochemist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr Kelly Andersen, a tropical ecologist at Nanyang Technological University about the interplay between phosphorous cycling and the ecosystems they study.

From Dutch painters to ocean sediments, Caroline Slomp discusses the role vivianite plays in the distribution of phosphorus, an essential nutrient for life.

Ecosystems have long been shaped by phosphorus limitation. We need to better understand how natural and human-caused shifts in the phosphorus cycle disrupt the Earth system.

Volatile-rich kimberlite magmas may be transported to the surface by broad mantle upwellings located above mobile basal mantle structures, according to global models of mantle convection over the past 200 million years.

The Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort Gyre has transitioned to a state where the freshwater content has plateaued and the cold halocline layer has thinned, as a result of variation in the regional wind forcing.

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.

The early Earth’s mantle rapidly oxidized during the Hadean because of iron disproportionation and core segregation, according to experiments melting peridotite under deep-mantle conditions.

Mercury deposition onto the Greenland Ice Sheet increased from the Last Glacial Termination to early Holocene as the North Atlantic warmed and sea ice retreated, according to an ice-core mercury record and atmospheric chemistry modelling.

Primordial helium in the deep mantle may be supplied continuously from Earth’s core, according to first-principles calculations and modelling of helium partitioning into exsolved magnesium oxide at core–mantle boundary conditions

Field studies reveal that carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, organic matter decomposition and soil-borne plant pathogen control are greater in soils beneath mosses than in unvegetated soils. Based on these studies, modelling shows the likely extent of soil moss cover and underlines its value to the planet.

Differences in shallow- and deep-earthquake characteristics can be explained by Earth’s depth-dependent rigidity instead of different rupture processes, according to machine learning classification of moderate to large earthquakes.

Precipitation frequency and intensity across different geographic regions are positively correlated in reanalysis data and observations, suggesting universal precipitation-generating processes.

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.

NASA’s DART mission showed how a kinetic impact can be deployed to enhance the momentum change of a near-Earth asteroid while giving us the first up-close view of a binary asteroid system.

Earth’s spectral long-wave feedback parameter can be directly observed using satellite measurements, revealing the influence of relative humidity on climate feedbacks.

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.

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.

There is much science to extract from mission data if China’s growing planetary science community is supported.

Submarine terraced deposits of some caldera-forming explosive eruptions result from periodic collapses of the eruption column and can be used to estimate their source eruption rate, according to an analysis of such terraces and analogue experiments.