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A geochemical study of an ancient mass-extinction event shows that only moderate expansion of oxygen-deficient waters along continental margins is needed to decimate marine biodiversity. This finding provides a stark warning of the possible consequences of human-driven ocean deoxygenation on life in Earth’s shallow oceans.
While global ocean redox patterns during the end Triassic were similar to today, pulses of localized anoxia were probably linked to mass extinctions on continental shelves, according to analysis of molybdenum records.
Abrupt changes in atmospheric methane through the last deglaciation were largely the result of tropical sources responding to shifting rainfall patterns, according to a comparison of precisely dated ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica.
The century-scale marine sequestration flux of biogenic inorganic carbon driven by the biological pump over the whole water column may be several times higher than previous estimates.
Analysis of sea temperatures using a four-dimensional spatio-temporal framework has revealed a great number of marine heatwaves occurring globally below the sea surface. These extreme events, which threaten the ecologically important epipelagic zone, have occurred increasingly frequently during the past three decades owing to ocean warming.
Convection-permitting simulations suggest that the radiative impact of aerosol–cloud interactions is enhanced by adjustments to large-scale circulation, which increase cloudiness.
Identifying the metal micronutrients required by early life could help to illuminate how primitive organisms arose, but which metals were biologically available in ancient seawater has not been determined. A new experimental framework suggests how the precipitation of iron minerals from seawater reduced the availability of key metals, particularly zinc, copper and vanadium.
Mineral precipitation experiments suggest the formation of greenalite, an iron silicate mineral, limited zinc, copper and vanadium levels in the Archaean ocean, making them unavailable to early microbial life.
Reconstructions of Tibetan Plateau streamflow over the last millennia reveal close associations with dry season vegetation and major population shifts in Southeast Asia.
Wildfires have caused widespread and increasingly severe losses within timber-producing forests in recent decades, according to maps of logging activity and wildfires.
The Southern Annular Mode and ENSO are the main drivers of recent decadal variability in Antarctic ice mass, according to analysis of satellite-based gravimetric observations.
Deeply subducted water may have enabled the exchange of hydrogen and silicon between the mantle and core, according to high-pressure and -temperature experiments.
Lightning-induced fires account for 77% of the burned area in extratropical intact forests, and lightning ignitions will probably become more frequent as the global climate warms, according to a global attribution of lightning and anthropogenic fires from 2001 to 2020.
Velocity-weakening seismic barriers in subduction zones display a range of behaviours consistent with geologic structural control on earthquake seismicity, according to earthquake cycle simulations along a megathrust.
Deep-sea acidity data combined with ice-core carbon dioxide records reveal that an interplay between the two polar regions modulates ocean ventilation through various modes. These modes explain past variations in deep-sea carbon storage and atmospheric carbon dioxide on millennial timescales.
China has made progress in improving air quality, but current levels of air pollution still have great health impacts. Dr Qiang Zhang, an atmospheric chemist at Tsinghua University, speaks to Nature Geoscience about air pollution control in China, and the challenges and opportunities faced under global environmental change.
