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Sediment lenses trailing subducting seamounts could maintain long-lasting fluid pressures and support slow-slip behaviour at sediment-rich subduction zones, according to three-dimensional seismic surveys of the Hikurangi margin.

Deciphering the contribution of mantle convection to Earth’s surface elevation remains challenging, but it may have a dominant influence on mountain-building at subduction zones, according to a new study reconstructing the topographic evolution of Calabria.

High-resolution satellite observations reveal that large lakes on the Tibetan Plateau have total nitric oxide emissions comparable to anthropogenic emissions from individual megacities worldwide.

Ancient, rock-derived organic matter is consumed by micro-organisms in Arctic fjord sediments despite its presumed limited bioavailability, representing a potential source of greenhouse gas emissions, according to compound-specific radiocarbon analyses of lipids from living bacteria.

The formation of continental crust may have trapped —and thus not degassed—substantial amounts of magmatic nitrogen over Earth’s history, according to geochemical analyses of igneous rocks from the Hekla volcanic system in Iceland.

Interactions between subducting slabs and the 660-km mantle transition zone can influence mantle convection and forearc uplift, according to rock uplift histories of the Calabrian forearc spanning the past 30 million years.

The hyper-arid climate of modern East Antarctica only arose in the late Miocene, millions of years after the interval of rapid ice-sheet expansion, according to meteoric beryllium-10 concentrations within the permafrost.

Correlation between large igneous province activity and iron formation ages suggests that subducted iron formations may have facilitated mantle plume upwelling in the Archaean and Proterozoic Earth.

Lightning can produce bioavailable nitrogen oxides, but it is unknown whether this was a substantial nutrient source for Earth’s earliest biosphere. Comparison of nitrogen isotope measurements from spark discharge experiments to those from the rock record suggests that lightning was likely not the main source of bioavailable nitrogen for the biosphere throughout most of Earth’s history.

Fine-grained pyroclastic deposits can be fluidized by decompression following the passage of dilute pyroclastic density currents, generating hazardous, highly mobile flows, according to analogue experiments and numerical simulations.

Spark discharge experiments suggest lightning was not the main source of bioavailable nitrogen for the established Archaean biosphere, but could have been significant for Earth’s earliest ecosystems.

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.