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The Salton Sea is an evolving pull-apart basin located between the San Andreas and Imperial faults in Southern California. Seismic and geological data reveal a rapidly subsiding southern sub-basin that is bounded by a hinge zone to the north, and northwest-dipping normal faults to the south.
Science and society are faced with two challenges that are inextricably linked: fossil-fuel energy dependence and rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Coupling of noble gas and carbon chemistry provides an innovative approach to understanding the deep terrestrial carbon cycle.
Sea level fluctuated substantially over the past 22,000 years. A simple model based on these fluctuations estimates between 7 and 86 cm of sea-level rise by the end of the twenty-first century—in agreement with climate model projections.
It has been proposed that hydrocarbons could be produced abiogenically under the high pressure, high temperature conditions characteristic of the upper mantle. In situ Raman spectroscopy indicates that methane forms saturated hydrocarbons, containing two to four carbons, when exposed to upper-mantle conditions.
Most discharge from large ice sheets takes place through fast-flowing ice streams. A combination of radar and seismic data reveal megascale glacial lineations at the bed of a West Antarctic ice stream that undergo significant change by erosion and deposition on decadal timescales.
Following the crystallization of a magma ocean, the martian mantle probably underwent an overturning event, but its initiation, timing and geochemical consequences are poorly constrained. Isotopic data for martian meteorites and numerical simulations provide strong evidence for early overturning in the martian mantle.
Mineral dust can be transported long distances in the lower atmosphere. Satellite measurements and model simulations show that dust generated during a storm in the Taklimakan Desert, China, in 2007 was transported more than once around the globe.
Global warming 55 million years ago was accompanied by a massive injection of carbon into the ocean-atmosphere system, but the resulting climatic warming was much greater than expected from the modelled rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide alone.
Phosphorus is frequently the limiting nutrient in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Analysis of lightning-derived glassy compounds from North America, Africa and Australia suggests that cloud-to-ground lightning increases the bioavailability of this nutrient.
About 55 million years ago global surface temperatures increased by 5–9 ∘C within a few thousand years, following a pulse of carbon released to the atmosphere. Analysis of existing data with a carbon cycle model indicates that this carbon pulse was too small to cause the full amount of warming at accepted values for climate sensitivity.
The extinction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary is one of the five largest in Earth’s history. Microfossil and organic geochemical analyses link the vegetation turnover in Europe to the release of pollutants and toxic compounds from flood basalt volcanism in the central Atlantic Ocean.
The flux of methane—a greenhouse gas—from submarine hydrocarbon seeps to the atmosphere is not well quantified. Direct measurements of methane concentrations and isotopic depth profiles in deepwater hydrocarbon plumes indicate that a significant amount of methane from deep-ocean sources could reach the surface ocean.
Humans have been responding to fluctuating sea levels for millennia. Adapting to future change will require a swift start on developing innovative infrastructure while keeping the option to adjust in the long term.
It is unclear whether the modern processes of mercury cycling — such as mercury deposition in polar regions — operated before anthropogenic emissions. Ice-core records from Antarctica now reveal strikingly high mercury concentrations during the coldest glacial periods.
Seafloor vents spewing mineral-rich plumes of hydrothermal fluid — termed black smokers — can persist at mid-ocean ridges for decades or longer. Earthquake data indicate that ongoing magma injection may determine their locations.
Some components of the climate system continue to adjust long after atmospheric greenhouse-gas levels have stopped changing. A coupled climate–vegetation model shows that forests can be committed to die-back or expansion before change is observed.
