News & Views

The causes of the catastrophic eruption of the Lusi mud volcano in Indonesia are hotly debated. Data from a nearby exploration well and a new look at the stress regime suggest that drilling operations, and not an earthquake set the eruption off.

The fate of dissolved organic carbon in the ocean interior is poorly constrained. Fluorescence measurements illuminate the relative roles of in situ production and riverine input of at least the coloured carbon fraction.

The vast Laurentide ice sheet once covered the northern reaches of the American continent. A combination of geological data and climate simulations suggests that it dwindled faster than has been projected for Greenland's ice over the next century.

Despite its potential importance in a warming world, the organic carbon content of Arctic soils has escaped robust quantification. A closer look at the North American sector suggests that much more carbon is stored in these high northern grounds than previously thought.

The ratio of magnesium to calcium in sea water is thought to have influenced the skeletal mineralogy of certain marine calcifiers throughout the Phanerozoic eon. A fresh look at old data suggests that mass extinctions may have also played a role.

Mud volcanoes often exhibit calderas, which are large circular depressions at their summit. Detailed mapping around the Caspian Sea suggests that caldera-forming mud volcanoes are dynamically similar to magmatic volcanoes.

Almost immediately after all the Earth's continents were amalgamated into the supercontinent Pangaea, rifting began to tear it apart. Subduction of the oceanic region of the Pangaean plate beneath its own continental margin may have been the trigger.

In the South Asian lowlands, high population density coincides with dangerous levels of arsenic in groundwater. Maps based on surface geology can help identify regions at risk of arsenic contamination.

The Waiho Loop moraine in New Zealand's southern Alps had long been viewed as a southern icon of a recent glacier response to cooling climate, possibly the Younger Dryas cold event. But a closer look has implicated a landslide in this particular glacial advance.

Most of the world's surface oceans are oversaturated with respect to atmospheric methane and emit large quantities of this greenhouse gas. Aerobic decomposition of phosphorus-containing organic compounds may be responsible.

The uneven distribution of biological nitrogen fixation in terrestrial ecosystems has yet to be explained. Latitudinal gradients in temperature and phosphorus may hold the answer.

Ninety-five million years ago, ocean bottom waters were much warmer than at present. Some of this warmth could have come from the proto-North Atlantic's continental shelves after the balmy surface waters became increasingly salty through evaporation.

Archaean and early Proterozoic rocks reveal that the Earth's magnetic field two billion years ago behaved differently than over most of the past 200 million years. Do these changes relate to the growth of the inner core?

Two overlapping oceanic plates are sinking into the mantle underneath central Japan where they dehydrate, releasing water-rich fluids that enhance mantle melting. Geochemical work helps determine the relative contribution of each plate to the overall fluid budget.