Atmospheric circulation shifts during the Little Ice Age led to greater typhoon generation in the tropical North Pacific according to a comparison of sediment proxy records of past storm activity and outputs of general circulation models.

See Bramante et al.

Early Eocene siderite spherules collected from Mount Blum, Washington State, United States, used to reconstruct past terrestrial temperature and hydroclimate conditions.

See van Dijk et al.

Satellite observations reveal that fresh wildfire plumes are a globally important source of nitrous acid, enhancing oxidative plume chemistry and regional ozone levels. The satellite image shows smoke plumes from wildfires over California in November 2018.

See Theys et al.

Experiments show that the iron isotopic composition of iron meteorites can be explained by core crystallization and suggest the presence of sulfur-rich core material that remains unsampled by meteorite collections. The image shows the characteristic Widmanstätten pattern of the iron meteorite Edmonton.

See Ni et al.

Dynamic interactions between chemical and biological controls govern the stability of soil organic carbon and drive complex, emergent patterns in soil carbon persistence. Shown is an electron microscopy image of a soil microaggregate.

See Lehmann et al.

Increased Southern Ocean productivity driven by sea-ice feedbacks contributed to a slowdown in rising CO2 levels during the last deglaciation, according to analyses of marine-derived aerosols from an Antarctic ice core. The image shows authors Dr Rootes and Professor Fogwill sampling ancient blue ice from the Patriot Hills blue ice area, West Antarctica. The surface texture is due to sublimation caused by strong katabatic winds, which in summer erode the surface, drawing up ancient ice from deep below.

See Fogwill et al.

The Earth’s core may host most of the planet’s water inventory, according to calculations of the partitioning behaviour of water at conditions of core formation. The image is from an ab initio simulation showing that hydrogen strongly prefers to enter iron melts rather than silicate melts.

See Li et al.

Mineralization of platinum-group elements in mafic intrusions occurs due to repeated self-intrusion of magma, according to strontium isotope heterogeneities preserved in the Rum layered intrusion, Scotland. The image shows a photomicrograph in cross-polarized light of a precious-metal-bearing layer from the intrusion. The brightly coloured crystals are olivine and the smaller black crystals are Cr-spinel.

See O’Driscoll et al.

Thioarsenates are found in the pore waters of rice paddy fields, comparable in concentration to methylated oxyarsenates, according to field, mesocosm and soil incubation studies. The image shows rice seedlings in a paddy field in Bali, Indonesia.

See Planer-Friedrich et al.

Geophysical and meteorological measurements by NASA’s InSight lander in its first year on Mars reveal a planet that is seismically active and provide information about Mars’s interior, surface and atmospheric workings. The InSight lander acquired this image of the mission’s seismometer on 26 January 2019.

See Banerdt et al.

Analyses of inventory models under two climate change projection scenarios suggest that carbon emissions from abrupt thaw of permafrost through ground collapse, erosion and landslides could contribute significantly to the overall permafrost carbon balance. The image shows ice-rich permafrost exposed in a retrogressive thaw slump on the west coast of the Baldwin Peninsula, northwestern Alaska.

See Turetsky et al.

River meanders migrate much faster in barren than in vegetated landscapes, according to global analyses of active meander migration of both unvegetated and vegetated rivers. The difference in migration rates suggests that the rise of land plants had a significant influence on landscapes. The image shows the dry bed of a desert channel located in the watershed of the Amargosa River, Great Basin of the western United States.

See Ielpi and Lapôtre.