Volume 15 Issue 1, January 2022

Inclusive and equitable geoscience requires identification and removal of structural barriers to participation. Replacing the leaky pipeline metaphor with that of a hostile obstacle course demands that those with power take the lead.

Fires reduce plant biomass, which should deplete soil carbon stocks, but a review of recent literature shows that fires also slow decomposition rates and increase soil organic matter stability, offsetting aboveground biomass carbon losses.

Hurricanes and typhoons are tracking further poleward due to the effects of climate change, according to a synthesis of numerical modelling results, observations and palaeoclimate records.

Rupture depth helps explain variations in the size of tsunamis produced by earthquakes, according to numerical modelling and an array of observations.

The compositional asymmetry between the Moon’s near- and farsides can be explained as the result of impact-induced mantle convection and gravitational instability, according to numerical modelling of the South Pole–Aitken impact and the ensuing mantle evolution.

Emissions from the boreal forest biosphere can substantially increase aerosol load above the forest and influence the radiative properties of clouds, according to analysis of observations from a monitoring station in Finland.

The Pope, Smith and Kohler glaciers in West Antarctica have exhibited faster than expected retreat rates in recent years, according to grounding-line observations from satellite radar interferometry.

Thin ice sheets during the warm Early Jurassic were tightly coupled to atmospheric CO₂ fluctuations, according to a CO₂ reconstruction based on the carbon isotopes of fossil wood.

Tropical cyclones frequently hit SE Africa in the mid-Holocene during positive Indian Ocean Dipole phases according to analysis of storm-related tempestite deposits in shoreface sediments off South Africa.

Tsunamis generated by megathrust earthquakes are controlled by regional-scale structural heterogeneity, according to numerical modelling based on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

Changes in Pacific Plate motion combined near equally with hotspot drift to generate the prominent bend in the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain some 50 million years ago, according to kinematic plate reconstruction and global dynamic models.

The internal structures of ultralow-velocity zones at the base of the mantle are consistent with an origin from remnants of the early Earth’s differentiation, according to seismic data analysis and geodynamical modelling.

Oceanic crust subduction sequesters substantial amounts of argon in the Earth’s mantle, while atmosphere-derived argon affects only the isotopic composition and not the overall budget, according to geodynamic–geochemical models of mantle convection.