Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature

Featured

  • Letter |

    Accelerated uplift and global cooling have been suggested as possible causes for a fourfold increase in global sedimentation rates, and by inference in erosion rates or weathering fluxes, during the past 5 million years. Here, proxy evidence is provided that indicates stable weathering fluxes in the late-Cenozoic era. It is proposed that processes different from an increase in denudation caused Cenozoic global cooling.

    • Jane K. Willenbring
    •  & Friedhelm von Blanckenburg

  • Letter |

    The Burgess Shales of British Columbia are famous for having yielded fossils of soft-bodied creatures from the Middle Cambrian period. Although similar faunas are now known from localities as far apart as China and Greenland, they seem to have died out before the end of the Cambrian. Or did they? Here, the discovery of a Burgess Shale-type fauna from the Ordovician period in Morocco is reported, showing that creatures of this type persisted beyond the end of the Cambrian.

    • Peter Van Roy
    • , Patrick J. Orr
    •  & Derek E. G. Briggs

  • News & Views |

    Increased erosion associated with the rise of the world's great mountain ranges has been held to be the cause of a prolonged episode of past climate cooling. That connection is now brought into doubt.

    • Yves Goddéris

  • News |

    The eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980 left an indelible mark on the field of volcanology. Janet Fang reports.

    • Janet Fang

  • Opinion |

    The climate community must work together to create a single, clean, comprehensive and open repository of detailed temperature data, say Peter A. Stott and Peter W. Thorne.

    • Peter A. Stott
    •  & Peter W. Thorne

  • Books & Arts |

    Oceanographer and underwater explorer Sylvia Earle served as chief scientist of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during 1990–92, and is a US national committee member of the Census of Marine Life, due to conclude this October. Earle advised on Disney's newly released cut of the documentary film Oceans; here she explains why films are important for raising awareness of the state of our seas.

    • Jascha Hoffman

  • Letter |

    The magnetic field inside the Earth's outer core cannot be directly probed. The intensity of the magnetic field at the core–mantle boundary is estimated to be 0.3 mT, and geodynamo models predict a value about ten times larger (3 mT) for the core's interior. Other data, however, indicate an internal field of only around 0.2 mT. This discrepancy has now been resolved: an ensemble inversion of core flow models finds a torsional wave recurring every 6 years, leading to an estimated field strength of around 4 mT inside the core.

    • Nicolas Gillet
    • , Dominique Jault
    •  & Alexandre Fournier

  • Letter |

    Slip on a subduction megathrust can occur during an earthquake or aseismically. The size, location and frequency of earthquakes that a megathrust can generate depend on where and when aseismic creep is taking place, and what fraction of the long-term slip it accounts for. Here this issue is addressed by looking at the central Peru megathrust, and specifically at the Pisco earthquake of 2007. The findings show that aseismic creep accounts for 50–70% of the slip budget on the seismogenic portion of the megathrust.

    • Hugo Perfettini
    • , Jean-Philippe Avouac
    •  & Pierre Soler

  • Editorial |

    Ways to obtain more accurate data can and should be put in place to police greenhouse-gas emissions.

  • Editorial |

    Governments have typically regulated their coastal waters as if fishing, shipping and the like were separate entities. A new, integrated approach could change all that — while greatly boosting marine science.

  • News |

    To control emissions, countries must first account accurately for their carbon. That will take considerable effort, reports Jeff Tollefson.

    • Jeff Tollefson

  • News & Views |

    Earth's spin rate varies with time. A six-year periodic signal in the planet's core is partly responsible, and increases the interior magnetic-field strength to much higher levels than previously thought.

    • Andy Jackson

  • Opinion |

    Jonathan Shanklin, one of the team who discovered the thinning ozone layer over the Antarctic 25 years ago, reflects on lessons learned from a tale of luck, public perception and fast environmental change.

    • Jonathan Shanklin

  • Column |

    A small non-profit organization shows how to reduce the vulnerability of poor countries to earthquakes, says Daniel Sarewitz.

    • Daniel Sarewitz

  • News Feature |

    Fifty years ago this month, a massive earthquake in Chile broke new ground in seismic science. Roff Smith looks back at the largest quake ever recorded.

    • Roff Smith

  • Opinion |

    As tree habitats shift towards the poles in response to climate change, we must study the neglected, trailing edges of forests, warns Csaba Mátyás — they are economically and ecologically important.

    • Csaba Mátyás

  • Letter |

    The accumulation of nitrate in freshwater and coastal marine ecosystems is one of the consequences of the worldwide production of artificial fertilizers. Here it is shown that nitrate accumulation in ecosystems shows consistent and negative nonlinear correlations with organic carbon availability, along a continuum from soils, through freshwater systems and coastal margins, to the open ocean. This pattern can be explained by carbon:nitrate ratios, which influence nitrate accumulation by regulating microbial processes.

    • Philip G. Taylor
    •  & Alan R. Townsend

  • News Feature |

    A conduit from the Red Sea could restore the disappearing Dead Sea and slake the region's thirst. But such a massive engineering project could have untold effects, reports Josie Glausiusz.

    • Josie Glausiusz

  • Opinion |

    Current national emissions targets can't limit global warming to 2 °C, calculate Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen and colleagues — they might even lock the world into exceeding 3 °C warming.

    • Joeri Rogelj
    • , Julia Nabel
    •  & Niklas Höhne

  • News and Views Q&A |

    The ability to perceive Earth's magnetic field, which at one time was dismissed as a physical impossibility, is now known to exist in diverse animals. The receptors for the magnetic sense remain elusive. But it seems that at least two underlying mechanisms exist — sometimes in the same organism.

    • Kenneth J. Lohmann

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Earth and environmental sciences across other nature.com journals