Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    As countries experience economic growth, diversification of economic activities may occur. Here, the authors develop a probabilistic model to examine the diversification of economic activities and how countries may move from small ecosystem products to advanced product clusters over time.

    • Neave O’Clery
    • , Muhammed Ali Yıldırım
    •  & Ricardo Hausmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent toxicological studies suggest that wildfire particulate matter may be more toxic than equal doses of ambient PM2.5. Here, the authors show that even for similar exposure levels, PM2.5 from wildfires is considerably more dangerous for respiratory health at the population level.

    • Rosana Aguilera
    • , Thomas Corringham
    •  & Tarik Benmarhnia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about people’s preferred responses to norm violations across countries. Here, in a study of 57 countries, the authors highlight cultural similarities and differences in people’s perception of the appropriateness of norm violations.

    • Kimmo Eriksson
    • , Pontus Strimling
    •  & Paul A. M. Van Lange

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Groundwater discharge generates streamflow and influences stream thermal regimes. Classifying more than 1700 streams across the US by using an empirically-based approach the study shows that the vulnerability of streams to stressors depends on the aquifer source-depth of groundwater discharge

    • Danielle K. Hare
    • , Ashley M. Helton
    •  & Martin A. Briggs

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors here present a deep learning method to determine the source focal mechanism of earthquakes in realtime. They trained their network with approximately 800k synthetic samples and managed to successfully estimate the focal mechanism of four 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes with magnitudes larger than Mw 5.4.

    • Wenhuan Kuang
    • , Congcong Yuan
    •  & Jie Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors here present geodetic and seismic data for a complete eruptive cycle (2005-2018) for Sierra Negra volcano, Galapagos Island. The data shows the largest pre-eruptive inflation (6.5 m) and rates of seismicity ever observed before a basaltic eruption and provides a rare illustration of caldera resurgence mechanisms.

    • Andrew F. Bell
    • , Peter C. La Femina
    •  & Michael J. Stock

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of a melting Arctic on the biogeochemistry of marine ecosystems are unknown. Here, the authors investigate glacial input of iron to Svalbard fjords finding that reworking of glacial iron in fjord sediment is important to make iron bioavailable, but could be susceptible to glacial retreat.

    • Katja Laufer-Meiser
    • , Alexander B. Michaud
    •  & Bo Barker Jørgensen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extent to which chemical products of water radiolysis could sustain subseafloor microbial life is unknown. Here the authors show that sediment catalyzes radiolytic production of H2 and oxidants, providing the primary energy source for life in ancient marine sediment.

    • Justine F. Sauvage
    • , Ashton Flinders
    •  & Steven D’Hondt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors identify that magnetotelluric conductive anomalies commonly observed on the trenchward-side of volcanic arcs in subduction zones can be explained by subducted sediments. High-pressure experiments show that these sediment melts will react with the overlying mantle wedge to produce electrically conductive phlogopite pyroxenites.

    • M. W. Förster
    •  & K. Selway

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Generally it is thought that ash aggregation leads to reduced atmospheric travel distances. Here, the authors show that the rafting effect can increase dispersal range by up to 3.7 times for particles between 300–500 μm, compared to sedimentation of individual clasts.

    • Eduardo Rossi
    • , Gholamhossein Bagheri
    •  & Costanza Bonadonna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    COVID-19 might occur together with other natural disasters but frameworks to quantify collective effects is lacking. Here, the authors investigated the readiness of a healthcare system in the face of wildfire during an epidemic by assuming the COVID-19 pandemic occurred around the same time with the Camp Fire case in Butte Country California 2018/2019.

    • Emad M. Hassan
    •  & Hussam N. Mahmoud

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atmospheric rivers are responsible for much of the poleward water vapour transport in the mid-latitudes and can cause extreme precipitation after landfall. Here, the authors show that ocean fronts and eddies can influence atmospheric rivers and increase the associated precipitation along the North American west coast.

    • Xue Liu
    • , Xiaohui Ma
    •  & Christina M. Patricola

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Investing in forest protection is a way to generate tradable carbon credits to support biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Here the authors assess and map the global supply of tropical forest carbon credits with the goal of informing climate policy and investments.

    • Lian Pin Koh
    • , Yiwen Zeng
    •  & Kelly Siman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The configuration of past ice sheets, and therefore sea level, is highly uncertain. Here, the authors provide a global reconstruction of ice sheets for the past 80,000 years that allows to test proxy based sea level reconstructions and helps to reconcile disagreements with sea level changes inferred from models.

    • Evan J. Gowan
    • , Xu Zhang
    •  & Gerrit Lohmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Beaufort Gyre in the western Arctic Ocean has accumulated a large amount of freshwater. Here, the authors show that a historical release in the 1980s resulted in a strong freshening of the western Labrador Sea, suggesting that a future release of the current freshwater volume could even be more impactful.

    • Jiaxu Zhang
    • , Wilbert Weijer
    •  & Milena Veneziani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are big uncertainties in the contribution of irrigation to crop yields. Here, the authors use Bayesian model averaging to combine statistical and process-based models and quantify the contribution of irrigation for wheat and maize yields, finding that irrigation alone cannot close yield gaps for a large fraction of global rainfed agriculture.

    • Xuhui Wang
    • , Christoph Müller
    •  & Shilong Piao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Natural disturbances imperil healthy and productive forests, but quantifying their effects at large scales is challenging. Here the authors apply machine learning to disturbance records and satellite data to quantify and map European forest vulnerability to fires, windthrows, and insect outbreaks through 1979-2018.

    • Giovanni Forzieri
    • , Marco Girardello
    •  & Alessandro Cescatti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Getz region of West Antarctica is losing ice at an increasing rate; however, the forcing mechanisms remain unclear. Here we show for the first time that since 1994, widespread speedup has occurred on the majority of glaciers in the Getz drainage basin, with some glaciers speeding up by over 44 %.

    • Heather L. Selley
    • , Anna E. Hogg
    •  & Tae-Wan Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Subduction of oceanic crust and sediments contributes to heterogeneities in the mantle, which are sampled by mantle plumes. Here, the authors find that extreme isotopic heterogeneity in Samoan clinopyroxenes can help constrain the composition of mantle sources containing sediment recycled into the Earth’s mantle.

    • Jenna V. Adams
    • , Matthew G. Jackson
    •  & John M. Cottle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Disentangling the various pathways by which climate change may drive community shifts in real-world ecosystems is challenging. Here the authors apply a trend attribution approach to a large dataset from the MASTIF database to assess the contribution of direct and indirect effects of climate on tree fecundity in North America, finding that the latter dominate trends by affecting tree growth and size and thereby fecundity.

    • James S. Clark
    • , Robert Andrus
    •  & Roman Zlotin

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The unprecedented cost of the 2018 eruption in Hawai’i reflects an intersection of disparate physical and social phenomena: widely spaced, highly destructive eruptions, and atypically high population growth. These were linked and the former indirectly drove the latter with unavoidable consequences.

    • Bruce F. Houghton
    • , Wendy A. Cockshell
    •  & Eric Yamashita

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Primary productivity in the Southern Ocean plays an important role in the drawdown of atmospheric CO2, but phytoplankton growth is limited by iron. Here the authors show that iron from hydrothermal vents fuels massive phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean that have recurred in the same location for decades.

    • Casey M. S. Schine
    • , Anne-Carlijn Alderkamp
    •  & Kevin R. Arrigo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The N cycle involves complex, microbially-mediated shuttling between ammonium, nitrite and nitrate, with climatically important greenhouse gas byproducts. Here the authors use isotope labeling experiments in river sediments and find a cryptic new step in the N cycle between nitrification and the removal of fixed N through N2 gas production.

    • Liao Ouyang
    • , Bo Thamdrup
    •  & Mark Trimmer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors here investigate the stiffness reduction of solid geomaterials during earthquakes via combining field, experimental and numerical data. The study shows multiple metastable contacts at small surface separations below a few diameters of a water molecule due to the oscillatory hydration interaction.

    • Su-Yang Wang
    • , Hai-Yang Zhuang
    •  & Yu Miao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hurricanes in the Earth’s low atmosphere are known, but not detected in the upper atmosphere earlier. Here, the authors show a long-lasting hurricane in the polar ionosphere and magnetosphere with large energy and momentum deposition despite otherwise extremely quiet conditions.

    • Qing-He Zhang
    • , Yong-Liang Zhang
    •  & Li-Dong Xia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The long-term effectiveness of assisted gene flow of trees could be jeopardised by rapid climate change. Here the authors analyse a large dataset of relocated black spruce populations in Canada, finding that local adaptation to climate of origin improved NPP responses, but only for up to ~15 years after planting.

    • Martin P. Girardin
    • , Nathalie Isabel
    •  & Patrick Lenz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Albite is one of the major constituents in the Earth’s crust. Here, the authors report that under hydrous cold subduction conditions, albite undergoes breakdown into hydrated smectite and other phases, which release alkaline fluids into the mantle wedge.

    • Gil Chan Hwang
    • , Huijeong Hwang
    •  & Yongjae Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fate of ocean carbon is determined by the balance between primary productivity and heterotrophic breakdown of that photosynthate. Here the authors show that diatoms produce a polysaccharide that resists bacterial degradation, accumulates, aggregates and stores carbon during spring blooms.

    • Silvia Vidal-Melgosa
    • , Andreas Sichert
    •  & Jan-Hendrik Hehemann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Not much is known about the joint relationships between social network structure, urban geography, and inequality. Here, the authors analyze an online social network and find that the fragmentation of social networks is significantly higher in towns in which residential neighborhoods are divided by physical barriers such as rivers and railroads.

    • Gergő Tóth
    • , Johannes Wachs
    •  & Balázs Lengyel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is widely hypothesised that primeval life utilized small organic molecules as sources of carbon and energy, however, the presence of such primordial ingredients in early Earth habitats has not yet been demonstrated. Here the authors report the existence of indigenous organic molecules and gases in primary fluid inclusions in c. 3.5- billion-year-old rocks from Western Australia.

    • Helge Mißbach
    • , Jan-Peter Duda
    •  & Volker Thiel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors here present a multi-lake paleoseismological approach to evaluate the role of earthquakes in causing a spatio-temporal cluster of large, prehistoric rockslides between 3000 and 4200 years ago in the Eastern European Alps and for which the triggering mechanisms are still debated.

    • Patrick Oswald
    • , Michael Strasser
    •  & Jasper Moernaut

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crustal doubling in Tibet and the Himalayas by underthrusting of the Indian plate is thought to require the presence of a mafic layer above the Moho. Here, the authors present seismic data which shows that the middle Lhasa Terrane has very low velocity (Vp < 6.7 km/s) throughout the 80 km thick crust, which they suggest is predominantly felsic in composition.

    • Gaochun Wang
    • , Hans Thybo
    •  & Irina M. Artemieva

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global warming is expected to increase mortality due to heat stress in many regions. Here, the authors asses how mortality due to high temperatures changes in China changes for different demographic groups and show that heat-related excess mortality is increasing under climate change, a process that is strongly amplified by population ageing.

    • Jun Yang
    • , Maigeng Zhou
    •  & Qiyong Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evaluating sea-level projections used by the IPCC is challenging due to the short overlap with measurements. Here, the authors show that observed global and regional sea-level trends confirm projections and that the acceleration of sea-level rise is between the one expected from the scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5.

    • Jinping Wang
    • , John A. Church
    •  & Xianyao Chen

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    This review dives deep into how earthquakes affect volcanoes, specifically into the relation between tectonic seismic activity and subsequent eruptions. Activity may increase in any volcanic setting in the 2–5 years following an earthquake, and especially at volcanic centres featuring vigorous hydrothermal activity.

    • Gilles Seropian
    • , Ben M. Kennedy
    •  & Arthur D. Jolly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The future of terrestrial systems is influenced by their past, but this carryover effect is rarely quantified. Here, the authors provide the first quantitative evidence that a greener spring begets a greener summer and autumn, and that this carryover effect is even stronger than climate drivers.

    • Xu Lian
    • , Shilong Piao
    •  & Ranga B. Myneni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The deglaciation of Marinoan snowball Earth (~635 Myr ago) has been associated with potentially extensive CH4 emissions in relation to transient marine euxinia. Here, the authors find that active methanogenesis occurred during the termination of Marinoan snowball Earth, fueled by methyl sulfide production in sulfidic seawater.

    • Zhouqiao Zhao
    • , Bing Shen
    •  & Haoran Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Southern Ocean productivity is a crucial component of the carbon cycle, but phytoplankton there are thought to be limited by iron. Here the authors conduct trace metal incubation experiments across the Drake Passage, finding that manganese can play an unexpected role in restricting phytoplankton growth.

    • Thomas J. Browning
    • , Eric P. Achterberg
    •  & Edward Mawji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tree mortality is increasing with climate change, which suggests that the biomass of dead wood is likely becoming more and more important to the global carbon cycle. Here, the authors perform a meta-analysis of the carbon content of dead wood and find that past estimates of total forest carbon were overestimated.

    • Adam R. Martin
    • , Grant M. Domke
    •  & Sean C. Thomas

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