Featured
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News |
Lightning linked to solar wind
Correlation suggests answer to longstanding question about what triggers bolts.
- Katia Moskvitch
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News & Views |
Fertile fields for seismicity
An analysis of crustal uplift around California's San Joaquin Valley, caused by groundwater extraction, reveals that such removal leads to both seasonal and long-term unclamping of the nearby San Andreas Fault system. See Letter p.483
- Paul Lundgren
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Letter |
Uplift and seismicity driven by groundwater depletion in central California
Human-caused groundwater depletion in California’s San Joaquin Valley contributes to uplift of the surrounding mountains and may affect the stability of the San Andreas Fault.
- Colin B. Amos
- , Pascal Audet
- & Geoffrey Blewitt
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News & Views |
Making the Earth move
Controversy exists over the roles of water and melt in the ductile layer of the mantle beneath Earth's surface plates. New data support models in which small amounts of melting occur in the uppermost part of this region. See Letter p.81
- Rob L. Evans
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Letter |
Electrical conductivity during incipient melting in the oceanic low-velocity zone
Determination of the electrical conductivity of carbon-dioxide- and water-rich melts, which are typically produced at the onset of mantle melting, shows that incipient melts can trigger the high electrical conductivities found in oceanic regions of the asthenosphere.
- David Sifré
- , Emmanuel Gardés
- & Fabrice Gaillard
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News |
Chile quake defies expectations
Smaller-than-expected tremor has scientists scrambling to redefine rules for areas of extreme seismic stress.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
NSF pulls support for quake observatory
Troubled project sought to observe tremors from deep within the San Andreas fault.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
New origin seen for Earth's tectonic plates
Continual diving of crust into mantle is sufficient to explain formation of plate boundaries.
- Jessica Morrison
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Letter |
Plate tectonics, damage and inheritance
Lithospheric damage, combined with transient mantle flow and migrating proto-subduction, is proposed to explain the apparent emergence of plate tectonics three billion years ago; modelling confirms that tectonic plate boundaries and fully formed tectonic plates can arise under conditions characteristic of Earth but not of Venus.
- David Bercovici
- & Yanick Ricard
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News |
Asteroids can have rings, too
Chariklo is the first body after the giant planets found to have a ring system.
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Letter |
Geomagnetic fluctuations reveal stable stratification at the top of the Earth’s core
MAC waves (arising from magnetic, Archimedes and Coriolis forces) in the liquid core indicate a 140-kilometre-thick stratified layer on top of the Earth’s core and account for the 60-year geomagnetic fluctuations observed in the Earth’s geomagnetic field.
- Bruce Buffett
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News |
Solar eruptions combine to cause super storms
Collision of successive ejections found to cause extreme space weather.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News Explainer |
Why the 'Venus rainbow' is actually a glory
The first sighting of the light spectacle on another planet reveals properties of the mysterious Venusian clouds.
- George Musser
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Feature |
Geoscience: Fracking fundamentals
Scientists in the United States who are looking to ride the gas-exploration boom can find a variety of options for employment, from chemical research to environmental monitoring.
- Sid Perkins
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News |
Global seismic network takes to the seas
Two systems could plug the ocean-sized gap in earthquake detection.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
Mapping river geometry gives clues to past terrains
New technique reveals how river systems stabilise, or cannibalize one another.
- Sid Perkins
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Research Highlights |
Permafrost grows thanks to plants
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Comment |
Earth science: Crystallography's journey to the deep Earth
Improved methods for studying minerals at extreme pressures and temperatures promise a new era for exploring our planet's centre, says Thomas Duffy.
- Thomas Duffy
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News & Views |
Missing link in mantle dynamics
The discovery of crystallographic imperfections known as disclinations in the most profuse mineral in Earth's upper mantle has the potential to solve a problem that has vexed mineral physicists for decades. See Article p.51
- Greg Hirth
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Research Highlights |
Glacier reaches record speed
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News |
Sea drilling project launches
International expedition hopes to unravel mysteries of the South China Sea, one of the world’s most geologically important seas.
- Jane Qiu
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News |
Volcanoes shift before they spew
GPS data from 2011 Icelandic eruption hint at new ways to forecast hazards.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Earthquake lights linked to rift zones
Steep geological faults most likely to host strange luminescence.
- Alexandra Witze
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Research Highlights |
Volcanic lightning made in the lab
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Books & Arts |
Geology: The maverick founder of modern seismology
George Helffrich relishes a film on John Milne, whose work in Japan put earthquake science on the map.
- George Helffrich
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News Feature |
Earth science: Under the volcano
Geophysicists are scouring the globe for evidence of mantle plumes — the presumed source of some mega-eruptions.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Killer qualities of Japanese fault revealed
Ocean drilling finds thin, weak layer of clay was behind giant earthquake and tsunami of 2011.
- Nicola Jones
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News Feature |
Geology: North America's broken heart
A billion years ago, a huge rift nearly cleaved North America down the middle. And then it failed. Researchers may be getting close to finding out why.
- Jessica Marshall
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Research Highlights |
Anatomy of an ice shelf's demise
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News |
Mission to map Earth's magnetic field readies for take-off
Satellite trio will unravel mysteries of planet's inner dynamo and could even find iron mines from space.
- Quirin Schiermeier
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Research Highlights |
Injected gas makes Earth rumble
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Letter |
Structural change in molten basalt at deep mantle conditions
The structure of molten basalt up to 60 GPa by means of in situ X-ray diffraction is described, with the coordination of silicon increasing from four under ambient conditions to six at 35 GPa, and subsequent reduced melt compressibility, which seems to affect siderophile-element partitioning.
- Chrystèle Sanloup
- , James W. E. Drewitt
- & Wolfgang Morgenroth
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News |
India launches Mars-bound probe
Spacecraft will orbit red planet to study its composition and look for signs of life.
- Sanjay Kumar
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News |
US seismic array eyes its final frontier
Moveable sensor grid will begin monitoring Alaska next summer.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Oil recovery may have triggered Texas tremors
Gas injections used to enhance oil production linked to quakes in the Permian Basin.
- Jeff Tollefson
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News |
Exoplanet is built like Earth but much, much hotter
Planet has a similar size and density to our world's but circles its star in just 8.5 hours.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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News |
Large magma reservoir gets bigger
But earthquakes, not eruptions, are Yellowstone's most serious geological risk.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Ancient supervolcanoes revealed on Mars
Giant depressions may be the remains of eruptions rather than old impact craters.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Ancient rivers cut migration routes through Sahara
Simulations suggest waters made 'green corridors' for early humans heading out of Africa.
- Davide Castelvecchi