Solid Earth sciences articles within Nature

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  • News & Views |

    Melting and solidification of iron alloys in Earth's core may explain structural complexity in the solid inner core, and alter the way we think about the dynamics of the deep interior. See Letter p.361

    • Bruce Buffett

  • Books & Arts |

    A monograph highlights how artist Tania Kovats views geological and evolutionary time, notes Colin Martin.

    • Colin Martin

  • Feature |

    There's good news for aspiring geoscientists. Job opportunities at all career stages are on the rise.

    • Sid Perkins

  • Comment |

    Two months on from the earthquake and tsunami that hit their country on 11 March, five Japanese seismologists reflect on what they have learned from it so far.

  • News Feature |

    Vesuvius is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world — but scientists and the civil authorities can't agree on how to prepare for a future eruption.

    • Katherine Barnes

  • News & Views |

    Seismic images of the Colorado plateau region reveal a mantle 'drip' forming under the Grand Canyon area. This hidden process may be responsible for the puzzling uplift of the plateau. See Letter p.461

    • George Zandt
    •  & Peter Reiners

  • Comment |

    Robert J. Geller calls on Japan to stop using flawed methods for long-term forecasts and to scrap its system for trying to predict the 'Tokai earthquake'.

    • Robert J. Geller

  • News & Views |

    A three-dimensional mechanical model of the Tibetan crust explains both the first-order features of GPS surface velocities and the contrast in the types of earthquake between northern and southern Tibet. See Letter p.79

    • Jeffrey T. Freymueller

  • News & Views |

    The energy released by capsizing icebergs can be equal to that of small earthquakes — enough to create ocean waves of considerable magnitude. Should such 'glacial tsunamis' be added to the list of future global-warming hazards?

    • Anders Levermann

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • F. Huang
    • , P. Chakraborty
    •  & C. E. Lesher

  • Letter |

    This study shows that the contrast in tectonic regime between primarily strike-slip faulting in northern Tibet and dominantly normal faulting in southern Tibet requires mechanical coupling between the upper crust of southern Tibet and the underthrusting Indian crust. Such coupling is inconsistent with the presence of active ‘channel flow’ beneath southern Tibet, and indicates that the Indian crust retains its strength as it underthrusts the plateau.

    • Alex Copley
    • , Jean-Philippe Avouac
    •  & Brian P. Wernicke

  • News & Views |

    Winters are colder in northeastern North America and Asia than in other regions at the same latitude. Previous explanations may be incomplete, having overlooked the radiation of atmospheric wave energy. See Letter p.621

    • William R. Boos

  • Letter |

    The early history of flowering plants (angiosperms) is contentious. However, many fossils attributable to flowering plants have been found in the Early Cretaceous of China. The plant reported in this study goes a step further: not only is it an angiosperm, but it is a member of a relatively derived group, the eudicots, and possibly a member of the Ranunculaceae, an extant family of plants. This indicates that angiosperm evolution probably got into its stride even earlier than the Early Cretaceous.

    • Ge Sun
    • , David L. Dilcher
    •  & Zhiduan Chen

  • Comment |

    On the 50th anniversary of the first attempt to drill into Earth's mantle, Damon Teagle and Benoît Ildefonse say that what was once science fiction is now possible.

    • Damon Teagle
    •  & Benoît Ildefonse

  • Letter |

    This study reports on laboratory-strength measurements of fault core materials from a drill hole located northwest of Parkfield, California, near the southern end of a creeping zone of the San Andreas fault. It is found that the fault is profoundly weak at this location and depth, owing to the presence of the smectite clay mineral saponite—one of the weakest phyllosilicates known. These findings provide strong evidence that deformation of the mechanically unusual creeping portions of the San Andreas fault system is controlled by the presence of weak minerals rather than by high fluid pressure or other proposed mechanisms.

    • David A. Lockner
    • , Carolyn Morrow
    •  & Stephen Hickman

  • Letter |

    This study reviews a large set of fault friction experiments and finds that a significant decrease in friction occurs at high slip rate. Extrapolating the experimental data to conditions typical of earthquake nucleation depths, it is concluded that faults are lubricated during earthquakes, irrespective of the fault rock composition or specific weakening mechanism involved.

    • G. Di Toro
    • , R. Han
    •  & T. Shimamoto

  • News & Views |

    An approach integrating different data sets has been used to map out seismic-velocity ratios in the crust of western North America. High inferred quartz content correlates with tectonic deformation zones. See Letter p.353

    • Roland Bürgmann
    •  & Pascal Audet

  • Letter |

    This study uses seismic receiver functions, gravity and surface heat flow measurements to estimate the thickness and seismic velocity ratio, vP/vS, of the continental crust in the western United States. There is a surprising correlation between low crustal vP/vS ratios and both higher lithospheric temperature and Cordilleran deformation. From this it is inferred that the abundance of crustal quartz — the weakest mineral in continental rocks — may lead to a feedback mechanism that strongly influences continental temperature and deformation.

    • Anthony R. Lowry
    •  & Marta Pérez-Gussinyé

  • Letter |

    One of the most remarkable global warming events in the history of the Earth was the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 56 million years ago, which is thought to have been caused by the release of greenhouse gases from mineral weathering. Several other, less severe warming periods occurred around 6–8 million years after the PETM. This paper shows that these smaller events were brief and surprisingly frequent, to a tempo paced by the Earth's orbit. Their rapid onset and recovery indicates a mechanism primarily dependent on shuffling carbon between the atmosphere and a dissolved, organic form in the ocean, in sharp contrast to the PETM's more sluggish greenhouse gas release from buried carbon reservoirs.

    • Philip F. Sexton
    • , Richard D. Norris
    •  & Samantha Gibbs

  • News & Views |

    Initiation of the great 2010 Chile earthquake occurred within the rupture zone of the 1835 event experienced by Charles Darwin. However, the peak fault slip was to the north of the epicentre — not where it was expected to occur.

    • Thorne Lay

  • Books & Arts |

    A magisterial series revolutionizes our understanding of Arabic geography, finds Celâl Şengör.

    • A. M. Celâl Şengör

  • News |

    NASA satellite crash will hamper solar monitoring and aerosol measurements vital to improving climate models.

    • Jeff Tollefson

  • Letter |

    This study shows that a dynamic two-stage model can unify a wide range of apparently contradictory observations from both large plutonic bodies and volcanic systems by a mechanism of rapid remobilization, or 'unzipping', of highly viscous crystal-rich mushes. This remobilization can lead to rapid overturn and produce the observed juxtaposition of magmatic materials with very disparate ages and complex chemical zoning. The agreement between calculated and observed unzipping rates for historical eruptions at Pinatubo and Montserrat demonstrates the potentially wide applicability of the model.

    • Alain Burgisser
    •  & George W. Bergantz

  • Books & Arts |

    Wolfgang Lucht sees a lesson for humanity's future in the long co-evolution of our planet and its inhabitants.

    • Wolfgang Lucht

  • News & Views |

    A new model for volcanic tremor has a magma column, surrounded by gas bubbles, oscillating or 'wagging' back and forth. The model reconciles several observations of this characteristic signal. See Letter p.522

    • Stephen R. McNutt

  • News & Views |

    A long climate record reveals abrupt hydrological variations during past interglacials in southwestern North America. These data set a natural benchmark for detecting human effects on regional climates. See Letter p.518

    • John Williams

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