Solid Earth sciences articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Seismic imaging of subducted plates offers a way to improve plate tectonic reconstructions. Here, Braszus et al. use new ocean-bottom seismometer data from the Lesser Antilles to locate subducted spreading centres and faults thus providing a new understanding of the evolution of the Caribbean plate.

    • Benedikt Braszus
    • , Saskia Goes
    •  & Marjorie Wilson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This paper placed the identified Mariana type ophiolite within a global tectonic re-organization at ca. 530-520 Ma. Similar ophiolites, together with other geological and chemical proxies, newly constrained the timing of establishment of modern plate tectonics, along with its links to surficial changes that characterize the contemporary Earth.

    • Jinlong Yao
    • , Peter A. Cawood
    •  & Peng Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reconciling the Snowball Earth hypothesis with sedimentological cyclicity has been a persistent challenge. A new cyclostratigraphic climate record for a Cryogenian banded iron formation in Australia provides evidence for orbital forcing of ice sheet advance and retreat cycles during Snowball Earth.

    • Ross N. Mitchell
    • , Thomas M. Gernon
    •  & Xiaofang He

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Elevated Zn isotope compositions occur in K-Pg sedimentary layers of three different depositional environments across North America and the Caribbean. The data indicate a volatilization event, and act as a robust mechanistic indicator of the meteorite impact at the end of the Cretaceous.

    • Ryan Mathur
    • , Brandon Mahan
    •  & Francisca E. Oboh-Ikuenobe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Subduction zone volcanoes are underlain by extensive magma plumbing systems, which can obscure original mantle source signals. Here, the authors show that intra-crystal oxygen isotope analysis of clinopyroxenes from the Sunda arc (Indonesia) reveal the δ18 O value of the sub-arc mantle.

    • Frances M. Deegan
    • , Martin J. Whitehouse
    •  & Osvaldo González-Maurel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anomalously slow earthquakes play a critical role in the earthquake cycle and fault sliding. Here, the authors detect continuous seismic radiation from a glacier sliding over its bed and show persistent coastal shaking to represent an addition to the family of slow earthquakes.

    • Evgeny A. Podolskiy
    • , Yoshio Murai
    •  & Shin Sugiyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Constraining the thermal state of the lithosphere is crucial to understanding geodynamic regime in early Earth. Here the authors reconstruct ~2.9–2.5 Ga thermal structure of continental lithosphere of the North China Craton using TTG and propose a systematic Archean geodynamic evolution process.

    • Guozheng Sun
    • , Shuwen Liu
    •  & Fangyang Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    “Earth degassing is a critical carbon source, but its contribution to Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 variations is not well known. Here, the authors analyse CO2 fluxes on the Tibetan Plateau and suggest that the India-Asia collision was the primary driver of changes in atmospheric CO2 over the past 65 Ma.”

    • Zhengfu Guo
    • , Marjorie Wilson
    •  & Jiaqi Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is a lot of uncertainty about what Earth’s climate and geography were like in the early Cambrian, when animal life diversified throughout the oceans. Here we show that numeric comparisons of model simulations and climatically influenced rocks can help constrain geography and climate during this time.

    • Thomas W. Wong Hearing
    • , Alexandre Pohl
    •  & Thijs R. A. Vandenbroucke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The downhill motion of soils on hillslopes is not well understood. Here, the authors present laboratory experiments and show that hillslopes are made perpetually fragile by environmental perturbations that prevent them from stabilizing.

    • Nakul S. Deshpande
    • , David J. Furbish
    •  & Douglas J. Jerolmack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present a high-resolution palaeomagnetic record for a Late Cretaceous limestone in Italy. They claim that their record robustly shows a ~12° true polar wander oscillation between 86 and 78 Ma, with the greatest excursion at 84–82 Ma.

    • Ross N. Mitchell
    • , Christopher J. Thissen
    •  & Joseph L. Kirschvink

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Why Earth’s crust only started becoming widely preserved in the Eoarchaean, 500 Ma after planetary accretion, is poorly understood. Here, the authors document a shift to juvenile magmatic sources in the early Eoarchaean, linking crustal preservation to the formation of stabilising melt-depleted mantle.

    • Jacob A. Mulder
    • , Oliver Nebel
    •  & Timothy J. Ivanic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A case study of migmatites indicates that the juvenile arc crust underwent a rapid self-recycling process from arc magmatism to erosion and weathering at the surface, then to burial and remelting. Intra-arc thrust fault systems might efficiently promote endogenous recycling.

    • Jun-Yong Li
    • , Ming Tang
    •  & Lin-Sen Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Models of the viscosity evolution of mantle rocks are central to analyses of postseismic deformation but constraints on underlying physical processes are lacking. Here, the authors present measurements of microscale stress heterogeneity in olivine suggesting that long-range dislocation interactions contribute to viscosity evolution.

    • David Wallis
    • , Lars N. Hansen
    •  & Ricardo A. Lebensohn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Present et al. examine the processes controlling lithification of microbial mats in a Caribbean peritidal carbonate environment. The authors present sedimentological and geochemical evidence of a surprising bias against preserving the most robust, widespread microbial ecosystems in the sedimentary record.

    • Theodore M. Present
    • , Maya L. Gomes
    •  & John P. Grotzinger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Monitoring the flux of gas from volcanoes is a fundamental component of volcano monitoring programs and is used as a basis for eruption forecasting. Here, the authors present a new method using video images of volcanic gas plumes to measure the speed of convective structures and to estimate volcanic fluxes.

    • Julia Woitischek
    • , Nicola Mingotti
    •  & Andrew W. Woods

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Based on diamond-anvil cell experiments and cutting-edge secondary ion mass spectrometry analyses, the authors here show that hydrogen may be an important constituent in the Earth’s core and also in the metallic cores of any terrestrial planet or moon having a mass in excess of 10% of the Earth.

    • Shoh Tagawa
    • , Naoya Sakamoto
    •  & Hisayoshi Yurimoto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Diamonds encapsulate the deep Earth fluids that form them, providing windows to deep mantle processes. This study constrains their ages, based on uranium-thorium-to-helium radioactive decay in the fluids and helium diffusivity in diamond, and relates diamond formation to geological events in Southern Africa.

    • Yaakov Weiss
    • , Yael Kiro
    •  & Steven L. Goldstein

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ordinary cracks in bulk materials feature square root singular deformation fields near their edge. Here, the authors show that rupture fronts propagating along frictional interfaces, while resembling ordinary cracks in some respects, feature edge sigularity that differs from the conventional square root one.

    • Efim A. Brener
    •  & Eran Bouchbinder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phase equilibrium modelling combined with Ca isotope measurements in ancient granitoids demonstrates that subduction of oceanic crust occurred repeatedly throughout the Archaean and that carbonate sediments were present in early Eoarchaean oceans (>3.8 billion years).

    • Michael A. Antonelli
    • , Jillian Kendrick
    •  & Frédéric Moynier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The assessment of soil sustainability in prehistoric times requires comparing millennium-scale erosion rates with geological background rates. Here, the authors apply in situ cosmogenic 14C, 10Be, and 26Al to reveal rapid soil erosion on the Andean Altiplano in response to Late Holocene climate change and the onset of agropastoralism.

    • Kristina Hippe
    • , John D. Jansen
    •  & David Lundbek Egholm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laboratory experiments reproducing earthquake slip in non cohesive fault rocks under fluid pressurised conditions are challenging. Thanks to these experiments, the authors show that earthquake slip occurring in tsunamigenic subduction zone faults is controlled by dilatancy and pressurisation processes.

    • S. Aretusini
    • , F. Meneghini
    •  & G. Di Toro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, based on earthquake data, vertical gravity gradient data and high-resolution bathymetry, the authors show that the Red Sea is not in transition from rifting to spreading as previously proposed. They instead suggest it to be a mature ocean basin in which continuous seafloor spreading began quasi-instantaneously along its entire length around 13 Ma ago.

    • Nico Augustin
    • , Froukje M. van der Zwan
    •  & Bryndís Brandsdóttir

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A novel model for submarine tephra dispersal by hydrothermal megaplumes is proposed. The energy flux inferred from our model aligns with megaplume observations, and suggests that the catastrophic release of hot crustal fluids, as opposed to lava heating, is responsible for megaplume generation.

    • Samuel S. Pegler
    •  & David J. Ferguson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors here study the origin of seismic Love waves induced by ocean waves. The study finds Love waves to originate along steep bathymetry and underlying geological interfaces, particularly sedimentary basins, yielding spatio-temporal information about ocean-land coupling in deep water.

    • Florian Le Pape
    • , David Craig
    •  & Christopher J. Bean

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tectonomagmatic conditions in the Precambrian were hypothesized to be unfavorable for porphyry Cu deposit formation. Here, the authors show that metallogenic processes typify Phanerozoic porphyry Cu deposits operated by ~1.88 Ga, reflecting modification of mantle lithosphere by oxidized slab-derived fluids at that time.

    • Xuyang Meng
    • , Jackie M. Kleinsasser
    •  & Richard A. Stern

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study shows how seismic and aseismic events are related in Mexico between 2017 and 2019. Based on a series of observations and models, the study suggests that the Mw 8.2 intraslab earthquake of 8 September 2017 severely altered the mechanical properties of the plate interface, facilitating the interaction between the events and disrupting the slow slip cycles at a regional scale.

    • V. M. Cruz-Atienza
    • , J. Tago
    •  & E. Kazachkina

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large fissure eruptions can cause air pollution events when the volcanic plume returns to the same area after the initial advisory has been lifted. Here, the authors show that these events had a significant impact on health care usage in Iceland, and the impact was exacerbated when advisories were not issued successfully.

    • Hanne Krage Carlsen
    • , Evgenia Ilyinskaya
    •  & Thorolfur Gudnason

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors compile a global geochemical database of Neogene-Quaternary intraplate volcanism. By comparing the distribution and composition of these rocks with tomographic models they show that intraplate volcanism can be used to constrain upper-mantle structure at the time of eruption.

    • P. W. Ball
    • , N. J. White
    •  & S. N. Stephenson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors locate the maximum seismic energy imprint and lateral extent of the seismic sources generated by Typhoon Ioke. Based on this data set, they present a new tool to shed light on the generation mechanism of secondary microseisms body waves.

    • Lise Retailleau
    •  & Lucia Gualtieri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The end-Permian mass extinction was the most severe extinction event in the past 540 million years, and the Siberian Traps large igneous province is widely hypothesized to have been the primary trigger for the environmental catastrophe. In this study, Ni isotopes provide the link between Siberian Traps magmatism and early environmental degradation, ultimately leading to the end-Permian extinction.

    • Menghan Li
    • , Stephen E. Grasby
    •  & Yanan Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Meltwater Pulse 1A was the most rapid global sea-level rise event during the last deglaciation, but the source of the freshwater causing this rise is debated. Here, the authors use a data-driven inversion approach to show that the North American and Eurasian Ice Sheets were the dominant contributors.

    • Yucheng Lin
    • , Fiona D. Hibbert
    •  & Sarah L. Bradley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chlorine behaviour during complex, polybaric arc magma degassing is poorly understood. Here, the authors show that chemical feedbacks during coeval magma differentiation and degassing account for the Cl record at both volcanoes and ore deposits, and quantify the role of Cl in efficient copper extraction during degassing.

    • B. Tattitch
    • , C. Chelle-Michou
    •  & R. R. Loucks

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study investigates the underlying physical mechanisms of turbidity currents travelling thousands of miles in confined submarine settings, rather than diffusing after short distance. Using high resolution simulations with up to a billion grid points helps to understand the evolving layered structure of a current.

    • Jorge S. Salinas
    • , S. Balachandar
    •  & M. I. Cantero

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Solid Earth sciences across other nature.com journals