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Archaean and early Proterozoic rocks reveal that the Earth's magnetic field two billion years ago behaved differently than over most of the past 200 million years. Do these changes relate to the growth of the inner core?
Two overlapping oceanic plates are sinking into the mantle underneath central Japan where they dehydrate, releasing water-rich fluids that enhance mantle melting. Geochemical work helps determine the relative contribution of each plate to the overall fluid budget.
The Nili Fossae region on Mars is one of the places earmarked for the search of evidence for life. A combination of geomorphological and mineralogical data from the area suggest ideal conditions for the burial of organic matter.
The termination of the Marinoan glaciation 635 million years ago is one of the most spectacular climate change events ever recorded. Methane release from equatorial permafrost might have triggered this global meltdown.
Uncertainty over tropical tropospheric temperature change has loomed large over the last two decades. Use of wind data to infer temperature change offers a new avenue of investigation.
Stunning images of fjords are familiar to geologists, but their origins are less well known. A simple model suggests that topographic steering of ice and erosion proportional to ice discharge are sufficient to explain fjord formation during the Quaternary period.
The generally warm and ice-free conditions of the Eocene epoch rapidly declined to the cold and glaciated state of the Oligocene epoch. Geochemical evidence from deep-sea sediments resolves in detail the climatic events surrounding this transition.
Late addition of meteoric material to the Earth's mantle could explain the presence of iron-loving elements that should have entered the Earth's core at its formation. But experiments at realistic conditions show that enough palladium could have remained in the mantle.
In densely populated coastal areas, reactions of polluted air with sea salt aerosol from the ocean can lead to high surface ozone levels that affect air quality.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels greatly influence the Earth's climate. Evidence from ice cores and marine sediments suggests that over timescales beyond the glacial cycles, carbon fluxes are finely balanced and act to stabilize temperatures.
Not only do plate boundary faults generate earthquakes, they also produce slow slip and non-volcanic tremor. New observations on these phenomena provide fresh insights into the conditions that dictate earthquake behaviour.
Extraction of the continental crust has left the Earth's mantle depleted in certain elements. Some rocks from the Arctic Ocean floor suggest that the extent of depletion and heterogeneity in the Earth's mantle may be greater than we thought.
Violent uplift of western Crete in AD 365 generated a Mediterranean-wide tsunami that tossed boats onto house-tops in Alexandria, Egypt. Although a similar earthquake may not recur for 5,000 years, contiguous fault segments could rupture sooner.
Because of difficulties in creating a radiocarbon calibration that covers the end of the last glaciation, defining the timing and duration of the Younger Dryas cold event has been a challenge. Linking related cosmogenic isotopes in tree rings and ice cores may provide new insights into abrupt climate changes.
All organisms require elements to live, grow and reproduce, but some of these are hard to find or take up. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria solve the problem by secreting compounds that allow them to acquire the metals they need.
Electrical discharges from thunderstorms include bolts-from-the-blue, blue jets and gigantic jets along with the more common intracloud and cloud-to-ground lightning. All these phenomena can be understood in a single framework.