News & Comment

Seismic risk is poorly known in many places on Earth. To save lives it is necessary — but by no means sufficient — to map the faults that pose a threat more accurately.

The potential for earthquakes along the plate boundaries has been mapped with reasonable success. Our attention should now focus on the threat posed by unanticipated quakes located in the continental interiors.

When a natural disaster strikes civilization it often does so in numerous ways, with unforeseen consequences, as evidenced by recent events in Japan.

Research into the biological threat of reduced ocean pH has yielded many insights over the past decade. Further progress requires a better understanding of how the interplay between ocean acidification and other anthropogenic stresses impacts marine biota.

Daniel Donato and colleagues exercised their acrobatic skills while measuring mangrove carbon stocks.

Brett Carpenter and colleagues got more than they bargained for when cleaning the mud off a metre-long piece of core from the San Andreas Fault.

The deaths of birds have become a rallying point against the proliferation of wind farms. Yet the loss of human life in mines is rarely linked with coal as an energy source.

Nature Geoscience has joined Twitter. We share our take on exciting developments in the Earth and planetary sciences as they happen.

Crops are at risk in a changing climate. Farmers in the developing world will be able to insure against harvest failure if robust insurance packages, based on a geophysical index rather than individual loss, become widely available.

The launch of Nature Climate Change provides a new outlet for climate researchers' work, while Nature Geoscience and Nature will continue to publish climate studies.