News & Comment

Jessica Conroy and colleagues braved mud and rain and got nipped by sea lions in an attempt to unravel the record of tropical Pacific climate change.

Yoshihiro Furukawa and colleagues stuck to their guns in an attempt to recreate life on the early Earth.

Deep-sea drilling was the order of the day for Peter Clift and colleagues on their expedition to the South China Sea.

Stephen Rintoul and an international team of oceanographers headed south on the Australian icebreaker, Aurora Australis, to discover how Southern Ocean currents influence climate and biodiversity.

Nathalie Goodkin and colleagues dug deep into coral geochemistry and wrestled with waves for a 200-year record of the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Destruction from earthquakes continues to threaten poor and wealthy nations alike. The Global Earthquake Model is a potentially important step towards providing risk information on a worldwide basis, using a unified standard.

The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season once again highlighted the challenges awaiting low-lying population centres close to the ocean. In the face of global sea-level rise, unconventional thinking is required to make urban coasts more resilient.

Aaron Berger and colleagues leapt out of helicopters in the snow and fog in their quest to understand the effects of glacial erosion on mountain formation.

William Bowman and colleagues braved beverages of pig fat and vodka in their attempt to understand the impact of long-term nitrogen deposition on Slovakian soils.

Climate warming is not the only consequence of rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. The only way to counter all effects, including those on rainfall and ocean acidity, is to remove carbon from the climate system.

Geo-engineering proposals for mitigating climate change continue to proliferate without being tested. It is time to select and assess the most promising ideas according to efficacy, cost, all aspects of risk and, importantly, their rate of mitigation.

Catherine McCammon and colleagues surmounted experimental obstacles at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France to unlock the secrets of iron in the Earth's lower mantle.

Life in the 21st century requires an understanding of science and technology. Earth Science Week is an opportunity to bring the geosciences to the wider public.

Nicole Posth and colleagues spent a month touring South African rock formations in their quest to understand the origin of ancient iron and silicate layers.