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Marine phytoplankton both follow and actively influence the environment they inhabit. Unpacking the complex ecological and biogeochemical roles of these tiny organisms can help reveal the workings of the Earth system.
Earth’s most abundant mineral — bridgmanite — lies hidden in the lower mantle, but Li Zhang is hopeful that advances in analytical techniques may reveal the inner workings of our world.
Jörg Hermann suggests that as the process of serpentinization leads to clean energy generation, metal separation and carbon sequestration, it could serve as a natural analogue for a sequential economy.
Nature Geoscience spoke with Dr Qingyang Hu, a high-pressure mineralogist at HPSTAR; Prof. Suzan van der Lee, a geophysicist at Northwestern University; and Prof. Katherine Kelley, a geochemist at the University of Rhode Island about their work and what the future of deep-water research might bring.
Covering nearly 2,000 years of history, Ele Willoughby traces the glass etching ability of hydrofluoric acid back to its fluorspar origins and explores the modern optics of fluorite.
Permeating every aspect of life – and each with a multitude of stories to tell – we celebrate the utility, beauty and wonder of minerals in a new column: all minerals considered.
Bruce Fouke explores the biomineralization of calcium oxalate and apatite kidney stones and the opportunities that lie at the intersection of geology, biology and medicine; a transdisciplinary effort traced back some 350 years.
The rise and evolution of land plants fundamentally changed how rocks weathered, altering the biogeochemical and geomorphological processes of Earth with ongoing consequences for plants today.
Rocket emissions and debris from spacecraft falling out of orbit are having increasingly detrimental effects on global atmospheric chemistry. Improved monitoring and regulation are urgently needed to create an environmentally sustainable space industry.
A limited number of earthquakes and volcanoes, primarily located in global north countries, dominate the collective research output on these geohazards. Efforts to improve monitoring at both local and global levels can address this disparity and reduce the associated risk.
Recent missions to the rubble-pile asteroids Bennu and Ryugu have revealed asteroid surfaces that continue to be actively modified by a variety of processes while also recording the geologic history of these small bodies.
Meeting climate targets will require considerable carbon dioxide removal in addition to emission cuts. To achieve this sustainably, a range of methods are needed to avoid adverse effects and match co-benefits with local needs.
Geoscience relies on cross-border research and collaborations that are fragile to geopolitical instability. Tackling human-induced environmental change will require resilience in the face of human-induced adversity.
