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The Shatsky Rise oceanic plateau formed by spreading ridge volcanism, according to analyses of linear magnetic anomalies over the Tamu Massif submarine volcano.
Controls on the ecological success of marine calcifiers changed from abiotic to biotic in the mid-Jurassic, according an environmental forcing model compared with skeletal taxa.
Deep soil drying, caused by high evaporation, can explain California forest die-off in the droughts during 2012–2015, according to analyses of patterns of die-off and moisture deficit.
Polluted continental aerosols contain a considerable fraction of ice nucleating particles, suggest analyses of satellite observations and simulations with cloud-resolving models.
Permafrost loses carbon at a faster rate than previously thought as climate warms, according to direct soil carbon observations over five years in the field in Alaska’s tundra ecosystem.
The Hadley circulation has been weakening over the past 40 years, as simulated by climate models, and not strengthening as found in observation-based reanalyses, suggests an analysis of both methods that points to artefacts in the reanalyses.
Magma ascent from the near-Moho depth of 24 km to surface eruption took 10 days with melt transport rates of 0.02 to 0.1 m s−1, according to geothermobarometry and diffusion chronometry on primitive olivine crystals from Borgarhraun, Iceland.
The oldest known minerals from Mars have no strong shock features, indicating early cessation of giant impacts there, according to microanalysis of zircon and baddeleyite grains in meteorites.
Tropical deforestation induces the loss and transport of old and biolabile soil organic carbon into rivers, suggest analyses of dissolved organic matter in deforested and pristine catchments in the Congo Basin. The mobilized soil carbon is likely to turn into a carbon source.
Stratification of the Earth’s outer core is regional, not global, and created by lateral heat flux variations at the core–mantle boundary, according to numerical simulations of fluid core dynamics
Particles from interplanetary dust ablating in Mars’ atmosphere control high-altitude water ice cloud formation, according to numerical simulations of the Martian atmosphere.
Ahuna Mons dome on Ceres formed by extrusion of a mixture of brine and solids sourced from a muddy mantle plume, according to numerical modelling of slurry rheology and a gravity anomaly found by the Dawn mission.
Mesosiderite meteorites may originate from a hit-and-run impact on the parent asteroid of eucrite meteorites (probably Vesta), as mesosiderite zircon U–Pb ages are found to coincide with those for eucrites.
Only about 15% of water cycle diagrams include human interaction with water, although human freshwater appropriation amounts to about half of global river discharge, according to an analysis of 464 water cycle diagrams and a synthesis of the global water cycle.
Earth’s volatile element composition can be explained without exotic building blocks or late volatile loss, according to matching patterns of volatile element depletion for Earth and carbonaceous chondrites, as revealed by chondrite analyses.
Soil geochemistry can be more important than climate in controlling carbon storage, its composition as well as stability, but controls are distinct, scale-dependent and variable, according to an analysis of topsoil measurements across Australia.
Banded iron formations could not have formed by postdepositional oxidation, according to four million hydrogeological box model iterations that failed to reproduce secondary oxidation on reasonable timescales.
The boundary between West and East Antarctica is a tectonic feature that bisects the Ross Ice Shelf. This boundary constrains ocean circulation under the ice, which affects ice stability, according to airborne survey data and ocean simulations.
Pluto’s subsurface ocean and thickness variation in its ice shell may be maintained by a layer of methane clathrates forming an insulating cap to the ocean, according to calculations of thermal evolution and viscous relaxation.
Biologically available nitrogen in the form of ammonium was abundant in the Late Archaean ocean, according to nitrogen isotope and proxy analyses on 2.7 billion year old shales from Zimbabwe.