Reviews & Analysis

A rapid warming event 55.8 million years ago was caused by extensive carbon emissions. The rate of change of carbon and oxygen isotopes in marine shelf sediments suggests that carbon emission rates were much slower than anthropogenic emissions.

Human activity alters the atmospheric composition, which leads to global warming. Model simulations suggest that reductions in emission of sulfur dioxide from Europe since the 1970s could have unveiled rapid Arctic greenhouse gas warming.

The Antarctic ice sheet is fringed by ice shelves. Remote imagery identifies extensive basal channels in these shelves that grow and deepen on decadal timescales.

The formation of Earth's continents is unclear. A review of the geochemical composition of crust formed above subduction zones across the globe suggests that subduction and relamination of buoyant magmatic rocks play an important role.

The rise and fall of civilizations over the past two millennia was set against a backdrop of climate change. High-resolution climate records evince a link between societal change and a period of cooling in the sixth and seventh centuries.

Large earthquakes cause other quakes near and far. Analyses of quakes in Pakistan and Chile suggest that such triggering can occur almost instantaneously, making triggered events hard to detect, and potentially enhancing the associated hazards.

Economic-grade deposits of copper are hard to find. The aluminium content of magmatic rocks at the surface may provide an indicator of ore deposits buried deep below.

Natural seafloor hydrocarbon seeps are responsible for roughly half of the oil released into the ocean. As these oils and gases rise to the surface, they transport nutrients upwards, benefiting phytoplankton in the upper sunlit layer.

Humanity's nitrogen pollution footprint has increased by a factor of six since the 1930s. A global analysis reveals that a quarter of this nitrogen pollution is associated with the production of internationally traded products.

Mercury is a toxic element with no known biological function. Laboratory studies demonstrate that mercury can be beneficial to microbial growth by acting as an electron acceptor during photosynthesis.

Volcanic eruptions at ocean ridges produce large volumes of glass that is rapidly leached by seawater. Geochemical calculations suggest that this process helps to explain the deposition of carbonates at the end of extreme ice ages.

The volcanic eruption that created the Ontong Java Plateau released large quantities of carbon dioxide. A reconstruction of CO₂ concentrations suggests that the eruption promoted climate change and the expansion of ocean anoxia.

Lakes are sources of the greenhouse gas methane. A synthesis of measurements of methane emissions reveals that lakes and ponds above 50 °N emit 16.5 Tg methane annually, and emissions may increase by 20 to 50% with longer ice-free seasons.