Volume 11 Issue 3, March 2018

Continental stability may be linked to a shallow, buoyant mantle layer, and the deepest craton roots can be destabilized and removed by mantle plumes.

Changes in Northern Hemisphere atmospheric temperature, pressure patterns and winds emerge as a consistent response to Arctic sea-ice loss in six coupled climate models.

Saturn’s cyclonic atmospheric circulation may be explained by the dynamics of small-scale convection, suggest laboratory analogue experiments.

Mantle convection in rocky planets in a synchronous orbit around their host stars can induce continuous reorientation, according to an analysis of the efficiency of true polar wander for synchronous exoplanets.

Hydroxyl produced by space weathering processes may be widespread and persistent on the lunar surface according to analysis of spectral data from the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

Observations of ethane and propane distributions in the atmosphere are reproduced in simulations with an atmospheric chemistry transport model, if fossil emissions are a factor of two to three higher than previously assumed.

Biocrust coverage of soils could decrease by 25–40% within 65 years, due to climate and land-use changes. Biocrusts, such as lichens and algae, cover 12% of Earth’s land surface but environmental modelling suggests that they are vulnerable to change.

The onset of deep water export from the North Atlantic Ocean preceded the onset of Antarctic glaciation by about one million years, according to sediment geochemistry, and may have been triggered by tectonic changes in the Atlantic basin.

Mature parts of the shallow megathrust beneath Costa Rica are characterized by striking corrugations that may channel fluids, according to seismic images. Nascent sections of the subduction zone plate boundary appear only weakly corrugated.

South American and African cratons may have been substantially modified by mantle plumes, according to analyses of seismic images and tectonic records. The results imply that cratons may not be as stable as once thought.

Complex patterns of crustal deformation in the western Mediterranean region may be attributable to movements of the African Plate that drag the subducted Gibraltar slab through the mantle, according to numerical simulations.