Phys.org: Earth science

From 1948 to 1953, a gold mine called Giant Mine released about 5 tons of arsenic trioxide per day into the environment around Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Emissions declined from the 1950s until the mine closed in 2004, but the surrounding landscape remains highly contaminated with arsenic.

After major disasters, public debate often treats them as unexpected or unprecedented. This reaction is not necessarily about the absence of warnings. It reflects how societies process shock—and how authorities often explain disruption as unavoidable, rather than the result of earlier choices.

As glaciers around the world continue to shrink and disappear, they are drawing more visitors than ever, not only for their beauty but for what they have come to represent in an era of climate change. A new study co-authored by Rice University anthropologist Cymene Howe examines this phenomenon, showing how melting glaciers have become powerful destinations for tourism, sites of collective grief and symbols of political meaning even as their loss threatens the communities that depend on them.

Africa's coastlines are under growing threat as sea levels climb faster than ever, driven by decades of global warming caused by human activity, natural climate cycles, and warming ocean waters. Between 2009 and 2024, the continent experienced a 73% increase in sea-level rise, according to a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment.

A new study involving researchers from Oxford's Department of Earth Sciences has finally solved the mystery of what caused the collapse of an Ancient Chinese civilization—finding that widespread flooding was to blame. The findings have been published in National Science Reviews.

Using advanced computer simulations, researchers from the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) have concluded how and why strong ocean currents modify surface waves. "Our primary finding is that hurricane-generated ocean currents can substantially reduce both the height and the dominant period of hurricane waves," said Isaac Ginis, URI professor of oceanography. "The magnitude of wave reduction depends strongly on how accurately ocean currents are predicted. This highlights the importance of using fully coupled wave-ocean models when forecasting hurricane waves."

The western U.S. is a geologists' dream, home to the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, active volcanoes and striking sandstone arches. But one landform simply doesn't make sense.

Hybrid climate modeling has emerged as an effective way to reduce the computational costs associated with cloud-resolving models while retaining their accuracy. The approach retains physics-based models to simulate large-scale atmospheric dynamics, while harnessing deep learning to emulate cloud and convection processes that are too small to be resolved directly. In practice, however, many hybrid AI-physics models are unreliable. When simulations extend over months or years, small errors can accumulate and cause the model to become unstable.

With the departure of the research vessel Polarstern from Punta Arenas (Chile) scheduled for this weekend, the "Summer Weddell Sea Outflow Study" (SWOS) international expedition will commence. Up to early April, a multidisciplinary international research team will investigate the northwestern region of the Weddell Sea—an area of central importance for the global climate and ocean system, but one that can only be explored on site by research icebreakers such as Polarstern due to challenging sea ice conditions.

When and how quickly can ecosystems "tip" and how will they develop in the future? Researchers from the University of Potsdam, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the Technical University of Munich have developed a new method for measuring how close an ecosystem is to a catastrophic tipping point. They are applying their findings to predict glacier surges, as well as rapid changes in other ecosystems. They have now published their study in Nature Communications.

A UT San Antonio-led international research team has identified chitin, the primary organic component of modern crab shells and insect exoskeletons, in trilobite fossils more than 500 million years old, marking the first confirmed detection of the molecule in this extinct group.

Researchers at Kyoto University have proposed a new physical model that explores how disturbances in the ionosphere may exert electrostatic forces within Earth's crust and potentially contribute to the initiation of large earthquakes under specific conditions. The study does not aim to predict earthquakes but rather presents a theoretical mechanism describing how ionospheric charge variations—caused by intense solar activity such as solar flares—could interact with pre-existing fragile structures in Earth's crust and influence fracture processes.

Earth's surface is covered by more than a dozen tectonic plates, and in subduction zones around the world—including the Japanese Islands—plates converge and dense oceanic plates sink into Earth's interior. These regions, especially plate boundaries, are known for frequent seismic activity.

Southern California's beaches have grown more than 500 acres over the past four decades despite being one of the most heavily urbanized and dammed coastal regions in the world, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, the U.S. Geological Survey and other institutions. The conventional wisdom-challenging revelation about coastal erosion and replenishment is the subject of the study published recently in Nature Communications.

A new study led by Prof. Xiao Wenjiao from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences sheds light on the ore-forming process and key mechanisms of the gold deposit in the South Tianshan of northwest China. The research was published in the Geological Society of America Bulletin on Jan. 20.

The magnitude 6.9 earthquake that took place in 2018 on the south flank of Kīlauea on the Island of Hawaiʻi may have stalled episodes of periodic slow slip along a major fault underlying the volcano, according to a new study by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey.

A research team led by Prof. Xiao Kai from the Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has systematically elucidated the transformation and transport processes of nutrients in intertidal groundwater. The team employed a combined methodological approach, including multi-depth groundwater sampling, dynamic monitoring, stable isotope tracing, and multivariate statistical analysis. Their findings, published in the Journal of Hydrology, provide scientific evidence to deepen understanding of the terrestrial drivers of nearshore eutrophication.

Stanford researchers have created the first-ever global map of a rare earthquake type that occurs not in Earth's crust but in our planet's mantle, the layer sandwiched between the thin crust and Earth's molten core. The new map will help scientists learn more about the mechanics of mantle earthquakes, in turn opening a window into the complexities and triggers for all earthquakes.

A combination of weakened atmospheric removal and increased emissions from warming wetlands, rivers, lakes, and agricultural land increased atmospheric methane at an unprecedented rate in the early 2020s, an international team of researchers report today in the journal Science.

In the Pacific Northwest, big faults like the Cascadian subduction zone located offshore, get a lot of attention. But big faults aren't the only ones that pose significant hazards, and a new study investigates the dynamics of a complex fault zone that runs right under the heart of Seattle.