Phys.org: Earth science

Scientists have found evidence that a colossal cliff stretching thousands of kilometers across ancient North America may have exposed the heart of the Grand Canyon nearly a billion years before it was carved by the Colorado River.

For all that day-to-day weather forecasts have improved, it remains a challenge to forecast events that might happen once in 1,000 years—like the deadliest heat waves.

The Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed on June 6, 2023. The event unleashed a catastrophic flood that forced thousands of residents to evacuate their communities as water levels rose 10 feet (3 meters) above normal.

Growing up in New Jersey, Emily Wilson regularly passed tidal marshes without giving them much thought. They were part of the coastal landscape—stretches of green and blue she saw from the road.

A study led by a Montana State University research professor reveals how climate and hydrothermal activity have shaped the vegetation, wildfire and aquatic ecosystem histories of the Yellowstone Plateau over the past 15,000 years. The results of the project were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A team of researchers reports that they may have found rock containing some of the earliest forms of microbial life on Earth. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the biosignatures found in this 3.5-billion-year-old, carbon-rich, layered rock, called chert.

In recent years, the Alps have experienced devastating glacier collapses: In September 2023, a section of the Marmolada glacier in the Dolomites collapsed, resulting in the deaths of seven mountaineers. Just over a year and a half later, in May 2025, the Birch Glacier above Blatten collapsed, keeping Switzerland and the entire world in suspense.

The mantle, a rocky layer accounting for more than 80% of Earth's volume, circulates at rates of only a few centimeters per year. This circulation drives plate tectonics and influences major geological phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic activity. Despite its fundamental importance, the history of mantle circulation remains poorly understood because direct observations of the deep Earth are extremely limited. Currently, scientists rely on geological records of past surface movements and geophysical imaging methods, including seismic observations, to infer the mantle's structure and behavior. However, reconstructing historical mantle flow remains a major challenge.

The summers of recent years have been hot, but not unusual from a meteorological perspective. According to researchers at Leipzig University, though, the next extreme summer would far exceed anything we have experienced so far.

Massive storms like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused more than $100 billion in damage, were once considered lifetime events. Increasingly, however, they are becoming the norm: a direct result of climate change, which has made large storms more frequent, intense and slower-moving, deepening their impact.

A current system in the Atlantic Ocean that shapes regional climates and distributes ocean nutrients also serves as a control knob to help regulate temperatures across the planet, new research has found.

Researchers from Cornell University have pinpointed the source of oxygen that sustains deep-sea life in the North Atlantic Ocean: the churning waters in the Labrador Sea.

A new review led by professor Emese Bordy at the University of Cape Town (UCT) Department of Geological Sciences brings together more than two decades of research on the Karoo Supergroup, revealing how scientific understanding of this iconic geological archive has changed since 2000.

When it comes to the cost of a bad forecast, researchers have gone beyond damaged buildings and vehicles to calculate the cost of injuries, evacuations and the long-term loss of public trust.

Over 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of protected tropical forest—an area double the size of Wales—have been lost to wildfires since 2001.

According to a new study led by researchers from Brazil and Germany, the main system that transports heat from one end of the Atlantic Ocean to the other may undergo sudden changes in intensity driven by climate change similar to what we are experiencing now, even when it is already weakened.

When it comes to compounding natural hazards like landslides, wildfires, flooding and extreme heat, where you live makes all the difference. New research from Portland State University underscores this disproportionate reality, finding that in Portland, the areas most vulnerable to multiple climate hazards are historically underinvested neighborhoods marked by lower median incomes, lower levels of education and greater racial diversity.

Salt and sugar from the sea can rise as far as the free troposphere, thereby influencing both cloud formation and the Arctic climate. This is the finding of balloon measurements carried out by a team of researchers on Spitsbergen in autumn 2021 and spring 2022.

Salt marshes are coastal wetlands that are alternately inundated and exposed by tides. These marshes, like other coastal ecosystems, are hotspots of carbon cycling.

Locals and officials in Colombia have begun a massive search and rescue effort to find survivors of a powerful earthquake that struck near San José del Palmar in Chocó, with major damage observed in the cities of Cali, Manizales and Pereira.