Phys.org: Earth science

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, shifting tectonic plates—these are all signs that our planet is alive. But what is revealed deep inside Earth surprises laymen and scientists alike: Almost 3000 kilometers below Earth's surface, solid rock is flowing that is neither liquid, like lava, nor brittle, like solid rock.

Heat waves and cold spells are part of life on the Great Lakes. But new research from the University of Michigan shows that is true today in a fundamentally different way than it was even 30 years ago.

A new study has revealed for the first time that ancient carbon, stored in landscapes for thousands of years or more, can find its way back to the atmosphere as CO₂ is released from the surfaces of rivers.

Hot air holds more moisture. That's why you can blow your hair dry even after a steamy shower. It's also what dumps rain in the tropics and sucks water from desert soils.

Nitrates in the atmosphere reduce air quality and play an important role in climate change. An international team led by Hokkaido University researchers has revealed how chemical processes in the atmosphere have led to persistently high nitrate levels despite a reduction in emissions over the past few decades.

In a UNSW-led Nature study, researchers say that an off-the-scale marine heat wave in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2023 was caused by record-breaking weak winds combined with increased solar radiation—all on the back of ongoing climate change.

Lenore Tedesco doesn't need to venture far to witness sea-level rise. She tracks its relentless advance from her window at work.

Even if you live far from the boreal forests in Canada and Siberia, you've likely noticed an increase in smoke from their forest fires. During major blazes in 2023, the smoke tinted the New York sky orange and drifted as far south as New Orleans. These blazes have surged in the last decade due to the effects of climate change—warmer summers, less snow cover in the spring, and the loss of sea ice. Experts expect that trend to continue.

The accumulation of microplastics in the environment, and within our bodies, is an increasingly worrisome issue. But predicting where these ubiquitous particles will accumulate, and therefore where remediation efforts should be focused, has been difficult because of the many factors that contribute to their dispersal and deposition.

The sediments underlying the Salt Lake Valley are thicker in places than previously thought, indicating that current seismic hazard models likely underestimate the amount of shaking Utah's population center could experience in future earthquakes, according to new research led by University of Utah seismologists.

Governments should ban all mining and fishing in the high seas "forever" to protect ocean biodiversity, climate stability—and humanity, climate and ocean experts said Wednesday.

The UK government recently announced plans to fund five small-scale trials related to geoengineering. It's the first time a state research funding body has put serious money into what's known as solar radiation management, or SRM, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting more of the sun's energy back into space.

Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be triggered by very little ocean warming above present-day, leading to a devastating four meters of global sea level rise to play out over hundreds of years, according to a study now published in Communications Earth & Environment, co-authored by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). However, the authors emphasize that immediate actions to reduce emissions could still avoid a catastrophic outcome.

Mount Etna, the volcano that towers over eastern Sicily, has again captivated the world with a spectacular show, spewing smoke and high into the sky.

A team of meteorologists, Earth scientists and oceanographers at Sorbonne Université, working with one colleague from Université Paris-Saclay and another from Université Brest, all in France, has developed a simulation that they believe shows how declining coral reef calcification could slow global warming.

The clean-up and site restoration of a New Zealand research station in Antarctica has provided valuable lessons on the challenges of contaminated sites, according to a study in the journal Polar Record.

In September 2023, a bizarre global seismic signal was observed which appeared every 90 seconds over nine days—and was then repeated a month later. Almost a year later, two scientific studies proposed that the cause of these seismic anomalies were two mega tsunamis which were triggered in a remote East Greenland fjord by two major landslides which occurred due to warming of an unnamed glacier.

In the United States, earthen levees are an integral part of flood control systems, protecting around 23 million Americans and crucial infrastructure. Recently, the American Society of Civil Engineers' 2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure rated the nation's levees a D+, with an estimated $70 billion needed for maintenance to bring them into a state of good repair.

In the southern flanks of the Indian Ocean and the central and eastern Pacific, just north of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, lie the Subantarctic Mode Waters. As part of the global ocean conveyor belt, these large masses of seawater transfer substantial amounts of heat and carbon northward into the interiors of the Indian and Pacific oceans. These waters hold about 20% of all anthropogenic carbon found in the ocean, and their warming accounted for about 36% of all ocean warming over the past two decades—making them critical players in Earth's climate system.

Along with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, iron is essential for the growth of microscopic phytoplankton in the ocean. However, a new study led by oceanographers at the University of Hawaii'i (UH) at Mānoa revealed that iron released from industrial processes, such as coal combustion and steel making, is altering the ecosystem in the North Pacific Transition Zone, a region just north of Hawai'i that is important for fisheries in the Pacific.