Phys.org: Earth science

Mud can be surprisingly clear. A global team of scientists has uncovered a hidden truth: Human actions are shaping the journey of mud. Over the course of decades, our activities have wielded significant influence over the movement and dispersion of mud, affecting carbon storage and cycling worldwide.

A trio of seismologists affiliated with Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley reports that a part of the San Andreas Fault, at Parkfield, is not producing signals that would suggest an earthquake is going to happen any time soon, but they assert there are factors that suggest otherwise.

Worldwide over the past 35 years, dams and land reclamation activities have converted 250,000 acres of estuary—an area roughly 17 times the size of Manhattan—to urban land or agricultural fields, with most land conversion and estuary loss in rapidly developing countries, a new study finds. The findings could help developing countries avoid problems faced by countries that have already lost or degraded their estuaries.

The subtropical westerly jet is a high-altitude, fast-moving air current that flows from west to east in the subtropical region of the Earth's atmosphere. It's an important part of atmospheric circulation, influencing weather patterns and climate conditions globally. Scientists have noticed that this jet has been shifting northward under global warming.

A team of researchers has developed an approach that maps the soil salt content around the world with an exceptional detail of 10 meters. This advance tackles the pressing need for accurate assessments of soil salinity, a formidable challenge that jeopardizes agricultural productivity and soil vitality on a global scale.

A University of California, Irvine-led team reveals a clear link between human-driven climate change and the years-long drought currently gripping southern Madagascar. Their study appears in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.

An analysis of glacial data spanning four decades has provided valuable insights into the changes taking place in the glaciers of the Pir Panjal range within the Kashmir basin in India. The research, published in the International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology, analyzed data for the period 1980 to 2020.

As snow falls on Antarctica, layers build up and turn to ice. Over time, this compressed snow has become a continent-sized glacier, or ice sheet. It's enormous—almost double the size of Australia and far larger than the continental United States.

A journal article published by University of Houston Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences researchers highlights a significant, yet often overlooked, environmental concern—permanent losses in land surface elevation due to inelastic compaction of expansive soils during prolonged droughts. The findings appear in Geophysical Research Letters.

Common "hard" coastal defenses, like concrete sea walls, might struggle to keep up with increasing climate risks. A new study published in Nature Communications shows that combining them with nature-based solutions could, in some contexts, create defenses that are better able to adapt.

Recently, researchers have made breakthroughs in flash flood forecasting by studying how different rainfall patterns affect flash floods in China's mountainous regions. This research leads to the possibility of more accurate and localized flood warnings, potentially enhancing disaster preparedness and reducing the devastating effects of flash floods on at-risk communities.

A new study introduces the Hybrid Global Annual 1-km International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) Land Cover Maps for the period 2000–2020.

The 4.8 magnitude earthquake that shook the Northeast on April 5 didn't seem to cause much damage, but it was enough to send tremors of concern through anyone who felt it. It's not that the region never experiences seismic shifts. It's just that most earthquakes in the region go undetected.

Wetlands have flourished along the world's coastlines for thousands of years, playing valuable roles in the lives of people and wildlife. They protect the land from storm surge, stop seawater from contaminating drinking water supplies, and create habitat for birds, fish and threatened species.

"March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers", goes the old British proverb. The term was even (almost) used in the Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the 1300s: "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote".

It's rare to feel earthquakes in the U.S. Northeast, so the magnitude 4.8 earthquake in New Jersey that shook buildings in New York City and was felt from Maryland to Boston on April 5, 2024, drew a lot of questions. It was one of the strongest earthquakes on record in New Jersey, though there were few reports of damage. A smaller, magnitude 3.8 earthquake and several other smaller aftershocks rattled the region a few hours later. We asked geoscientist Gary Solar to explain what causes earthquakes in this region.

Sinkholes are back in the news after a 13-year-old boy fell down a two meter deep hole in a waterlogged football field in Sydney over the weekend. The boy reportedly sank further into the hole every time he tried to push down with his feet, but was later rescued by a police officer who pulled him out by his wrists.

The boreal forest, covering much of Canada and Alaska, and the treeless shrublands to the north of the forest region, may be among the worst impacted by climate change over the next 500 years, according to a new study.

The Arctic is often cited for a plethora of impacts resulting from anthropogenic climate change, including glacier retreat and reductions in floating sea ice, meltwater incursions changing ocean salinity, as well as sea level rise to name but a few. As the region is warming three times faster than the global average annually, ice-albedo feedbacks will only exacerbate the issue further. This mechanism focuses on melting ice exposing more "dark" surface ocean and land to absorb heat to cause further melting, compared to the reflective nature of ice that would otherwise encourage cooling.

The Southern Ocean is renowned for having the cleanest air on Earth. But the precise reasons why have remained a mystery, until now.