Phys.org: Earth science

Permafrost usually hits the news as a hazard, a planetary risk. When this ice-rich ground thaws, it damages roads and building foundations. It drains lakes and tips trees into drunken forests. It releases greenhouse gases that have been locked in carbon-rich soils for thousands of years, amplifying warming and driving further thaw.

Following a four-year study, scientists at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography released a new report to determine whether an early warning system could detect a landslide before it happens. The "California Coastal Landslide Early Warning Research" report found that a network of in-ground sensors can provide a reliable warning of impending, dangerous landslides with hours to days' notice, but that more work is needed to formalize the findings into an actionable warning system.

A new study published in Quaternary Science Reviews dates the dramatic collapse of one of the largest glaciers ever documented in the Himalayas. The findings overturn a long-held assumption about what sustains wet-climate (monsoon-dominated) glaciers.

Moderate volcanic eruptions and extreme wildfires since 2005 have led to an increase in the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere, a layer of Earth's atmosphere above the weather-filled troposphere. That's potentially bad news because water vapor here acts like a greenhouse gas that traps heat and changes ozone chemistry.

For more than 150 years, scientists have debated when and how the Colorado River first carved its way through the Grand Canyon. Now, a new study led by researchers at the University of New Mexico offers evidence that the river developed gradually from north to south between 8 million and 4.8 million years ago.

Continental aquatic ecosystems, such as lakes and reservoirs, occupy a small proportion of Earth's surface but play a significant role in the global carbon cycle. It is estimated that more than 40% of global methane emissions originate from these ecosystems. However, the true scale of these emissions remains uncertain, as most of the available data comes from one-off measurements taken at specific times and locations.

Tiny, invisible swirls and twirls—not much bigger than a coin—deep below the ocean's surface are silently shaping some of the biggest forces shaping our climate: sea level rise, fisheries collapse, extreme flooding and how much carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs.

The first-known direct observations of a seafloor spreading event at a mid-ocean ridge in the Indian Ocean are presented in Nature. The observations offer insight into how new oceanic crust is created.

An interdisciplinary team from Florida State University's Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science has uncovered new evidence about processes that may have contributed to ancient mass-extinction events, some of the most dramatic ecosystem reorganizations in Earth's history.

More than 90% of the key nutrients degrading the Mar Menor, such as ammonium, phosphorus and silica, do not come from streams or continental groundwater, but rather through a mechanism that has so far been overlooked: Water from the lagoon itself infiltrates the sediments and re-emerges loaded with nutrients that have accumulated over years. This is the conclusion of a recent study carried out by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain, which questions the current restoration strategies for the Mar Menor because they do not take this pathway of contamination into account.

Microplastic contamination has been a much-discussed topic over the last several years, but contamination from even smaller plastic particles represents another pressing issue. Nanoplastics—defined as being under a micrometer in diameter—may pose an even higher ecological risk because they can travel more easily, cross cellular membranes and easily adsorb other pollutants.

How do some of geology's most mysterious iron ore deposits form? This question has preoccupied the geosciences for more than a century. An international research team led by Dr. Stefan Peters from the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) has discovered that major iron ore deposits contain traces of oxygen inherited from Earth's ancient atmosphere. The study, now published in Nature Communications, shows that oxygenation of the atmosphere by photosynthesis played a crucial role in the formation of these deposits.

Carbon sequestration, climate regulation, biodiversity support and shoreline protection: These are all benefits provided by tidal wetlands. As the climate changes, the amount of carbon captured by these vital ecosystems may be changing as well.

Researchers have long known that there is an asymmetry in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the confluence of wind and water currents that creates warm El Niño events and cooler La Niña events. Large-scale climate models tend to underrepresent this asymmetry for reasons that are still not fully understood. Better modeling of the mechanisms that make El Niño events warmer could both provide insight into Earth's climate system and improve future ENSO predictions.

Water flowing from hot springs near volcanoes often contains a mixture of meteoric water that has percolated underground and a deeper component known as magmatic water. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba used numerical simulations and isotopic data to show that magmatic water in hot springs and volcanic gases around Kussharo Caldera, Hokkaido, originates from the subducting Pacific Plate, which descends from the Kuril Trench to a depth of 125 kilometers (78 miles). The paper is published in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research.

For U.S. coastal residents, storm surge is among the deadliest hurricane hazards, causing catastrophic property damage and loss of life, and scientists expect tropical storms to grow more intense. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, storm surge accounted for 41 of the 66 direct deaths. The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season is now underway, and while NOAA expects below-normal activity, emergency managers caution that it only takes one storm to devastate a community.

In November 2025, a study led by Adrien Wehrlé, a researcher in the Department of Geography at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, looked at the massive calving response of one of West Greenland's active glaciers, Sermeq Kujalleq in the Kangia icefjord (SKK), to the drainage of two surface lakes. Called supraglacial lakes, these are temporary meltwater ponds that form and accumulate in depressions or holes on the surface of glaciers and ice sheets.

Geologists studying some of the planet's oldest volcanic rocks have uncovered new evidence that water was playing a major role in shaping Earth's interior and driving volcanic activity more than 3 billion years ago.

Tyler Spano's impact on the field of mineralogy is anything but small. So when a newly discovered mineral, modest in size but significant in meaning, was named spanoite in her honor, it became a fitting tribute to her contributions to the field.

Researchers at University of Tsukuba analyzed high-resolution topographic data from airborne LiDAR to examine the relationships among landslide area, depth, and slope gradient.