Phys.org: Earth science

Stylolites—irregular seams that occur in limestone—have been found to affect how acoustic waves move through rock samples. Laboratory-based insights from KAUST researchers offer an improved understanding of how these features impact acoustic imaging techniques, which are used to analyze induced microseismic events during hydraulic fracturing.

Arctic sea ice has been melting at a slower rate for the past 20 years, despite human-induced global warming.

Antarctica is at risk of abrupt and potentially irreversible changes to the continent's ice, ocean and ecosystems that could have profound implications for Australia and beyond, unless urgent action is taken to curb global carbon emissions.

In a bright, open laboratory nestled along Washington State's Sequim Bay, among rows of glassware filled with seawater and green and purple seaweed, researchers are investigating a new way to produce the critical minerals that are vital to everyday life.

Ash dieback and other tree diseases are resulting in significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought because a large amount of carbon is escaping from woodland soils, a study has found. This is in addition to carbon losses from tens of millions of dying trees and reduced removal of CO2 from the atmosphere due to the widespread deaths of mature ash trees.

What lies beneath Fickle Hill in northern California? Maybe the answer to an earthquake mystery that has puzzled seismologists for decades.

The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest. It harbors immense biodiversity and plays a crucial role in the global climate system by storing vast amounts of carbon in its vegetation.

The odds of high-severity wildfire were nearly one-and-a-half times higher on industrial private land than on publicly owned forests, a new study found. Forests managed by timber companies were more likely to exhibit the conditions that megafires love—dense stands of regularly spaced trees with continuous vegetation connecting the understory to the canopy.

Earth's climate is a dynamic system of interconnected physical processes and events occurring around the globe. Many of these processes are coupled so that changes in one event or process in one geographical area will result in changes in many other geographical areas. It is one of the challenges in climate science to understand the various processes, how they affect each other and how they change over time and space.

It's hard to believe that there is anything positive that could come out of wildfires. They have devastated homes, taken lives, erased memories, leveled cities and destroyed our forests and wildlands. But a University of Delaware professor has found that there is something of value to be learned from what's left behind in the remnants.

Last Saturday at 9:49am local time, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurred about 50km west of Gympie in Queensland. The earthquake was experienced as strong shaking locally, but did not produce any significant damage, likely because of the remote location of the epicenter.

Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago that is technically a part of Norway, lies about halfway between the northernmost part of Norway and the North Pole. Currently, about 60% of Svalbard's surface is covered in glaciers, but these glaciers are melting rapidly. During the summer of 2024, Svalbard experienced a record-breaking heat wave that melted more of its glaciers than ever before.

More trees will cool the climate and suppress fires, but mainly if planted in the tropics, according to a new UC Riverside study.

Heat waves—prolonged periods of abnormally hot weather—influence egg prices, energy bills and even public transit. And they're becoming more common as temperatures increase.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere enters the ocean at the surface and has been increasing the acidity of Pacific waters since the beginning of the industrial revolution over 200 years ago. A new study, led by University of Hawai'i at Mānoa oceanographers, revealed that the ocean is acidifying even more rapidly below the surface in the open waters of the North Pacific near Hawai'i.

A new study has revealed a stark and growing inequality in urban flood exposure across the globe, with developing nations facing risks that are multiples higher than their wealthier counterparts. The study warns that this gap is set to widen, posing a severe threat to sustainable development and highlighting an urgent need for equitable climate adaptation strategies.

Simulations still can't predict exactly when an earthquake will happen, but with the incredible processing power of modern exascale supercomputers, they can now predict how they will happen and how much damage they will likely cause.

As wildfire crews battled the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyon's North Rim in July 2025, the air turned toxic.

Scientists have uncovered a key piece of the puzzle behind the unusual "slow earthquakes" occurring off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.

Every day, new tunnels are being built through rock across the country. The completed tunnels are safe, but the construction phase presents challenges.