Phys.org: Earth science

Central Mongolia's Hangay Mountains rise more than four kilometers above sea level, forming a dramatic dome that shapes the region's climate. But for decades, geologists have been puzzled: What caused this massive mountain range to form so far from any active plate boundary? Unlike the linear Himalayas, which are still rising from the collision of India and Asia, the dome-shaped Hangay Mountains show little internal deformation, suggesting a different and previously unknown mechanism.

Scientists have discovered a Jurassic tectonic plate boundary that could help to predict what the planet might look like millions of years into the future. Dr. Jordan Phethean, Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences at the University of Derby, is part of a team of researchers that has unveiled a previously unrecognized, major tectonic feature of Earth, in East Africa. The new structure, which has been likened to an ancient version of the San Andreas fault in California, was partially responsible for the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana 180 million years ago in the Jurassic period.

While analyzing strong-motion data close to fault lines, a group of researchers at Kyoto University noticed something unexpected: a negative phase in the waveforms, a pattern that did not conform to the existing interpretations of rupture dynamics. Its regular appearance in the records near rupture end points suggested that the team might be seeing something new. The study has been published in Science.

Geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe underscore the urgency of addressing the climate and radiological consequences of a regional nuclear conflict. Even a small-scale nuclear conflict at the Ukraine–Russia border could cause years of severe global climate disruption and radioactive fallout across much of the world, new research suggests.

New York, New Orleans and Miami are among the eight cities along the US Gulf and Atlantic coasts facing the highest flood risk, according to a new study published in Science Advances. Scientists developed a new AI-driven framework and combined it with historical flood-damage data to not only identify high-risk coastal areas but also pinpoint the underlying factors driving that risk.

Thousands of earthquakes affecting Portugal's São Jorge Island in the Azores in March 2022 were triggered by a vast sheet of magma (molten rock) rising from more than 20km below Earth's surface and stalling just 1.6km beneath the island, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.

Scientists at the University of Melbourne have uncovered for the first time how Australia's iconic Twelve Apostles were formed, finding tectonic plate movements over millions of years lifted and tilted the giant structures out of the sea.

Eastern Africa's Turkana Rift is both a hotbed for fossil discoveries of our earliest ancestors and a literal hotbed of volcanic activity caused by shifting tectonic plates. Now researchers have found that Earth's underlying crust in the region has been significantly thinned, presaging Africa's eventual breakup—and with that finding, the researchers offer a new perspective on how Turkana's world-famous fossil record of human evolution came to be. The findings are published in Nature Communications.

Too much stress can make even a rock crack. But before rocks reach their breaking point, they "sigh" a chemical warning by releasing nuclides, a type of atom defined by the number of neutrons as well as protons in the nucleus. Scientists have studied these naturally occurring geochemical emissions for more than half a century, but struggled to link nuclide release to the timing of rock breakage. Now, an international team of scientists from universities in China (led by Xin Luo at Hong Kong University and Yifeng Chen at Wuhan University) and the United States (led by Michael Manga at the University of California, Berkeley) has cracked that mystery, by creating a model to connect nuclide signal fluctuations to progressive changes in rock structure that lead to critical failure.

For more than 100,000 years, the Methana volcano in Greece appeared dormant. No lava, no explosions, no ash clouds. It appeared extinct, like many other volcanoes today. An international research team led by ETH Zurich has reconstructed a detailed, long-term history of the Methana volcano. Their work is published in the journal Science Advances, and their conclusion is striking: While Methana appeared silent at the surface, enormous amounts of magma were steadily accumulating deep within its magma chambers.

Lakes are often described as "hotspots" in the global carbon cycle, yet quantifying their "breath"—the exchange of carbon dioxide (CO2) between water and the atmosphere—has long been notoriously difficult due to extreme variability across time and space and a shortage of long-term, high-resolution observational data. As a result, they have remained as a missing piece in regional carbon accounting.

Mud-rich coastlines could face a greater tsunami risk, at least that may have been the case for the 2011 Tōhoku-oki tsunami that killed more than 19,000 people and led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. According to a new study published in the Journal of the Geological Society, mud may have made the catastrophic ocean waves more destructive than they might otherwise have been.

Geoengineering could protect the Amazon rainforest from climate change, new research shows. Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) aims to artificially cool Earth by increasing the reflection of incoming solar radiation, thereby offsetting warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. SAI is designed to mimic explosive volcanic eruptions by injecting aerosols into the stratosphere.

New climate stripes for cities and countries all over the world have been launched to mark Earth Day (April 22). The updated graphics, which now include an additional stripe to represent temperatures from 2025, show the rapid impact that global warming is having on individual nations and regions.

Soil biologist Eric Slessarev has some advice for conservationists, landscapers, and farmers with fallow fields: Go touch deep-rooted grass. Or better yet, go plant some. Slessarev, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is the first author of a new study in Earth's Future showing that deep-rooted grasses store significantly more carbon in their root biomass than shallow-rooted crops—without harming the existing organic material already in the ground.

For decades, scientists have worked to improve predictions of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a climate powerhouse that can cause droughts, flooding, marine heat waves, and more around the world. Researchers from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa have published a study in Geophysical Research Letters showing that they can skillfully predict El Niño and La Niña 15 months ahead of time using only observations of the ocean surface temperature and height—no complex climate model needed.

A research team with scientists from MARUM—Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen studied the hemispheric origin of Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) and found a high Southern Hemispheric contribution over the past 800,000 years. The results, now published in the journal Nature Communications, highlight an important and direct pathway from high southern latitudes to the tropical oceans.

USC researchers are developing a computational model that combines satellite data and physics-based simulations to forecast a wildfire's path, intensity, and growth rate. If you've ever been evacuated from your home during a wildfire, you'll be aware of the terrifying unpredictability of the situation. From your location on the ground—rapidly gathering a few vital belongings and attempting to identify the best route to safety—there's no way of knowing how fast a fire is growing or which direction it's likely to take.

The biological carbon pump moves carbon from near the ocean's surface to deeper regions, maintaining the upper ocean's ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. One component of this system is driven by eddies, or relatively small-scale circular water currents powered by physical instabilities within the ocean. Previous estimates have suggested the eddy subduction pump may play a large role in moving carbon deep into the ocean, but the absence of global synthesis leaves the question open.

Scientists have discovered that deep-water corals in the Galapagos region vanished for more than 1,000 years before eventually recovering. The findings reveal that deep-water coral ecosystems may be more susceptible to climate change than previously thought.