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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.

A supermoon is reflected in the Fred C. Babcock/Cecil M. Webb Wildlife Management Area’s marsh, near Punta Gorda, Fla. New research suggests that wetland loss in the contiguous United States has increased residential flood insurance claim payments by billions of dollars, with costs particularly high in coastal Florida. Credit: Diana Robinson/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Wetlands are biodiversity hot spots and provide important carbon storage. During heavy rains, they act like natural sponges on the landscape by storing and slowing the flow of stormwater—reducing downstream flooding and protecting infrastructure.

As the climate changes and extreme flooding events become more frequent and intense, flood protection from wetlands may become even more valuable for both the natural and built environment. However, since 1700, at least 40% of the wetland area in the United States has been lost to development and agriculture, meaning these benefits are being lost.

A new study in Nature Water puts a price tag on one key wetland service: reducing flood risk. Wetland loss across the contiguous United States between 1985 and 2023 has increased residential flood insurance claim payments by more than $10 billion, accounting for 9% of all riverine flood loss payments, the study suggests, with the highest costs in Houston, southeastern Louisiana, and coastal Florida.

“That number is actually a large underestimate of how much wetland loss has increased flood damages in total,” said Jesse Gourevitch, a former economist with the Environmental Defense Fund and one of the study authors. Because only about 30% of flood losses are insured through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the main source of claim data in the study, the true economic cost of wetland loss is likely much higher, Gourevitch explained.

An infrared Landsat time series of Louisiana’s Bay Dosgris from 1985 to 2024 shows wetlands converting to open water as sea level rise and storms reshape the Gulf Coast. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Wetland Loss Mapped Across the Country by Costs

Researchers used payment data from NFIP claims connected to river flooding, a direct way to tie individual properties to specific flood losses. They then connected these data to maps of wetlands in upstream subwatersheds and tracked how much a given wetland area changed since 1985. They also accounted for factors that may have influenced flood severity, such as heavy rain events and changes in impervious surfaces like roads and roofs.

This study tracked individual properties with multiple flood-related claims, comparing the property before and after upstream wetland changes occurred. The approach was “one of the most direct ways in which we can observe flood losses at a property level,” said Gourevitch.

Parts of New Orleans, seen here from the International Space Station, are sinking by millimeters per year. These sunken areas are more vulnerable to floods and storm surges, especially as wetlands degrade. Credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

The researchers also examined the monetary value of wetlands throughout U.S. subwatersheds. On average, 1 hectare of wetland provides $15,738 in avoided flood damages, though that value varies throughout the country. In the top 10% of subwatersheds, wetlands are valued at an average of $24,783 per hectare. The top 1%, located in Appalachia and New England, along the Gulf Coast, and in parts of Oregon, California, and Washington, are valued at an average of $301,268 per hectare. These high-value areas are concentrated in regions with high downstream flood exposure and losses.

“We see that in about 16% of subwatersheds, marginal benefits provided by wetlands solely in terms of their flood mitigation benefits outweigh the cost of conservation,” Gourevitch said.

The cost of flood insurance claims has risen in the United States since 1985, with some of the highest costs in Houston, Texas. This marsh near Galveston is less than an hour from Houston. Credit: Corey Leopold/Flickr, CC BY-NC 4.0 Protecting Wetlands Protects People and Property

Wetland loss also affects people unevenly. Flood risk is often higher in lower-income communities and communities of color, where residents may live in low-lying and flood-prone locations because of decades of discriminatory zoning and housing policies.

“Future flood risk will continue to disproportionately impact vulnerable communities. We know that wetlands reduce this risk, and if we don’t protect them, we’re adding to the risk for those most vulnerable communities.”

“Future flood risk will continue to disproportionately impact vulnerable communities. We know that wetlands reduce this risk, and if we don’t protect them, we’re adding to the risk for those most vulnerable communities,” said Helena Garcia, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the University of North Carolina’s Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program and one of the study’s authors.

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Sackett v. EPA to reduce protections for wetlands that don’t have a surface water connection to other federally protected waterways. A proposed rule from the Trump administration threatens to change the definition of a wetland even further by winnowing down protected areas to only those that have long-term surface water.

The wetland areas no longer protected would provide $177 billion in flood mitigation benefits to residential properties, the authors suggest, and the flood damage stemming from this wetland loss would be greater in census tracks with lower income and nonwhite households.

“We really see parts of the southeastern U.S. emerge as these areas where [wetlands are] providing a lot of value and are unprotected,” Gourevitch said. “Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia are certainly areas of concern.”

A change to the definition of “wetland” proposed by the Trump administration would mean that wetland areas that provide $177 billion in flood mitigation benefits to residential properties would no longer be protected, new research suggests. Credit: eagle102.net/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

The study includes an interactive map tool for local leaders and residents to see where future wetland loss may translate to expenses greater than the cost of conservation.

“Wetlands are inherently valuable spaces for many reasons. If we lose wetlands upstream, we’re losing that capacity of the landscape to filter out pollutants. We’re losing the capacity of the landscape to soak up water. We’re losing the capacity of those habitats to support ecosystems,” said Anne Smiley, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina’s Institute for the Environment who was not part of the study.

The Fred C. Babcock/Cecil M. Webb Wildlife Management Area protects about 32,700 hectares (80,772 acres) just south and east of Punta Gorda, Fla. Credit: Diana Robinson/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“This study is a really important contribution, because [the researchers] have quantified something that’s been very difficult to quantify,” said Smiley. “They’re communicating the value of these wetlands in a new way.”

—Rebecca Owen (@beccapox.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: Owen, R. (2026), Calculating the costs of wetland loss, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260217. Published on 9 July 2026. Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Source: AGU Advances

Hillslopes in Arctic regions with frozen soils can host a suite of geometric patterns, from circles and stripes to polygonal patterned ground. They can also have solifluction patterns, or markings left behind when partially thawed permafrost slips and flows down a slope. Solifluction patterns look like pairings of flat, terraced soil—like a big staircase—and rounded lobes of soil at the terrace’s base.

Understanding how these patterns form is important for predicting and working to fix unstable slopes in Arctic environments as climate change increases the rates at which frozen ground thaws. It could also be useful for understanding past climates on Mars, as scientists have spotted similar patterns on the planet’s surface. But solifluction patterns have defied explanation, and in a new study, Glade et al. use mathematical and physical models along with remote sensing to explain how they form.

Icy soil moves very slowly, just millimeters to centimeters per year, and behaves in complex ways, acting at times like a fluid and at others like a solid. This complexity is due to seasonal variability in water and temperature, as well as the fundamental physics of soil.

The researchers ruled out other common fluid analogues, including paint dripping down a wall, buckling instabilities seen in folding lava, and roll waves; reviewed the soil literature; ran physics-based computer models of terrace and lobe formation; and ran mathematical models of different fluid behaviors. After all that, they landed at last on a suitable analogue: waves that form in Oobleck, a non-Newtonian fluid made of cornstarch mixed with water. Its velocity changes under different stresses, and counterintuitively, it becomes harder to move the harder you push on it.

Oobleck’s unique properties make it a common classroom experiment, and it matched up the best with the frozen features researchers have observed in nature. Differences in soil moisture could lead to differences in soil velocity, creating a spatially variable buildup of soil that eventually collapses before the process of solifluction begins again.

It’s still not a perfect fit, the researchers noted. The Oobleck waves reflect only rheology, or the material makeup of the soil (or fluid) in question. Real-world frozen soil is more complex than a simple mixture of cornstarch and water.

Additionally, factors like topography and vegetation affect the pattern, not only the material’s composition. There must be a bump to begin with for soil to build up behind, and there must be enough soil moisture to accumulate ice.

The researchers would like to validate their model in the field, but because it takes hundreds of years or more for the features to form, observing that is difficult, but not impossible, and they’re determined to try. (AGU Advances, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026AV002392, 2026)

—Rebecca Dzombak, Science Writer

Citation: Dzombak, R. (2026), Patterned frozen soils get their shape from gravity and funky physics, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260223. Published on 9 July 2026. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

body {background-color: #D2D1D5;} Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.

14 July: This article has been updated with final data regarding responses to the proposed OMB rule. The public comment period closed yesterday with 341,699 comments submitted.

9 July: Six weeks ago, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed a new rule that would drastically alter the federal grantmaking process. The proposed rule would give political appointees the power to approve or deny funding to scientific projects.

Among other changes, the rule would also allow federal agencies to terminate active grants they deem inconsistent with agency priorities and to prohibit federal grants from being used for publication costs and open access fees.

 

Related

•  Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance
•  A Rule That Would Rewrite the Terms of U.S. Science
•  White House Proposes Sweeping Changes to Grantmaking Process
•  Get Involved: Stop OMB From Erasing Federal Research
 

The OMB is accepting public comments on the proposal until 13 July, and organizations across the country have mobilized to coordinate responses during the 45-day comment period. As of 9 July, more than 98,900 comments have been submitted. Some, such as one from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) asked OMB director Russell Vought to extend the comment period by no less than 90 days.

The most vocal public response has been from the scientific community, which largely opposes the proposed rule. Organizations such as Stand Up for Science, the American Physical Society, and AGU have launched tools to make the comment submission process easier.

“This is not a routine regulatory update,” wrote AGU President Brandon Jones in June. “[W]hat it actually does is restructure the foundational rules of U.S. science funding—with cascading impact for global collaborators—to serve political priorities rather than the public good.”

A tool created by Tech Policy Press analyzed the more than 50,000 comments that have been made public as of the closure of the comment period. The analysis found that 94% of the public comments opposed the new rule, with the top concern mentioned being the politicization of grant decisions. About 16% of the analyzed comments (8,414 of them) were from form letter campaigns. A disproportionate number of the form letter comments (2,549 of them), were in support of the rule.

Below is a sampling of comments. To submit your own comment on the proposed rule, join 1,000+ others who have shared their concerns through AGU’s Action Center.

Comments From Scientists

• “Because most grants in my field have durations between 2 and 6 years, this rule would make planning long term experiments and sustaining support for trainees nearly impossible. Depending on the outcomes of yearly elections and the oppositional priorities of political parties, grants could be cancelled on a whim any given year of a research project, leaving the promising science that was funded unfinished, scientists suddenly without jobs, and promising students abandoning opportunities that may have changed their life.” –Robert Denton, a biology professor at Ball State University
• “Scientific communication, whether through professional meetings or peer-reviewed publications, is the only way to share scientific findings. An individual working alone, with no route to sharing their work, does no good to society. Ideas thrive when they are shared, tested and amended, all of which happens through publications and presentations. Restricting this avenue to share results damages our nation and leaves us unable to compete.” –Tanya Furman (AGU board member)
• “I am really frightened by OMB’s proposed change to 200.340, which would allow agencies to terminate active grants at any time if they are determined to be inconsistent with federal priorities. This turns grantmaking into an entirely political process, and means that the kinds of science we’re able to do could shift every 2-4 years. Scientific progress that serves the American people takes longer than 2-4 years to come to fruition. With this kind of disruption, America would quickly lose our status as a leading scientific power.” –Hannah Mark, geoscientist
  • Note: The proposed changes to 200.340 involve allowing the agency to cancel grants that no longer serve “Federal agency program goals or priorities.” “Part 200” is also known as “Uniform Guidance.”
• “It goes without saying that all Americans – regardless of political affiliation – want health care that more quickly addresses their needs and reduces their risks for harms such as bloodstream infections and prolonged hospitalizations. Yet allowing unqualified political appointees to interfere with the scientific process imperils these universally held goals.” –Scott Halpern, professor of medicine, epidemiology, medical ethics, and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania
• “The passage of Vought’s ‘Uniform Guidance’ would be nothing short of catastrophic for American science. This rule would funnel decision power about what science is done, by whom, for whom, with whom, and effectively isolate scientists from the rest of the world. This is anti-democractic [sic] and anti-American.” –Colette Delawalla, founder of Stand Up for Science
• “I am a scientist. The US scientific system is the best in the world. Our universities, labs, and companies attract the most brilliant scientists from everywhere in the world to come to the US and keep us as the undisputed world leader in fields from AI to crop science. This creates jobs and wealth for our country. This proposed rule change threatens to obliterate science in the US.” –Edward Ricemeyer
• “The proposed OMB changes to grants would have severe negative effects on American science, and I oppose all of the proposed changes. … The peer review system used to evaluate research proposals at the NSF and NIH is a gold-standard system that is the envy of the rest of the world. I have served on NSF grant panels and also evaluated proposals for national grant agencies in Canada and multiple European countries. I am confident that our system leads to funding for the best science proposals, and our current peer review system leads to improvements in proposals and funded projects.” –Brian I.
• “Taken collectively, the provisions in the proposed regulations will limit agency flexibility to effectively engage with the scientific community and stakeholders to fund the best science and will impair the most positive outcomes for Americans. Simply put, this proposal, if implemented, will undermine the American scientific enterprise and global leadership.” -AGU. AGU’s full comment on the proposal outlines several concerns, and can be viewed here.

Comments in Favor

• “I support generally support any and all federal rules and regulations that help reduce waste, fraud, and abuse with respect to expenditure of taxpayer monies. In particular, I support the proposed OMB 2026-0034 Rule 200.450. … I support the OMB’s proposed reforms to strengthen oversight of the federal grant and assistance programs. It will improve protections against waste, fraud, and abuse.” –Marc Jensen
  • Note: Proposed changes to section 200.450 would “expressly prohibit funding any voter registration campaigns, drives, or related activities under Federal awards.”
• “American taxpayers deserve confidence that federal funds are being spent responsibly and for their intended purposes. Recent reports of improper payments, fraudulent claims, and inadequate oversight have highlighted weaknesses in the current system that must be addressed. Strengthening verification requirements, improving recipient vetting, and providing agencies with greater authority to suspend or terminate funding when fraud or misuse is identified are reasonable and necessary steps.” – Tamara Harrison, with the same comment from Wayne Worden
• “I strongly support the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed reforms in federal grant and assistance programs. I want stronger verification including identity verification of grant applicants, tighter recipient vetting, and agency authority to suspend or terminate funding when fraud or misuse.” –Agnes Puzak

–Emily Gardner (@emfurd.bsky.social), Associate Editor

These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about how changes in law or policy are affecting scientists or research? Send us a tip at eos@agu.org. Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Author(s): Subash Adhikari and M. Hasan Barbhuiya

The dissipation mechanisms in weakly collisional turbulent plasmas have been a longstanding topic of investigation. In recent years, one significant and promising development has been the use of the “scale-filtered” Vlasov-Maxwell equations to fully quantify the scale-by-scale energy balance, a feat…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 015207] Published Thu Jul 09, 2026

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.

SummaryThis study evaluates the performance of the velocity model adopted for the CyberShake 24.8 (CS24.8) study when used to constrain wave propagation in three-dimensional regional-scale physics-based simulations for seismic hazard estimates. The CS24.8 study was developed to estimate seismic hazard in a subdomain surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) in California, adopting a physics-based finite-difference scheme for frequencies up to 1 Hz; above that, a stochastic scheme with site-specific adjustments is used. The velocity model adopted in the CS.24.8 study was a modified version of the USGS regional velocity model developed for the SFBA. The evaluation of the velocity model is based on comparisons between simulated and recorded ground motions for 18 small-to-moderate local earthquakes. Our analysis focuses on two frequency ranges: 0-1 Hz for estimating wave-propagation uncertainties for users of the CS24.8 study, and 1-5 Hz to provide insight into the performance of the velocity model for future Cybershake studies in this region. Metrics based on Fourier amplitude spectra (FAS) and waveforms’ duration are used for quantitative evaluation of the velocity model. Two aspects of the simulated ground motions are analyzed: (i) the median and variability of the ground motion in the region and (ii) wave propagation effects for specific source-site pairs. For (i), the velocity model leads to an underprediction of the FAS ranging from 0.1 LN-units at 0.3 Hz to 0.5 LN-units at 1 Hz for the horizontal component, and an underprediction of the duration by a factor of 2. The underprediction can be explained by the 400 m/s minimum shear-wave velocity adopted in the CS24.8 velocity model, which is larger than the actual values in the soft marine quaternary sediments of the SFBA, where most stations are located. The spatial variability of the FAS from the simulations over the region is lower than that from the observations over the frequency range 0.3 to 1 Hz, suggesting that the 3-D velocity structure is too smooth. When extending the analysis up to 5 Hz, the underprediction pattern increases up to 0.7 LN-units, and the spatial variability of the ground motions increases, reconciling the gap observed at lower frequencies. For (ii), the evaluation shows that the 3-D simulations improve the accuracy of wave propagation effects for the FAS compared to the ergodic ground-motion models (GMMs) for frequencies less than 0.7 Hz and have similar accuracy up to 1 Hz, being the maximum frequency solved in the physics-based scheme of the CS24.8 study. When extending the analysis above 1 Hz, misrepresentations in the 3-D velocity model introduce noise into the simulated ground motions, leading to a less accurate estimate of the FAS at these frequencies compared to GMMs. Our results inform users of the CS24.8 study that the physics-based simulation (up to 1 Hz) offers performance comparable to or better than standard GMMs, while accounting for wave-propagation uncertainties. These findings can guide future refinements of the velocity model.

SummaryGeophysical electrical methods are increasingly being used in civil engineering to characterize and monitor cementitious materials. However, there is currently a lack of understanding of the role of their electrical surface conductivity and there is no quantitative model explaining their complex conductivity (induced polarization) spectra. Therefore, our goal is to propose and to validate a mechanistic model. We prepared 20 cement paste samples of well-established cement compositions (named CEMI and CEMV in the cement nomenclature) and 16 corresponding mortar samples (labeled MORI and MORV), all cured for 60 days, with water-to-cement (w/c) ratios ranging from 0.35 to 0.60. Complex conductivity spectra were measured at 21°C in the frequency range 10 mHz-45 kHz. For the cement pastes, both the in-phase conductivity and the magnitude of the quadrature conductivity increase systematically with the increase of the w/c ratio. The electrical properties of the mortars scale proportionally with those of the corresponding cement pastes, and the proportionality coefficient can be predicted from the volume fraction of cement and the model. We observe that the normalized chargeability is proportional to the quadrature conductivity, consistent with theoretical expectations. The relationship between the normalized chargeability and the surface conductivity and between the normalized chargeability and the Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) are explained using a dynamic Stern layer model associated with the polarization of the inner component of the double layer coating the surface of the minerals. In other words, the dynamic Stern layer initially developed for colloidal solutions and geomaterials can be applied to cementitious materials opening new doors in their non-intrusive monitoring. To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide a physically-based interpretation of the complex conductivity spectra of cement pastes and mortars. These results demonstrate that induced polarization displays strong potentials for imaging water content and the Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) (alternatively the specific surface area) of cementitious materials at various scales. This opens new perspectives regarding the quantitative non-invasive geophysical monitoring of cement and concrete for both civil and nuclear engineering applications.

SummaryUniform density-contrast assumptions in gravity-derived bathymetry produce substantial systematic errors. This problem stands out in regions with strong lateral density variation, such as the central–northern South China Sea. Conventional constant or simple vertically varying density models fail to capture these complexities. To overcome this limitation, a spatially varying density-contrast field is constructed by integrating multi-source geophysical data (crustal, gravity, and bathymetric data) using a back-propagation (BP) neural network. This field is incorporated into an adaptive Parker–based inversion, yielding a high-resolution bathymetric grid with Root Mean Square (RMS) improvements of 2.6 m over the constant-density approach, together with the smallest systematic bias. The most significant gains occur in shallow reef-dominated waters (0 to −1500 m), where relative RMS reductions reach approximately 9%. By coupling neural network-derived density modelling with physically rigorous inversion, the approach overcomes limitations of uniform-density assumptions while retaining interpretability, providing an efficient and reliable approach to high-precision seafloor mapping in geologically complex regions.

SummaryInstrument correction is a fundamental step in broadband seismology, yet it is commonly treated as a purely numerical operation stabilized by heuristic procedures. In practice, inverse filtering of instrumental responses is constrained by causality, stability, discretization, and uncertainty in instrument parameters, which jointly limit the recoverable frequency content and the physical interpretability of corrected ground motion. Here I present a unified framework for causal and uncertainty-aware instrument correction that explicitly formulates deconvolution as a constrained inverse problem in the digital domain. The proposed approach enforces causal realizability and bounded inverse behaviour while introducing regularization as a physically interpretable control of the bias–noise trade-off. Discretization effects arising from the mapping between continuous- and discrete-time responses are quantified and shown to induce systematic, frequency-dependent amplitude bias that interacts nonlinearly with regularization. I further extend the formulation to incorporate parametric uncertainty in the instrument response, propagating it through the inverse filter to derive confidence bounds on effective amplitude response and noise amplification. A set of diagnostic metrics is introduced to jointly characterize amplitude bias, noise amplification, effective bandwidth, and robustness under uncertainty. These diagnostics are combined into a data-driven decision framework that supports objective selection of the inverse filter and explicitly defines the frequency range over which instrument correction is reliable. Time-domain kernel diagnostics complement the frequency-domain analysis by ensuring causal behaviour and controlled temporal support. The framework is summarized in an end-to-end algorithmic workflow designed for reproducible application to broadband seismic data without reliance on ad hoc stabilization choices. By making physical constraints, trade-offs, and uncertainties explicit, the proposed methodology enhances the robustness and interpretability of instrument-corrected seismic waveforms and provides a principled foundation for downstream analyses in source studies, spectral characterization, and waveform-based investigations.

SummaryAirborne transient electromagnetic (ATEM) inversion relies on efficient forward modeling, yet conventional numerical methods struggle to balance computational efficiency and accuracy when handling undulating terrain and large survey datasets. We present a fast forward modeling approach using multi-scale dilated residual networks that takes two-dimensional conductivity profiles with embedded terrain information as image inputs and directly predicts electromagnetic response tensors across multiple flight altitudes. The network architecture employs progressively increasing dilation rates to capture multi-scale geological features while preserving spatial resolution. A dual-domain loss function combining log-normalized and linear domains balances the fitting weights across electromagnetic responses spanning seven orders of magnitude. We trained and tested the model on 100,000 synthetic samples of random terrain and geoelectric structures generated with the SimPEG three-dimensional finite volume method. The network achieves mean absolute percentage errors (MAPE) of 2.24%-3.57% across four terrain types (flat, slope, peak, and valley). Spline interpolation enables accurate prediction at arbitrary flight altitudes not included in training, with errors of 1.69%-3.53%. On a 10 km survey profile, the method achieves approximately 2000-fold speedup compared to SimPEG. This approach provides a practical forward modeling solution for rapid ATEM inversion over complex terrain, and the proposed multi-scale feature extraction strategy and dual-domain loss function design offer transferable insights for other geophysical machine learning applications.

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.

Author(s): J. T. Clapp, R. C. Mancini, E. Gallardo-Diaz, E. C. Harding, and A. J. Harvey-Thompson

In a series of magnetized-liner-inertial-fusion experiments performed at the Z pulsed power facility of Sandia National Laboratories, beryllium liners filled with deuterium gas densities between 0.7 to 1.4 mg/cc and a tracer amount of krypton were imploded. At the collapse of the cylindrical implosi…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 015205] Published Wed Jul 08, 2026

Author(s): S. A. Cohen, L. David, S. P. Vinoth, C. P. S. Swanson, and E. Ho

Radiofrequency-heated, high-β, magnetized hydrogen plasmas in the Princeton field-reversed-configuration-2 device, with its magnetic-field-parallel radial boundary formed by eight discrete room-temperature coaxial copper rings, display constant density for times exceeding 150 ms. When the copper rin…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 015206] Published Wed Jul 08, 2026

SummaryTo address the challenge in seismic exploration where strong-energy ground roll severely interferes with effective signals and conventional suppression methods tend to damage these signals, this paper proposes a self-supervised Swin-Unet network method for ground roll suppression based on Fourier Positional Encoding and a bespoke masking strategy. This method operates without the need for clean label data. By employing a specially designed fan-shaped masking strategy, it disrupts the spatio-temporal coherence of the ground roll, thereby guiding the network to learn the intrinsic characteristics of the effective signals and reconstruct the data. The core innovation lies in the introduction of Fourier Positional Encoding, which overcomes the inherent low-frequency bias of the Transformer architecture. This significantly enhances the network’s capability to model and recover high-frequency effective signals. Experimental results on synthetic data and field 2D/3D seismic datasets demonstrate that the proposed method not only effectively suppresses strong ground roll but also surpasses the traditional f – k filtering method in terms of signal fidelity, particularly in preserving deep, weak reflections and high-frequency components. This showcases its robustness and potential for application in complex seismic data processing.