Phys.org: Earth science

Ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) are some of the most abundant microorganisms in the ocean and play a key role in nitrogen cycling. Yet, despite their ubiquity, scientists have long puzzled over how these microbes can flourish in the nutrient-poor waters of the open ocean, where their main nitrogen and energy source, ammonium, is often vanishingly scarce.

In an age of rising sea levels, as polar ice sheets melt in a climate warmed by fossil fuel emissions, climate modelers are racing to understand what the future might hold for coastlines around the world. But uncertainties about how fast polar ice might melt make predicting coastal inundation difficult. Now, scientists think they've helped make one of those uncertainties, the material conditions underneath the Greenland ice sheet, smaller.

Around the world, phytoplankton in the upper ocean help to cycle key nutrients and regulate Earth's climate by absorbing carbon dioxide. These photosynthesizing organisms rely on dissolved iron as an essential micronutrient, meaning that when iron levels drop, phytoplankton activity drops, too.

Sophisticated new chemical analysis of gases trapped in rocks for millions of years has cast new light on the origin of the gold deposits beneath Scotland and Ireland. The finding, made by team of scientists led by Professor Fin Stuart from the University of Glasgow, could help pinpoint the location of buried deposits of the treasured metal in the future.

As part of the EU project ECOTIP, an international team of researchers, including the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, has analyzed the sea off Greenland more comprehensively than ever before. The key question: How is the area developing in the face of climate change and environmental pollution? Most of the samples were examined in the Hereon laboratories.

Recent fieldwork by Griffith University researchers has highlighted an African country that is facing a rapidly escalating environmental crisis as severe gully erosion—locally termed "mega gullies"—advances across valuable agricultural landscapes.

Some wildfires are so intense, they create their own weather—thunderstorms driven by heat that hurtle smoke as high as 10 miles into the sky like giant chimneys.

Asier Madarieta, a researcher in the EHU's HGI (Water Environmental Processes) group, has analyzed how the Earth's crust is being compressed and deformed in the field where Eurasia and Africa meet in the Western Mediterranean. His work contributes towards understanding this complex contact field better as well as opening the door to identifying the faults and structures that could lead to earthquakes or deformations on the peninsula.

For the first time, scientists have resolved extremely intense tropical cyclones and their effect on the ocean carbon cycle in a global Earth system model. Using two category-4 hurricanes in the North Atlantic as examples, the study reveals a cascade of physical-biogeochemical effects including uptake of carbon dioxide and regional-scale phytoplankton bloom. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Amazon rainforest is slowly transitioning to a new, hotter climate with more frequent and intense droughts—conditions that haven't been seen on Earth for tens of millions of years.

An international research team may have found an explanation for seismic anomalies, the noticeable deviations in the behavior of earthquake waves, in Earth's inner core.

The March 28, 2025, Myanmar earthquake is giving scientists a rare look into how some of the world's most dangerous fault systems behave, including California's San Andreas Fault. Earthquakes are notoriously messy and complex, but this one struck along an unusually straight and geologically "mature" fault, creating near-ideal conditions for researchers to observe how Earth releases energy during a major continental rupture.

New Jersey is parched top to bottom.

New research reveals how the speed of ocean currents and the shape of the seabed influence the amount of heat flowing underneath Antarctic ice shelves, contributing to melting.

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are highly vulnerable to global warming and scientists are being increasingly worried about the possibility of large parts of the ice sheets collapsing, if global temperatures keep on rising.

Galápagos is a living laboratory where every environmental decision matters. On Santa Cruz, the most populated island of the archipelago, freshwater is a limited and increasingly vulnerable resource due to urban growth, agricultural pressure, saltwater intrusion, and climate change. In this context, understanding how water behaves across the landscape becomes essential for water security.

What if it were possible to take a very slow geological process, one that takes thousands of years in nature, and speed it up so that it happens within hours, in order to slow the rate of global warming?

The ocean is saturated with microplastics. While we know the location of the great garbage patches, where plastic particles may accumulate below the ocean surface remains unknown. The vastness of the ocean means particle sampling data are sparse, but modeling how particles aggregate in 3D fluid flows can help determine where to look.

Wildfires pose a significant threat across the southwestern United States, due to the region's unique topography and weather conditions. Accurately identifying locations at the highest risk of a severe wildfire is critical for implementing preventive measures.

Dozens of bushfires raged over the weekend as far afield as the mid-north coast of New South Wales and Tasmania's east coast. A NSW firefighter tragically lost his life, 16 homes burned down in the NSW town of Koolewong and four in Bulahdelah, and another 19 burned down in Tasmania's Dolphin Sands.