Phys.org: Earth science

Bermuda may well be associated with exaggerated stories of missing ships and planes, but there is another mystery about this part of the Atlantic that has been puzzling scientists for decades: Why does the island appear to float above the surrounding ocean? A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters could have the answer. Researchers have discovered a massive 12.4-mile (20-kilometer) thick layer of rock beneath Bermuda between Earth's crust and mantle.

A new LMU study estimates that land use changes in conjunction with climate change could lead to the loss of up to 38% of the Amazon rainforest by the end of the 21st century.

Every year during December and January, in the Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, rural communities carry out traditional burning on steep hill slopes to regenerate grass. These carefully timed burns, which take place when fuel stocks are low, are needed to support livestock and, indirectly, agriculture in the region.

Glaciers are melting worldwide. In some regions, they could even disappear completely. Looking at the number of glaciers disappearing, the Alps could reach their peak loss rate as early as 2033 to 2041. Depending on how sharply the planet warms, this period may mark a time when more glaciers vanish than ever before. Worldwide, the peak glacier loss rate will occur about ten years later and could rise from 2,000 to 4,000 glaciers lost each year.

Between 128,000 and 186,000 years ago, when ice covered the Sierra Nevada, a lake 100 miles long and 600 feet deep sat in eastern California in what is now the Mojave Desert.

A swarm of at least six earthquakes reaching up to magnitude 2.9 rattled San Ramon near San Francisco, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.

A team of researchers led by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), in collaboration with colleagues from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the University of Bristol, and Nanjing University, has identified the primary non-environmental factors controlling lithium-to-magnesium ratio (Li/Mg) fractionation. Their findings were recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Tropical storms such as typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones are Earth's most powerful weather systems. Born over warm oceans, they travel thousands of kilometers to land, traversing waters now polluted with plastics, from coastal runoff to the vast oceanic garbage patches.

Glacial earthquakes are a special type of earthquake generated in cold, icy regions. First discovered in the Northern Hemisphere more than 20 years ago, these quakes occur when huge chunks of ice fall from glaciers into the sea.

Much of the heavy rains that hit the Philippines during the Amihan northeast monsoon season between November and March are triggered by "shear lines": kilometers-long bands of converging warm and cold air that are constantly shifting and difficult to spot even via satellite.

The climate is changing and nowhere is it changing faster than at Earth's poles. Researchers at Penn State have painted a comprehensive picture of the chemical processes taking place in the Arctic and found that there are multiple, separate interactions impacting the atmosphere.

In April 2025, the Main Marmara Fault below the Sea of Marmara in northwestern Türkiye experienced its largest earthquake in over 60 years. In a study published in Science, a team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Patricia Martínez-Garzón from the GFZ Helmholtz Center for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany, analyzes nearly two decades of seismic data framing the 2025 April magnitude M 6.2 earthquake.

Droughts are lasting longer in Australia, particularly in some of our most populated regions, UNSW scientists have shown.

Researchers at the Institute for Meteorology at Leipzig University have, for the first time, determined the climatic impact of contrails that form within natural cirrus clouds. Contrails account for the largest share of aviation's climate impact beyond carbon dioxide emissions.

In the wake of a wildfire, a vital micronutrient can become a toxic heavy metal—and could eventually make its way into groundwater.

If it were to melt completely, the vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) holds enough ice to raise the global sea levels by 4 to 5 meters (13 to 16 feet).

A team from the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has collaborated with researchers from the University of Málaga (UMA) and the University of Córdoba (UCO) on an article published in the Journal of Sedimentary Research, which examines the relationship between the shape of sand grains and the distance traveled in the Arlanzón River (Burgos) and the Guadalhorce River (Málaga).

Some 4.6 billion years ago, Earth was nothing like the gentle blue planet we know today. Frequent and violent celestial impacts churned its surface and interior into a seething ocean of magma—an environment so extreme that liquid water could not exist, leaving the entire planet resembling an inferno.

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.