Phys.org: Earth science

Great things can come from failure when it comes to geology. The Midcontinent rift formed about 1.1 billion years ago and runs smack in the middle of the United States at the Great Lakes. The rift failed to completely rupture, and had it succeeded it would have torn North America apart. Under immense pressure from receding tectonic plates, the weakened lithosphere instead created a basin in the crust eventually filled by Lake Superior, and it also exposed a 3000-km-long band of deeply buried igneous and sedimentary rocks.

Forest soils have an important role in protecting our climate: They remove large quantities of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—from our atmosphere. Researchers from the University of Göttingen and the Baden-Württemberg Forest Research Institute (FVA) have evaluated the world's most comprehensive data set on methane uptake by forest soils. They discovered that under certain climate conditions, which may become more common in the future, forest soils' capacity to absorb methane actually increases.

The Asian-Australian monsoon system (A-AuMS) is the world's most typical cross-equatorial coupled monsoon system. On a seasonal timescale, the summer monsoon in one hemisphere is usually linked to the winter monsoon in the other via outflows. However, robust evidence is lacking as to whether such cross-equatorial monsoon coupling persists during orbital-scale paleoclimate evolution. A scarcity of high-resolution paleoclimatic records from the Northern Australian monsoon region in the Southern Hemisphere has limited a full understanding of the A-AuMS's dynamic mechanisms.

Parts of ancient Earth may have formed continents and recycled crust through subduction far earlier than previously thought. New research led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has uncovered chemical signatures in zircons, the planet's oldest minerals, that are consistent with subduction and extensive continental crust during the Hadean Eon, more than 4 billion years ago.

Chemicals brought in to help protect our ozone layer have had the unintended consequences of spreading vast quantities of a potentially toxic "forever chemical" around the globe, a new study shows. Atmospheric scientists, led by researchers at Lancaster University, have for the first time calculated that CFC replacement chemicals and anesthetics are behind around a third of a million metric tons (335,500) of a persistent forever chemical called trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) being deposited from the atmosphere across Earth's surface between the years 2000 and 2022.

When snow blankets the landscape, it may seem like life slows down. But beneath the surface, an entire world of activity is unfolding.

A swarm of small earthquakes within the Karoo Basin in South Africa has revealed a critically stressed fault that could be perturbed by potential shale gas exploration in the area, according to a new report. The analysis by Benjamin Whitehead of the University of Cape Town and colleagues concludes that the Karoo microseismicity occurred along a buried fault that may extend through sedimentary layers to the crystalline bedrock, which would increase its vulnerability to stresses produced by shale gas exploration.

An international research team led by the University of Bremen has detected chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in Earth's atmosphere for the first time in historical measurements from 1951—20 years earlier than previously known. This surprising glimpse into the past was made possible by analyzing historical measurement data from the Jungfraujoch research station in the Swiss Alps. The study has now been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Mantle plumes beneath volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii, Iceland, and the Galapagos, seem to be anchored into a large structure within the core-mantle boundary (CMB). A new study, published in Science Advances, takes a deeper dive into the structure under Hawaii using P- and S-wave analysis and mineralogical modeling, revealing its composition and properties.

Scientists at the University of California, Irvine have discovered that climate change is causing nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance, to break down in the atmosphere more quickly than previously thought, introducing significant uncertainty into climate projections for the rest of the 21st century.

Arctic sea ice has large effects on the global climate. By cooling the planet, Arctic ice impacts ocean circulation, atmospheric patterns, and extreme weather conditions, even outside the Arctic region. However, climate change has led to its rapid decline, and being able to make real-time predictions of sea ice extent (SIE)—the area of water with a minimum concentration of sea ice—has become crucial for monitoring sea ice health.

A pair of US researchers have developed a new model to tackle a deceptively simple problem: how a small block of ice melts while floating in calm water. Using an advanced experimental setup, Daisuke Noto and Hugo Ulloa at the University of Pennsylvania have captured the intricate dynamics that underlie this everyday process—work that could ultimately pave the way for more accurate predictions of melting sea ice. The study has been published in Science Advances.

An agreement on the third implementation phase of Destination Earth (DestinE), the European Commission's initiative to develop a highly accurate digital twin of Earth, has been signed between the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The third phase will start in June 2026 and end in June 2028.

When extreme weather strikes, the preparations of emergency planners can have life-or-death consequences. In July 2025, central Texas flooded with disastrous consequences, killing more than 130 people.

A study on tectonic plates that converge on the Tibetan Plateau has shown that Earth's fault lines are far weaker and the continents are less rigid than scientists previously thought. This finding is based on ground-monitoring satellite data. The study, published in Science, includes several high-resolution maps based on data from Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites. It shows how the region is being stretched and squeezed by Earth's geological movements.

A research team from University of Tsukuba and collaborating institutions has clarified why M9-class megathrust earthquakes recur off the Kamchatka Peninsula with an unusually short cycle of 73 years. By analyzing the rupture process of the 2025 event, the team demonstrated that this earthquake exhibited complex behavior that cannot be explained by conventional seismic-cycle models.

In recent years, numerous landslides on hillsides in urban and rural areas have underscored that understanding and predicting these phenomena is more than an academic curiosity—it is a human necessity. When unstable slopes give way after intense rainfall, the consequences can be devastating, with both human and material losses. These recurring tragedies led us to a simple yet powerful question: Can we build landslide susceptibility maps that are more objective, transparent, and useful for local authorities and residents?

A study in Nature Geoscience reveals that changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) closely tracked marine algae growth in the Southern Ocean over previous glacial cycles, but not in the way scientists expected. The key factor is iron-rich sediments transported by icebergs from West Antarctica.

Water vapor (H2Ov) is an essential component of Earth's atmosphere, playing critical roles in climate regulation, weather patterns, and the water cycle. Its sources primarily come from natural processes such as ocean evaporation and terrestrial evapotranspiration. However, during the fossil fuels (e.g., coal, petroleum, natural gas) combustion process, in addition to emitting substantial amounts of CO2, they also generate significant amounts of water vapor as a byproduct (combustion-derived water vapor sources: CDWV).

An ongoing string of more than a dozen earthquakes in less than 90 minutes early Monday ended what had been some recent calm from recent weeks of shaking ground in the region, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.