Phys.org: Earth science

In May 2023, Italy's Emilia-Romagna region experienced devastating, if not unprecedented, floods that caused widespread damage to infrastructure, homes, businesses, and farmland. Seventeen people lost their lives, and the disaster caused an estimated €8.5 billion in damages. The persistent rainfall and resulting landslides and flooding displaced tens of thousands of residents, leaving a deep mark on the region's economy and communities.

Sinking land is quietly destabilizing urban infrastructure in India's largest cities, putting thousands of buildings and millions of people at risk, according to Virginia Tech scientists.

When a slab slides beneath an overriding plate in a subduction zone, the slab takes on a property called anisotropy, meaning its strength is not the same in all directions. Anisotropy is what causes a wooden board to break more easily along the grain than in other directions. In rock, the alignment of minerals such as clay, serpentine, and olivine can lead to anisotropy. Pockets of water in rock can also cause and enhance anisotropy, as repeated dehydration and rehydration commonly occur at depth in a subducting slab.

Two earthquakes were recorded within hours of each other near Marion, North Carolina, and witnesses report they felt shaking miles away, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A research team led by Academician Jin Zhijun from the Institute of Energy, Peking University, has revealed how interactions between Earth's tectonic activity and astronomical cycles jointly shaped the planet's climate and carbon cycle during the Late Paleozoic Era (360–250 million years ago, or 360–250 Ma). The findings are published in Nature Communications, titled "Tectonic-astronomical interactions in shaping Late Paleozoic climate and organic carbon burial," offering new insights into the deep-time climate system.

The towering peaks of the Southern Andes are not just shaping the skyline of South America—they are also quietly influencing Earth's atmosphere.

Earthquakes in the American state of Utah, the Soultz-sous-Forêts region of France or in the Dutch province of Groningen should not be able to occur even if the subsurface has been exploited for decades. This is because the shallow subsurface behaves in such a way that faults there become stronger as soon as they start moving. At least that is what geology textbooks teach us. And so, in theory, it should not be possible for earthquakes to occur. So why do they still occur in such nominally stable subsurfaces?

On an evening 10 years ago, Porter Ranch resident Matt Pakucko stepped out of his music studio and was walloped by the smell of gas—like sticking your head in an oven, he recalled.

More than half of Tasmania's largest wetland system in kanamaluka / the Tamar River has vanished since European settlement, new research from the University of Tasmania has revealed.

Permafrost thaw can stimulate the release of soil carbon, triggering a positive carbon-climate feedback that may be mediated by changes in soil phosphorus (P) availability.

As global warming continues to reshape Earth's climate, both the occurrence and mechanisms of extreme precipitation events, such as rain and snow, are undergoing profound transformation. These changes in frequency and intensity directly affect agricultural security, ecosystem stability, and infrastructure resilience.

The deep ocean has long been viewed as a quiet realm, largely isolated from the dynamic processes that shape Earth's climate. However, new observations in the western equatorial Pacific have revealed robust intraseasonal variability at depths of 1,500–3,000 meters, with kinetic energy levels reaching up to 10 cm2s-2.

Researchers at University of Tsukuba have identified the source and the factors affecting the radioactive cesium (137Cs) flow to the port of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant via its drainage channels. Using tritium in groundwater that leaked from contaminated water storage tanks as a hydrological tracer, they estimated that ~50% of 137Cs comes from "roof drainage" of the rainwater falling on the reactor buildings. The research is published in the journal Water Research.

Rising seas are irreversible on human timescales and among the most severe consequences of climate change. Emissions released in the coming decades will determine how much coastlines are reshaped for centuries to come.

Brazilian researchers have developed a technique that estimates the force exerted on each grain of sand in a dune from images. This method, which is based on numerical simulations and artificial intelligence (AI), transforms the study of granular system dynamics and paves the way for investigating previously unmeasurable physical processes. Applications range from civil engineering to space exploration.

Peatlands make up just 3% of Earth's land surface but store more than 30% of the world's soil carbon, preserving organic matter and sequestering its carbon for tens of thousands of years. A new study sounds the alarm that an extreme drought event could quadruple peatland carbon loss in a warming climate.

The ocean's smallest engineers, calcifying plankton, quietly regulate Earth's thermostat by capturing and cycling carbon. However, a new review published in Science by an international team led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) (Spain) finds that these organisms, coccolithophores, foraminifers, and pteropods, are oversimplified in the climate models used to predict our planet's future.

Late at night on 26 September 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall on Florida's big bend. The physical damage was devastating and well-documented, but an additional, unseen potential impact lurked underfoot.

Madagascar's landscape tells a story of deep time: ancient rifting and geological tilting sculpted the island's dramatic topography and steered its rivers, setting the stage for the evolution of its extraordinary biodiversity.

Salt is an essential nutrient for the human body. But hundreds of millions of years before the first humans, salt minerals once shaped entire landscapes. They even determined where early life on Earth could thrive.