Phys.org: Earth science

Heat waves over land worldwide are beginning earlier, ending later and occurring over longer seasons, while the first heat wave of the season has recently shifted toward faster onset, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.

To better assess the spatial extent of mining facilities and their environmental impact, a research team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has developed a satellite-based remote sensing tool.

The origins of the earliest life on Earth, prior to the rise of oxygen and photosynthesis, remain a mystery. Graveyards in brine pools at the bottom of the Red Sea may hold some answers.

The fall equinox is Tuesday, when light and darkness split the day evenly. It marks the beginning of fall for the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere.

Recent heat waves in Europe have been intensified by the greenhouse gases emitted since nations committed to limiting global warming under the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to a Sep. 22 study published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Ph.D. candidate Natalia Seliutina has followed gemstones from the -30° temperatures of Siberia to the carving studios of Ōtepoti and the particle accelerators of Taiwan in her quest to discover why pounamu is one of the toughest natural materials on Earth. Fresh from the publication of Natalia's paper in the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, Kathryn van Beek catches up with her to find out how understanding the properties of pounamu might one day help us explore space.

Beneath the vast frozen wastes of Antarctica lie the remains of ancient mountains that have long since eroded. Even though they're no longer standing, they can still reveal a few lost secrets. New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters suggests that these vanished peaks may have played a fundamental role in the evolution of complex life on this planet.

For decades, Arctic sea ice has been melting earlier in spring and freezing later in fall, extending the melt season and contributing to widespread ice loss. A new NASA-led study published in Communications Earth & Environment has found that while the Arctic melt season has lengthened dramatically since satellite records began, that trend unexpectedly stabilized around 2010.

In 2024 alone, flood-related disasters around the world caused more than 8,700 deaths and economic losses exceeding 450 billion euros, with cumulative global losses of about 2.7 trillion euros over the previous decade. Against this backdrop, Europe's recent floods—from riverine events in large basins to flash floods in dense urban areas—have exposed the limits of existing protection systems and emergency responses.

Around 631,000 years ago—a geological blink of an eye—catastrophe unfolded in what is now northwestern Wyoming, U.S. During what is thought to have been a series of immense volcanic eruptions, life within hundreds of kilometers of the blasts was shattered. Ash was dispersed across much of North America, and the effects were felt worldwide. This was a super-eruption of the massive volcanic system located in what is now Yellowstone National Park.

Seven breached Planetary Boundaries continue to worsen as record ocean heat, droughts, floods, wildfires and extreme heat reveal an Earth system under strain, according to the latest Planetary Health Check. The annual update is authored by more than 60 scientists and produced by the Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Smoke from African agricultural fires brightens clouds over the southeast Atlantic—but new research from scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science shows that the same weather pattern carrying the smoke also thins clouds and reduces cloud cover, effectively offsetting its cooling effect.

Stand on the damp sand on a California beach and chances are you're standing on top of an active earthworks site. Sand hoppers (Megalorchestia spp.), the tiny, shrimp-like creatures commonly found eating away at kelp on the shore, have been found to move massive amounts of sand, excavating up to 50 kg (110 pounds) of sand per meter (3.3 feet) of shoreline per day.

In 2024, D. Sarah Stamps' team detected and tracked a short-lived bulge in the land around a volcano in Tanzania. In a paper published Sep. 18, Stamps identified the cause of the uplift: 1 million cubic meters of magma pouring into an existing magma reservoir about 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers) underground.

The first storm warning for the Miami area wasn't issued until only a few hours before the powerful cyclone made landfall just south of downtown, leaving residents with little time to prepare for what would become the hurricane of their nightmares.

Stretching more than 200,000 square kilometers (77,000 square miles) across southern Australia, the vast, flat plains of the Nullarbor mark one of the world's largest regions of limestone. It formed when an ancient shallow sea retreated some 14 million years ago.

Ice sheets are fundamental components of the Earth system. Antarctica and Greenland, the two ice sheets currently on Earth, don't just affect their own regions: What happens on these vast masses of land ice influences weather, climate, society and the environment around the planet.

The fight against climate change has a new, spiral-tusked ally: the narwhal.

Climate models are numerical models used to project future climate change. They simulate the climate from the present into the future by calculating changes in the atmosphere, ocean and other components of the climate system. However, simulations of the present-day climate do not perfectly reproduce observations and contain various biases. The model characteristics that cause these biases can also affect simulations of the future climate. Understanding the causes and impacts of present-day climate biases is therefore important for improving the reliability of future climate projections.

Between 2006 and 2017, North Korea conducted six underground nuclear tests at its vast testing site at Mount Mantap in North Hamgyong province. Typically, underground explosions trigger an intense burst of minor earthquakes that die down once testing stops. But geologists have detected far more seismic activity after the final detonation, and it has persisted for years.