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Along with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, iron is essential for the growth of microscopic phytoplankton in the ocean. However, a new study led by oceanographers at the University of Hawaii'i (UH) at Mānoa revealed that iron released from industrial processes, such as coal combustion and steel making, is altering the ecosystem in the North Pacific Transition Zone, a region just north of Hawai'i that is important for fisheries in the Pacific.

When it comes to carbon emissions, there's no bigger foe than the building and construction sectors, which contribute at least a third of global greenhouse gases.

A small international team of volcanologists has built a more detailed picture of the Campi Flegrei caldera's internal structure using high-resolution seismic imaging and results from rock physics experiments conducted on core samples collected from deep wells.

A newly published study finds that California's Salton Sea emits hydrogen sulfide, a toxic and foul-smelling gas, at rates that regularly exceed the state's air quality standards. The presence of these emissions in communities surrounding the Salton Sea is "vastly underestimated" by government air-quality monitoring systems, the researchers found.

A study co-led by Irina Gorodetskaya, a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), brings together all up-to-date data on the phenomenon of atmospheric rivers in Antarctica and reveals the uncertainties arising from the effects of climate change.

New research led by the University of Sydney adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it.

body {background-color: #D2D1D5;} Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.

In a move that worried politicians and space scientists alike, President Trump announced on 31 May that he will withdraw his nomination of Jared Isaacman for the position of NASA administrator, according to Semafor. Isaacman’s nomination received bipartisan support and he was expected to easily pass a Senate confirmation vote in a few days.

 
Related

•  White House to pull NASA nominee Isaacman
•  Trump withdraws Jared Isaacman’s nomination as NASA administrator
• The Planetary Society reissues urgent call to reject disastrous budget proposal for NASA
• Get Involved: AGU Science Policy Action Center

This is seismic.Isaacman had clearly articulated a strong support for science, and the withdrawal of his nomination yet further imperils NASA's Science Mission Directorate.www.semafor.com/article/05/3…

— Paul Byrne (@theplanetaryguy.bsky.social) 2025-05-31T20:49:52.860Z

Trump cited a “thorough review of prior associations” as the reason for withdrawing the nomination. It was not immediately clear whether he was referring to Isaacman’s past donations to Democrats or his ongoing associations with former DOGE head and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who spent the weekend distancing himself from the president. Both of these associations were public at the time of Isaacman’s nomination.

Isaacman, a billionaire, private astronaut, and CEO of credit processing company Shift4 Payments, was questioned by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in a nomination hearing in April. Despite a few contentious moments regarding Isaacman’s association with Musk and some waffling over NASA’s Moon-to-Mars plan, the committee ultimately approved Isaacman’s nomination with strong bipartisan support.

When Trump announced Isaacman’s nomination in December 2024, very early for a NASA administrator, space scientists greeted the news with cautious optimism. Isaacman had vocally expressed support for the imperiled Chandra X-ray Observatory, and is a known space enthusiast.

Now, with the withdrawal of his nomination just days after a president’s budget request that would devastate Earth and space science, scientists fear for the future of NASA.

—Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@astrokimcartier.bsky.social), Staff Writer

These updates are made possible through information from the scientific community. Do you have a story about how changes in law or policy are affecting scientists or research? Send us a tip at eos@agu.org. Text © 2025. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

North America's deepest gorge, Hells Canyon, which slithers along the border of Idaho and Oregon, is a surprisingly new addition to the Earth's ancient landscape. A recent study suggests that a monumental shift in Snake river drainage around 2.1 million years ago reshaped the topography, carving out Hells Canyon, which plunges an astonishing 2,400 m, significantly deeper than the Grand Canyon.

Source: AGU Advances

In the southern flanks of the Indian Ocean and the central and eastern Pacific, just north of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, lie the Subantarctic Mode Waters. As part of the global ocean conveyor belt, these large masses of seawater transfer substantial amounts of heat and carbon northward into the interiors of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. These waters hold about 20% of all anthropogenic carbon found in the ocean, and their warming accounted for about 36% of all ocean warming over the past 2 decades—making them critical players in Earth’s climate system.

Prior research has suggested Subantarctic Mode Waters form when seawater flowing from warm, shallow subtropical regions mixes with water flowing from cold, deep Antarctic regions. But the relative contributions of each source have long been debated.

Fernández Castro et al. used the Biogeochemical Southern Ocean State Estimate model to investigate how these water masses form. The model incorporates real-world physical and biogeochemical observations—including data from free-roaming floats—to simulate the flow and properties of seawater. The researchers used it to virtually track 100,000 simulated particles of water backward in time over multiple decades to determine where they came from before winding up in Subantarctic Mode Waters.

The particle-tracking experiment confirmed that subtropical and Antarctic waters indeed meet and mix in all areas where Subantarctic Mode Waters form but offered more insight into the journeys and roles of the two water sources.

In the Indian Ocean, the simulations suggest, Subantarctic Mode Waters come mainly from warm, shallow, subtropical waters to the north. In contrast, in the Pacific Ocean, Subantarctic Mode Waters originate primarily from a water mass to the south known as Circumpolar Deep Water.

Along their southward flow to the subantarctic, subtropical waters release heat into the atmosphere and become denser, while ocean mixing reduces their salinity. Meanwhile, the cooler Circumpolar Deep Water absorbs heat and becomes fresher and lighter as it upwells and flows northward from the Antarctic region to the subantarctic.

These findings suggest that Subantarctic Mode Waters affect Earth’s climate differently depending on whether they form in the Indian or Pacific Ocean—with potential implications for northward transport of carbon and nutrients. Further observations could help confirm and deepen understanding of these intricacies. (AGU Advances, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024AV001449, 2025)

—Sarah Stanley, Science Writer

Citation: Stanley, S. (2025), On the origins of Subantarctic Mode Waters, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250207. Published on 2 June 2025. Text © 2025. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Author(s): Ajaz Mir, Pintu Bandyopadhyay, Madhurima Choudhury, Krishan Kumar, and Abhijit Sen

We compare model solutions of a forced Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (fKP) equation with experimental observations of dust acoustic precursor solitons excited by a supersonically moving charged cylindrical object in a dusty plasma medium. The fKP equation is derived from a three-fluid-Poisson model of the …

[Phys. Rev. E 111, 065201] Published Mon Jun 02, 2025

Author(s): Alan A. Kaptanoglu, Matt Landreman, and Michael C. Zarnstorff

We consider the problem of optimizing a set of passive superconducting coils (PSCs) with currents induced by a background magnetic field rather than power supplies. In the nuclear fusion literature, such coils have been proposed to partially produce the 3D magnetic fields for stellarators and provid…

[Phys. Rev. E 111, 065202] Published Mon Jun 02, 2025

In the Paris Agreement of 2015, the international community of countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, and preferably to 1.5 °C, compared to pre-industrial levels. This refers to the increase in global surface air temperature, inspected at any time of interest as an average over 20 years.

Forests in the Peruvian Amazon aren't growing back after gold mining—not just because the soil is damaged by toxic metals, but because the land has been depleted of its water. A common mining method known as suction mining reshapes the terrain in ways that drain moisture and trap heat, creating harsh conditions where even replanted seedlings can't survive.

Flooding in coastal communities is happening far more often than previously thought, according to a new study from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study also found major flaws with the widely used approach of using marine water level data to capture instances of flooding.

The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.

On 30 May 2025, a rock slope major failure occurred at a quarry at Gunung Kuda, which is located on the edge of Cipanas Village in Dukupuntang District, Cirebon Regency, West Java, Indonesia. At the time of writing, it has been confirmed that 19 people were killed in the accident, with a further six people remaining missing. Four people were injured.

The location of the failure is [-6.7754, 108.4022]. This is the site in Google Earth:-

Google Earth image of the site of the 30 May 2025 landslide at Gunung Kuda mine.

Universitas Siber Asia has a good article about the event, in Indonesian but it translates well. There is also some Youtube footage of the site immediately after the failure:-

There are other videos circulating of a dramatic rock slope failure, but the ones that I have seen are not this event.

There is also some very clear drone footage of the site after the failure:-

This includes this view of the landslide:-

Drone footage of the site of the 30 May 2025 landslide at Gunung Kuda mine. Still from a video posted to Youtube by Andrea Ramadhan.

The geological structure of this quarry is very complex, with many joints being visible in the above image that would promote instability.

The Universitas Siber Asia article describes a site with a very poor history regarding instability:-

“The Geological Agency said the mine location was in a zone of high soil movement vulnerability, with a probability of landslide of more than 50%. The Head of the West Java Energy and Mineral Resources Office, Bambang Tirto Mulyono, stated that the main cause was the wrong mining method, namely digging from under the cliff, making the soil structure fragile. Repeated warnings from the Energy and Mineral Resources and police lines since February 2025 have been ignored by mine managers. As a result, the West Java Provincial Government revoked the mining permit that was supposed to be valid until October 2025 and closed the site permanently.”

Interestingly, the quarrying was licensed, albeit with substantial safety concerns. Detik Jabar describes the long term worries about the site:–

“…the Head of the West Java Energy and Mineral Resources Office, Bambang Tirto Mulyono, stated that the incident was caused by a faulty mining method carried out by the mine management. Warnings have been conveyed many times by the Energy and Mineral Resources department, and even preventive measures have been taken by the police.”

“We have repeatedly warned the mining authorities, even in a loud tone. The Cirebon Police have also installed a police line at the location since February because the mining methods carried out are not in accordance with safety standards. Mining should have been done from above, not from below,” said Bambang when met at the scene.“

Return to The Landslide Blog homepage Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

SummarySeismic data acquisition can innovatively be implemented on the surface and within underground infrastructure to illuminate subsurface targets. In the seismic data processing and imaging phases, prior subsurface information, such as approximate interface dipping angles, can enhance reflection imaging in a target-oriented manner. We leverage a unique field dataset from an unconventional seismic acquisition setup to image a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit at the Neves-Corvo mining site in southern Portugal. The setup involved seismic sources positioned in a tunnel at a depth of approximately 650 m, from which the wavefields were recorded by surface receivers deployed along a 2D line directly above the tunnel. The data were marred by strong noise and limited acquisition aperture due to the tunnel length, resulting in significant smearing artifacts in images generated from conventional migration techniques, which impeded a detailed delineation of the deposit. By utilizing directional information from illumination vectors, derived from the gradients of source-side and receiver-side traveltime fields, we implemented a controlled-illumination strategy within the Kirchhoff prestack depth migration workflow. This approach resulted in enhanced imaging of the targeted Lombador VMS deposit. The improved image revealed a subtle discontinuity in the Lombador reflector, indicating a possible fault, which is also present in the area. The reflection imaging results highlight the advantages of employing underground infrastructure, such as tunnels, for seismic applications in supporting detailed in-mine exploration and drilling programs for resource estimations.

SummaryInterpolating scatter data obtained from discrete observations is essential for the continuous representation of subsurface media. Traditional interpolation algorithms typically rely on weighting the relationship between interpolation points and nearby known points, which makes it more difficult to incorporate multi-source data and prior constraints as the amount of information increases. This study explores the use of deep neural networks to replace traditional interpolants, constructing a deep learning-based scatter interpolation workflow that integrates prior information through isotropic or anisotropic smoothness loss functions, addressing traditional methods’ limitations. To enhance the capability of the deep neural network for sparse scatter interpolation, we synthesized a large number of scatter-velocity model pairs to pre-train it using supervised learning. The pre-trained network is further adapted to specific interpolation tasks by physics-guided unsupervised fine-tuning to achieve stable interpolation results. Due to the flexibility of incorporating multi-source information through input or supervised loss and imposing constraints of geophysical laws through unsupervised loss, our DL-based interpolation can be easily extended to solve geophysical inversion problems that jointly fits both data and geophysical laws. Our experiments validate the effectiveness of this workflow and demonstrate its potential in multi-information-constrained geophysical scatter interpolation, which forms the basis for multi-information inversion. This work not only advances machine learning algorithms for geophysical scatter interpolation but also provides valuable insights for deep learning geophysical inversion involving multiple data sources, and physical laws.

As hot, dry and disastrous as the last few years have been, it appears that the chaos caused by a warming planet is just getting started.

A new study led by University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh geologist Timothy Paulsen and University of Colorado Boulder thermochronologist Jeff Benowitz advances the understanding of the geologic history of Transantarctic Mountains bedrock, with implications for understanding the evolution of landscapes lying beneath the ice sheets covering Antarctica.