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Smelting metals and burning coal vaporize small amounts of iron. Some of this iron wafts out of East Asia and into the North Pacific Ocean, where it supercharges phytoplankton growth, a new study found.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, used isotope analysis to estimate that around 39% of the iron in seawater sampled from the North Pacific during the springs of 2016, 2017, and 2019 came from human activities. This added iron is helping phytoplankton consume marine nitrogen faster, causing a long-term northward shift in a North Pacific algal bloom.

“The nitrogen is like a paycheck that they get every year, and when they have more iron, they spend through it faster.”

“The nitrogen is like a paycheck that they get every year, and when they have more iron, they spend through it faster,” said the study’s first author, Nick Hawco, a marine geochemist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Strong winds churn the waters of the North Pacific every winter, lifting nitrogen and other nutrients to the surface. As ocean currents carry the nutrients south toward a region of mixing gyres called the North Pacific Transition Zone, they fuel a phytoplankton bloom that extends from California to Japan. Tuna, humpback whales, and other sea creatures come to feast on the animals supported by the phytoplankton.

Over the spring and summer, the phytoplankton exhaust the nutrients brought south by currents. This depletion causes the southern extent of the bloom, called the transition zone chlorophyll front, to shift north each year, toward the nutrient-rich subarctic.

Have Iron, Will Travel

Hawco and his colleagues studied the metabolisms of phytoplankton captured from the North Pacific and found signs of iron deficiency. Iron is a limiting factor for phytoplankton growth in the region, the authors argued.

Though desert dust carried long distances by winds historically brought iron to the North Pacific, previous research has shown that industrial activities in East Asia—especially burning coal and melting metals—are a new and growing source of iron.

Between 1998 and 2022, steel production in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan quadrupled, and coal use more than tripled, according to data from the Global Carbon Project and the World Steel Association. During the same period, the southern edge of the bloom in April shifted north by about 325 miles (520 kilometers), according to satellite measurements of chlorophyll.

“This extra iron is leading to the nitrogen being drawn down earlier in the season, and it’s pushing these waters that eventually become nitrogen limited further to the north.”

In the northern parts of the phytoplankton bloom, chlorophyll concentrations increased, suggesting that the added iron is driving a more intense bloom, according to the authors. As a consequence, the southern edge of the bloom does not reach as far south during the spring, Hawco said. The nutrients that used to fuel it are likely being consumed by the more intense bloom up north, he said.

“This extra iron is leading to the nitrogen being drawn down earlier in the season, and it’s pushing these waters that eventually become nitrogen limited further to the north,” said Peter Sedwick, a chemical oceanographer at Old Dominion University in Virginia who was not involved in the study.

Northward movement of the bloom could have wide-ranging effects. Because the ecosystem supports abundant marine life, many anglers from Hawaii travel there to fish, Hawco said. As it shifts north, that trip is becoming longer and more expensive, he said.

Chlorophyll concentrations, a proxy for phytoplankton, shift seasonally. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

In addition, research suggests that climate change will reduce the amount of nutrients brought from the depths to the surface of the North Pacific. That will reduce the supply of nutrients brought south by currents, causing the southern extent of the bloom to move even farther north, Hawco and his colleagues said. Iron emissions and climate change are having synergistic effects on the transition zone chlorophyll front, they concluded.

Further research is needed to understand the impacts of this extra metal. The phytoplankton bloom sucks up carbon and helps maintain the balance of carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere, Sedwick said. Any change to the ecosystem could alter that balance, he added.

—Mark DeGraff (@markr4nger.bsky.social), Science Writer

Citation: DeGraff, M. (2025), Iron emissions are shifting a North Pacific plankton bloom, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250286. Published on 6 August 2025. Text © 2025. 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.

Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences

This is an authorized translation of an Eos article. 本文是Eos文章的授权翻译。

当地震引起滑坡、泥石流或侵蚀时，它可以通过引入颗粒更大的沉积物来改变附近湖泊的组成，导致沉积物堆积更快，并影响碳封存。堆积在湖底的沉积物就像一个历史档案，记录了湖泊的生物、物理和化学变化，以及它们如何影响硅藻（微小的玻璃状藻类）等微生物。然而，人们对于地震引发的突然扰动会如何影响湖泊生态系统知之甚少。

Xue等人观察了喜马拉雅地区措普湖（Lake Tsopu）的长期变化。1900年至2017年期间，措普湖周围200公里半径内发生了63次5级以上地震。这里的高海拔、高寒气候和低人类活动使得措普湖成为研究这些地震引起的微生物和地球化学变化的理想场所。

2017年，研究人员从措普湖中心水深14米处采集了一个45厘米长的沉积物岩芯。然后，他们将岩芯分成41个1厘米长的样本进行分析。研究人员发现了1900年至1923年间发生的两次大地震（7.09级和7级）的标志。一个标志是深度为28到35厘米处的砂粒含量增加，另一个标志是，与较浅处（1到23厘米）相比，深度较深处（28到35厘米）的颗粒大小中位数增加。

研究人员按照两个时间段对沉积物岩芯进行划分，第一阶段包含地震事件（1886-1917），第二阶段包括地震后的几十年（1923-2017）。他们注意到，地震后硅藻数量急剧减少，这可能是因为沉积物和氮的增加。在第一阶段，硅藻的多样性暂时增加，而后在第二阶段减少，这可能是由于沉积物的横向运输。此外，底栖物种在地震后减少，而漂浮物种则激增。

根据措普湖的研究结果，研究人员估计，全球大约有15000个湖泊——约占全球湖泊数的1.1%和湖泊面积的1.7%——在大地震之后经历了类似的剧烈变化，改变了水面以下以及周围景观的生态系统平衡。(Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JG008723, 2025)

—科学撰稿人Rebecca Owen (@beccapox.bsky.social)

Read this article on WeChat. 在微信上阅读本文。

This translation was made by Wiley. 本文翻译由Wiley提供。

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Editors’ Vox is a blog from AGU’s Publications Department.

Some may think writing or editing a scholarly book is something scientists only do later in their careers after several decades of research, teaching, and other professional experience. On the contrary, two scientists who completed book projects with AGU as early-career researchers found the years right after earning their PhD to be the ideal time to pursue this opportunity. In the first installment of three career-focused articles, these scientists reflect on the positive outcomes the experience had on their professional development.

Matthew Currell co-edited the book Threats to Springs in a Changing World: Science and Policies for Protection, which explores the causes of spring degradation and strategies to safeguard them. Rebekah Esmaili authored Earth Observation Using Python: A Practical Programming Guide, a book on basic Python programming to create visualizations from satellite data sets. We asked Currell and Esmaili about why they chose to complete book projects as early-career researchers, the unique strengths early-career researchers bring to such endeavors, and the impacts their books had on their careers.

How would you describe the early-career researcher stage in a scientist’s career?

MC: The first decade of a researcher’s career is a time of great discovery, when the world opens up in front of you. This period can also have its challenges and be quite daunting. It is when responsibility to identify the big research questions of our time, design quality research projects, and start supervising other researchers in training is handed to you all at once. Staying true to the motivations and passion that led you into research in the first place—and making sure you take time to keep listening and learning from those with experience, insight, and knowledge in your field—are key to success. 

Even though early-career contributions differ from those of senior researchers, they are still incredibly important for the community to continue thriving.

RE: Early-career researchers are the fresh growth on the knowledge tree, branching out in new directions. They have novel ideas and the enthusiasm to share them, and are quick to learn and adopt new concepts and technologies, so they help the tree gather nutrients and grow. It’s an exciting time to work alongside senior researchers who are astoundingly knowledgeable. A challenge is that early-career researchers may struggle to find their voice; but even though early-career contributions differ from those of senior researchers, they are still incredibly important for the community to continue thriving.

Why did you decide to write or edit a book?

RE: I did not plan on writing a book until I presented a scientific workshop, “Python for Earth Observation,” at an AGU annual meeting. I was inspired to simultaneously teach Python skills while showcasing the visually stunning, publicly available imagery produced by Earth satellites. I initially planned to offer the workshop only once, but the participants’ feedback showed strong interest in the material. Since then, I have presented the workshop every year that I could attend AGU. I decided to write the book to amplify my workshops and to make the content accessible to those unable to travel to conferences. Writing a book appealed to me because books can be widely shared and referenced, and can provide greater detail than is possible during a 4-hour workshop.

MC: The idea for the book first came in an email from my co-editor on the project, Dr. Brian Katz. As soon as I saw the suggested topic on freshwater springs, I was hooked and quickly became determined to make the book a reality. Having spent time with many people, including Aboriginal Traditional Owners from my home country, Australia, I knew how important springs are as a source of water but also a source of life, culture, and connection to the land. I also knew firsthand how many springs were under threat, and how urgent the task was of promoting good science and good policy in the way we manage these springs.

What impact did your book have on your career?

The biggest value and benefit from the book was all the fantastic people and relationships that it helped to build.

MC: I think the biggest value and benefit from the book was all the fantastic people and relationships that it helped to build. For example, the chapter on springs in the Great Artesian Basin at Kati Thanda was very well received by the Arabana Rangers, who are the custodians of the springs and the lands of northern South Australia. This relationship has grown, and now the Arabana Rangers are set to come and present their story of the springs at the upcoming International Association of Hydrogeologists Congress, where I’m organizing the program through the conference technical committee. 

RE: Writing a book was a huge project, but doing so helped me master the subject matter, as I had to think deeply about the content and consider how digestible it would be to a new programmer. It also gave me the confidence to take on challenges at work. For example, learning to break down tasks into smaller pieces during the publication process empowered me to apply for larger grants and projects. Project management at work felt less overwhelming because after writing a book, I had experience writing proposals, developing milestones, creating reasonable schedules, collaborating with multiple partners, and delegating chapter reviews.

What were the benefits of completing a book as an early-career researcher, as opposed to doing so at another point in your career? 

RE: Early-career scientists can have more empathy for the reader because they have more recent experiences learning new concepts built upon knowledge they have not mastered yet. My awareness of the audience was a strength, and I ended up writing the book I wished I had when I was getting started. I was sensitive to using dense, discipline-specific language that was challenging to understand. Instead, I made a conscious choice to use clear, kind, and encouraging language. If I had written the book later in my career, it might have resembled a traditional textbook, many of which make assumptions about what the reader should already know.

MC: The book helped me to get in touch with many fantastic people around the world working in freshwater springs research, and I had the chance to learn a huge amount from editing the different chapters that present case studies from around the world. These relationships have inspired new ideas and collaborations, and the circle keeps growing —for example, through the global network of researchers called “the Fellowship of the Spring.” Finally, completing a book and seeing it published also brought a huge sense of accomplishment.

—Matthew Currell (m.currell@griffith.edu.au, 0000-0003-0210-800X), Griffith University, Australia; and Rebekah Esmaili (rebekah.esmaili@gmail.com, 0000-0002-3575-8597), Atmospheric Scientist, United States

This post is the first in a set of three. Stay tuned for posts about leading a book project in the mid-career stage and as an experienced researcher.

Citation: Currell, M., and R. Esmaili (2025), Early-career book publishing: growing roots as scholars, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO255025. Published on 6 August 2025. This article does not represent the opinion of AGU, Eos, or any of its affiliates. It is solely the opinion of the author(s). Text © 2025. 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.

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets

Boulders are ubiquitous on the lunar surface. However, the lifetime of boulders on the surface is relatively short, lasting no longer than a few hundred million years, as the boulders are broken down and eroded in the space environment. Therefore, the presence of rocks indicates relatively recent activity. The rock abundance and size distribution can provide information on the evolution of the lunar surface and the development of the dust and rock fragments that comprise the regolith.

Rock abundance maps have been generated in the past by fitting models to thermal data. However, the rock abundance derived from the images provides greater detail about the size distribution of the rocks and their locations. Manually identifying and measuring the sizes of boulders on the lunar surface using images from orbiting spacecraft is very time consuming and laborious. As a result, a global map of boulders identified from images requires automated methods.

Aussel et al. [2025] use a deep learning algorithm to identify and measure the size of approximately 94 million boulders, providing the first near-global map of boulders larger than 4.5 meters across the lunar surface between 60° S and 60° N. The data show boulders are concentrated around impact craters and steep slopes. Distinct differences occur between the maria and highlands, with maria having higher densities of boulders, but with smaller average sizes. However, a significant variation in abundances is observed on different mare units suggesting differences in the properties of the volcanic rocks. The study also quantifies the size distribution of boulders and how the largest boulder sizes ejected by impact craters scale with crater size. While this study finds general agreement with the thermally derived maps, local differences are observed likely due to the sensitivity of the techniques to different rock sizes and geologic settings.

The study highlights how cutting-edge machine learning techniques can push the boundaries of what can be done in planetary science and can open up new avenues in research that previously were intractable. The end result is a rich dataset that has the potential to yield continued insights into the lunar environment, and the processes that shape that environment, as the research community studies the data further.  

Citation: Aussel, B., Rüsch, O., Gundlach, B., Bickel, V. T., Kruk, S., & Sefton-Nash, E. (2025). Global lunar boulder map from LRO NAC optical images using deep learning: Implications for regolith and protolith. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 130, e2025JE008981. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JE008981

—Jean-Pierre Williams, Editor, JGR: Planets

Text © 2025. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Author(s): Iván Calvo, José Luis Velasco, Per Helander, and Félix I. Parra

Until now, quasi-isodynamic magnetic fields have been the only known stellarator configurations that, at low collisionality, give small radial neoclassical transport and zero bootstrap current for arbitrary plasma profiles, the latter facilitating control of the magnetic configuration. The recently …

[Phys. Rev. E 112, L023201] Published Wed Aug 06, 2025

A possible cause of the 5 August 2025 landslide is the failure of a large body of glacial material high in the valley above the village.

The imagery that is emerging after the 5 August 2025 debris flow in Dharali (Tharali), in Uttarakhand, northern India make very somber viewing. Melaine Le Roy posted this comparison to BlueSky, which illustrates the scale of the flow that has struck the village:-

BEFORE/AFTER the Dharali village debris flow today!

SummaryTransform faults are one of the major tectonic plate boundaries offsetting the global mid-oceanic ridge system. The topographic features within these transform faults provide crucial evidence for tectono-magmatic processes and crustal accretion in transform fault zones. These interesting features include median ridges, which are major bathymetric anomalies found within both slow-slipping and fast-slipping transform faults, often associated with exposures of ultramafic rocks on the seafloor. To explain the origin of median ridges, previous studies have invoked multiple processes such as serpentinite diapirism, thermal uplift at ridge-transform intersections, or transpressive uplift induced by global plate reorganization, without any knowledge of the seismic structure. Here, we present results from 2D travel time tomography of downward-continued multi-channel seismic data along and across an ∼80 km long median ridge that lies within the eastern end of the slow-slipping (∼3.4 cm/yr) Chain transform fault in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. The data were acquired during the 2018 ILAB-SPARC survey using a 6-km long streamer. Our high-resolution P-wave velocity model of the median ridge shows distinct high and low velocities ranging from 2.5 to 5 km/s within 500 m below the seafloor, on either side of the presently active strike-slip fault trace that cuts through the ridge. The low velocity on the eastern side of the ridge could be due to the presence of highly fractured basalt (with porosity in the range of 28 to 36 per cent) due to transform fault motion, whereas the high velocity on the western flank could be due to the presence of gabbro or highly serpentinised peridotite. The basaltic origin of the median ridge is supported by the observation of a seismic triplication event, which we call the T-event. The depth at which the T-event maps is shallow (200–500 m below seafloor) in high-velocity regions and deeper (600–1400 m) in low-velocity regions. We also find that the currently active strike-slip fault has been active since at least 0.26 Ma and has sliced the ridge. We image low-velocity pockets at the northern and southern limits of the median ridge that could represent the expression of the currently less active strike-slip faults.

For a wide variety of earthquake scenarios in Alaska, an earthquake early warning (EEW) system could provide at least 10 seconds of warning time for hazardous shaking, according to a new report.

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.

For the past month, the Trump administration, via NASA’s Acting Administrator Sean Duffy, has been directing NASA employees to implement workforce adjustments and plan for the shutdown of dozens of missions and programs slated for cuts under in the President’s Budget Request to NASA. Doing so ahead of a Congressionally-approved budget for fiscal year 2026 (FY26) is tantamount to illegal impoundment of federal funds appropriated for the current fiscal year (FY25), according to an 18 July letter to Duffy signed by 64 members of Congress.

Now, despite warnings that their actions are illegal, NPR reports that Duffy and other senior NASA officials have continued to secretly direct NASA employees to draw up plans to end at least two major satellite missions specifically designed to monitor global carbon dioxide. Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2, a free-orbiting satellite, and OCO-3, which is attached to the International Space Station, are slated for defunding in the 2026 President’s Budget Request (PBR).

David Crisp, a retired NASA atmospheric physicist who was the principal investigator of the original OCO mission and was OCO-2’s science team leader, told NPR that he was contacted by several NASA employees who asked him pointed questions about the satellites that added up to mission termination plans.

 
Related

•  Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose
•  Implementing Trump’s proposed NASA cuts illegal before Congress passes budget, Democrats say
•  Read the letter from lawmakers to Acting Administrator Duffy
•  Get Involved: AGU Science Policy Action Center

“What I have heard is direct communications from people who were making those plans, who weren’t allowed to tell me that that’s what they were told to do. But they were allowed to ask me questions,” Crisp said. “They were asking me very sharp questions. The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan.” (Crisp is also a Fellow of AGU, which publishes Eos.)

Two current NASA employees confirmed to NPR that NASA leaders were told to make plans to terminate projects that would lose funding should Trump’s PBR be enacted. The employees, who requested anonymity, also told NPR that agency leadership is seeking private backers to keep the OCO satellites running should they lose federal funding.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatories were designed specifically to monitor and map the global carbon budget, and they have provided valuable data about the drivers of climate change. The satellites also exhibited a surprising ability: monitoring plant growth. The mission has provided maps of photosynthesis around the world that have proved valuable tools for farmers and the agricultural industry, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Experts warn that farmers could lose access to those tools if the satellites are privatized or decommissioned.

“Just from an economic standpoint, it makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data,” Crisp said.

Growing plants emit a form of light detectable by OCO-2 and OCO-3. Here, red, pink, and white indicate areas of growth and gray indicates areas of little growth. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Budgets Pending

Both the Senate and House appropriations committees recently released FY26 funding bills for NASA for consideration by Congress. The House does seek to cut NASA’s overall budget, though far less than requested by the Trump administration. The House’s draft bill does not break down appropriations by NASA’s subdivisions or programs, so there is little information about whether OCO would be defunded should the House’s budget be adopted.

The draft budget from the Senate appropriations committee, which also doesn’t mention OCO by name, nonetheless offers more details about what funding they would approve. Under that budget framework, NASA would receive $24.9 billion total (up from $24.8 billion in FY25). NASA’s Science Mission Directorate would lose a modest amount of funding ($7.3 billion, down from $7.5 billion), and the Earth Science division, which operates OCO, would also lose some funds ($2.17 billion, down from $2.2 billion).

The Senate committee’s more detailed explanation may shed light on its plans for OCO and other Earth-observing missions:

• “The Committee rejects the mission terminations proposed in the fiscal year 2026 budget request for Earth Science, Planetary Science, Astrophysics, and Heliophysics.” That’s about as explicit as they can be.
• “In advancing the U.S. national interest, NASA should seek, to the extent practicable, to retain public ownership of technologies, scientific data, and discoveries made using public funds.” This directive runs counter to NASA’s plans to privatize satellites that Trump seeks to defund.
• “Earth Science missions could help to understand the efficacy of carbon dioxide removal proposals, including to track carbon stocks and carbon cycling in aboveground biomass and coastal marine ecosystems.” The committee recognizes that Earth-observing satellites are important to the future of the planet.

Neither the House nor Senate appropriations bills have been taken up by either chamber of Congress. The bills still need to be passed by their respective chambers, reconciled into a single budget bill that passes both chambers of Congress, and signed into law by the president before FY25 ends on 30 September.

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

Correction 5 August 2025: David Crisp’s position with NASA and his association with AGU have been corrected.

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A previously unexploited source of information is now throwing new light on Earth's climate during the age of dinosaurs. Fossilized dinosaur teeth show that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the Mesozoic Era, i.e., 252 to 66 million years ago, were far higher than they are today. This has been determined by researchers at the universities in Göttingen, Mainz, and Bochum following the analysis of oxygen isotopes in the dental enamel of dinosaur teeth.

A massive landslide has destroyed a remote Himalayan village. Fifty or more people may have died.

Astonishing and terrifying footage has appeared today of a dreadful debris flow that struck the village of Tharali (also called Dharali in some places) in Uttarakhand today. The video has been widely shared on social media. This is a version on Youtube (the footage starts at about 6 seconds):-

There is confusion about the location of this event, but i believe it is at: [31.0406, 78.7811]. This is a Google Earth view of the village in question:-

Google Earth view of the site of the 5 August 2025 debris flow at Tharali in northern India.

News reports indicate that four people are known to have died and that about 50 people are missing, although there will be huge uncertainty in those numbers.

Whilst this event has been variously described as a flood or a flash flood, it is without doubt a debris flow (i.e. a landslide). The trigger appears to have been a cloudburst event. The exact mechanism to generate the debris flow is unclear at present, but the valley above Tharali is steep and rugged:-

Google Earth view of the valley that generated the 5 August 2025 debris flow at Tharali in northern India.

Note the marker that delineates Tharali – it is the valley above the village that has generated the flow. Possible causes could be multiple landslides that have combined to create a channelised debris flow, a single large landslide that transitioned into the flow, or a valley blocking landslide that collapsed. We won’t know until satellite or aerial imagery is available.

Rescue operations are going to be hampered by the blockage of other roads by the same rainfall event, the remote location and the low survivability of such debris flows.

Return to The Landslide Blog homepage Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Discover a vast, previously unknown world of microbial life that survives—and even thrives—for hundreds of millions of years in some of the planet's harshest environments.

A study published in the journal Tectonics has provided new insights into the forces that cause tectonic movements in Europe's most seismically active regions. Researchers used advanced satellite data to track land movements in Greece, western Turkey and the southern Balkan countries.

Periods of extreme heat often lead to increased exposure to ground-level ozone, in addition to other negative effects. This is dangerous for humans, the environment and agriculture. A study led by Forschungszentrum Jülich now provides surprising findings: With strong global warming, ozone pollution could decrease in some regions of the world.

A research team led by Dr. Shi Hailiang at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a novel infrared imaging payload and AI-based retrieval framework capable of detecting carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) emissions from space at a spatial resolution of approximately 100 meters.

As giant planet HIP 67522 b orbits its host star, it triggers its own doom. The planet orbits HIP 67522, a young star slightly larger than the Sun, in just 7 Earth days. At just 17 million years old, the star is far more active than our Sun, regularly flaring and releasing massive amounts of energy and stellar material.

By using observations from three exoplanet telescopes, scientists have found that these flares don’t occur at random times and locations like on our Sun. Instead, they are concentrated at a particular time in the planet’s orbit, which suggests that the planet itself could be triggering the flares. What’s more, the flares are also pointed at the planet, bombarding it with nearly 6 times more radiation than it would experience if the flares occurred at random.

“We want to understand the space weather of these systems in order to understand how planets evolve over time, how much high-energy radiation they get, how much wind they’re exposed to, what consequences that has on the evolution of their atmospheres, and, down the line, habitability,” said Ekaterina Ilin, lead researcher on the discovery and an astronomer at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) in Dwingeloo.

Magnetic Interactions

Space weather is common in our solar system. At Earth’s relatively safe distance from the Sun, space weather manifests as aurorae and enhanced solar wind that, nonetheless, can wreak havoc on navigation and communication systems.

But in exoplanet systems, space weather can be far more deadly. Stars have strong magnetic fields, which are even stronger and more turbulent when stars are young. A star’s magnetic field lines stretch out from its surface, carrying superheated plasma along with them. Field lines regularly twist and tangle and coil until they eventually snap back into place, releasing stored energy and stellar material in a flare or coronal mass ejection (CME).

Astronomers have observed exoplanets orbiting so close to their stars that their atmospheres or even rocky surfaces are being blasted away by intense stellar radiation, winds, and flares. But for decades, astronomers have theorized that the connection between stars and close-in planets can go both ways.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory detected this X1-class solar flare from the Sun on 22 March 2024. This video was taken in extreme-ultraviolet light that highlights hot material in the flare. Credit: NASA/SDO

According to the theory, some planets orbit so close to their star that they are inside the star’s magnetic boundary, the so-called sub-Alfvénic zone. Such a so-called short-period planet could gather up magnetic energy like a windup toy as it orbits and release it in waves along the star’s magnetic field lines. When the energetic waves reach the star’s surface, they could trigger a flare back toward the planet.

The idea was born after the discovery of the first exoplanet—51 Pegasi b—in 1995 showed astronomers that planets could orbit extremely close to their host stars (51 Pegasi b has a 4.23-day orbit). Ilin said that although the theory has existed since the early 2000s, it has taken a while to find even one exoplanet that might fit the bill because most planets discovered thus far orbit much older stars with few flares and weak magnetic fields.

Too Close for Comfort

Ilin and her colleagues combed through thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets detected by the now-retired Kepler Space Telescope and the extant Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). They looked for young, flaring stars with close-in giant planets—a very broad search with hundreds of results—and narrowed their search down by looking for planets that might orbit within the sub-Alfvénic zone and for stars with strange flare timings.

“It was really a shot in the dark,” Ilin said.

After a long, tedious search, the team homed in on HIP 67522 and its two planets: planet HIP 67522 b, with its 7-day orbit, and a second giant planet with a 14-day orbit. The star’s flares were clustered together, but only barely within the margin of significance.

“The expectation was that it would have one of the strongest magnetic interactions based on how close the star is to the [inner] planet, how big the star is, how big the planet is, how young it is, [and] how strong a magnetic field we expect,” Ilin said. Despite the marginal significance, she thought, “Oh, actually, it might be worth a second look.”

“Statistically, almost impossible.”

The researchers observed the star with the European Space Agency’s Characterising Exoplanets Satellite (CHEOPS) for 5 years. They characterized 15 stellar flares during that period, a typical number for this size and age of star, but found that the flares clustered together when the innermost planet passed between the star and the telescope’s vantage point at Earth.

“When the planet is close to transit, the flaring goes up by a factor of 5 or 6, and that should not happen,” Ilin explained. “Statistically, almost impossible.”

“It is fascinating to see clustered flaring following the planet as it orbits its star,” said Evgenya Shkolnik, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University in Tempe who was not involved with this research. Some of Shkolnik’s past work investigated enhanced stellar activity in Sun-like stars with hot Jupiters, but those stars were much older and did not flare as much as HIP 67522. “It makes sense that more flares could be triggered through the same type of magnetic star-planet interactions we observed,” she said.

“It makes its life even worse by whipping up this interaction…and firing all these CMEs directly into the planet’s face.”

Like other short-period giant planets, HIP 67522 b likely would have been losing its atmosphere to stellar radiation no matter what because of how closely its orbits—indeed, the planet is about the size of Jupiter but just 5% its mass. But because the flares are synced with HIP 67522 b’s orbital period, Ilin’s team calculated that HIP 67522 b is experiencing roughly 6 times the stellar radiation that it would if the flares were randomly distributed, and the corresponding CMEs are pointed directly at it.

The team’s simple estimates show that because of this increased radiation, the planet is losing its atmosphere about twice as fast as it would otherwise.

“It makes its life even worse by whipping up this interaction…and firing all these CMEs directly into the planet’s face,” Ilin said. These results were published in Nature.

“This discovery is extremely exciting,” said Antoine Strugarek, an astrophysicist at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission in Paris who was not involved with the research. “Such magnetic interactions are clearly the prime candidate to explain the observed phenomenon, and no other theories are really convincing to explain these observations, to the best of my knowledge.”

Expanding the Search

Strugarek explained that the magnetic interaction observed in the HIP 76522 system has a few analogs in our own solar system. The Sun experiences “sympathetic flares,” he said, in which a solar flare in one spot can trigger another one nearby—they account for about 5% of solar flares. And in the Jupiter system, the Galilean moons Io, Ganymede, and Europa propagate waves along their orbits that trigger polar aurorae on Jupiter.

For HIP 76522, “the theory is that the perturbation originates from the exoplanet. This is definitively a possibility, and extremely exciting for future research,” Strugarek said. He added that he would like to see future work constrain the geometry of HIP 76522’s magnetic field to better understand the star-planet connection.

“We need to scrutinize all the compact star-planet systems with large flares for such occurrences. This should be ubiquitous for very compact systems.”

He also wants to go back into the archives to look for more exoplanets like this. “Now that we have one tentative system, we need to scrutinize all the compact star-planet systems with large flares for such occurrences,” Strugarek said. “This should be ubiquitous for very compact systems.

Shkolnik added, “I would love to see dedicated observing programs at both higher- and lower-energy wavelengths, namely, in the far-ultraviolet, submillimeter, and radio wavelengths.” The far ultraviolet is more sensitive to flares, and finding more flares might confirm the theory that the planet is triggering them.

Thus far, HIP 76522 b is the only planet discovered to be magnetically influencing its star. Ilin said that when her team started looking into HIP 76522 b, it was the youngest short-period planet in their catalogs. TESS has since observed several more, and Ilin’s team is ready to investigate them.

The researchers also hope to flip the script on star-planet interactions. Instead of starting with an exoplanet and looking for clustered stellar flares, they want to first look for flare patterns and then find the planet causing them. The untested technique could detect exoplanets around stars that other detection methods struggle with: young, active stars.

“It is a bit of a statistically tough cookie,” she said, “but it will be quite exciting if we can make that happen.”

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

Citation: Cartier, K. M. S. (2025), Exoplanet triggers stellar flares and hastens its demise, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250284. Published on 5 August 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.

Conferences are key enablers of community building within and outside academic ecosystems, bringing together broad groups of individuals with different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. They can also provide safe and constructive environments for open discussions of cultural issues important to scientific communities, including those related to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI, also known as DEI) [Hauss, 2021; Zierath, 2016].

These discussions, which likely would not otherwise occur on a broad scale outside of meetings [Oester et al., 2017; Barrows et al., 2021], are particularly valuable in geoscience and climate research. Those fields are notably lacking in diversity, and within them, hearing the voices of marginalized groups is crucial for guiding effective evidence-informed public policy [Standring and Lidskog, 2021; Bernard and Cooperdock, 2018; Colquhoun and Fernando, 2020; Dowey et al., 2021]. Involvement in conference EDI programming by a wide swath of the scientific community can also help to ameliorate the academic “minority tax” that often disproportionately burdens scientists from underrepresented groups with the responsibility for driving change.

Many conferences now include EDI-related sessions [e.g., Fiedler and Brittani, 2021]. However, encouraging broad engagement with EDI- and community culture–focused sessions—both those looking inward within academia and those looking outward at how science affects society—at conferences remains a challenge. On the basis of our experiences organizing these types of sessions and the current literature on best practices, we propose eight changes that organizers and convenors can implement to boost attendance in, engagement with, and useful outputs from such discussions. These approaches group into three themes: focusing attention on EDI programming, facilitating open and productive discussion, and emphasizing evidence and solutions.

Focusing Attention on EDI Programming

A key part of generating wider engagement with equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) sessions at conferences is indicating that they are priorities for organizers and all attendees.

1. Be thoughtful about time-tabling. A key part of generating wider engagement with EDI sessions is indicating that they are priorities for organizers and all attendees (especially those in leadership roles), rather than ancillary topics of interest only to marginalized groups. Meeting convenors can signal this importance through effective time-tabling of EDI sessions, which can enhance attendance and engagement [Burnett et al., 2020].

Specifically, we advise against holding these sessions at the start or end of the day, when attendance tends to be lowest, especially for those with caregiving responsibilities. Likewise, organizers should be cognizant of how placing these sessions at the very end of conference programs may result in sparse attendance, unintentionally portray the session topics as less valuable to the community, and reduce their effectiveness in influencing change. Instead, we suggest that convenors schedule EDI-related sessions during the main program alongside prominent scientific programming and use plenary and keynote talks to highlight and support discussions of EDI.

2. Optimize physical placements. In addition to careful time-tabling of EDI sessions, organizers should consider how to maximize attendees’ opportunities to engage with related posters and talks by designating optimal locations for content sharing. EDI-related issues have an advantage over many scientific topics in that they are relevant to all attendees; hence, placing them in central, easily accessible locations where they are more visible can spur additional attention and discussion. Additional suggestions for placing EDI posters include displaying them outside main poster halls (e.g., in reception areas), allowing them to be presented multiple times (e.g., once in an “EDI” session and once in a “science” session), and fully integrating them into scientific poster sessions to help normalize conversations around culture in science.

Facilitating Open and Productive Discussion

3. Create welcoming and respectful spaces. Considering how personal issues related to EDI can be, it is crucial that conferences establish robust and agreed-upon codes of conduct and norms for related discussions, as well as mechanisms to enforce them if needed [e.g., Favaro et al., 2016]. Such frameworks help to ensure that conferences are spaces where attendees can present their ideas freely while being accountable for their contributions. The code of conduct and norms should also make clear that reasonable and respectful challenges of ideas (and recognition of how the conduct of these discussions affects others) are encouraged when discussing issues of community culture, in the same way they are in discussions of scientific ideas. Common terminologies for use within EDI discussions can also help to overcome differences in the meanings of words or concepts among countries and languages [Fernando et al., 2024], which can be especially important at climate and geoscience research conferences, given their international attendance.

Many conferences group all EDI-related contributions into large catchall sessions, which can make it challenging for attendees to identify best practices relating to specific aspects of EDI.

4. Avoid additional costs for attendees. Many conferences limit attendees to giving a single oral presentation, which can force them to choose between presenting their science (which often is more highly rewarded in academic systems) or their EDI-related work or experiences. Best practice has been showcased by some organizations, such as AGU, which now allows presenters to contribute two abstracts to its Annual Meeting. Nonetheless, the costs of submitting an additional abstract to a conference can impose a significant financial constraint on a researcher, especially if they must pay for poster printing in cases where only one oral contribution is permitted. When reviewing EDI- and community-focused abstracts, organizers should consider dispensing with single oral abstract submission rules, issuing fee waivers for these abstracts, or issuing small rebates in registration fees (e.g., $50) to partially cover poster printing costs.

5. Group EDI contributions by topic. EDI encompasses a wide range of specific subtopics, from school education to inclusion in graduate programs and beyond. However, many conferences group all EDI-related contributions into large catchall sessions, which can make it challenging for attendees to identify best practices relating to specific aspects of EDI. Organizers should solicit enough EDI contributions that they can group them by theme. Especially at larger conferences, having themes will help organizers reach the critical mass of posters and talks needed to hold parallel sessions focusing on different issues (e.g., one about geoscience education in schools and another about accessible fieldwork), hence maximizing the potential for useful discussions. The United Kingdom’s Royal Astronomical Society, for example, has demonstrated best practice in its larger meetings by soliciting contributions to specifically organized EDI sessions that are integrated into the main conference program but have different focuses (e.g., outreach, supporting students and postdocs).

Emphasizing Evidence and Solutions

6. Encourage sharing of data and applicable lessons. A major benefit of conferences is the opportunities they offer to develop new ideas in groups and to identify and optimize existing solutions that can be applied in new settings. Science departments and institutions often run dedicated programs to widen participation, increase diversity, and improve inclusivity, many of which include elements for monitoring and evaluating their success. However, these programs—and the qualitative and quantitative data they produce—are rarely discussed or presented in conference settings, limiting chances for shared identification of lessons learned and where else such lessons can be applied.

To call attention to the scientific basis behind effective EDI interventions, organizers should explicitly encourage contributions that showcase institutional programs and their evaluations. This encouragement might include asking presenters to share data reflecting how their intervention had positive outcomes or, conversely, why it was ineffective (and what lessons can be learned as a result). Organizers could also provide guidelines for how to present EDI work and outreach programs such that intervention successes and best practices can be shared clearly and potentially scaled for use in other institutions (e.g., by explicitly addressing issues of funding, time and added labor costs, and other logistical requirements). Furthermore, organizers should consider optimal formats for engagement around this information. Standard lecture-style talks, for example, may be less effective than town halls, open discussions, or breakout working groups.

Making an effective case for the need for broad interventions often requires providing quantitative evidence linking individual experiences to systemic and problematic issues.

7. Encourage presenters to link experience and evidence. Issues relating to EDI, scientific culture, and the academic community are naturally rooted in individuals’ lived experiences, and hence, presentations on these experiences often form a substantial portion of EDI sessions. As powerful as these presentations typically are, making an effective case for the need for broad interventions to scientists and decisionmakers (e.g., funding bodies) often requires providing quantitative evidence linking individual experiences to systemic and problematic issues.

Encouraging presenters in EDI sessions to frame their discussions in a scientific light when possible—for example, by presenting a clear synthesis of background literature and an evidence base for the work—can help foster positive reactions and productive decisionmaking for implementing change. Professional associations and conference hosts could, again, provide presenters with best-practice guidelines for discussing EDI topics (for example, encouraging the use of quantitative evaluation and significance testing), given that many EDI presenters are not social scientists by training.

8. Provide space and funding for additional community events. Society and conference leadership should also support their community members and attendees in organizing affiliated EDI-related events that do not fall within traditional conference programs of talks and posters. This support could include providing space or other accommodations (e.g., free refreshments) for groups to arrange meetups or social events that encourage community building and a sense of belonging. Or it could entail offering groups the opportunity to add their events to the main conference program, rather than organizing them on the periphery. When possible, support should also be offered for these groups to write and publish summaries of observations and outcomes from their EDI-related sessions—for example, through small grants funding the publication of white papers—to extend the reach and impact of their discussions.

Progressing Toward Greater Engagement

Enacting many of the above suggestions will come with financial, logistical, or workload costs for conference organizers. Waiving or reducing abstract fees for EDI-related abstracts, for example, would reduce revenue and must be balanced against other financial constraints and commitments, such as providing financial support to people who would otherwise be unable to attend.

These suggestions for change need not all be acted upon simultaneously. Gradual change, such as tackling the simplest improvements first, still represents progress.

Nonetheless, some suggestions (e.g., optimizing scheduling and physical placement of sessions and soliciting more EDI-related abstracts) should incur little to no additional financial cost and could be acted upon immediately. Others, such as developing guidelines for effective presentation of EDI talks and posters, will likely require more sustained effort over multiple conference cycles. Outside experts in EDI, for example, from the diversity committees of professional societies, may be able to help here.

Ideally, conference organizers would adopt all the outlined approaches—and perhaps find additional ways to spotlight and support EDI research and discussions at their events. Considering the many challenges and constraints of conference planning, though, it is important to note that these suggestions for change need not all be acted upon simultaneously. Gradual change, such as tackling the simplest improvements first, still represents progress and should encourage broader engagement in EDI sessions and conversations at scientific conferences. This engagement is especially vital in geoscience and climate science, where research often has inherent and significant implications for communities and, hence, where the presence of diverse voices is key to producing effective change.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Emily Ward and Becca Edwards for their helpful suggestions in compiling this article.

References

Barrows, A. S., M. A. Sukhai, and I. R. Coe (2021), So, you want to host an inclusive and accessible conference?, FACETS, 6(1), 131–138, https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2020-0017.

Bernard, R. E., and E. H. Cooperdock (2018), No progress on diversity in 40 years, Nat. Geosci., 11(5), 292–295, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0116-6.

Burnett, N. P., et al. (2020), Conference scheduling undermines diversity efforts, Nat. Ecol. Evol., 4, 1,283–1,284, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1276-5.

Colquhoun, R., and B. Fernando (2020), An audit for action, Astron. Geophys., 61(5), 5.40–5.42, https://doi.org/10.1093/astrogeo/ataa075.

Dowey, N., et al. (2021), A UK perspective on tackling the geoscience racial diversity crisis in the Global North, Nat. Geosci., 14(5), 256–259, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00737-w.

Favaro, B., et al. (2016), Your science conference should have a code of conduct, Front. Mar. Sci., 3, 103, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2016.00103.

Fernando, B., et al. (2024), Evaluation of the InSightSeers and DART Boarders mission observer programmes, Nat. Astron., 8, 1,521–1,528, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02434-1.

Fiedler, B. P., and S. Brittani (2021), Conference critique: An analysis of equity, diversity, and inclusion programming, paper presented at 2021 ALA Virtual Annual Conference, Assoc. of Coll. and Res. Libr.

Hauss, K. (2021), What are the social and scientific benefits of participating at academic conferences? Insights from a survey among doctoral students and postdocs in Germany, Res. Eval., 30(1), 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvaa018.

Oester, S., et al. (2017), Why conferences matter—An illustration from the International Marine Conservation Congress, Front. Mar. Sci., 4, 257, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00257.

Standring, A., and R. Lidskog (2021), (How) does diversity still matter for the IPCC? Instrumental, substantive and co-productive logics of diversity in global environmental assessments, Climate, 9(6), 99, https://doi.org/10.3390/cli9060099.

Zierath, J. R. (2016), Building bridges through scientific conferences, Cell, 167(5), 1,155–1,158, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2016.11.006.

Author Information

Benjamin Fernando (bfernan9@jh.edu), Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; and Mariama Dryák-Vallies, Center for Education, Engagement and Evaluation, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

Citation: Fernando, B., and M. Dryák-Vallies (2025), Eight ways to encourage equality, diversity, and inclusion discussions at conferences, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250291. Published on 5 August 2025. This article does not represent the opinion of AGU, Eos, or any of its affiliates. It is solely the opinion of the author(s). Text © 2025. 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.

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Community Science

Evaluating progress toward sustainable agriculture is essential for assessing a country’s commitment to sustainability but remains highly complex, particularly given the varying socioeconomic conditions and natural endowments of countries worldwide.

Rich picture created by one of the breakout groups during the stakeholder workshop in Austria. Participants were asked to draw relevant elements of a sustainable agricultural system from the perspective of Austria and then add notes to the existing Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM) indicator wheel with suggestions for relevant sustainability indicators. Credit: Folberth et al. [2025], Figure S15

A recent study by Folberth et al. [2025] represents one of the first attempts to address the critical challenge of balancing global comparability and national specificity in agricultural sustainability indicators. Leveraging the Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM), an indicator system that provides consistent evaluations across countries, the authors co-evaluate the framework with Austrian stakeholders. This process reveals the limitations of current global indicator systems in capturing context-specific social, economic, and environmental nuances.

The study highlights the value of engaging diverse national stakeholders to identify gaps and proposes strategies to regionalize indicators without compromising global coherence. By advancing methods for co-creating regionally tailored frameworks, this research provides a roadmap for enhancing the relevance and applicability of sustainability assessments worldwide.

Citation: Folberth, C., Sinabell, F., Schinko, T., Hanger-Kopp, S., Lappöhn, S., Mitter, H., et al. (2025). Integrating global comparability and national specificity in agricultural sustainability indicators through stakeholder-science co-evaluation in Austria. Community Science, 4, e2024CSJ000092.  https://doi.org/10.1029/2024CSJ000092

—Xin Zhang, Guest Associate Editor, Community Science

Text © 2025. 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.

Author(s): M. J. MacDonald, H. A. Scott, K. H. Ma, S. R. Klein, T. F. Baumann, R. W. Falcone, K. B. Fournier, C. M. Huntington, E. Johnsen, C. C. Kuranz, E. V. Marley, A. M. Saunders, M. P. Springstead, P. A. Sterne, M. R. Trantham, and T. Döppner

We present the use of x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XFS) to a sensitive temperature diagnostic in shocked foams at temperatures of 30–75 eV. Cobalt-doped foams were shock compressed using a planar drive at the OMEGA laser facility and photo-pumped with a Zn Heα x-ray source. Analysis of the resul…

[Phys. Rev. E 112, 025203] Published Tue Aug 05, 2025

A quick clay landslide in the Quebec region has destroyed most of a farm and a local road.

Over the next few days I will try to bring the blog up to date with some of the major landslides that have occurred whilst I have been on leave.

To start, on 15 July 2025 an interesting quick clay landslide occurred at the Rivière-Blanche Est range, in Saint-Thuribe, in Portneuf, Canada. Radio Canada has an excellent piece on this event (in French) that includes images and videos. They have also posted this video (again, in French) that includes some very good aerial imagery of the site:-

This includes the still below:-

The 15 July 2025 quick clay landslide at Portneuf in Canada. Still from a video posted to Youtube by Radio Canada.

The location of this landslide is, I think, [46.69818, -72.15138]. This is a Google Earth image of the site collected in July 2024:-

Google Earth image of the site of the 15 July 2025 quick clay landslide at Portneuf in Canada.

The news reports that I have read do not highlight an obvious trigger for this landslide, but it is interesting to note that the toe is located on the outside of the river bend, where erosion is high. There had been a period of rainfall prior to the landslide, but this does not seem to have been exceptional.

No-one was killed or injured in the landslide, but there is substantial loss of farmland and, in all probability, the farm buildings. The road has also been destroyed. Quick clay landslides are a known hazard in this part of Quebec, but interestingly this site was not classified as being potentially exposed to landslides.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to loyal reader Maurice, and others, for highlighting this event.

Return to The Landslide Blog homepage Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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