earth-science

IntroductionUnder the double pressure of climate change and rapid urbanization, the degradation of the urban thermal environment has become a major obstacle to regional sustainable development. As a manufacturing-leading metropolis, Dongguan has undergone a drastic land use transformation and ecological space compression since 2000, potentially undermining its urban cooling system.MethodsIn this …

Nature Geoscience, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41561-026-01963-w Post-collisional calc-alkaline magmatism has originated from the mixing and hybridization of relaminated continental crust and mantle peridotite since the Archaean, according to numerical simulations of continental subduction and melting experiments.

Nature Geoscience, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41561-026-01976-5 Methane in modern subglacial meltwater coming from the western Greenland Ice Sheet largely dates back to the period following the Holocene Thermal Maximum, when a smaller ice sheet allowed organic matter accumulation and biological methane production after ice readvance.

Between 2.4 and 0.6 Gy ago, our planet underwent several episodes of global glaciations, including the “Snowball Earth” case that ended 635 My ago. Causes of this last Snowball event presumably included a decreased greenhouse gas concentration and high continental albedo, both associated with the passage of the super-continent Rodinia at equatorial latitudes. When large continental masses are in …

The Egersund dike system in Norway formed more than 600 million years ago, during the Ediacaran period. In new work, researchers drilled rock samples from the dike seen here to learn more about the history of Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: Yi Xue, CC BY 3.0

Snow is a critical component of the Andean hydrological system, supporting water supply for drinking, irrigation, hydropower, and industry. Persistent cloud cover and limited in situ observations have hindered long-term assessments of snow dynamics across the Andes, the world’s longest mountain range. Here, we present a continent-scale analysis of snow persistence (SP) and snowline elevation from…

Collapsing ice in the Khumbu Icefall buried two climbers on May 5, as more than 100 people ascended the glacier to being acclimatization roundson the mountain The post Collapsing Ice on Mount Everest Injured Two Climbers and Prompted a Dramatic Rescue appeared first on Outside Online .

A pair of satellite photos reveals the drastic transformation of Canada's Lake Rouge, which was fully drained after the sudden collapse of one of its banks. A multitude of factors led to the demise of the shocked-emoji-like lake, experts say.

Scientists spent three years figuring out why this volcano did the opposite of everything they predicted. The answer changes how we read the sky.

Sitting on the ocean floor, anchored to the continental slope of North America, a cluster of instruments has been recording something that nobody particularly wanted to see. Pressure sensors and current meters, deployed at depths where no light reaches, have logged the slow behavior of water moving in the dark for two decades. The data they’ve accumulated now points, with unusual consistency, to …

Scientific Reports, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41598-026-51110-z Advanced seismic attributes applied on resolution-enhanced 2D seismic data for BSR mapping offshore Makran, Pakistan

From a geothermal hotspot to the one-time “Lighthouse of the Pacific,” the heat is on beneath the volcanic landscape of western El Salvador.

The new ELI today is an extension of one we published many years ago, 'See how they run; investigate why some lavas flow further and more quickly than others'. This activity involves an investigation into some of the factors which can affect the viscosity of lavas. The two activities included involve varying the temperature and composition of the 'lava' using treacle and honey. Other related acti…

Kaplan studies the ways ice sheets, mountain glaciers, climates and landscapes changed in the past.

High winds have hit the South Aegean and heavy rain has fallen in Turkey, but Central Europe has felt summer heat Greece and Turkey have found themselves in the grip of a late-season cold spell this weekend. Conditions will persist over the next few days as an area of low pressure situated over Turkey is pulling in colder, moisture-laden air from the north-east via the Black Sea; this meteorologi…

Over time, rivers naturally curve and meander. As water accelerates around a river bend’s curve, it creates a secondary flow that carves sediment away from the outer bank and deposits it on the inner one. That, in turn, makes the river bend sharper until it eventually cuts part of the river off into an oxbow […]

The deep sea contains a wealth of mineral resources including cobalt, nickel and copper, widely used metals that are particularly … read more

Nature Communications, Published online: 04 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72672-6 This study reconstructs Earth’s temperature over the past 539 million years by integrating rock chemistry and climate models, showing that global temperatures remained within ~10–30 °C, challenging ideas of anomalously high early Paleozoic climates.

Drifting snow driven by strong winds promotes the formation of wind-deposited landforms (sharp, irregular ridges) increasing the surface roughness. Credit: Zheng et al. [2026] , Figure 11b

On May 4, 1976, a spacecraft resembling a disco ball entered orbit almost 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) above Earth. This shiny, two‑foot‑wide (60‑centimeter) sphere called the Laser Geodynamics Satellite, or LAGEOS, is covered with 426 retroreflectors—small mirrored prisms designed to bounce laser light directly back to where it came from. Beneath its aluminum exterior sits […]