Volume 17 Issue 1, January 2024

Human exploration of the Solar System began on the Moon during the space race of the mid-twentieth century. To facilitate documentation and study of the human influence on the Moon, we argue it is time to designate a ‘Lunar Anthropocene’.

Megathrust earthquakes along subduction zones present significant hazards. Evidence from the South Chile subduction zone suggests that the structure and fluid distribution of the megathrust interface governs the size and timing of large earthquakes.

Magnetite is found throughout the Earth system and has many uses, explains Barbara Maher. It is a tracer of plate tectonic movements, a sub-cellular navigation aid and an economic resource, but also a pollutant.

An integrated model of mineral weathering and carbon cycling reveals the substantial influence that clay minerals originating from the weathering of magnesium-rich rocks have on Earth’s climate. This research indicates that this clay-forming process contributed to each Palaeozoic glaciation.

Early Mars did not experience a single wet-to-dry transition, but seven such shifts in its palaeoclimatic history, as argued based on the planet’s stratigraphy, mineralogy and geomorphology.

Summer ozone in urban Beijing increased until 2014 and then decreased, according to 15 years of measurements in August from 2006 to 2020.

Soil carbon substrates affect how methane and CO₂ emissions from global wetlands change in response to climate warming, according to global analyses of temperature sensitivity of wetland carbon emissions.

Methane dissociated from the base of the hydrate stability zone off Mauritania during warm interglacials travelled up to 40 km landward beyond where methane hydrates are typically found before venting out, according to 3D seismic imagery.

Soil moisture is the primary driver of variability in dryland carbon and water cycling, according to a synthesis of eddy covariance, remote sensing and land surface model data from the western United States.

Plant diversity stabilizes grassland soil temperature by boosting soil organic carbon and increasing plant leaf area, according to an 18-year plant diversity experiment.

Hydrothermal venting makes limited contribution to the inventory of oceanic mercury compared with anthropogenic inputs, according to measurements at mid-ocean ridges.

The atmosphere has dried across most regions of Europe in recent decades, a trend that can be attributed primarily to human impacts, according to tree ring records spanning 400 years and Earth system model simulations.

Wind tunnel experiments and numerical modelling reveal the existence of two distinct ripples on Earth: centimetre-scale impact ripples and decimetre-scale hydrodynamic ripples, akin to those in water and on Mars.

Spatially distinct ice-sheet growth on the Antarctic Peninsula through the Pleistocene was the result of dynamic topography and pre-glacial landscape evolution, not climate, according to a palaeotopographic reconstruction and ice-sheet modelling.

Geological structure and pore fluid pressure in the subduction zone forearc govern the size and recurrence of megathrust earthquakes in Chile, according to quasi-dynamic simulations of the seismic cycle.

Weathering of mafic and ultramafic lithologies in ophiolites can enhance the preservation of organic carbon through the formation of smectite clays and modulate Earth’s climate, according to a coupled mineral weathering and carbon box model.

Mobilization of in-use rare-earth element stocks in regions of high consumption can ease dependence on regions of rare-earth extraction, according to dynamic integrated modelling combining material flow and scenario analysis.