Geochemistry articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The geological histories of Archaean regions indicate that stabilization of the Earth’s continents and the formation of cratons was driven by continental emergence and subaerial weathering.

    • Jesse R. Reimink
    •  & Andrew J. Smye

  • Article |

    Burial-dating methods using cosmogenic nuclides indicate that the oldest stone tools at Korolevo archaeological site in western Ukraine date to around 1.4 million years ago, providing evidence of early human dispersal into Europe from the east.

    • R. Garba
    • , V. Usyk
    •  & J. D. Jansen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using multiply diffracted P waves and first-principles computations of the thermoelastic properties of liquid iron-rich alloys, we show that the core of Mars is smaller and denser than previously thought.

    • A. Khan
    • , D. Huang
    •  & M. Murakami

  • Article |

    Olivines from Baffin Island lavas have the highest magmatic 3He/4He ratio measured so far in terrestrial igneous rocks, indicating that the helium in these lavas might derive from Earth’s core.

    • F. Horton
    • , P. D. Asimow
    •  & X. M. Boyes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ages and geochemical compositions of inclusions of sublithospheric diamonds indicate additions to the mantle keel of Gondwana by the underplating of buoyant subducted material, originating from 300–700-km depth, which may have contributed to supercontinent stability during long-distance migration.

    • Suzette Timmerman
    • , Thomas Stachel
    •  & D. Graham Pearson

  • Article |

    Observations by the Curiosity rover at Gale Crater on Mars indicate that high-frequency wet–dry cycling occurred on the early Martian surface, indicating a possible seasonal climate conducive to prebiotic evolution on early Mars.

    • W. Rapin
    • , G. Dromart
    •  & N. L. Lanza

  • Article |

    New experiments show that most carbonates in carbonate-rich crustal rocks survive devolatilization and hydrous melting in cold and warm subduction zones, demonstrating their role in driving the deep carbon and chlorine cycles since the Mesoproterozoic.

    • Chunfei Chen
    • , Michael W. Förster
    •  & Svyatoslav S. Shcheka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Catalysis of simple organic carbon molecules into complex macromolecules by Fe and Mn may play a fundamental role in organic carbon preservation, to a degree that could substantially affect the Earth’s carbon and oxygen cycles.

    • Oliver W. Moore
    • , Lisa Curti
    •  & Caroline L. Peacock

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Titanium isotope measurements for chondrites, ancient terrestrial mantle-derived lavas and modern ocean island basalts imply the preservation of a primordial lower-mantle reservoir for most of Earth’s geologic history.

    • Zhengbin Deng
    • , Martin Schiller
    •  & Martin Bizzarro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most kimberlites erupting in the past billion years on Earth did so about 30 million years after continental breakup, with dynamical and analytical models suggesting a control from rifting-related mantle delamination.

    • Thomas M. Gernon
    • , Stephen M. Jones
    •  & Anne Glerum

  • Research Briefing |

    Samples from the surface of Jezero Crater on Mars have been analysed by the SHERLOC instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover. Signatures from these samples are consistent with the presence of organic molecules and, together with earlier measurements, could constitute the first in situ detection of organic molecules on another planet.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Raman and fluorescence spectra, consistent with several species of aromatic organic molecules, are reported in the Crater Floor sequences of Jezero crater, Mars, suggesting multiple mechanisms of organic synthesis, transport, or preservation.

    • Sunanda Sharma
    • , Ryan D. Roppel
    •  & Anastasia Yanchilina

  • News & Views |

    Evidence of phosphates in the subsurface ocean of Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, confirms that the water is alkaline. The finding provides clues about the geochemistry and origin of this moon and its ability to support life.

    • Mikhail Yu. Zolotov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nucleosynthetic composition of silicon in meteorites indicates that material akin to early-formed differentiated asteroids must represent a major constituent of terrestrial planets such as Earth and Mars.

    • Isaac J. Onyett
    • , Martin Schiller
    •  & Martin Bizzarro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer mass spectra of ice grains emitted by Enceladus show the presence of sodium phosphates, suggesting that phosphorus is readily available in Enceladus’s ocean in the form of orthophosphates.

    • Frank Postberg
    • , Yasuhito Sekine
    •  & Shuya Tan

  • Article |

    Reconstruction of oceanic phosphorus concentrations during a large negative carbon-isotope excursion co-occurring with global oceanic oxygenation and evolution of some of Earth’s earliest animals suggests that decoupled phosphorus and ocean anoxia cycles during the Ediacaran may have prolonged the rise of atmospheric oxygen.

    • Matthew S. Dodd
    • , Wei Shi
    •  & Timothy W. Lyons

  • Article |

    Ice-core data show that extreme iceberg discharge events in the North Atlantic had no detectable impact on Greenland temperatures but are synchronous with abrupt acceleration of Antarctic warming.

    • Kaden C. Martin
    • , Christo Buizert
    •  & Todd A. Sowers

  • Article |

    New thermodynamic and geochemical modelling of melting shows that the observed composition of the cratonic mantle can be reproduced by deep and very hot melting, obviating the need for shallow melting and lithospheric stacking.

    • Carl Walsh
    • , Balz S. Kamber
    •  & Emma L. Tomlinson

  • Research Briefing |

    After around 780 years without volcanic activity, Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula sprang to life in 2021, when magma breached the surface at the Fagradalsfjall volcano. Observed changes in the lava composition have provided an unprecedented record of the supply and mixing mechanics of deep magma at the base of the crust.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Primitive lavas of the Fagradalsfjall eruption present a window into the deep roots of a magmatic system previously inaccessible to near-real-time investigation, showing that eruptible batches of basaltic magma mix on a timescale of weeks.

    • Sæmundur A. Halldórsson
    • , Edward W. Marshall
    •  & Andri Stefánsson

  • Article |

    Oxygen isotope compositions of dated magmatic zircon show that the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, Earth’s best-preserved Archaean continental remnant, was built in three stages initiated by a giant meteorite impact.

    • Tim E. Johnson
    • , Christopher L. Kirkland
    •  & Michael I. H. Hartnady

  • Review Article |

    Oceanic plate carbon reservoirs are reconstructed and the fate of subducted carbon is tracked using thermodynamic modelling, challenging previous views and providing boundary conditions for future carbon cycle models.

    • R. Dietmar Müller
    • , Ben Mather
    •  & Sabin Zahirovic

  • Article |

    Reconstruction of one billion years of mantle flow shows that mobile basal mantle structures are just as consistent with the Earth’s volcanic history as are fixed mantle structures.

    • Nicolas Flament
    • , Ömer F. Bodur
    •  & Andrew S. Merdith

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Geochemical analyses correlating the stratum that overlies the sediments containing the Omo fossils with material from a volcanic eruption suggest that these fossils (the oldest known modern human fossils in eastern Africa) are over 200,000 years old.

    • Céline M. Vidal
    • , Christine S. Lane
    •  & Clive Oppenheimer

  • News & Views |

    A mission to unexplored lunar territory has returned the youngest volcanic samples collected so far. The rocks highlight the need to make revisions to models of the thermal evolution of the Moon.

    • Richard W. Carlson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water abundance and hydrogen isotope compositions of two-billion-year-old basalt samples returned from the Moon by the Chang’e-5 mission suggest that the samples came from a relatively dry mantle source.

    • Sen Hu
    • , Huicun He
    •  & Ziyuan Ouyang

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