Aircraft measurements confirm that methane emissions from northern European wetlands exhibit a uniform regional carbon isotopic signature, despite considerable ground-level heterogeneity.

Terri Cook
Terri Cook is an award-winning freelance writer whose career has focused on exploring and explaining the 4.5-billion-year-history of the remarkable planet we live on. Cook, who has an M.S. degree in Earth science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, writes about geology, ecology, and the environment—as well as wine, tea, hiking, and biking—for a diverse group of publications, including Eos, Scientific American, NOVA Next, Science News, and EARTH magazine, as well as Avalon Travel and numerous other travel-related publications. Her reporting has taken her to 25 states and 20 countries scattered across 5 continents, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the sandy Australian Outback to the mist-shrouded summit of Bali’s Mount Batur. As the coauthor of three popular guidebooks, including Hiking the Grand Canyon’s Geology and Geology Underfoot Along Colorado’s Front Range, Cook gives frequent presentations about geology and science communication. She is the recipient of a 2016 European Geosciences Union Science Journalism Fellowship and is based in beautiful Boulder, Colo.
What Causes Rock Avalanches?
Experimental studies of frictional weakening beneath a deadly rock avalanche in China help to clarify the mechanisms that cause these devastating natural disasters.
An Improved Model of How Magma Moves Through the Crust
Researchers have developed a new numerical model that can, for the first time, solve for both the speed and the path of a propagating dike.
A Mountain Range's History Preserved in Ocean Sediments
Fission track dating core samples from the Gulf of Alaska demonstrates that offshore sediments can be used to reconstruct a mountain range's changing exhumation patterns.
Stream Network Geometry Correlates with Climate
A "big data" analysis of nearly 1 million river junctions in the contiguous United States shows that branching angles in dendritic drainages vary systematically between humid and arid regions.
Why Do Great Earthquakes Follow Each Other at Subduction Zones?
A decade of continuous GPS measurements in South America indicates that enhanced strain accumulation following a great earthquake can initiate failure along adjacent fault segments.
Explaining Why Some Paleomagnetic Results Fail
Reordering of mineral crystal lattice structures during laboratory heating may explain the frequent need to reject results of experiments that estimate the intensity of Earth's past magnetic fields.
What Caused the Fatal 2014 Eruption of Japan's Mount Ontake?
Analysis of the change in the stratovolcano's tilt just prior to the explosion suggests that the cracking of a previously intact fluid barrier caused the country's deadliest eruption since 1926.
On the Origin of Low-Angle Detachment Faults
Data from California's Whipple Mountains suggest this complex was formed by a succession of steep normal faults, challenging the paradigm that detachments are different types of faults.
Alteration Along the Alpine Fault Helps Build Seismic Strain
Detailed analysis of cores drilled through New Zealand's most dangerous on-land fault indicates that its permeability and strength are altered by mineral precipitation between seismic events.