Fracturing during microearthquakes can cause groundwater pH drops. The change is temporary but can be equivalent to the difference between water and vinegar.
Research Spotlights
Research spotlights are plain-language summaries of recent articles published in AGU’s suite of 24 journals.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Evaluating Environmental Predictors of Western U.S. Wildfires
A new analysis highlights the importance of carefully selecting the environmental variables used to drive future changes in wildfire burn area in climate models.
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The Alkalinity Trap at the Bottom of the World
Tiny microorganisms in the Southern Ocean affect the way the rest of the world’s seas respond to carbon dioxide.
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Parsing Routes to Aquifer Recharge Along Mountain Fronts
Research from the Tucson Basin indicates that tracers can be used to distinguish surface and subsurface recharge, providing crucial data to support sustainable water management in arid environments.
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The Role of Midsized Phytoplankton in Earth’s Biological Pump
New research finds that nanoplankton may have a larger influence on carbon cycling than previously thought.
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Decoding the Age of the Ice at Mars’s North Pole
Exposure to sunlight creates telltale patterns in the polar ice cap that change over time, potentially providing insight into the climatic history of the Red Planet.
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Antarctic Lava Yields Clues to Earth’s Past Magnetic Field
A new analysis suggests that a widely accepted approximation of ancient magnetic field strength may be less accurate for the past 5 million years than previously thought.
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A Global Look at Surface Soil Organic Carbon
Soil organic carbon is an important element of ecosystem and climate health. Remote sensing can now give scientists a global look at this important piece of the carbon puzzle.
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Untangling Drivers of Ancient Hurricane Activity
Individual paleohurricane records extracted from the sediments of storm-battered islands do not clearly implicate climate as having shaped hurricane frequency over the past millennium.
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How Heavy Rain and Drought Influence California Crustal Strain
New research using continuous GPS data reveals how multiyear precipitation patterns can amplify the effects of hydrological loading on crustal deformation.