Samples collected from asteroid Ryugu contain the four genetic “letters” of DNA, reinforcing the hypothesis that the chemical origins of life were present when the solar system began.
biogeochemistry
Posted inScience Updates
A New Twist on Robotic Float Data Reveals Critical Ocean Chemistry
A novel application of a statistical method to existing data from the global network of BGC-Argo floats unveiled chemical measurements critical to tracking nitrogen cycling in oxygen minimum zones.
Posted inNews
A Mid-Ocean Ridge in the Norwegian Sea Pumps Out Hydrogen
Vent fluids collected from the Knipovich Ridge contain unexpectedly high concentrations of hydrogen, potentially produced by the degradation of organic matter.
Posted inNews
Coral Diversity Drops as Ocean Acidifies
As seawater becomes steadily more acidic, complex branching corals die off and are replaced with hard boulder corals and algae.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Hydrothermal Circulation and Its Impact on the Earth System
From a gathering of scientists at a uniquely well-preserved section of ancient oceanic crust came a monograph investigating the latest in hydrothermal fluxes and seawater chemistry.
Posted inNews
Glacier Runoff Becomes Less Nutritious as Glaciers Retreat
Sediment from retreating, land-terminating glaciers contains proportionally fewer micronutrients such as iron and manganese, reducing the glaciers’ value to microorganisms at the base of the food web.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Algae Helped Some Life Outlast Extinction
Cooler waters near Norway’s north provided a refuge for phytoplankton during the Great Dying, a new study suggests.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Tectonics and Climate Are Shaping an Alaskan Ecosystem
Biogeochemical research reveals the web of forces acting on a high-latitude microbe community in the Copper River Delta.
Posted inNews
Ice Diatoms Glide at Record-Low Temperatures
New observations reveal how microscopic organisms move through polar ice and illustrate how they may have evolved to thrive in extreme environments.
Posted inScience Updates
Tracing Iron’s Invisible Transformations Just Beneath Our Feet
A new method that adds synthetic iron minerals to soils sheds light on hard-to-observe soil and sediment processes and may have a host of other applications in the Earth sciences and beyond.