From health spas to film storage, salt mine caverns have been put to use in surprising ways—and they’re now poised to contribute to the generation and storage of clean energy.
Earth science
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Tectonic Modifications Shape Surface Environment and Landscape
Earth observation through ambient noise tomography explains links between tectonic modification, ancient geological records, and landscape evolution.
Posted inNews
Greenland Dust Delivers Nutrients to Ice-Melting Algae
Researchers scrutinized aerosols above and within the ice sheet, finding phosphorus and other mineral particles.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Boomerang Earthquakes Don’t Need Complex Faults
New simulations show earthquakes can reverse direction within seconds on simple, uniform faults, suggesting back-propagating subevents are more common than previously thought.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Drought Drove the Amazon’s 2023 Switch to a Carbon Source
The change was caused by thirsty vegetation taking up less carbon than normal, not by the year’s extended fire season, new research shows.
Posted inScience Updates
How to Accelerate Advances in Ecological Forecasting
Developing shared cyberinfrastructure can enhance predictions of ecological change and enable improved decisionmaking for resource management and public well-being.
Posted inNews
These South Pole Seismometers Will Detect Vibrations 1.5 Miles Under the Ice
The instruments will freeze into Antarctica’s ice sheet, where they will collect detailed, global-scale seismic data.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Why More Rain Doesn’t Mean More Erosion in Mountains
Erosion in mountain-basin systems driven by long-period climate variations is buffered by an erosion saturation effect, which weakens peak erosion and leads to reduced sediment flux.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Models Reveal Imprint of Tectonics and Climate on Alluvial Terraces
Mechanistic models are used to show how different drivers, including sediment and water supply, uplift and subsidence, and sea-level variations, affect the shapes and formation of extensive terraces.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Rocky Shore Erosion Shaped by Multi-Scale Tectonics
Statistical analysis of western United States shore evolution provides hints of long-term tectonic and seismic cycle effects on modulating coastal erosion.