New application of clumped-isotope thermometry to 700-Myr rocks documents large climate swings related to Snowball Earth glaciation and offers better understanding of an earlier Earth system.
geochemistry
Posted inEditors' Highlights
When Chemistry Lends a Hand to Dynamics
Chemical signature and chemical transport analyses help understand the dynamics of the Asian Summer Monsoon.
Posted inNews
Fragrances in an Ice Core Tell a Story of Human Activity
An ice core from Europe’s highest peak contains scent-imparting molecules whose trends mirror the Soviet Union’s economic ups and downs.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Understanding Alkalinity to Quantify Ocean Buffering
Ocean alkalinity plays a major role in ocean’s carbon uptake, in buffering, and in calcium carbonate production and dissolution, and it impacts and is affected by various biogeochemical processes.
Posted inNews
Aquatic Plants May Help Chesapeake Bay Resist Ocean Acidification
In freshwater vegetation flats upstream of the Chesapeake, chemical reactions create molecules that raise pH levels in the bay.
Posted inNews
Internal Compass Guides Salmon’s Incredible Journey
New study finds evidence that magnetite particles play a role in fish navigation.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Meteoric 10Be Reveals Lithological Control on Erosion Rates
New meteoric 10Be data quantify fast erosion of slates in the Zhuoshui River catchment in Taiwan and demonstrate the influence of lithology on landscape steepness.
Posted inNews
Geology and Chemistry Drive Animal Migration in the Serengeti
Fieldwork in Tanzania suggests that soil chemistry—influenced by local volcanism and tectonic activity—might help dictate the record-setting migration of over a million wildebeests.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Explaining Cold and Fresh Southern Polar Ocean Surface Waters
Global climate models do not reproduce observed trends of the Southern polar ocean surface, but an increase in wind-transported sea ice that melts and inhibits mixing may account for the disparity.
Posted inFeatures
Why Sunlight Matters for Marine Oil Spills
A decade of research since the Deepwater Horizon disaster has revealed how sunlight—its importance long understated in oil spill science—substantially alters petroleum floating at the sea surface.