A new study of seafloor sediments suggests reactions in the atmosphere convert dust-borne iron into forms more readily taken up by phytoplankton.
iron
Posted inNews
Iron-Rich Volcanoes Hold Hidden Rare Earth Element Reserves
Experiments show how concentrations of rare earth elements, critical to the green energy transition, might be hiding in plain sight in iron-rich deposits around the world.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Microbes Likely Form Magnetite in the South China Sea
Researchers sampled sediment cores and found that where magnetite was abundant, methane-producing bacteria were as well.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Greenland Could Have Records of 3.7-billion-year-old Geomagnetic Fields
Scientists argue that paleomagnetic field tests preserve a geomagnetic field record acquired as chemical remnant magnetization in banded iron formations in southwest Greenland.
Posted inScience Updates
The Open Ocean, Aerosols, and Every Other Breath You Take
Phytoplankton and other marine plants produce half of Earth’s atmospheric oxygen and have big effects on food webs and climate. To do so, they rely on nutrients from the sky that are hard to quantify.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Iron Snow Ebb and Flow May Cause Magnetic Fields to Come and Go
Lab experiments find that iron crystals in planetary cores may form in bursts, causing periodic dynamos.
Posted inENGAGE, News
Microbe Goo Could Help Guide the Search for Life on Mars
Sticky substances secreted by microbes may help create landforms on Earth. And new research shows that these substances are more preserved in iron-rich sediment. Mars is decidedly iron-rich (it’s the Red Planet, after all), so the new study adds to evidence that microbe goo could help researchers explain landform creation there. “I think this is […]
Posted inENGAGE, News
Penguin Poop May Flush Iron into the Southern Ocean
Nutrients from the seabirds’ guano fuels the growth of carbon-storing phytoplankton, but penguin populations have plunged in the past 4 decades.
Posted inNews
Hydrogen May Push Some Exoplanets off a Cliff
High-pressure reactions of hydrogen and iron could explain gaps in the distribution of exoplanets.