https://phys.org/earth-news/ en-us Earth science research, climate change, and global warming. The latest news and updates from Phys.org An international team of researchers' analysis of minerals from the Pilbara region of Western Australia has given new insight into how ancient continents on Earth formed as far back as 3.5 billion years ago. Professor Tony Kemp, from The University of Western Australia's School of Earth and Oceans, was a co-author of the study published in Science Advances, which was led by researchers at Nanjing University in China. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-earth-continents-subduction-billion-years.html Earth Sciences Mon, 11 May 2026 11:00:07 EDT news697713343 Researchers have made the ground shake in southern Switzerland, triggering thousands of tiny earthquakes in a monitored setting, as they seek to discover seismicity insights that could reduce risks. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-deep-beneath-swiss-alps-trigger.html Earth Sciences Mon, 11 May 2026 04:26:25 EDT news697692347 On the evening of Aug. 9, 2025, passengers on the Hanse Explorer finished taking selfies and videos of the South Sawyer Glacier, and the ship headed back down the fjord. Twelve hours later, a landslide from the adjacent mountain unexpectedly collapsed into the fjord, initiating the second-highest tsunami in recorded history. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-alaska-nearrecord-landslide-tsunami-feet.html Earth Sciences Sun, 10 May 2026 15:00:03 EDT news697292948 How are cold air masses advancing in the United States connected to fertilizers carried by "flying rivers" from Africa that nourish the soils of the Brazilian Amazon? An article published in Geophysical Research Letters reveals an atmospheric connection between these distant regions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-heavy-atlantic-block-african-aerosols.html Earth Sciences Sat, 09 May 2026 15:00:01 EDT news697214979 Antarctica is being ravaged by a triple-whammy of climate chaos that has melted sea ice to record lows, a new study has revealed. For decades, the frozen wilderness at the bottom of the world defied global warming trends, with ice levels actually growing—until 2015 when it suddenly reversed. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-antarctica-sea-ice-collapse-driven.html Earth Sciences Fri, 08 May 2026 14:00:02 EDT news697453559 The European Union's climate monitor said Friday that ocean temperatures are edging toward record highs as conditions shift toward a potentially powerful El Niño weather pattern. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-oceans-el-nio-conditions.html Environment Fri, 08 May 2026 04:29:55 EDT news697433311 A new study warns that unless atmospheric carbon is reduced immediately, future summers will become even hotter and future wildfires even more destructive. A research team led by Professor Seung-Ki Min of the Department of Environmental Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) has found that merely achieving "carbon neutrality" by reducing emissions is not sufficient to significantly reduce extreme wildfire risk. The team argues that active "carbon reduction"—removing carbon dioxide already accumulated in the atmosphere—must be pursued in parallel. The study was recently published in Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-climate-driven-extreme-danger-carbon.html Environment Thu, 07 May 2026 16:50:04 EDT news697390261 Every dollar spent on forest fuel treatments saves about $3.75 in wildfire damages, according to a new study, led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, of nearly 300 fires in the western United States. The study estimated that the treatments, such as forest thinning and prescribed burns, prevented $2.8 billion in losses, reduced wildfire spread and fire severity. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dollar-spent-forest-fuel-treatments.html Earth Sciences Thu, 07 May 2026 14:00:10 EDT news697373041 A devastating earthquake in Myanmar is giving scientists new insight into how major quakes start, spread, and grow. The findings could improve risk estimates for dangerous faults around the world. A new study, published in the journal Science and led by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, finds that faults that appear structurally simple can produce surprisingly complex earthquakes. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-myanmar-devastating-quake-reshape-california.html Earth Sciences Thu, 07 May 2026 14:00:07 EDT news697362181 As the Arctic warms at an unprecedented rate, frozen soils that have remained locked in ice for most of the year are now thawing for longer periods. Yet new research led by an international team including scientists from Queen Mary University of London has found that these seasonal thaws only partially revive the hidden ecosystem beneath the surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-arctic-soil-awakens-microbes-reveals.html Earth Sciences Thu, 07 May 2026 13:40:01 EDT news697378142 Climate change makes the southern Amazon's rain increasingly sensitive to deforestation, a new study finds. Clearing large areas of forest can trigger severe and lasting reductions in rainfall regardless of climate, but as the Amazon warms and dries, that "tipping point" arrives at ever lower levels of deforestation. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-deforestation-lessens-amazon-rainfall-climate.html Earth Sciences Thu, 07 May 2026 09:00:03 EDT news697295761 Global sea levels may rise faster than previously expected, suggests a new study in Nature Communications. The reason is that warming oceans appear to be melting Antarctic ice shelves from below much more rapidly than expected. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rapidly-antarctic-ice-shelves-global.html Earth Sciences Thu, 07 May 2026 05:00:06 EDT news697304521 Meeting future nickel demand for stainless steel and clean energy technologies will require tough decisions with potential environmental trade-offs, a new study has found. Dr. Jayden Hyman from The University of Queensland's School of the Environment led an international analysis of known nickel deposits, current mining and demand forecasts. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-energy-nickel-straight-earth-richest.html Environment Wed, 06 May 2026 18:40:03 EDT news697296061 The biological productivity of the Southern Ocean in the summertime is substantially greater than many previous estimates have suggested, according to new airborne research by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR). The findings provide new insight into the global carbon cycle and point to a reason why Earth system models have struggled to accurately capture the role of the Southern Ocean: Models that underestimate the ocean's biological productivity also tend to underestimate the ocean's capacity to uptake carbon. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-aircraft-reveal-strong-southern-ocean.html Earth Sciences Wed, 06 May 2026 15:10:02 EDT news697297022 The vast, deserted South Pacific is considered unspoiled nature. But this ocean is not as unspoiled as we would like to think. A new study by a group of researchers from ETH Zurich and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel sheds light on this premise. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-remote-ocean-contaminated-zinc-human.html Earth Sciences Wed, 06 May 2026 14:20:04 EDT news697288441 A new study has unveiled a new method to cost-effectively and practically test for "forever chemicals" in water, potentially revolutionizing environmental PFAS monitoring. Led by Griffith University, the novel PFAS detection technique is a portable sensor designed to provide rapid, highly sensitive, and selective onsite testing, offering a practical alternative to laboratory-only analysis. The study, "Molecularly imprinted polyaniline-functionalized lateral-flow membrane for highly sensitive and selective per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances detection in water," has been published in Environmental Science & Technology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-portable-sensor-pfas-site-lab.html Environment Wed, 06 May 2026 13:20:02 EDT news697285621 Around two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest could shift into degraded forest or savanna-like ecosystems at 1.5–1.9°C of global warming if deforestation increases to roughly 22–28% of the Amazon, according to a new study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) published in Nature. Without additional deforestation, by contrast, such large-scale changes would likely occur only at much higher warming levels of around 3.7–4°C. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-deforestation-amazon-degradation-threshold-2c.html Earth Sciences Wed, 06 May 2026 11:00:13 EDT news697196941 Near-constant activity continues on the volcano in Russia. Shivelyuch (also called Shiveluch), the most northerly active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. On a near-daily basis, satellites detect new signs of activity within its horseshoe-shaped caldera, including thermal anomalies, hot avalanches and debris flows, and ash deposits that darken the surrounding landscape. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-landsat-captures-russia-restless-shiveluch.html Earth Sciences Wed, 06 May 2026 10:20:01 EDT news697279927 In 2023 and 2024, Earth's average global surface temperature spiked nearly 0.3 degrees Celsius above what was already expected from climate change. Each year was declared the hottest on record and coincided with deadly wildfires, heat waves and historic numbers of climate-related disasters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-indian-nio-drove.html Earth Sciences Wed, 06 May 2026 05:00:01 EDT news697188961 In a new paper, an international team led by scientists from Charles University, Czechia, has brought evidence linking widespread release of methane (CH₄)—a strong greenhouse gas—from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) to a warmer period 9–4 thousand years ago. CH₄ has been detected at retreating glacier margins worldwide, raising concerns about potential climate feedbacks associated with their widespread retreat, but this is the first time that a study has systematically investigated the whole margin of an entire ice sheet. The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-subglacial-ch-export-greenland-ice.html Earth Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 18:50:01 EDT news697217762 About 600 million years ago, the continents wandered Earth, yet to settle into their current positions. Their locations during the Ediacaran (as this time is called) have been tough for scientists to pin down. Earth's magnetic field appears to have behaved in erratic ways, and applying standard techniques to calculate the continents' positions based on records of the magnetic field yields implausible results. In particular, scientists debate the location of an ancient continent called Baltica, which is now part of Europe. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-baltica-million-years-paleomagnetic.html Earth Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 18:20:06 EDT news697203601 Florida State University researchers have discovered how to accurately predict winter weather forecasts months in advance, affording sectors such as agriculture, water management, energy use and public health a longer lead time to prepare for inclement conditions. The research, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, shows a method for forecasting how the stratospheric polar vortex, or SPV, will behave from winter through summer, before winter even starts. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-polar-vortex-gain-months-climate.html Earth Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 17:20:03 EDT news697202821 As much as 40 million metric tons of microplastics are released into the environment globally every year. These tiny pieces of plastic come from larger plastic items that break down or are shed by products such as clothing, paints, and cosmetics. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-microplastics-earthworms-accumulating-body-tissues.html Environment Tue, 05 May 2026 17:00:02 EDT news697202341 Earth's ice is melting. As icebergs break away from glaciers and melt away, the fresh meltwater mixes into its saltwater surroundings. However, icebergs do not exist in isolation. In Greenland, for example, jammed collections of icebergs and sea ice make up what are known as mélanges. Determining how these pieces of ice are affected by the meltwater of their neighbors is key to understanding—and eventually reducing—global ice loss. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-differently-iceberg-icy.html Earth Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 11:00:06 EDT news697104362 Weather forecasting is another aspect of modern life that artificial intelligence is transforming. Models like GraphCast, Pangu-Weather, and Fuxi are already better than traditional physics-based climate models at predicting some daily weather conditions. However, they are far from perfect. A new study published in the journal Science Advances reports that AI often fails to predict record-breaking extreme weather events. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-physics-based-weather-accurate-ai.html Environment Tue, 05 May 2026 08:20:05 EDT news697122863 An international team led by researchers from the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) has identified a key mechanism that has shaped Earth's continents over billions of years. This mechanism is the deep re-lamination of subducted continental crust, a process that explains the origin of certain magmas and offers a new perspective on continental evolution from the Archean (between 3.8 and 2.5 billion years ago) to recent times. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-relamination-mechanism-continents-billions-years.html Earth Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 05:00:03 EDT news697104061 A new wildfire risk assessment tool that takes social vulnerability into account indicates that more than 400 communities in the Pacific Northwest are at greater risk than previously thought. However, researchers at Oregon State University and The Nature Conservancy say their assessment tool could inform fair distribution of risk reduction resources. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-reveals-wildfire-communities-northwest.html Environment Mon, 04 May 2026 17:40:02 EDT news697123502 PFAS, often called "forever chemicals," are notoriously difficult to remove from the environment. Their extreme chemical stability means they can persist in water and the human body for decades, creating a major global pollution challenge. Now, researchers have made an important discovery that could change how we tackle the problem. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-insight-chemicals.html Environment Mon, 04 May 2026 17:20:04 EDT news697125541 Eucalyptus bark, usually stripped from logs and treated as waste, could be repurposed to help clean polluted water, filter dirty air and capture carbon dioxide, according to new research from RMIT University. Researchers at RMIT have shown the bark can be converted into a highly porous form of carbon that traps pollutants as water or air flows through it. The findings point to a practical way of turning a common forestry by-product into a useful environmental material using a relatively simple processing method. The work is published in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-eucalyptus-bark-cleaner-air.html Environment Mon, 04 May 2026 15:20:08 EDT news697118642 Not all earthquake faults behave the same. Some stick and snap, causing earthquakes. Others move slowly over time. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-quiet-alaska-fault-fluids-scientists.html Earth Sciences Mon, 04 May 2026 15:00:02 EDT news697118281