https://phys.org/earth-news/ en-us Earth science research, climate change, and global warming. The latest news and updates from Phys.org After a typhoon surprised a research cruise, scientists took advantage of the unique sampling opportunity to reveal rapid changes in bacterioplankton communities and biogeochemical cycling. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-typhoons-bacteria-biochemistry.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:40:04 EDT news703155958 Japan is well known for its large earthquakes, but not all regions show the same patterns of earthquake activity. One way to understand which places tend to experience large or small earthquakes is the b-value, a key statistical measure long used by researchers to understand seismicity and assess earthquake occurrence patterns. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mainshocks-earthquake-size-patterns.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:40:04 EDT news703169633 Melting and breaking icebergs in the far-off northeastern Pacific Ocean can weaken a massive current system in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a University of California, Davis study published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-icebergs-weaken-massive-ocean-current.html Environment Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:20:01 EDT news703166997 When you think of a South American rainforest, you probably don't imagine biting winds, heavy frosts and freezing temperatures. But in the mountains of southern Brazil, that's exactly what you can find. On this highland plateau, far from Amazonia in the country's coldest region, grows one of the world's most intriguing ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-brazil-highland-forest-climate-indigenous.html Environment Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:40:20 EDT news703159501 The lava that buried entire neighborhoods during the 2018 Kīlauea eruption was composed of nearly 80% gas bubbles near its source. A recent study shows that those bubbles played a central role in controlling how fast and far the lava traveled and that lava flow models need to account for bubbles to more accurately forecast where lava will stop. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-reveals-gas-klauea-lava.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:20:03 EDT news703155321 A new study finds a widely used technique for assessing the health of freshwater streams is not effective at detecting a range of water quality problems, including those related to acidity, oxygen levels and the presence of pathogens. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-widely-method-stream-health-doesnt.html Environment Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:29:57 EDT news703160828 Earth scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have published an international study showing that major earthquakes in Southeast Asia can affect regional relative sea-level projections. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-major-earthquakes-affect-southeast-asia.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:40:03 EDT news703154469 As scientists around the world closely monitor the possible development of a powerful "Super El Niño," a new study suggests that another tropical ocean deserves equal attention. Researchers have found that temperature changes in the Indian Ocean can significantly influence winter weather thousands of kilometers away in the Eastern Mediterranean, offering new opportunities to predict damaging dry spells months before they occur. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-super-el-nio-global-attention.html Environment Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:40:03 EDT news703149594 Earth has a natural thermostat that has kept the planet habitable for more than 100 million years. Scientists have struggled to fully explain how it works, but new research identifies a missing link between phosphate availability and sea level. Temperature influenced the size of polar ice sheets and sea level. Sea level changes drove the availability of this nutrient and controlled how much carbon was buried in the ocean, which in turn regulated how much carbon dioxide stayed in the atmosphere and how warm or cool the planet ran. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-links-sea-earth-carbon-thermostat.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:40:06 EDT news703149100 Pyrite, an iron sulfide ore, is often known as fool's gold because its shiny metallic luster and pale brass-yellow color can easily fool the untrained eye into mistaking it for real gold. This time, however, 360 kilometers (220 miles) south of Tokyo, scientists have uncovered invisible gold within pyrite structures found deep beneath the ocean at the Higashi-Aogashima Knoll Caldera hydrothermal field. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-invisible-gold-deep-sea.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Jul 2026 07:46:43 EDT news703147572 New research by the University of Oxford and the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University has revealed that most biodiversity commitments made by large, influential companies are not precise enough to enable society to evaluate whether they are making progress toward meeting their commitments. The results have been published in One Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-biodiversity-influential-companies-accountability.html Environment Mon, 13 Jul 2026 05:50:30 EDT news703140606 Efforts to plant more trees in cities could be boosted thanks to a new tool for planners and community groups, published by an international group of researchers. Residents, policymakers and tree officers in Cardiff, Milton Keynes, Edinburgh, York and Camden worked with academics to develop new advice to grow trees in a way that benefits both people and nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-trees-hotter-cities-approach-bolster.html Earth Sciences Sun, 12 Jul 2026 19:00:01 EDT news702890315 To better assess the danger posed by volcanoes, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a new measurement system. Laser beams are sent through escaping gas clouds and reflected by drones. An algorithm uses the reflected signals to generate a map showing gas concentrations, including elevated carbon dioxide levels. The ratio of carbon dioxide to sulfur dioxide is an important indicator of impending eruptions. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-autonomous-drones-volcanic-gas-clouds.html Earth Sciences Sun, 12 Jul 2026 14:00:02 EDT news702896100 Hillslopes in Arctic regions with frozen soils can host a suite of geometric patterns, from circles and stripes to polygonal patterned ground. They can also have solifluction patterns, or markings left behind when partially thawed permafrost slips and flows down a slope. Solifluction patterns look like pairings of flat, terraced soil—like a big staircase—and rounded lobes of soil at the terrace's base. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-patterned-frozen-soils-gravity-funky.html Earth Sciences Sun, 12 Jul 2026 12:00:01 EDT news702822077 Researchers have traced the journey of a plastic bottle cap recovered near the waters of southern Japan by combining data from the label, chemical clues in tiny shells and ocean current simulations. They found 307 organisms, including a polychaete worm not found in Japanese waters before. The findings, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, show that when species that significantly shape their environments (ecosystem engineers) colonize plastic debris, entire micro-communities can be transported over extended periods, with implications for invasive species risk and marine biodiversity conservation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-voyage-plastic-bottle-cap-hitchhiking.html Environment Sat, 11 Jul 2026 10:00:01 EDT news702737714 Geoscientists at the University of Glasgow have helped reveal new evidence about the formation of one of the highest mountainous areas on Earth—the Tibetan Plateau. A study by an international team of Chinese and U.K. geoscientists shows that the unique topography at the summit of the plateau is shaped by processes going on deep in Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-geoscientists-reveal-earth-roof-world.html Earth Sciences Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:40:01 EDT news702896179 A team at the Applied Physics Lab is working to understand the complex science behind predicting invisible threats that can quickly cripple electric grid infrastructure on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-solar-storms-million-miles-earth.html Earth Sciences Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:20:05 EDT news702896122 A new international study involving scientists from the University of Aberdeen has revealed a critical blind spot in global climate risk assessments—the growing danger posed by small alpine lakes formed by glacier retreat and permafrost thaw. Published in Nature Sustainability, the research highlights how these lakes, which are often too small to appear in conventional hazard databases, can still unleash sudden and destructive floods with little warning. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tiny-mountain-lakes-pose-big.html Earth Sciences Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:40:01 EDT news702890265 When people think about geological faults, they usually think about earthquakes. Yet faults do not move only during earthquakes. Sometimes they slip silently, without generating noticeable shaking, releasing stress over hours or days through slow fault movements that remain largely hidden from conventional monitoring systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-reveals-hidden-san-andreas.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:00:05 EDT news702833771 The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest carbon reservoirs on Earth. It is also the world's largest source of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These carbon-based gases are naturally released by vegetation. They protect trees against various sources of stress, e.g., by mitigating oxidative stress and deterring herbivores. Once in the atmosphere, VOCs react rapidly with other gases. This influences the formation of airborne particles and clouds, which contributes to shaping the regional climate and rainfall patterns. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-stress-amazon-trees-climate-atmosphere.html Environment Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:00:03 EDT news702822133 Earth's temperature has been much cooler in the past than previously thought, meaning it could be moving toward the warmest it's ever been. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ancient-reveal-earth-periods-cooler.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:40:03 EDT news702822175 Following a four-year study, scientists at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography released a new report to determine whether an early warning system could detect a landslide before it happens. The "California Coastal Landslide Early Warning Research" report found that a network of in-ground sensors can provide a reliable warning of impending, dangerous landslides with hours to days' notice, but that more work is needed to formalize the findings into an actionable warning system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sensors-california-cliff-collapses-hours.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:00:20 EDT news702806259 A new study published in Quaternary Science Reviews dates the dramatic collapse of one of the largest glaciers ever documented in the Himalayas. The findings overturn a long-held assumption about what sustains wet-climate (monsoon-dominated) glaciers. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ancient-kilometer-himalayan-glacier-india.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 13:00:01 EDT news702809752 Moderate volcanic eruptions and extreme wildfires since 2005 have led to an increase in the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere, a layer of Earth's atmosphere above the weather-filled troposphere. That's potentially bad news because water vapor here acts like a greenhouse gas that traps heat and changes ozone chemistry. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-volcanoes-wildfires-adding-vapor-stratosphere.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:30:05 EDT news702816070 For more than 150 years, scientists have debated when and how the Colorado River first carved its way through the Grand Canyon. Now, a new study led by researchers at the University of New Mexico offers evidence that the river developed gradually from north to south between 8 million and 4.8 million years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fish-dna-crystals-rewrite-colorado.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 11:20:05 EDT news702808308 Continental aquatic ecosystems, such as lakes and reservoirs, occupy a small proportion of Earth's surface but play a significant role in the global carbon cycle. It is estimated that more than 40% of global methane emissions originate from these ecosystems. However, the true scale of these emissions remains uncertain, as most of the available data comes from one-off measurements taken at specific times and locations. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-falling-trigger-surge-methane-emissions.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:40:12 EDT news702806844 Tiny, invisible swirls and twirls—not much bigger than a coin—deep below the ocean's surface are silently shaping some of the biggest forces shaping our climate: sea level rise, fisheries collapse, extreme flooding and how much carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-hidden-deep-sea-turbulence-climate.html Earth Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 05:00:01 EDT news702711269 A slowing Atlantic Ocean current is projected to intensify powerful storms in California while reducing snowfall over Greenland, according to a recent University of California, Riverside study. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) works like a giant conveyor belt in the ocean, moving warm water from the tropics northward to heat places like Europe, then cycling the cooled, denser water back south along the ocean floor. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-atlantic-current-fuel-stronger-california.html Environment Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:20:08 EDT news702746010 The first-known direct observations of a seafloor spreading event at a mid-ocean ridge in the Indian Ocean are presented in Nature. The observations offer insight into how new oceanic crust is created. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-deep-sea-ocean-floor.html Earth Sciences Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:00:03 EDT news702737904 The Amazon region, Earth's most important ecosystem, is home to more than 400 Indigenous groups that use thousands of rainforest plant species. They pass on their knowledge of the flora primarily through oral tradition, usually from parents or other family members to their children. This creates a "living library of knowledge" about how to use native plants. Until now, little was known about how this treasure trove of knowledge is affected by the combined effects of climate change and language loss. A new study by the University of Zurich (UZH) provides the first reliable scientific data on the impact of global change on the biocultural heritage of the Amazon region. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-indigenous-peoples-amazon-massive-cultural.html Environment Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:20:01 EDT news702737556