https://phys.org/earth-news/earth-sciences/ en-us The latest news on earth sciences and the environment A new study reveals that microbial life deep within Earth has persisted and repeatedly flourished through hundreds of millions of years of mountain-building and erosion. By analyzing minerals, fluids and gases from a 2.3-kilometer-deep (1.4-mile-deep) borehole in central Sweden, researchers have uncovered episodic bursts of methane-producing life linked to major geological events that shaped Scandinavia. The paper is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-deep-biosphere-mountain-erosion-hundreds.html Earth Sciences Mon, 07 Sep 2026 16:20:04 EDT news708006062 Permafrost refers to permanently frozen ground. The rock is held together by ice, much like cement binds concrete. However, when the ice thaws, the ground becomes weak and unstable. During an earthquake, this can trigger a series of natural hazards. An international research team investigated precisely such an event. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-climate-amplify-impact-earthquakes-arctic.html Earth Sciences Mon, 07 Sep 2026 15:00:07 EDT news707991241 In a new report, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) concludes that global warming is expected to exceed 1.5°C within the next few years. This makes two questions increasingly important: how high will temperatures rise, and how long will the increase last? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-atmospheric-methane-limit-peak.html Earth Sciences Mon, 07 Sep 2026 13:20:03 EDT news707998230 A journey back in time to the Late Cretaceous: A swampy rainforest with conifers and tree ferns stretches as far as the eye can see, dinosaurs roam through the misty wetlands, and the climate is mild and warm. The average annual temperature is 12°C (54°F)—around two degrees higher than in present-day Germany. There is plenty of water, too, as dry periods are regularly followed by monsoon-like rainy seasons. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ancient-charcoal-reveals-evidence-wildfires.html Earth Sciences Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:20:05 EDT news707995561 The waters of the remote Scottish island of Jura have long been famous for making whiskey. Now, the island's rivers have helped geologists learn more about how rivers erode rocks, providing new evidence that what streams carry plays an important role in how they carve through landscapes. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-isle-jura-rivers-landscapes.html Earth Sciences Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:00:07 EDT news707990221 Since scientists can't drill 2,900 km (1,800 miles) to the boundary between Earth's core and deep mantle, they must use information relayed by seismic waves recorded during earthquakes to study this region. In a new study published in the journal JGR Solid Earth, a group of scientists used deep learning to study a large set of a specific type of seismic wave. The analysis revealed six continuous bands of irregularities at the core-mantle boundary (CMB) that had previously appeared only as sparse patches. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-unusual-earth-core-mantle-boundary.html Earth Sciences Sun, 06 Sep 2026 13:00:01 EDT news707652667 Lakes may look like picturesque stopping points along a river or stream, but they can have a big influence on what happens to carbon as it moves through a landscape. New research suggests that the more lake-rich a network of streams is, the more carbon is released into the atmosphere rather than carried downstream. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-lakes-theyre-carbon.html Earth Sciences Sat, 05 Sep 2026 08:20:01 EDT news707386128 UC Riverside scientists have developed a way to identify where Earth's biggest earthquakes are most likely to occur, offering a powerful new tool for improving disaster preparation in some of the most dangerous seismic regions. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-method-massive-earthquakes.html Earth Sciences Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:00:04 EDT news707807847 Beneath the Arctic Ocean is an orchestra featuring natural and human composers, from cracking sea ice and whistling beluga whales to humming shipping-vessel engines. Researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory heard some of this cacophony when analyzing data from commercial off-the-shelf sensors that they integrated and deployed in 2024 during the U.S. Navy's Operation Ice Camp (OIC). This past March, during OIC 2026, the researchers returned to the Arctic with a higher-fidelity version of one of the sensors, a geophone that detects vibrations in the sea ice. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tune-arctic-ice-communication.html Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:20:01 EDT news707750417 The key to finding more critical minerals may lie in understanding how fluids and chemicals move through rock. As these fluids travel underground, they can dissolve, transport and concentrate valuable minerals in specific places. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physics-ai-critical-minerals.html Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:00:05 EDT news707738461 For decades, scientists have studied iron preserved in ancient rocks to reconstruct how Earth's oceans and atmosphere became rich in oxygen. A new study suggests iron has recorded other major transformations too. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-iron-scientists-earth-oxygen-bigger.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:30:05 EDT news707673841 Relatively few people have been to the Arctic, and even fewer have set foot in Antarctica. Most people rely on imagination and the media to visualize these landscapes and the ways they are changing. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-arctic-season-week-longer-1980s.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:00:06 EDT news707664112 The Southern Ocean plays a pivotal role in regulating Earth's climate, yet the clouds that blanket this remote region remain among the least understood features in atmospheric science. By controlling both incoming sunlight and outgoing heat, these clouds strongly influence Earth's energy balance. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-antarctic-reveals-southern-ocean-clouds.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:20:04 EDT news707660401 A new study provides insight into the economic impact of melting permafrost on Arctic communities. Permafrost is ground that permanently remains below freezing for at least two consecutive years. Permafrost covers about 24% of the Northern Hemisphere, including large areas of Alaska, Canada and Siberia. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-permafrost-billion-infrastructure.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:20:01 EDT news707653982 Growing up, many of us were taught to drop, cover and hold on during an earthquake. The guidance is straightforward, but how people actually respond when the ground starts shaking can be far more complicated. Now, UC Berkeley researchers are studying what happens in those critical moments and how fear and risk perception influence people's actions. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-panic-people-virtual-quake-capture.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 08:40:02 EDT news707643030 Earth may have been pushed deeper into a global deep freeze by something surprisingly ordinary: salt. Around 700 million years ago, Earth entered periods of extreme glaciation known as Snowball Earth, when ice is thought to have spread across much or potentially all of the planet's surface. Scientists have long known that expanding ice could have helped drive this transition: As bright ice replaces darker ocean water, more sunlight is reflected back into space, causing the planet to cool further and allowing even more ice to form. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-salt-earth-frozen-world-million.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 07:40:06 EDT news707385271 Weather forecasts rely on many different kinds of data, including temperature, humidity and wind. For the first time, researchers, including those at the University of Tokyo, have demonstrated that a long-theorized improvement to weather models—adding data on water isotopes in the atmosphere—does work. They showed that incorporating satellite measurements of water vapor isotopes into weather models improves forecasts of atmospheric conditions for up to five days, including predictions of heavy rainfall in many regions. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-heavy-atmospheric-fingerprints-boost-weather.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news707491021 The fact that the ocean gets colder as you go deeper is fairly intuitive, but a similar gradient exists along the surface of the ocean, even at scales of 1 kilometer to tens of kilometers. A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that this horizontal gradient significantly contributes to the intensity of tropical cyclones, providing a potential tool for better storm warning systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-weak-sea-surface-temperature-gradients.html Earth Sciences Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:10:05 EDT news707571746 The Labrador Shelf is a shallow marine area on the margin of the Labrador Sea in the North Atlantic off the east coast of Canada. During the last ice age, this region was covered by the Laurentide Ice Sheet, one of the largest ice masses in Earth's history, which once covered vast parts of North America. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-canada-labrador-shelf-climate-thought.html Earth Sciences Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:40:05 EDT news707493902 On Nov. 11, 2025, Earth experienced a severe geomagnetic storm triggered by solar flares and coronal mass ejections from an active sunspot region. While this kind of storm brings beautiful auroras admired in many areas around the world, it can also cause ionospheric disturbances that disrupt radio waves and affect crucial technologies. A new study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, found that disruptions caused by this storm scrambled GPS signals in areas where such disruptions have never been reported. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-geomagnetic-superstorm-shook-gps-accuracy.html Earth Sciences Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:30:01 EDT news707483362 In computer simulations of the Big One—a large-magnitude earthquake that may occur along the San Andreas Fault in California—seismic waves ripple from the epicenter of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake near the Salton Sea into the Los Angeles Basin. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-los-angeles-basin-deep-sediments.html Earth Sciences Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:40:05 EDT news707470981 Data from many sources, including NASA, have shown a significant decrease in Arctic sea ice since 1979. However, the processes driving the melting and freezing of sea ice are complex, and fluctuations occur throughout the year. Short-term variations in temperature, winds, ocean convection and water salinity within a certain region can also affect how much ice can reform or melt. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-anomalous-odden-ice-tongue-unusual.html Earth Sciences Mon, 31 Aug 2026 13:30:01 EDT news707399596 Whakaari/White Island's sudden eruption in December 2019, which killed 22 people and severely injured 25 others, was New Zealand's deadliest volcanic disaster in recent history. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-earlier-volcano-false-alarms.html Earth Sciences Mon, 31 Aug 2026 13:20:10 EDT news707394542 New research is dismantling the longstanding myth of the "pristine" Amazon. A reconstruction of 10,000 years of Amazonian pyrogeography, based on 1,361 radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dates across 303 sites—including soil charcoal and burned archaeological material—shows that fire in the rainforest is almost exclusively a human-driven phenomenon, not a natural one. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-human-driven-amazonian-forest-years.html Earth Sciences Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:40:10 EDT news707389801 Europe is no stranger to powerful windstorms, but some storms capable of causing serious damage have an unusual origin. Tropical cyclones can occasionally travel north from lower latitudes and reach Europe, where they can bring damaging winds and heavy rain even after losing some of their tropical characteristics. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-uk-ireland-greatest-rare-tropical.html Earth Sciences Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:00:07 EDT news707137390 When high or low tide occurs, the water does not necessarily rise and fall uniformly along the entire coastline. In fact, the height of the tide in a bay can vary by up to one meter (3 feet) from one location to another just a few kilometers away. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tides-locally-method-based-satellite.html Earth Sciences Sun, 30 Aug 2026 15:00:04 EDT news706970739 Fracking, the injection of high-pressure fluid to fracture rock and release oil or gas, can trigger earthquakes. While some sites generate small tremors beforehand that may provide an early warning, others produce few or none. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-earthquakes-fracking.html Earth Sciences Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:10:01 EDT news707137404 Rock weathering, the breakdown and dissolving of rocks and minerals caused by their exposure to water, air and biological life, is a major regulator of Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels and climate. Throughout Earth's history, rock weathering has been faster during warm periods with increased atmospheric CO2 levels. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-bacteria-weathering-carbon.html Earth Sciences Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:20:01 EDT news707129918 Just a few minutes of freezing and thawing can have a decisive impact on how ferrihydrite, the most reactive iron mineral in cold soils, permafrost and glaciers, transforms, according to researchers at Umeå University. As climate warming intensifies freeze-thaw cycles and extends them into new regions, ice is becoming an increasingly important driver of Earth's ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-minutes-fate-iron-nature.html Earth Sciences Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:20:03 EDT news707062142 More than 150 people are dead and hundreds more are missing after an enormous wave of water, ice, mud and rock cascaded more than 170 kilometers (106 miles) down the Bhote Koshi River valley in Nepal. The valley is the main link between Kathmandu in Nepal and Lhasa in Tibet. At least 34 Australians are missing. There was little warning. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tsunami-dirt-nepal-deadly-glacial.html Earth Sciences Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:20:05 EDT news707054162