Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-25DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01826-w
Yael Kempe, Sergei Remennik, Oliver Tschauner, Oded Navon, Tim J. B. Holland, Yaakov Weiss
{"title":"Publisher Correction: Redox state of the deep upper mantle recorded by nickel-rich diamond inclusions","authors":"Yael Kempe, Sergei Remennik, Oliver Tschauner, Oded Navon, Tim J. B. Holland, Yaakov Weiss","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01826-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01826-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"1063-1063"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01826-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-25DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01784-3
Bumsoo Kim, Yi Ge Zhang, Richard E. Zeebe, Jiaheng Shen
{"title":"Arctic CO2 emissions amplified by aerobic methane oxidation during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum","authors":"Bumsoo Kim, Yi Ge Zhang, Richard E. Zeebe, Jiaheng Shen","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01784-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01784-3","url":null,"abstract":"In the Arctic Ocean, polar amplification drives warming rates that are two to three times the global average, and this enhanced warming and the associated freshening are expected to accelerate methane cycling, impacting regional and global carbon cycling. However, our understanding of methane cycling in a warmer and fresher Arctic is limited by short observational records. Here we present biomarker evidence for prevalent aerobic methanotrophy in the Arctic Ocean during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~56 million years ago), identified through the occurrence of a hopanoid compound, hop-17(21)-ene, with a distinct isotopic signature characteristic of bacterial methanotrophy. During the PETM, intensified hydrological cycling atop an overall low-sulfate ocean of the early Cenozoic limited sedimentary sulfate availability, suppressing sulfate-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation and facilitating aerobic methane oxidation in the water column, consistent with our geological evidence and sediment diagenesis model results. Unlike anaerobic oxidation, which generates alkalinity, aerobic methane oxidation consumes oxygen and produces CO2. Our biomarker-based CO2 reconstructions indicate that the Arctic Ocean became a net CO2 source, particularly during the recovery stage, contributing to prolonged carbon input, temperature rise and ocean acidification during the PETM. These findings highlight potential major perturbations to Arctic carbon cycling under future climate change. Enhanced aerobic oxidation of methane in the Arctic Ocean intensified carbon dioxide emissions during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, potentially extending the event, according to biomarker records from an Arctic sediment core.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"975-982"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-24DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01788-z
{"title":"Aerosol deposition underestimated over the global ocean","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01788-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01788-z","url":null,"abstract":"A dataset of cosmogenic beryllium-7 measurements is compiled and used to quantify aerosol deposition rates over the global ocean. The findings suggest that aerosol deposition onto oceans has been underestimated in a widely used atmospheric composition model, GEOS-Chem, resulting in an overestimation of aerosol lifetime over oceans.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"943-944"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-23DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01790-5
Ning Ma, Shenggong Li, M. Luke McCormack, Grégoire T. Freschet, Philippe Ciais, Huimin Wang, Shuli Niu, Peter B. Reich, Miaomiao Zhang, Rongtian Zhao, Bo Zhao, Decai Gao, Arthur Gessler, Yuanyuan Huang, Jiacun Gu, Xiaoli Fu, Xiaoqin Dai, Shengwang Meng, Jiajia Zheng, Fengting Yang, Liang Kou
{"title":"Substantial forest soil carbon accrual from absorptive fine roots over decadal timescales","authors":"Ning Ma, Shenggong Li, M. Luke McCormack, Grégoire T. Freschet, Philippe Ciais, Huimin Wang, Shuli Niu, Peter B. Reich, Miaomiao Zhang, Rongtian Zhao, Bo Zhao, Decai Gao, Arthur Gessler, Yuanyuan Huang, Jiacun Gu, Xiaoli Fu, Xiaoqin Dai, Shengwang Meng, Jiajia Zheng, Fengting Yang, Liang Kou","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01790-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01790-5","url":null,"abstract":"Forest soils hold the largest terrestrial carbon pool, derived from dead plant tissues and transformed by soil biota. Current frameworks emphasize the role of soil microbes in highly persistent forms of carbon. However, moderately persistent forms of carbon also contribute substantially to forest soil carbon pools through the iterative effects of plant litter inputs and outputs over multi-decadal timescales. These sources of soil carbon are not well constrained. Here we synthesize published field data of the finest roots (absorptive roots) of mycorrhizal woody plants across major forest ecosystem types in the Northern Hemisphere. We estimate that, owing to fast turnover and slow decomposition, the iterative effects of absorptive roots on soil carbon accrual generate 2.4 ± 0.1 MgC ha−1 over two decades, exceeding that of leaves by 65%. Further, roots associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi contribute 43% more soil carbon than roots associated with ectomycorrhizal fungi, despite ectomycorrhizal forests dominating soil carbon storage in forest soils overall. We also find that specific root length, a readily measured trait, can be used as a proxy for iterative effects associated with root dynamics. Our findings thus provide a long-needed belowground metric for carbon modelling in the Earth system. The accrual of soil carbon from absorptive fine roots exceeds that of leaf litter in forests despite lower productivity, according to an analysis of field observations from Northern Hemisphere forest sites.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"1020-1026"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-22DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01791-4
Yael Kempe, Sergei Remennik, Oliver Tschauner, Oded Navon, Tim J. B. Holland, Yaakov Weiss
{"title":"Redox state of the deep upper mantle recorded by nickel-rich diamond inclusions","authors":"Yael Kempe, Sergei Remennik, Oliver Tschauner, Oded Navon, Tim J. B. Holland, Yaakov Weiss","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01791-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01791-4","url":null,"abstract":"The redox state of Earth’s mantle is governed by the oxidation state of iron and carbon and influences key physical and chemical mantle parameters. Mantle xenoliths, and experimental and thermodynamic studies reveal a decrease in oxygen fugacity with depth, down to ~250 km. A further more modest drop is linked to the predicted stabilization of nickel-rich metallic alloy at 250–300 km. However, garnets from 250–500 km record more oxidized conditions, and no nickel-rich alloy has been reported from these depths to account as natural evidence for the predictions. Here we report nickel–iron metallic nanoinclusions and Ni-rich carbonate microinclusions in two diamonds from the Voorspoed mine, South Africa. Various pressure indicators confirm their origin in the deep upper mantle or the shallow transition zone (280–470 km). The coexistence of nickel-rich metal and carbonate indicates a reaction between oxidized carbonatitic melt and reduced metal-bearing peridotite that led to nickel enrichment and diamond growth. This reaction captures a snapshot of the dynamics of metasomatism, including the formation of intermediate products that may later react. The diamonds provide direct evidence for nickel-rich alloy at its predicted depth within the mantle. They also indicate the presence of deep carbonatitic–silicic melts, which episodically oxidize small volumes of the mantle and play a role in the formation of kimberlites and alkali basalts. Reduced nickel-rich metal and oxidized nickel carbonate inclusions within diamonds provide evidence of metasomatic redox reactions and support the role of carbonatitic melts in oxidizing small volumes of the deep upper mantle and transition zone.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"1048-1055"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-22DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01800-6
Maya G. Kopylova
{"title":"Diamonds at the redox frontier","authors":"Maya G. Kopylova","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01800-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01800-6","url":null,"abstract":"Inclusions preserving a snapshot of the chemical reactions that produced the host diamond may provide insight into diamond formation in the deep mantle from carbon-bearing fluids.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"934-935"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-18DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01792-3
Shi Qiu, Zhe Zhu, Xiucheng Yang, Curtis E. Woodcock, Robert T. Fahey, Stephen Stehman, Yingtong Zhang, Mari Cullerton, Ashley Grinstead, Falu Hong, Kexin Song, Ji Won Suh, Tian Li, Wei Ren, Ramakrishna R. Nemani
{"title":"A shift from human-directed to undirected wild land disturbances in the USA","authors":"Shi Qiu, Zhe Zhu, Xiucheng Yang, Curtis E. Woodcock, Robert T. Fahey, Stephen Stehman, Yingtong Zhang, Mari Cullerton, Ashley Grinstead, Falu Hong, Kexin Song, Ji Won Suh, Tian Li, Wei Ren, Ramakrishna R. Nemani","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01792-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01792-3","url":null,"abstract":"Land disturbances are fundamental drivers of terrestrial ecosystem dynamics, influencing biodiversity, carbon cycling and land–atmosphere interactions. An understanding of changes in their regimes is crucial for predicting future ecosystem trajectories and guiding sustainable land management. Here we leverage the long-term record of Landsat imagery to create high-resolution (30 m) maps of annual land disturbance agents across the contiguous USA from 1988 to 2022. We find that 178.50 million hectares of US land have been cumulatively disturbed over this period. Human-directed disturbances account for 65% of this total, driven by logging, agricultural disturbance and construction. Our analysis reveals a widespread decline in human-directed disturbances (−59.21 kha yr−1) alongside a countervailing surge (20.31 kha yr−1) in less controllable, undirected ‘wild’ disturbances (fire, wind/geohazard and vegetation stress), which account for 24% of the total disturbed area. The disturbance regime shift analysis finds that although human-directed disturbances are now declining in frequency, wild disturbance frequencies are increasing at an accelerated pace. The patch size of human-directed disturbances is shrinking, while the wild disturbance patch size shows both expanding and contracting trends. Disturbance severity is rising across most of the USA. Our findings highlight an urgent need to understand and adapt to these diverging disturbance trajectories, as they will profoundly shape the future of US landscapes. Direct human impact on land disturbances in the USA is declining, while less controllable, undirected wild disturbances are increasing, according to a long-term record of high-resolution satellite imagery.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"989-996"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-17DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01785-2
Yipeng He, David C. Kadko, Mark P. Stephens, Michael T. Sheridan, Clifton S. Buck, Chris M. Marsay, William M. Landing, Minjie Zheng, Pengfei Liu
{"title":"Constraining aerosol deposition over the global ocean","authors":"Yipeng He, David C. Kadko, Mark P. Stephens, Michael T. Sheridan, Clifton S. Buck, Chris M. Marsay, William M. Landing, Minjie Zheng, Pengfei Liu","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01785-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01785-2","url":null,"abstract":"Aerosols substantially influence the climate by modifying Earth’s radiative balance and marine biogeochemical cycles. However, accurate quantification of aerosol deposition onto ocean surfaces remains challenging due to the limited direct observations over oceanic regions. Here, to address this observational gap, we use the cosmogenic radionuclide beryllium-7, measured simultaneously in the atmosphere and seawater. Beryllium-7 is naturally produced in the atmosphere and rapidly attaches to submicrometre aerosol particles before being deposited onto the ocean surface through wet and dry processes, making it a direct tracer for quantifying aerosol deposition. We combine previous measurements from cruises in the North Pacific, equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Arctic oceans with measurements from the South Pacific, Indian and Southern oceans to derive a revised aerosol deposition parameterization across the global ocean. Compared with the parameterizations used in the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model, we find that aerosol deposition rates over the global ocean have been underestimated by 39 ± 23%, consequently overestimating aerosol lifetimes over the oceans by an average of 69 ± 92%. Our observationally constrained results suggest that aerosol processes are more dynamic than previously estimated, with important implications for our understanding of aerosol-driven climate effects and marine biogeochemical processes globally. Aerosol deposition onto the surface of the ocean has been underestimated, suggesting that aerosol lifetimes over the ocean are longer than previously appreciated, according to a global compilation of cosmogenic beryllium isotope data.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"966-974"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145248844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01797-y
Jie Deng, Yoshinori Miyazaki, Qian Yuan, Zhixue Du
{"title":"Deep mantle heterogeneities formed through a basal magma ocean contaminated by core exsolution","authors":"Jie Deng, Yoshinori Miyazaki, Qian Yuan, Zhixue Du","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01797-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01797-y","url":null,"abstract":"Earth’s lowermost mantle harbours two large low-velocity provinces with patches of ultralow-velocity zones. These seismic anomalies may retain geochemical signatures distinct from the surrounding mantle. Yet, their origin remains enigmatic. One proposed explanation is the differentiation of an early-formed basal magma ocean. However, the presence of an excessively thick layer of iron-rich ferropericlase in the crystallized basal magma ocean conflicts with seismic tomography models. Here we use combined thermodynamic and geodynamic modelling to investigate the crystallization of a basal magma ocean continuously contaminated by oxide exsolved from the core, termed the basal exsolution contaminated magma ocean. We find suppression of ferropericlase crystallization. Geodynamic modelling demonstrates that the solidified contaminated magma ocean mantle can lead to the formation of deep mantle structures consistent with large low-velocity provinces and ultralow-velocity zones. In addition, diapirs of core exsolution entrained into the solid mantle may cause small-scale scattering. The basal exsolution contaminated magma ocean inherits the silicon, tungsten and helium isotope compositions from the core and exhibits trace element enrichments, suggesting its possible role as a source material for ocean island basalts that may sample the large low-velocity provinces, pointing to a unified mechanism for forming deep mantle heterogeneities. The proposed basal magma ocean within the early Earth may have been contaminated by oxides exsolved from the core that can explain seismic velocity anomalies observed in the lowermost mantle, according to thermodynamic and geodynamic modelling.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 10","pages":"1056-1062"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145035568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nature GeosciencePub Date : 2025-09-10DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01780-7
Fang Huang, Tingting Chen
{"title":"Barite the heavyweight champion","authors":"Fang Huang, Tingting Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41561-025-01780-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41561-025-01780-7","url":null,"abstract":"Barite is a relatively heavy mineral that is used in both the medical field and the oil and gas industry. Formed in marine environments, it also provides a valuable record of deep geological time.","PeriodicalId":19053,"journal":{"name":"Nature Geoscience","volume":"18 9","pages":"818-818"},"PeriodicalIF":16.1,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145032205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}