Volume 18 Issue 6, June 2025

Earth has been degassing volatiles since its accretion. Insights from the noble gases helium and argon in groundwater suggest an underappreciated role for degassing from the subcontinental mantle lithosphere below the continental roots.

Jadarite is a lithium-bearing mineral with the potential to facilitate the green energy transition. However, the route to form it is so specific that it is only known from one deposit on Earth, as Francesco Putzolu and colleagues explain.

Calculation of the sulfur and water budgets released from magma during the 2022 eruption of Hunga volcano — the largest submarine eruption recorded — shows that of 18.8 Tg of sulfur dioxide released, <7% entered the atmosphere. The remaining sulfur dioxide dissolved in the ocean during explosive magma fragmentation at 400–1,000 m below sea level.

New experiments shed light on the complex interplay between rock deformation and metamorphism. Slab stagnation in Earth’s mantle transition zone may be explained by transient weakening during the olivine–spinel phase transition.

During the last deglaciation the Cordilleran Ice Sheet experienced semi-continuous meltwater events between about 20,000 and 17,000 years ago, according to a terrestrial cave sediment record that has been described and dated.

Mass balance measurements from inland East Antarctica suggest a negative trend in surface mass balance from 2005 to 2020, probably associated with enhanced zonal winds.

Model simulations suggest that the 2023–2024 El Niño was mainly driven by oceanic processes and that this type of El Niño may become more frequent with warming.

Observational constraints, along with a better understanding of climate model behaviour, suggest that the projected weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation in the twenty-first century will be less severe than previously anticipated.

Short-term sea-level fluctuations during climatic oscillations result in divergent variations in global mangrove growth across ocean basins, according to analyses of satellite observations from 2001 to 2020.

Seawater buffering via pyrite burial removes CO₂ from the atmosphere and helps to stabilize climate by providing a negative feedback on warming, according to coupled carbon–sulfur cycle modelling.

Microbial physiology conserves phosphorus by reducing phosphorus contributions in membrane lipids and increasing intracellular carbon storage during long-term ecosystem development, according to measurements of a ~700,000–year chronosequence across an Australian dune system.

Soils may release more CO₂ under warming when increases in plant productivity mine nitrogen from soil organic matter, according to an analysis of a global dataset of soil organic carbon measurements.

Little sulfur from the 2022 Hunga submarine eruption reached the atmosphere due to seawater–magma interactions, indicating that the climate impact of this type of eruption may be underestimated, according to analysis of ash collected throughout the event.

The mountain ranges of northeast Japan were formed by the Ryukyu/Izu–Bonin–Marianas same-dip double subduction system in a process that may have driven other non-collisional orogens, according to geologically constrained three-dimensional geodynamic simulations.

Analysis of ground motion velocity measurements recorded close to the Narli splay fault indicates an early transition to supershear rupture during the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake.

The sub-continental lithospheric mantle passively degasses volatiles to Earth’s surface, including from regions unaffected by volcanism, according to a study of helium and argon isotopes in young groundwater.

Subducted slabs may experience transient weakening during mineral phase transitions, consistent with slab stagnation in the mantle transition zone, according to a synchrotron beamline study of the quartz-to-coesite and olivine-to-ringwoodite phase transitions.

A narrow range of pressures at mid-crustal depth represents a tipping point between silica-undersaturated and silica-oversaturated compositions crystallizing from mafic melts in alkaline–silicate igneous systems, according to a thermodynamic modelling study.