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Earth Science
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Earth Science

Beech trees use seasonal soil moisture to optimize water uptake

European beech trees, a key species in central Europe’s forests, are showing remarkable adaptability underground. A new study published in Forest Ecosystems reveals that these trees adjust the structure and growth of their fine roots according to seasonal soil moisture fluctuations, rather than the long-term wetness or dryness of their sites. The research team, led by scientists from Dresden University of Technology (TUD), Germany, monitored beech trees across three near-natural forest sites in Saxony, Germany, representing wet, intermediate, and dry soil conditions. Over a 30-month period, the team collected high-resolution data on fine root biomass, growth, ...

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Earth Science

Return of the short (tyrant) king: A new paper by Dinosaur Institute researcher shows Nanotyrannus was not a juvenile T. Rex

Los Angeles, CA (December 4, 2025)—For decades, paleontologists argued over the lone skull used to establish the distinct species Nanotyrannus. Was it truly a separate species or simply a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex? A new paper published in Science has definitively shown that Nanotyrannus is, in fact, nearly fully grown and not an immature T. rex, at the same time revealing new insights into how these giant predators achieved such terrifying sizes so quickly. A multi-institutional team, including Dinosaur Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Zach Morris, examined the much-debated Nanotyrannus holotype—the specimen used to name ...

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Earth Science

Volcanic eruptions set off a chain of events that brought the Black Death to Europe

Clues contained in tree rings have identified mid-14th-century volcanic activity as the first domino to fall in a sequence that led to the devastation of the Black Death in Europe. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) in Leipzig have used a combination of climate data and documentary evidence to paint the most complete picture to date of the ‘perfect storm’ that led to the deaths of tens of millions of people, as well as profound demographic, economic, political, cultural and religious change. Their evidence suggests that a volcanic eruption – or cluster of eruptions – ...

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Earth Science

Scores of dinosaurs walked and swam along a Bolivian shoreline

A fossil site in Bolivia preserves thousands of traces of dinosaurs who walked, ran, and swam along an ancient coastline, according to a study published December 3, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Raúl Esperante of the Geoscience Research Institute, California, U.S., and colleagues. Bolivia is well known for its abundance of fossil sites preserving dinosaur footprints. These sites provide unique details into the behaviors of ancient species, but most such sites remain unpublished. In this study, Esperante and colleagues report an unprecedented variety of dinosaur tracks at the Carreras Pampas tracksite ...

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Earth Science

Hidden dangers in 'acid rain' soils

Acid rain from fossil fuel pollution may be quietly training soil bacteria to become longer-lived, more transmissible, and more deadly, according to a new study in the journal New Contaminants that tracks how a notorious foodborne pathogen rapidly evolved under simulated acid deposition.​​ Acid deposition from burning coal, oil, and other fossil fuels has long been known to damage forests, lakes, and crops, but its impact on disease-causing microbes in soil has been largely overlooked. The new research shows that acid rain can destabilize the native soil microbiome in ways that make it easier for the pathogen Escherichia coli O157:H7 to invade and persist. In global soil metagenomic ...

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Earth Science

Volcanic bubbles help foretell the fate of coral in more acidic seas

Volcanic bubbles help foretell the fate of coral in more acidic seas By 2100 Australian and global coral reef communities will be slow to recover, less complex, and dominated by fleshy algae, as high carbon dioxide changes ocean chemistry. An international study published today in Communications Biology has used unique coral reefs in Papua New Guinea to determine the likely impact of ocean acidification on coral reefs in the face of climate change. Oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and that acid will dissolve coral limestone. But it’s hard to predict what ...

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Earth Science

Oldest modern shark mega-predator swam off Australia during the age of dinosaurs

Around 115 million years ago, the seas off northern Australia were home to a gigantic ancestor of Jaws. Fossils of this ancient mega-predator reveal that modern sharks experimented with enormous body sizes much earlier in their evolutionary history than previously suspected, and took the top place in oceanic food chains alongside massive marine reptiles during the Age of Dinosaurs. This study presents a new interdisciplinary analysis to reconstruct size evolution in ancient sharks. Sharks are iconic predators in the oceans today, and can trace their ancestry back over 400 million years. However, the evolutionary history ...

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Earth Science

Why some volcanoes don’t explode

The explosiveness of a volcanic eruption depends on how many gas bubbles form in the magma – and when. Until now, it was thought that gas bubbles were formed primarily when the ambient pressure dropped while the magma was rising. Gases that were dissolved in the magma in lower strata – due to the higher pressure – escape when the pressure drops and form bubbles. The more bubbles there are in the magma, the lighter it becomes and the faster it rises. This can cause the magma to tear apart, leading to an explosive eruption. This process can be likened to a bottle of champagne: while the bottle is closed and therefore pressurised, the carbon dioxide remains ...

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Earth Science

Hidden process behind 2025 Santorini earthquakes uncovered

A mysterious swarm of earthquakes that occurred near the Greek island of Santorini in early 2025 was caused by rebounding sheets of magma slicing through Earth’s crust, finds a new study by an international team involving a UCL (University College London) researcher. Between late January and early March, the team analysed over 25,000 earthquakes that occurred between Santorini and Amorgos Islands. Hundreds of these were large enough to be felt at the time, with magnitudes exceeding 4.5. The ...

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Earth Science

2025 Santorini seismic unrest triggered by “pumping” magma flow

The massive swarm of earthquakes that rattled the Greek islands of Santorini and Amorgos in 2025 was not caused by a slipping fault – it was triggered by pulses of magma tunneling far below the seafloor, according to a new study. The findings offer a detailed look at a “pumping” magmatic dike in action and provide a foundation for more reliable, physics-based eruption forecasting and volcanic hazard assessment. In early 2025, a burst of intense earthquakes – including several around magnitude 5 – shook the region between the islands of Santorini and Amorgos in the Aegean Sea. Because Santorini is an active volcano with a history of catastrophic eruptions, ...

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Earth Science

Rocks on faults can heal following seismic movement

Earthquake faults deep in the Earth can glue themselves back together following a seismic event, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work, published Nov. 19 in Science Advances and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, adds a new factor to our understanding of the behavior of faults that can give rise to major earthquakes. “We discovered that deep faults can heal themselves within hours,” said Amanda Thomas, ...

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Earth Science

Newly discovered predatory “warrior” was a precursor of the crocodile – and although it lived before the early dinosaurs, it looked just like one

A newly discovered, carnivorous lizard ostensibly represents what most casual onlookers would perhaps perceive to be a dinosaur; however, it is in fact a precursor of the modern crocodile. Named Tainrakuasuchus bellator, partially derived from Latin meaning for “warrior” or “fighter”, this armour-plated reptile lived 240 million years ago just before the dinosaurs. And, as a Pseudosuchia (the precursors of modern crocodiles and alligators), it was among a group of the top, most dominant predators of its time in the Triassic Period. This particular new species – detailed, today, in the peer-reviewed Journal of Systematic Palaeontology – was approximately ...

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Earth Science

UTIA soil scientist receives Women in Science National Mentoring Award

As a mentor, Sindhu Jagadamma, associate professor of soil science at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, helps her students increase their self-confidence and push themselves to persevere through adversity, traits she learned to improve in herself as a young girl from a small town in India. Former mentees who worked with Jagadamma in the Sustainable Soil Management Lab nominated her for the Women in Science Mentoring Award, given by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America. She received the award at ...

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Earth Science

Ice Age trees helped stabilize Earth's atmosphere by suffocating

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ancient trees may have played a key role in regulating Earth’s climate during the last ice age — by breathing less efficiently. A new study, led by a researcher at Penn State and published today (Nov. 5) in the journal Nature Geoscience, examined chemical fingerprints in subfossil wood, or preserved trees, from across North America to understand how plants responded to the low carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and cooler ...

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Earth Science

Depletion of Ukraine’s soils threatens long-term global food security

Beyond the disruption to Ukraine’s food exports, the war is jeopardising the country’s long-term ability to remain the ‘breadbasket of Europe’, because its soils are gradually losing vital crop nutrients. That is the warning issued by researchers from the UK, Ukraine and the Netherlands who say more nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium* are now being removed from soils via harvested crops than added back in. This is due to reduced access to fertilisers during the war and inefficient farming practices. Military activity has also exacerbated existing degradation and erosion ...

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Earth Science

Supershear rupture sustained in thick fault zone during 2025 Mandalay earthquake, study in research package shows

A massive March 2025 earthquake in Myanmar tore through nearly 500 kilometers of the Sagaing Fault at extremely high speeds. In a new study – part of a package of four research articles on seismic activity in Myanmar – researchers show that an unusually thick, low-velocity fault zone acted like a high-speed corridor, driving one of the fastest and longest continental ruptures ever recorded. The largest earthquakes that occur within continental crusts can rupture faults extending for hundreds of kilometers and pose significant seismic threats. Many of these powerful events evolve into supershear ruptures – earthquakes in which the rupture front ...

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Earth Science

Myanmar fault had ideal geometry to produce 2025 supershear earthquake

A UCLA-led team of scientists has uncovered how the devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar in March 2025 produced one of the longest and fastest-moving ruptures ever recorded on land. The study, published in Science, shows that the earthquake ruptured about 530 kilometers of the Sagaing Fault, with a 450-kilometer segment racing faster than the speed of seismic shear waves—a rare phenomenon known as a supershear rupture. These “Mach-like” ruptures generate shock waves that can greatly amplify ground shaking and damage. “Supershear earthquakes are like breaking the sound barrier, but in rock,” said Lingsen Meng, a professor of ...

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Earth Science

New study explores ‘legacy effects’ of soil microbes on plants across Kansas

LAWRENCE — A new study appearing in Nature Microbiology analyzes soils sampled across the state of Kansas to determine the importance of “legacy effects” — or how soils from a specific location are influenced by microbes that have evolved in response to the specific climate at that site for many years. “The bacteria and fungi and other organisms living in the soil can actually end up having important effects on things that matter, like carbon sequestration, nutrient movement and what we’re particularly interested in — ...

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Earth Science

Why earthquakes sometimes still occur in tectonically silent regions

Earthquakes in the American state of Utah, the Soultz-sous-Forêts region of France or in the Dutch province of Groningen should not be able to occur even if the subsurface has been exploited for decades. This is because the shallow subsurface behaves in such a way that faults there become stronger as soon as they start moving. At least that is what geology textbooks teach us. And so, in theory, it should not be possible for earthquakes to occur. So why do they still occur in such nominally stable subsurfaces? ...

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Earth Science

Duck-billed dinosaur “mummies” preserve fleshy hide and hooves in thin layers of clay

New paleontological findings offer insights into Wyoming’s “dinosaur mummies,” revealing that the stunningly preserved skin, spikes, and hooves of duck-billed dinosaurs are not fossilized flesh at all, but delicate clay molds formed by microbes as the creatures decayed, researchers report. Soft-tissue preservation in fossils usually occurs in fine-grained, oxygen-poor environments such as lagoons or seabeds, which enable the fossilization of delicate structures like feathers and skin. However, the so-called “dinosaur ...

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Earth Science

Dinosaurs in New Mexico thrived until the very end, study shows

For decades, many scientists believed dinosaurs were already dwindling in number and variety long before an asteroid strike sealed their fate 66 million years ago. But new research in the journal Science from Baylor University, New Mexico State University, The Smithsonian Institution and an international team is rewriting that story. The dinosaurs, it turns out, were not fading away. They were flourishing. A final flourish in the San Juan Basin In northwestern New Mexico, layers of rock preserve a hidden chapter of Earth’s history. In the Naashoibito Member of the Kirtland ...

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Earth Science

Biochar helps Mediterranean vineyards hold water and fight erosion

Mediterranean vineyards face a growing threat from heavy rains and soil degradation that strip away fertile topsoil. New research led by scientists at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, shows that adding biochar, a carbon-rich material made from plant waste, can dramatically reduce erosion and improve the soil’s ability to store water. The study, published in Biochar, is among the first to test biochar’s impact on the “soil sponge function” under natural rainfall in sloping Mediterranean vineyards. Over 18 months, researchers used outdoor lysimeters filled with vineyard ...

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Earth Science

North American ice sheets drove dramatic sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age

Melting ice sheets in North America played a far greater role in driving global sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age than scientists had thought, according to a Tulane University-led study published in Nature Geoscience. The findings overturn decades of conventional wisdom about how Earth emerged from its last great freeze and could reshape how scientists view the risks of climate change in today’s warming world. Between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago, retreating North American ice sheets alone caused more than 30 feet (about 10 meters) of global sea-level rise. For years, scientists ...

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Earth Science

New tool helps forecast volcano slope collapses and tsunamis

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For people living near volcanoes, danger goes well beyond lava flows and clouds of ash. Some explosive eruptions can lead to dramatic collapses of the sides of a volcano, like those at Mount St. Helens, Washington, and Anak Krakatau, Indonesia. The latter triggered tsunamis blamed for most deaths from its historic eruptions in 1883. But the science and exact triggers behind such catastrophes remain largely unknown. To help scientists forecast collapse of volcano sides, also known as flanks or ...

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Earth Science

Researchers discover mechanism that can ramp up magnitude of certain earthquakes

In July 2024, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Calama, Chile, damaging buildings and causing power outages. The country has endured violent earthquakes, including the most powerful recorded in history: a 9.5-magnitude “megathrust” event that struck central Chile in 1960, causing a tsunami and killing between 1,000 to 6,000 people. However, the Calama quake was different from the megathrust quakes that are usually associated with the most destructive events in Chile and around the world. Megathrust earthquakes occur at relatively shallow depths. ...

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