The resilience of tropical forest ecosystems to seasonal drought is linked to terrestrial potassium and phosphorus availability, according to a nutrient addition experiment in a moist forest in Uganda.

Water in the mantle transition zone beneath Northeast Asia is sourced from the Earth’s surface and introduced by the subducted Pacific slab, according to a study of potassium isotopes from Cenozoic volcanics.

Isotopically depleted organic matter reported in ancient sediments on Mars could have been synthesized from CO produced due to photolysis of CO₂ in the early Martian atmosphere.

Patagonian ice sheet changes largely mirrored those of the Northern Hemisphere over the last glacial cycle owing to displacements of the southern westerly winds, according to beryllium isotope constraints.

Maintenance of estuarine tidal flats requires a minimum turbidity level that increases with tidal range, according to a global analysis of tidal-flat changes from satellite imagery.

Hydrothermal flow pathways and extent of alteration within serpentinized peridotite in Mid-Atlantic Ridge oceanic core complexes are modulated by mafic intrusions, according to full waveform inversion of seismic data and local earthquake tomography.

Hydrous minerals within the Earth affect volatile cycling and mantle geodynamics. Jun Tsuchiya explains how stable phases of these minerals are being uncovered at increasingly high pressures.

Cloud uncertainties have been a persistent problem in climate science, but innovative approaches are starting to make headway.

Burbankite is a rare sodium carbonate mineral that is easily dissolved away in its host igneous rocks. Its formation and dissolution can help concentrate rare earth elements that are vital for a low-carbon future, as Sam Broom-Fendley explains.

Compositional and structural variations within Earth’s lower mantle are a complex puzzle to which seismic data hold clues.

Advances in seismological observational and modelling techniques are needed to constrain complex lowermost mantle structures and understand their influence on the global dynamics and evolution of Earth’s interior.

Nature Geoscience spoke with Samantha Hansen, a geophysicist at the University of Alabama and Sebastian Rost, a global seismologist at the University of Leeds about the ultralow velocity zones in the lowermost mantle.