The study of Earth’s systems, including its physical structure, natural processes, and interactions between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. Earth sciences investigate phenomena such as weather, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions to understand our planet’s past, present, and future.
Tulane University and an international research team have discovered that parts of East Africa’s crust are too strong to split, revealing that ancient volcanic dehydration hardened the region’s lithosphere, according to a Nature study published on November 5, 2025.
A global study spanning 217 tropical cyclones and 14.8 million deaths across nine countries has found that people continue dying for weeks after storms end. The most common post-cyclone deaths are from kidney and metabolic diseases, not injuries, revealing a silent global health crisis in the wake of extreme weather.
Satellite data show the ground is sinking by as much as 15 cm (6 inches) per year in Arizona’s Willcox Basin, the fastest rate in the state. Scientists say decades of groundwater extraction for irrigation have permanently compacted the land.
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters reveals that blue auroral emissions over Kiruna, Sweden, on October 21, 2023, reached an altitude of 200 km (124 miles), far exceeding predictions from established atmospheric models.
Researchers have identified satellite-detected magnetic anomalies up to eight days before the M7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, 2025, according to a study published in Scientific Reports on October 22, 2025.
A new Nature study reveals a massive, melt-rich magma body beneath Mayotte at 23 ±1 km (14 ±0.6 miles) below sea level, estimated to hold over 200 km³ (48 miles³) of material containing 22–42% melt. This reservoir is possibly connected to the system that fed the large submarine eruption of Fani Maoré in 2018–2019.
Between about 9 000 and 7 000 years ago, global sea level climbed roughly 14 meters (46 feet), mostly from the collapse of North American ice sheets, according to new research in Nature Geoscience by Udita Mukherjee and colleagues.
A new study from Utrecht University reveals that even in regions far from tectonic plate boundaries, dormant faults can still produce earthquakes. The research, published on October 15, 2025 in Nature Communications, explains how faults that have remained inactive for millions of years slowly “heal,” building up strength that is eventually released as a single induced earthquake.
An M7.7 earthquake struck Myanmar on March 28, 2025, rupturing between 475–530 km (295–329 miles) of the Sagaing Fault, where a UCLA-led team found that the southern branch reached sustained supershear speeds approaching 5 km/s (3.1 miles/s).
Fragmented aurora-like emissions and picket fence structures were simultaneously observed over northern Scandinavia during a geomagnetic storm on January 1, 2025, marking the first recorded coexistence of these two rare phenomena within auroral latitudes. The discovery adds to the growing understanding that Earth’s upper atmosphere is far more dynamic than once thought, with electric-field structures that can stretch over thousands of kilometres but reorganize in seconds.
