Planetary Science Institute

Vertical distribution of pollution trapped by wintertime surface inversions in Fairbanks, Alaska, during the ALPACA experiment

Abstract. Air pollution in cold wintertime urban areas is a ubiquitous problem. Surface temperature inversions under low wind conditions and surface emissions lead to the formation of a shallow polluted surface layer (PSL). The presence of this PSL is well documented, but its hei...

Comparing apples and oranges (and pinecones): understanding patterns of reproductive disparity across seed plants

Abstract Seed plant reproductive structures are highly diverse, but analysing morphological disparity across the group is challenging because taxa are difficult to directly compare. Here, we develop an approach that accommodates divergent structures and unclear homologies, treati...

A 256-year daily rainfall record reveals multiscale rainy-season variability and emerging hydroclimatic hazard over northern East Asia

Monsoon rainy seasons shape water supply and flood hazard across northern East Asia, but their long-term variability remains poorly understood because few daily rainfall records extend beyond the instrumental era. Here, we reconstruct rainy-season onset, retreat, and duration fro...

Chiral discrimination of amino acids in meteorite and desert soil extracts via single-molecule nanogap conductance

Life on Earth uses L-amino acids and D-sugars, whereas abiotic processes produce equal abundances of both enantiomers. Detecting enantiomeric excess among molecules of biological interest has therefore been proposed as a potential biosignature for life beyond Earth. However, robu...

Afghanite: A New Silicate‐Matrix Reference Material for In Situ Halogen and Sulfur Microanalysis

Sulfur (S) and the halogens (F, Cl, Br, I) play key roles in geochemical processes that govern volatile cycling, redox evolution, phase reactions and ore formation in the Earth's crust and mantle. Quantifying these elements in situ requires well‐characterised reference materials...

Uniform automated analysis of Sdiff splitting due to lowermost mantle anisotropy: Caveats and curated global dataset

Summary Seismic anisotropy, the dependence of seismic wave speeds on the direction of propagation and/or polarization, places crucial constraints on deformation and convective flow in the lowermost mantle (the D″ layer). Shear waves that diffract along the core-mantle boundary (C...

Middle to late Holocene cooling and increased zonal asymmetry in the mid-latitude North Atlantic

Sea Surface Temperature reconstructions derived from alkenone biomarker (SST-alk) reveal a cooling trend in the North Atlantic during the late Holocene (the last 5000 years), contrary to the warming simulated by transient climate models driven by 20 ppm increase in greenhouse gas...

Volatile depletion in rocky planets as a chemical fingerprint of hybrid accretion

Volatile depletion in rocky planets records their formation history. Earth and Mars grew through different hybrid pathways of pebble and planetesimal accretion, providing a new way to interpret the diversity of rocky planets beyond the Solar System.

Agricultural liming is a carbon sink in the Mississippi River Basin

Application of carbonate minerals to arable lands, known as agricultural liming, is a long-standing practice for counteracting soil acidification1–3. Although liming boosts crop yields4, it is also considered a source of agricultural carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions5. Here we show,...

Deep underground energy storage solutions for data centers driven by artificial intelligence energy consumption

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has driven an unprecedented surge in electricity consumption by data centers (DCs). Although renewable energy and ground-based energy storage technologies are being widely adopted, they still face inherent limitations in scala...

Pressure-induced phase stability and metallization of monoclinic FeO from first-principles calculations

The phase relations of FeO under high-pressure and high-temperature (high P–T) conditions exhibit considerable complexity, hindering understanding of the physicochemical properties of the Earth’s deep interior. In particular, recent experimental studies have shown that FeO can st...

Meteoritic organic matter records primitive oxygen reservoirs of the solar system

Unraveling the complex formation and alteration history for extraterrestrial organic matter is key to understanding the chemical evolution of the solar system (SS) and potentially even life’s emergence on Earth. In this study, we performed high-precision triple oxygen isotope mea...

Deterioration mechanisms under combined low-amplitude thermal-fatigue and sulphate attack of concrete lining materials for underground thermal energy storage

Underground thermal energy storage (UTES) is an emerging decarbonisation technology for storing heat. However, the complex working environment with fluctuating temperature and potentially varying water chemistry may pose challenges to the lining materials, threatening the stabili...

A standardized field framework for integrated microbiological and geochemical sampling of deeply-sourced seeps across large-scale geological gradients

Accessing the deep subsurface biosphere remains a major challenge in Earth and planetary sciences. Drilling provides direct access but is costly, spatially restricted, and difficult to deploy at the scales required to investigate interactions between geological processes and micr...

An integrated sedimentological, PXRD, and PXRF approach to resolve facies ambiguity in peritidal carbonates: a case study from the Upper Ordovician Saluda Formation

ABSTRACT The inherent subjectivity and limited reproducibility of facies descriptions are widely recognized. These challenges are exemplified in variably dolomitized, peritidal mixed carbonate–siliciclastic deposits where traditional sedimentological facies analyses rely heavily...

Land Radiative Management Increases Heat Stress in Some Humid Regions

Abstract Heat stress may exceed human physiological limits this century in hot and humid regions. Land radiative management (LRM), a geoengineering strategy that increases surface albedo, aims to reduce heat stress. However, previous work has shown that LRM suppresses rainfall in...

The Complete Conquest of the Seven Millennium Problems and Their Corresponding Fields of Technological Knowledge/千禧年七大題的全攻克以及再對應的科技知識領域

Description — English Abstract This work presents an interdisciplinary framework connecting mathematical geometry, physical phenomena, and tangible engineering applications. It re-examines the seven Millennium Prize Problems through recurring structural concepts involving space,...

The Complete Conquest of the Seven Millennium Problems and Their Corresponding Fields of Technological Knowledge/千禧年七大題的全攻克以及再對應的科技知識領域

Description — English Abstract This work presents an interdisciplinary framework connecting mathematical geometry, physical phenomena, and tangible engineering applications. It re-examines the seven Millennium Prize Problems through recurring structural concepts involving space,...

The plausible relationship between deep long-period earthquakes and volatiles: a case study of the Alaska-Aleutian arc

Abstract Deep long-period (DLP) earthquakes are observed beneath volcanoes in various tectonic settings during background activity, unrest, and eruption. The exact processes generating DLPs have been subject to ongoing debate, as they may provide insight into deep magmatic plumbi...

The parent bodies of Ryugu and Ivuna formed before those of other carbonaceous chondrites

Most carbonaceous chondrite (CC) meteorites contain abundant chondrules, millimeter-scale spherical inclusions of previously molten material. Ivuna-type carbonaceous chondrites (CIs) do not contain chondrules, nor do samples of the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu. CIs and Ryugu share...