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As the Arctic warms, shrinking glaciers are exposing bubbling groundwater springs which could provide an underestimated source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, finds new research published today in Nature Geoscience . The study , led by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University Centre in Svalbard...

Trees were making a clear impact on the landscape as far back as the Late Devonian, around 360 million years ago, according to a new study from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. The researchers studied fossil trees preserved at Ireland’s oldest fossil forest site, in County Wexford. The fossilized remains show that...

Intricate whorls, pastel pigments and iridescent interiors. Seashells are one of the wonders of the ocean world. But, aside from a beachcomber’s souvenir and home for a living creature, shells are also a messenger of environmental change — foretelling the impacts of warming seas and ocean acidification. After decades of...

Plagioclase feldspars are one of the most common and abundant mineral groups in Earth's crust — and that means they are also one of the most frequently studied minerals. Clues locked away in these crystals can provide information on a range of broad geological questions from, for instance, the processes that triggered a...