Understanding Of Earth Research Articles

New fossil assemblages from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota

The Fezouata Biota (Morocco) is a unique Early Ordovician fossil assemblage. The discovery of this biota revolutionized our understanding of Earth’s early animal diversifications—the Cambrian Explosion and the Ordovician Radiation—by suggesting an evolutionary continuum between both events. Herein, we describe Taichoute, a new fossil locality from the Fezouata Shale. This locality extends the temporal distribution of fossil preservation from this formation into the upper Floian, while also expanding the range of depositional environments to more distal parts of the shelf. In Taichoute, most animals were transported by density flows, unlike the in-situ preservation of animals recovered in previously investigated Fezouata sites. Taichoute is dominated by three-dimensionally preserved, and heavily sclerotized fragments of large euarthropods—possibly representing nektobenthic/nektic bivalved taxa and/or hurdiid radiodonts. Resolving whether this dominance reflects a legitimate aspect of the original ecosystem or a preservational bias requires an in-depth assessment of the environmental conditions at this site. Nevertheless, Taichoute provides novel preservational and palaeontological insights during a key evolutionary transition in the history of life on Earth.

A better understanding of Earth's viruses thanks to metagenomes

Despite their large number, viruses present in the environment remain largely unknown. Metagenomic approaches, targeting viruses specifically or not, have allowed us a better understanding of the composition of natural viral communities, with Caudoviricetes, Microviridae, Cressdnaviricota or Phycodnaviridae being the most frequently found viral groups. Metagenomes are gradually revealing the extent of the diversity of these groups and their structure, highlighting the large number of species, genera and even viral families, most of which being seen for the first time. Within these groups, the gene content, infected hosts and inhabited ecosystems are often consistent with the evolutionary history traced with marker genes. Thus, the diversity of viruses and their genes is more a reflection of their ancient origin and long coevolution with their hosts than of their ability to mutate rapidly.

A Modern Approach to a Stability-Based Definition of the Tropopause

Abstract Definition of the tropopause has remained a focus of atmospheric science since its discovery near the beginning of the twentieth century. Few universal definitions (those that can be reliably applied globally and to both common observations and numerical model output) exist and many definitions with unique limitations have been developed over the years. The most commonly used universal definition of the tropopause is the temperature lapse-rate definition established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1957 (the LRT). Despite its widespread use, there are recurrent situations where the LRT definition fails to reliably identify the tropopause. Motivated by increased availability of coincident observations of stability and composition, this study seeks to reexamine the relationship between stability and composition change in the tropopause transition layer and identify areas for improvement in a stability-based definition of the tropopause. In particular, long-term (40+ years) balloon observations of temperature, ozone, and water vapor from six locations across the globe are used to identify covariability between several metrics of atmospheric stability and composition. We found that the vertical gradient of potential temperature is a superior stability metric to identify the greatest composition change in the tropopause transition layer, which we use to propose a new universally applicable potential temperature gradient tropopause (PTGT) definition. Application of the new definition to both observations and reanalysis output reveals that the PTGT largely agrees with the LRT, but more reliably identifies tropopause-level composition change when the two definitions differ greatly. Significance Statement In this study we provide a review of existing tropopause definitions (and their limitations) and investigate potential improvement in the definition of the tropopause using balloon-based observations of stability and atmospheric composition. This work is motivated by the need for correct identification of the tropopause to accurately assess upper-troposphere–lower-stratosphere processes, which in turn has far-reaching implications for our understanding of Earth’s radiation budget and climate. The result of this research is the creation of a new, universally applicable stability-based definition of the tropopause: the potential temperature gradient tropopause (PTGT).

Comparative analysis of the optimum cluster number determination algorithms in clustering GPS velocities

SUMMARY The Global Positioning System (GPS), although it has existed for only 30 years, is an important source for active tectonics, resulting in estimates of plate motions very close to geologic estimates over millions of years. GPS is also used for elastic block models to calculate slip rates for a better understanding of Earth’s active crustal deformation. GPS-derived velocity fields may be used as the basis for clustering analysis to create a preliminary definition of block geometry. In this study, we used published horizontal velocity fields to evaluate the effects of data dependences on determining the optimum number of clusters with algorithms. For this purpose, we used different variations of velocity fields in Turkey and tested four different algorithms that are Davies–Bouldin index, the elbow method, GAP statistics algorithm and the silhouette method. We also clustered velocity components with the k-means technique and compared the results with previous studies.

Timing Earth's Abiotic Kitchen: Short Hydrothermal Fluid Residence Times in Serpentinizing Oceanic Crust

AbstractHydrothermal alteration of ultramafic rock (serpentinization) creates extremely reducing (H2‐rich) fluids in the oceanic crust, resulting in strong thermodynamic drives to reduce CO2 to organic molecules in the absence of life. Timescales on which such hydrothermal fluids circulate (thus produce or destroy such organic molecules) have remained enigmatic. In their new publication, Moore et al. (2021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC017886) present compelling radioisotope‐based estimates of fluid residence times in a widely known site of purported abiotic synthesis—The Lost City Hydrothermal Field. Using a model that accounts for the sorptive behavior of Ra radionuclides during circulation, they find that fluids at Lost City must have remarkably short residence times, averaging 0.5–2 years or less. The study represents a critical step forward in our understanding of Earth's abiotic organic “kitchen”, as it now places a constraint on the timeframe in which organic molecule creation should occur in such fluids (if at all) prior to venting at the seafloor.

Biomarkers in the Precambrian: Earth’s Ancient Sedimentary Record of Life

The hydrocarbon remnants of biologically diagnostic lipids inform our understanding of Earth’s early ecosystems, particularly where morphological vestiges of biology are absent or ambiguous. Yet both the analysis and interpretation of ancient biomarkers require scrutinous approaches. Here, we describe the status quo of Precambrian biomarker geochemistry with four examples that highlight current challenges and opportunities.

The Earth Model Column Collaboratory (EMC<sup>2</sup>) v1.1: an open-source ground-based lidar and radar instrument simulator and subcolumn generator for large-scale models

Abstract. Climate models are essential for our comprehensive understanding of Earth's atmosphere and can provide critical insights on future changes decades ahead. Because of these critical roles, today's climate models are continuously being developed and evaluated using constraining observations and measurements obtained by satellites, airborne, and ground-based instruments. Instrument simulators can provide a bridge between the measured or retrieved quantities and their sampling in models and field observations while considering instrument sensitivity limitations. Here we present the Earth Model Column Collaboratory (EMC2), an open-source ground-based lidar and radar instrument simulator and subcolumn generator, specifically designed for large-scale models, in particular climate models, but also applicable to high-resolution model output. EMC2 provides a flexible framework enabling direct comparison of model output with ground-based observations, including generation of subcolumns that may statistically represent finer model spatial resolutions. In addition, EMC2 emulates ground-based (and air- or space-borne) measurements while remaining faithful to large-scale models' physical assumptions implemented in their cloud or radiation schemes. The simulator uses either single particle or bulk particle size distribution lookup tables, depending on the selected scheme approach, to perform the forward calculations. To facilitate model evaluation, EMC2 also includes three hydrometeor classification methods, namely, radar- and sounding-based cloud and precipitation detection and classification, lidar-based phase classification, and a Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project Observational Simulator Package (COSP) lidar simulator emulator. The software is written in Python, is easy to use, and can be straightforwardly customized for different models, radars, and lidars. Following the description of the logic, functionality, features, and software structure of EMC2, we present a case study of highly supercooled mixed-phase cloud based on measurements from the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE). We compare observations with the application of EMC2 to outputs from four configurations of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) climate model (ModelE3) in single-column model (SCM) mode and from a large-eddy simulation (LES) model. We show that two of the four ModelE3 configurations can form and maintain highly supercooled precipitating cloud for several hours, consistent with observations and LES. While our focus is on one of these ModelE3 configurations, which performed slightly better in this case study, both of these configurations and the LES results post-processed with EMC2 generally provide reasonable agreement with observed lidar and radar variables. As briefly demonstrated here, EMC2 can provide a lightweight and flexible framework for comparing the results of both large-scale and high-resolution models directly with observations, with relatively little overhead and multiple options for achieving consistency with model microphysical or radiation scheme physics.

Perspectives on tipping points in integrated models of the natural and human Earth system: cascading effects and telecoupling

The Earth system and the human system are intrinsically linked. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have led to the climate crisis, which is causing unprecedented extreme events and could trigger Earth system tipping elements. Physical and social forces can lead to tipping points and cascading effects via feedbacks and telecoupling, but the current generation of climate-economy models do not generally take account of these interactions and feedbacks. Here, we show the importance of the interplay between human societies and Earth systems in creating tipping points and cascading effects and the way they in turn affect sustainability and security. The lack of modeling of these links can lead to an underestimation of climate and societal risks as well as how societal tipping points can be harnessed to moderate physical impacts. This calls for the systematic development of models for a better integration and understanding of Earth and human systems at different spatial and temporal scales, specifically those that enable decision-making to reduce the likelihood of crossing local or global tipping points.

NERITIDAE (GASTROPODA, NERITIMORPHA) FROM THE MALACOLOGICAL COLLECTION PROF. HENRY RAMOS MATTHEWS OF THE UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO CEARÁ, BRAZIL

The basic information obtained from scientific collections help us to understanding of Earth’s diverse biota and its biological processes. The Malacological Collection Prof. Henry Ramos Matthews (CMPHRM) of the Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Brazil, is a reference about the biodiversity, mainly marine, of northeastern Brazil. In this collection, the gastropod molluscs of the family Neritidae were among the most representative in number of lots. Since an accurate geographical distribution knowledge is one of the fundamental factors to the study of biodiversity, the present study aimed to describe the composition and spatially analyse the neritids deposited in the CMPHRM/UFC. There is a total of 314 lots of the Neritidae deposited at CMPHRM, belonging to eight species (Nerita chamaeleon, Nerita chlorostoma, Nerita fulgurans, Nerita tessellata, Neritina virginea, Neritina meleagris, Neritina zebra, and Smaragdia viridis). The Malacological Collection Prof. Henry Ramos Matthews of the Universidade Federal do Ceará has representatives of all species of Neritidae recorded in the Brazilian Province, which are important for confirming previous records or establishing new occurrence records.
 Keywords: Neritina, Nerita, Smaragdia, Brazilian Province

INSAT-3D and -3DR relative radiometric performance over bright target

The Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite INSAT-3D and -3DR derived data products plays a vital role in helping to develop long-term trends of many climate variables and to improve our understanding of earth's environmental processes and dynamics occurring on the land, in the oceans and in the atmosphere. In order to provide high quality, consistent and well calibrated measurements, the radiometric calibration of the sensor must be consistent, stable and traceable to its calibration standards. Due to absence of an onboard calibration mechanism for the visible (VIS) and Short Wave Infra-Red (SWIR) bands, accuracy of Top-of-atmospheric radiance of these bands data depend on vicarious calibration methods to provide post launch calibration coefficients to compensate for the degradation responsivity. In this study, a methodology has been implemented to perform degradation assessment and seasonal variation pattern for the visible and SWIR band of INSAT-3D and -3DR satellite based on clear-sky observations. The current methodology relies on clear sky apparent reflectance which are derived from level-1 images over pseudo-invariant desert target. In this study, authors are focused to investigate visible and SWIR band performance based on clear-sky observations over desert target and the instrument long-term drift traced by a polynomial fitting function. A trending algorithm is proposed here, which consists of a polynomial function (for the description of instrument degradation performance) with two sine terms for quashing the impact of the seasonal variations of the solar zenith angle and atmospheric constituents, is applied to fit the time series of apparent reflectance.

Abstracts from the Spectra 2018 Symposium Part 2: Visualization

Abstracts from the Spectra 2018 Symposium Part 2: <i>Visualization</i>

The Sedimentary Geochemistry and Paleoenvironments Project.

The Sedimentary Geochemistry and Paleoenvironments Project.

The Scientific Legacy of NASA’s Operation IceBridge

AbstractThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Operation IceBridge (OIB) was a 13‐year (2009–2021) airborne mission to survey land and sea ice across the Arctic, Antarctic, and Alaska. Here, we review OIB’s goals, instruments, campaigns, key scientific results, and implications for future investigations of the cryosphere. OIB’s primary goal was to use airborne laser altimetry to bridge the gap in fine‐resolution elevation measurements of ice from space between the conclusion of NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat; 2003–2009) and its follow‐on, ICESat‐2 (launched 2018). Additional scientific requirements were intended to contextualize observed elevation changes using a multisensor suite of radar sounders, gravimeters, magnetometers, and cameras. Using 15 different aircraft, OIB conducted 968 science flights, of which 42% were repeat surveys of land ice, 42% were surveys of previously unmapped terrain across the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, Arctic ice caps, and Alaskan glaciers, and 16% were surveys of sea ice. The combination of an expansive instrument suite and breadth of surveys enabled numerous fundamental advances in our understanding of the Earth’s cryosphere. For land ice, OIB dramatically improved knowledge of interannual outlet‐glacier variability, ice‐sheet, and outlet‐glacier thicknesses, snowfall rates on ice sheets, fjord and sub‐ice‐shelf bathymetry, and ice‐sheet hydrology. Unanticipated discoveries included a reliable method for constraining the thickness within difficult‐to‐sound incised troughs beneath ice sheets, the extent of the firn aquifer within the Greenland Ice Sheet, the vulnerability of many Greenland and Antarctic outlet glaciers to ocean‐driven melting at their grounding zones, and the dominance of surface‐melt‐driven mass loss of Alaskan glaciers. For sea ice, OIB significantly advanced our understanding of spatiotemporal variability in sea ice freeboard and its snow cover, especially through combined analysis of fine‐resolution altimetry, visible imagery, and snow radar measurements of the overlying snow thickness. Such analyses led to the unanticipated discovery of an interdecadal decrease in snow thickness on Arctic sea ice and numerous opportunities to validate sea ice freeboards from satellite radar altimetry. While many of its data sets have yet to be fully explored, OIB’s scientific legacy has already demonstrated the value of sustained investment in reliable airborne platforms, airborne instrument development, interagency and international collaboration, and open and rapid data access to advance our understanding of Earth’s remote polar regions and their role in the Earth system.

Automated Quality Assessment of Interferometric Ring Laser Data.

In seismology, an increased effort to observe all 12 degrees of freedom of seismic ground motion by complementing translational ground motion observations with measurements of strain and rotational motions could be witnessed in recent decades, aiming at an enhanced probing and understanding of Earth and other planetary bodies. The evolution of optical instrumentation, in particular large-scale ring laser installations, such as G-ring and ROMY (ROtational Motion in seismologY), and their geoscientific application have contributed significantly to the emergence of this scientific field. The currently most advanced, large-scale ring laser array is ROMY, which is unprecedented in scale and design. As a heterolithic structure, ROMY’s ring laser components are subject to optical frequency drifts. Such Sagnac interferometers require new considerations and approaches concerning data acquisition, processing and quality assessment, compared to conventional, mechanical instrumentation. We present an automated approach to assess the data quality and the performance of a ring laser, based on characteristics of the interferometric Sagnac signal. The developed scheme is applied to ROMY data to detect compromised operation states and assign quality flags. When ROMY’s database becomes publicly accessible, this assessment will be employed to provide a quality control feature for data requests.

A reappraisal of the Nonacho Basin (Northwest Territories, Canada): Record of post-orogenic collapse and marine flooding in the Palaeoproterozoic of the Rae Craton

The synoptic analysis of coeval orogens and sedimentary basins is crucial to our understanding of Earth’s crustal and surface processes. The Nonacho Group (Northwest Territories, Canada) is a major and yet enigmatic clastic sedimentary unit part of a basin system preserved over >2300 km along its original continental-sloping direction. This basin system records crustal sagging, relaxation, and flexure at ~2.3–1.9 Ga in the Rae Craton, one of the main building blocks of ancestral North America. Correlations between the Nonacho Group and coeval supracrustal assemblages in the Rae Craton has posed challenges. The group has been hitherto related to continental deposition at ~1.9 Ga, in a regime of sinistral strike-slip linked to the collision of the Rae and adjoining Slave cratons. We reappraise the Nonacho Group by means of facies analysis, stratigraphic logging, and palaeocurrent-data collection at key sites. Record of marine deposition is inferred based on the cumulative thickness of shoreface strata, an inference corroborated by sedimentological indicators such as wave- and bimodal-ripple, hummocky-cross, and flaser stratification. The alluvial to marine stratigraphy of the lower and middle parts of the Nonacho Group records basin inception and expansion in a regime of crustal relaxation. Topographic rejuvenation and deposition of younger alluvial to marine strata floored by an unconformity (upper Nonacho Group) followed in a regime of crustal flexure and renewed extension. These stratigraphic trends are tentatively related to broadly contemporaneous tectono-depositional events in the Rae Craton, including crustal thickening and ensuing extensional collapse of the bounding Thelon-Taltson and Snowbird orogens. By these means, we provide new testable hypotheses of a pan-continental tectono-sedimentary system developed during the Palaeoproterozoic amalgamation of the Canadian Shield.

Constraining prebiotic chemistry through a better understanding of Earth’s earliest environments

Whitepaper #143 submitted to the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032. Topics: surface/geological evolution; life and prebiotic organics; other science themes: early Earth environments

The Deep-Time Digital Earth program: data-driven discovery in geosciences.

Current barriers hindering data-driven discoveries in deep-time Earth (DE) include: substantial volumes of DE data are not digitized; many DE databases do not adhere to FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) principles; we lack a systematic knowledge graph for DE; existing DE databases are geographically heterogeneous; a significant fraction of DE data is not in open-access formats; tailored tools are needed. These challenges motivate the Deep-Time Digital Earth (DDE) program initiated by the International Union of Geological Sciences and developed in cooperation with national geological surveys, professional associations, academic institutions and scientists around the world. DDE’s mission is to build on previous research to develop a systematic DE knowledge graph, a FAIR data infrastructure that links existing databases and makes dark data visible, and tailored tools for DE data, which are universally accessible. DDE aims to harmonize DE data, share global geoscience knowledge and facilitate data-driven discovery in the understanding of Earth's evolution.

Ten new insights in climate science 2020 – a horizon scan

Non-technical summaryWe summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding of Earth's sensitivity to carbon dioxide, finds that permafrost thaw could release more carbon emissions than expected and that the uptake of carbon in tropical ecosystems is weakening. Adverse impacts on human society include increasing water shortages and impacts on mental health. Options for solutions emerge from rethinking economic models, rights-based litigation, strengthened governance systems and a new social contract. The disruption caused by COVID-19 could be seized as an opportunity for positive change, directing economic stimulus towards sustainable investments.Technical summaryA synthesis is made of ten fields within climate science where there have been significant advances since mid-2019, through an expert elicitation process with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) a better understanding of equilibrium climate sensitivity; (2) abrupt thaw as an accelerator of carbon release from permafrost; (3) changes to global and regional land carbon sinks; (4) impacts of climate change on water crises, including equity perspectives; (5) adverse effects on mental health from climate change; (6) immediate effects on climate of the COVID-19 pandemic and requirements for recovery packages to deliver on the Paris Agreement; (7) suggested long-term changes to governance and a social contract to address climate change, learning from the current pandemic, (8) updated positive cost–benefit ratio and new perspectives on the potential for green growth in the short- and long-term perspective; (9) urban electrification as a strategy to move towards low-carbon energy systems and (10) rights-based litigation as an increasingly important method to address climate change, with recent clarifications on the legal standing and representation of future generations.Social media summaryStronger permafrost thaw, COVID-19 effects and growing mental health impacts among highlights of latest climate science.

Land surface phenology as indicator of global terrestrial ecosystem dynamics: A systematic review

Vegetation phenology is considered an important biological indicator in understanding the behaviour of ecosystems and how it responds to environmental cues. Changes in vegetation dynamics have been strongly linked to the variability of climate patterns and may have an important impact on the ecological processes of ecosystems, such as the land surface-atmosphere exchange of water and carbon, energy flows and interaction between different species. Land surface phenology (LSP) is the study of seasonal patterns in plant phenophases based on time series from vegetation indices (VI) or biophysical variables derived from satellite data, and has played an essential role in monitoring the response of terrestrial ecosystems to environmental changes from local to global scales. The goal of this systematic literature review is to provide a detailed synthesis of the main contributions of the global LSP research to the development of environmental knowledge and remote sensing science and technology, identifying possible gaps that could be addressed in the coming years.This systematic review found that the number of LSP studies has grown exponentially since the 1980s, although the analysis of phenological metrics or phenometrics derived from satellite data (i.e. proxies for the biological phenophases of plants) has focused specifically on ecosystems located in the mid- and high-altitude in the Northern Hemisphere (e.g. boreal forest/taiga, evergreen, deciduous or mixed temperate forest). LSP studies use different satellite dataset and methods to estimate phenometrics. These studies identified an advance in spring and a delay in autumn phenophases as general trends. Although these trends were associated mainly to changes in temperature and precipitation, phenological cycle dynamics might be related to other drivers, such as photoperiod, soil moisture or organic carbon content, among others. Therefore, this interaction between different climatic and non-climatic drivers make phenology modelling a difficult task.Hence, in the coming years, a greater integration of LSP data into ecological process modelling could provide a more complete overview on the terrestrial ecosystems functioning. Furthermore, different technical and methodological aspects (e.g. greater temporal coverage of recent high-spatial-resolution satellites, advances in remote-sensing technology or improved efficiency in the computational processing of geospatial data) may also contribute to improve our understanding of Earth’s ecosystem dynamics and their environmental drivers.

Integrating polar research into undergraduate curricula using computational guided inquiry

Polar research plays a vital role in developing our understanding of Earth’s climate system. It is intrinsically interdisciplinary, lending itself to integration into existing undergraduate courses. Here we explore introducing undergraduates to polar research through computational guided inquiry (CGI) modules taught in a variety of courses and disciplines. Students apply course disciplinary techniques to analysis of polar data or research, in the context of climate change, by working through educational modules that include spreadsheets (ExcelTM) or interactive computer programing (Python in a Jupyter Notebook), over a few class or lab periods. The goals of this exploratory curriculum project are to determine instructor perceptions of effectiveness of the educational modules for teaching preexisting disciplinary course objectives, as well as student perceptions of enjoyment and learning. Evaluation consisted of a student questionnaire and interviews with instructors by an external evaluator. Students and instructors overall reported positive experiences with the modules, highlighted the importance of polar data and climate literacy, and noted increases in student understanding of course learning goals and comfort with the computational tools. Professors further reported that students found the modules motivating, fun and engaging. Taken together, this suggests that the modules are an effective means of bringing polar research into undergraduate classrooms while satisfying instructor goals for course learning objectives. Lessons learned include the importance of providing material such as videos to help transition to the topics of polar research and climate change and of supporting widely varying computational fluency.