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Understanding the co-evolution of complex life with Earth's geology is an enduring challenge. The rock record evidences remarkable correlations between changes in biology and the wider Earth system, yet cause and effect remain unclear.…
Approximately one billion years (Gyr) in the future, as the Sun brightens, Earth's carbonate-silicate cycle is expected to drive CO$_2$ below the minimum level required by vascular land plants, eliminating most macroscopic land life. Here,…
Communities of swimming microorganisms often thrive near liquid-air interfaces. We study how such `active carpets' shape their aquatic environment by driving biogenic transport in the water column beneath them. The hydrodynamic stirring…
Impact-induced erosion of the Earth's early crust during accretion of terrestrial bodies can significantly modify the primordial chemical composition of the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE, that is, the composition of the crust added to the…
A balanced ratio of ocean to land is believed to be essential for an Earth-like biosphere and one may conjecture that plate-tectonics planets should be similar in geological properties. After all, the volume of continental crust evolves…
Carbon capture and storage in basalt is being actively investigated as a scalable climate change mitigation option. Accurate geochemical modeling prediction of the extent and rate of CO2 mineralization is a critical component in assessing…
The search for life beyond the Solar System is a major activity in exoplanet science. However, even if an Earth-like planet were to be found, it is unlikely to be at a similar stage of evolution as the modern Earth. It is therefore of…
Human activity has an enormous impact on Earth, changing organisms, environments and landscapes, leading to the decline of original ecosystems and irreversible changes that create new combinations of living beings and materials. As a…
Understanding the evolution of Earth and potentially habitable Earth-like worlds is essential to fathom our origin in the Universe. The search for Earth-like planets in the habitable zone and investigation of their atmospheres with climate…
Destabilization of the water cycle threatens human lives and livelihoods. Meanwhile our understanding of whether and how changes in vegetation cover could trigger abrupt transitions in moisture regimes remains incomplete. This challenge…
In ecology, climate and other fields, (sub)systems have been identified that can transition into a qualitatively different state when a critical threshold or tipping point in a driving process is crossed. An understanding of those tipping…
This article reviews the emerging field of exo-geoscience, focusing on the geological and geophysical processes thought to influence the evolution and (eu)habitability of rocky exoplanets. We examine the possible roles of planetary…
Since the Archean, N2 has been a major atmospheric constituent in Earth's atmosphere. Nitrogen is an essential element in the building blocks of life, therefore the geobiological nitrogen cycle is a fundamental factor in the long term…
Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…
Understanding the mechanisms that govern species coexistence and biodiversity represents a fundamental challenge in ecology. This study extends the classic rock-paper-scissors model by introducing a context-dependent higher-order…
Biota are found in glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost. Ice bound micro-organisms evolve in a complex mobile environment facilitated or hindered by a range of bulk and surface interactions. When a particle is embedded in a host solid near…
After Earth's origin, our host star, the Sun, was shining 20 to 25 percent less brightly than today. Without greenhouse-like conditions to warm the atmosphere, our early planet would have been an ice ball and life may never have evolved.…
The complexity of an ecological community can be distilled into a network, where diverse interactions connect species in a web of dependencies. Species interact not only with each other but indirectly through environmental effects, however…
A central and long-standing issue in evolutionary theory is the origin of the biological variation upon which natural selection acts1. Some hypotheses suggest that evolutionary change represents an adaptation to the surrounding environment…
China has undertaken unprecedented, state-driven vegetation restoration on a continental scale. This large-scale land-surface intervention offers a rare opportunity to assess how deliberate biospheric change influences climate-relevant…