By tracking the isotopic fingerprints of iron in lunar and terrestrial rocks, researchers trying to understand the origin of the Moon’s mysterious progenitor add evidence to the idea that it came from the inner Solar System. According to the findings, Theia – the Mars-sized planetary body that collided with Earth to form the Moon – was born possibly closer to the Sun than to Earth. The Moon is believed to have formed when Theia collided with early Earth roughly a hundred million years after the formation of the Solar System. Most models of this process suggest that the Moon is mostly composed of materials derived from this ancient impactor. If Theia had a different isotopic makeup from Earth, it would be expected that the Moon would as well. Such isotopic variations can reveal where a planetary body originated in the Solar System, which could provide insight into the origin of Theia. However, analyses of lunar rock show that the Moon and Earth are nearly identical in their isotopic compositions for many elements. Although competing models have attempted to explain this similarity, the absence of clear isotopic differences and uncertainty over which processes caused this have made it challenging to determine where Theia originally formed. Here, Timo Hopp and colleagues conducted new high-precision iron isotope analyses of lunar samples, terrestrial rocks, and meteorites representing the isotopic reservoirs from which Theia and proto-Earth might have formed. According to the analysis, Earth and the Moon have indistinguishable iron isotopic compositions and both fall within that of non-carbonaceous meteorites, which are thought to represent material formed in the inner Solar System. Integrating these results with previous isotopic data for other elements and performing mass balance calculations for Theia and proto-Earth, Hopp et al. conclude that Theia likely originated in the inner Solar System and formed even closer to the Sun than proto-Earth.

The massive swarm of earthquakes that rattled the Greek islands of Santorini and Amorgos in 2025 was not caused by a slipping fault – it was triggered by pulses of magma tunneling far below the seafloor, according to a new study. The findings offer a detailed look at a “pumping” magmatic dike in action and provide a foundation for more reliable, physics-based eruption forecasting and volcanic hazard assessment. In early 2025, a burst of intense earthquakes – including several around magnitude 5 – shook the region between the islands of Santorini and Amorgos in the Aegean Sea. Because Santorini is an active volcano with a history of catastrophic eruptions, the event raised serious concerns. Exactly what triggered this seismic unrest remains debated, but it is generally attributed to magmatic dike intrusion or fluid-driven tectonic fault slip. However, fully determining the processes that contributed to the event is difficult to resolve because most magmatic dike activity occurs deep underground or far offshore, beyond the scope of traditional monitoring methods.

 

To overcome these limits, Anthony Lomax and colleagues applied machine learning methods to detect and precisely locate ~25,000 earthquakes recorded during the 2025 Santorini-Amorgos. By applying a new three-dimensional imaging technique, CoulSeS, which treats earthquake locations and indicators of stress change at depth, Lomaxz et al. were able to use the tremblors as “virtual sensors” to map the underlying geologic source of the unrest. By modeling how evolving patterns of stress triggered seismic activity and tracing how earthquakes migrated, the authors found that the event was driven by the intrusion of a horizontally propagating magma-filled dike, which extended about 30 kilometers below the seafloor between the two islands. High-resolution imaging revealed a complex pattern of pressure fluctuations – as the dike propagated, it repeatedly broke through stress barriers in the crust, surged forward, and then underwent cycles of contraction and expansion, creating a dynamic pumping behavior that earlier studies had overlooked. “The study of Lomax et al. could lead to new dynamic models of magma transport that account for spatial variations in the fracture resistance of surrounding rocks,” writes Virginie Pinel in a related Perspective. “Furthermore, combining real-time observations and dynamic models could predict the location and timing of eruptions by using advanced data assimilation or machine-learning techniques."

A new paper outlines how scientists came together to put together the first microbial conservation roadmap under the leadership of Applied Microbiology International President, Professor Jack Gilbert. 

In July 2025, IUCN formally launched the MCSG within its Species Survival Commission, co-chaired by Professor Gilbert and Raquel Peixoto (KAUST / ISME). This came out of a meeting that Professor Gilbert led in May of conservation experts and microbiologists to define the premise of conservation in a microbial world. 

This is the first global coalition dedicated to safeguarding microbial biodiversity, which is the ‘invisible 99% of life’, to ensure that microbes are recognized as essential to the planet’s ecological, climate, and health systems.

20 November 2025 / Kiel. So far, the ocean has helped to buffer global warming by absorbing more than 90 per cent of the excess heat trapped in the Earth system by the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. A new modelling study by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has now examined how the ocean might respond if atmospheric carbon dioxide was drastically reduced in the future. The results show that, after centuries of cooling, the Southern Ocean could trigger renewed warming by releasing the stored heat back into the atmosphere. Whether this would occur as a single major “heat burp”, in many smaller pulses, or continuously over centuries remains unclear. The study has now been published in AGU Advances.

In mountain regions like the Rockies, headwater streams make up more than 70% of the river network and support the downstream waterways and communities. These headwaters are also home to many forms of aquatic life. While these sources are crucial, very few are monitored, and aspects of their hydrology are not well understood. A team of researchers, including UConn Department of Earth Sciences assistant professor Lijing Wang, are working to determine what influences how and when water moves through these streams, and what hidden source sustains them long after the rush of snowmelt. Their findings are published in Water Resources Research.