A new map of the magnetic anomalies in Antarctica and the seafloor surrounding the continent is giving researchers a fresh tool to use in analyzing geologic features that lie hidden beneath thousands of feet of ice or storm-tossed seas. (p. 358)

Chunks of fossil charcoal found in ancient sediments in north central Pennsylvania suggest that cycles of wildfire plagued Earth more than 360 million years ago. (p. 309)

Construction of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River in China may lead to warmer temperatures in Japan, because any diversion of water for Chinese agriculture could initiate convection in the Japan Sea that brings warmer water to the surface. (p. 245)

New observations of the middle and upper atmosphere over Earth's polar regions may require scientists to revamp their mathematical models of temperature and other environmental conditions at high altitudes. (p. 215)

Scientists have found microorganisms within Kentucky shale that are eating the ancient carbon locked within the rock, a previously unrecognized dietary habit that could have a prevalent role in the weathering and erosion of similar sedimentary rock at many other locations. (p. 198)

Using tree-ring analysis, an international team of researchers has reconstructed the earliest record of annual climate variation. (p. 197)