Sarah Garton Stanley

Jan 8, 2025 | eos.org | Sarah Garton Stanley

The vast Antarctic Ice Sheet holds more than half of Earth’s freshwater. In several places around the continent, the ice extends over the ocean, where it forms large floating shelves. Observations suggest many of these ice shelves are thinning as they melt from below, with implications for ocean dynamics, global sea level, and Earth’s climate.

Jan 2, 2025 | eos.org | Sarah Garton Stanley

Central Europe is typically not on most people’s radar when it comes to assessing volcanic risk. However, as recently as 11,000 years ago, volcanoes erupted in the Eifel Mountains of western Germany. For now, the Eifel volcanic field lies dormant, but multiple lines of evidence have hinted that new eruptions could one day occur. Now, Eickhoff et al.

Oct 24, 2024 | eos.org | Sarah Garton Stanley

On 4 August 1972, a burst of solar plasma rocked Earth’s magnetic field after hurtling through space for about 14.6 hours—the fastest Sun-to-Earth plasma journey ever recorded. The resulting space storm, one of several that occurred from 2 to 11 August, triggered widespread disturbances to electrical and communication grids and likely caused accidental detonations of U.S. undersea naval mines in North Vietnam.

Oct 16, 2024 | eos.org | Sarah Garton Stanley

Encircling Earth are the Van Allen radiation belts—vast, doughnut-shaped rings of highly energetic charged particles, mostly originating from the Sun, that are trapped by our planet’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere. The belts prevent dangerous radiation from reaching Earth’s atmosphere, but can also pose hazards to nearby spacecraft.

Oct 10, 2024 | eos.org | Sarah Garton Stanley

Before Earth became the Blue Planet, it was engulfed by a very different kind of ocean: a vast, deep magma ocean reaching down hundreds or perhaps even thousands of kilometers. As early Earth’s magma ocean cooled and solidified, different types of minerals crystallized at different rates, so the chemical makeup of the molten rock changed over time. And as the magma released gases into early Earth’s atmosphere, the chemical makeup of the atmosphere changed as well.