World’s oldest impact crater found, rewriting Earth’s ancient history

Curtin University researchers have discovered the world’s oldest known meteorite impact crater, which could significantly redefine our understanding of the origins of life and how our planet was shaped.

Curtin University

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Curtin University researchers have discovered the world’s oldest known meteorite impact crater, which could significantly redefine our understanding of the origins of life and how our planet was shaped.

 

The team from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) investigated rock layers in the North Pole Dome — an area of the Pilbara region of Western Australia — and found evidence of a major meteorite impact 3.5 billion years ago.

 

Study co-lead Professor Tim Johnson, from Curtin University, said the discovery significantly challenged previous assumptions about our planet’s ancient history.

 

“Before our discovery, the oldest impact crater was 2.2 billion years old, so this is by far the oldest known crater ever found on Earth,” Professor Johnson said.

 

Researchers discovered the crater thanks to ‘shatter cones’, distinctive rock formations only formed under the intense pressure of a meteorite strike.

 

The shatter cones at the site, about 40 kilometres west of Marble Bar in WA’s Pilbara region, were formed when a meteorite slammed into the area at more than 36,000km/h.

 

This would have been a major planetary event, resulting in a crater more than 100km wide that would have sent debris flying across the globe.

 

“We know large impacts were common in the early solar system from looking at the Moon,” Professor Johnson said.

 

“Until now, the absence of any truly ancient craters means they are largely ignored by geologists.

 

“This study provides a crucial piece of the puzzle of Earth's impact history and suggests there may be many other ancient craters that could be discovered over time.”

 

Co-lead author Professor Chris Kirkland, also from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the discovery shed new light on how meteorites shaped Earth’s early environment.

 

“Uncovering this impact and finding more from the same time period could explain a lot about how life may have got started, as impact craters created environments friendly to microbial life such as hot water pools,” Professor Kirkland said.

 

“It also radically refines our understanding of crust formation: the tremendous amount of energy from this impact could have played a role in shaping early Earth’s crust by pushing one part of the Earth's crust under another, or by forcing magma to rise from deep within the Earth's mantle toward the surface.

 

“It may have even contributed to the formation of cratons, which are large, stable landmasses that became the foundation of continents.”

 

‘A Paleoarchean impact crater in the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia’ was published in Nature Communications.

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-57558-3 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

A Paleoarchaean impact crater in the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia

Article Publication Date

6-Mar-2025

 

NYU Abu Dhabi research highlights adaptability of some coral reef fish to rising temperatures

Fish in the world’s hottest reef ecosystem show greater thermal tolerance but lower biodiversity

New York University

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Bamboo Garden Monitoring Station - photo credit Oliver Farrell

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Credit: photo credit Oliver Farrell

Abu Dhabi, UAE, March 6, 2025: Researchers at the Mubadala Arabian Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences (Mubadala ACCESS) at NYU Abu Dhabi have found that reef fish from the Arabian Gulf, the world’s hottest sea, exhibit a higher tolerance to temperature fluctuations compared to those from more thermally stable coral reefs. However, the Arabian Gulf hosts fewer fish species overall, indicating that only certain fishes can withstand rising global temperatures.

The Arabian Gulf's highly variable thermal environment provides a natural framework for studying how reef fish might cope with a warming climate. By comparing fish from this extreme habitat to those in the milder Gulf of Oman, the research team, led by Dr Grace Vaughan, Postdoctoral Associate Daniel Ripley, and Professor of Biology John Burt, discovered that fish in the Arabian Gulf demonstrate slightly higher temperature tolerance. However, overall biodiversity is lower. This suggests that while some species can adapt to environmental variability, the difference in thermal tolerance between the two regions was minimal.

The team’s findings are detailed in the paper Narrow Margins: Aerobic Performance and Temperature Tolerance of Coral Reef Fishes Facing Extreme Thermal Variability, published in Global Change Biology.

The researchers also tested a prominent hypothesis known as “plastic floors and concrete ceilings”, which suggests that fish can adjust their resting physiological rates, such as heart rate or metabolism, to adapt to warmer climates. They were the first to examine this theory in a coral reef ecosystem under increasing thermal variability rather than just rising average temperatures.

Comparing the metabolic rates of three reef fish species in the Arabian Gulf to the same species in the Gulf of Oman, they found no significant difference in metabolic rates. This suggests that the “plastic floors and concrete ceilings” principle, which was originally developed in colder water species, does not apply to tropical fishes experiencing shifting temperature variability.

“The increased thermal tolerance observed in fish from the Arabian Gulf suggests an adaptive response to years of extreme temperatures,” said Ripley. “However, the noticeably lower fish diversity in the Arabian Gulf compared to the Gulf of Oman indicates that only certain species can physiologically adjust to temperature changes, meaning fewer species will survive as the climate continues to warm.”

“While some coral reef fish in the Arabian Gulf show slight adaptability to increasing temperatures, many do not,” added Burt, who is also the co-principal investigator at the Mubadala ACCESS Center. “This suggests that as global temperatures rise, fish biodiversity is likely to decline in many ecosystems. Our findings highlight the need to further investigate existing theories of thermal tolerance across different environments to better predict the long-term impacts of climate change.”

NYUAD Sir Bu Nair- photo credit Oliver Farrell

Photo credit Rebekka Pentti - NYUAD

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Journal

Global Change Biology

DOI

10.1111/gcb.70100 

Article Title

NYU Abu Dhabi Research Highlights Adaptability of Some Coral Reef Fish to Rising Temperatures

Article Publication Date

6-Mar-2025

WAR IS ECOCIDE

The war in Ukraine led to the destruction of almost 1,600 square kilometers of forests

Università di Bologna

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Satellite imagery shows evidence of forest loss due to AI-detected fires. (A) The May 5, 2022 fire (before and after) on the left bank of the Dnipro River, directly across from occupied Kherson, and (B) the Kinburn Spit, a key protected area in southern Ukraine under temporary occupation by Russian forces (before and after), which has seen a series of uncontrolled fires in 2022 that Russian occupiers prevented from extinguishing (area highlighted in red).

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Credit: University of Bologna

Between 2022 and 2023, in the first two years of the Ukrainian war, almost 1,600 square kilometres of forests were destroyed. The scale of devastation, along with its environmental, social, and economic consequences, is difficult to quantify.

The findings - published in Global Ecology and Conservation - is the result of research that combined satellite images of the conflict-affected areas with an artificial intelligence system based on machine learning.

“Along with the terrible loss of life, the war in Ukraine has also caused serious environmental damage, starting with the destruction of vast forested areas”, says Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Professor at the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna, who led the research. “The damage to biodiversity and ecosystem processes, such as water filtration, soil formation, and climate regulation is difficult to quantify”.

According to the analysis system developed by the researchers, Ukraine lost 808 square kilometres of forest in 2022 and 772 square kilometres in 2023, mainly in war-torn regions: 180 square kilometres in Donetsk Oblast, 181 square kilometres in Kharkiv Oblast, 214 square kilometres in Kherson Oblast, 268 square kilometres in Kyiv Oblast, and 195 square kilometres in Luhansk Oblast.

Researchers believe fire is the main cause of forest loss. In March 2022, for instance, many forest fires were detected in the Kherson Oblast, and Russian troops tried to hinder attempts to extinguish the flames. The valuable biodiversity hotspot of Cape Kinburn, in the southern part of the Mykolaiv Oblast, is another example: fires are estimated to have destroyed between 20-30% of the area, which is now occupied by the Russian military.

“When the war ends, there will be a need for strong and efficient environmental policies to stop biodiversity loss, promote reforestation and restore ecosystems”, added Cazzolla Gatti. “Reforested areas may contribute to the creation of ecological humanitarian corridors and support demilitarisation, creating buffer zones to build and preserve peace”.

The research, titled “An early warning system based on machine learning detects huge forest loss in Ukraine during the war “, was published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation. The authors are Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, Rocío Beatriz Cortés Lobos and Duccio Rocchini from the University of Bologna, together with Michele Torresani from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.

(A) Forest loss in 2022 and (B) in 2023. (C) Forest loss and gain in 2023 compared to 2022. Below: high-resolution satellite images of selected areas such as (D) the Dnieper River affected by drought, (E) damaged vegetation along the river and (F) damage in the Kyiv Oblast close to urban areas.

Credit

University of Bologna

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Journal

Global Ecology and Conservation

DOI

10.1016/j.gecco.2025.e03427 

Article Title

An early warning system based on machine learning detects huge forest loss in Ukraine during the war

 

Urban highways cut opportunities for social relationships, says study

Urban highways are meant to speed up travel and foster connections, but a study shows they reduce social ties within cities, according to a study involving CSH

Complexity Science Hub

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(Left) Heatmap of all Barrier Scores B(d) grouped into 0.5 km bins of social tie distance. Only statistically significant values of B(d) are shown (P <0.01). Color denotes Barrier Score, square size is proportional to the fraction of social ties in each distance band relative to all ties in the city. All cities have positive Barrier Scores over most distances. Often, there is a smoothly reached peak distance, for example in Orlando at around dpeak ≈1.5 km. The Top row labeled “ALL CITIES” reports the distance-binned Barrier Scores averaged over all cities. (Right) The bar plot labeled “CITY” reports the Barrier Score B calculated considering all ties with distances up to 10 km. All results shown are averaged over 20 randomized runs of the null model. 

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Credit: Complexity Science Hub

[Vienna, 06.02.2025]—"In this study, we use the spatial social connections of people within the 50 largest cities in the US to test whether the built environment—in this case, urban highways— is indeed a barrier to social ties, as has long been assumed in urban studies. For the first time, we are also finding quantitatively that this is the case,” explains co-author Sándor Juhász. During his postdoctoral fellowship at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH), Juhász participated in the study. 

This barrier effect by urban highways is particularly strong for short distances of less than 5 km (or ca. 3 miles) in all the US cities studied. It only reverses at around 20 km (ca. 12.4 miles) ​—above this distance, urban highways tend to help connect places within a city, according to the study. “In concrete terms, this means that if two people live on different sides of an urban highway, it is less likely that there will be social contact between them,” says Juhász, who’s now a research fellow at the Corvinus University of Budapest. 

“Urban highways, especially those built in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, were entirely geared towards car traffic,” explains co-author Anastassia Vybornova from the IT University of Copenhagen. They were intended to shorten the commute to work and make traveling within the city easier. “But this comes at a price, especially over short distances. If someone wants to cross a multi-lane highway, it takes a lot of effort. So highways connect over long distances, but divide over short ones,” adds Juhász. 

Effects Quantified for the First Time 

A special feature of this study is that, for the first time, the researchers not only described these barrier effects qualitatively, but also quantified them. To do this, the team, led by the IT University of Copenhagen, combined geographical data with location information from online social networks. 

The researchers added a second layer to a city map with streets, rivers and, other geographical features: a social network of 1 million X users (formerly Twitter) from 2013. The nodes of this network represent people's estimated places of residence, while the connections represent their friendships on X within the city. 

“The fact that the mutual followerships on X reflect real friendships is of course a highly generalized assumption,” says Juhász. “It is extremely difficult to map social connections at this level of detail. There are currently no comprehensive datasets for such analysis​​—most, such as public Facebook data, are only aggregated at the zip code level. But to examine the influence of highways, much finer data is needed. It's interesting to see that the barrier effect of urban highways is already detectable in this dataset.” 

Cleveland Has the Largest Barrier Effect 

The average barrier effect of urban highways is highest in Cleveland, a city with particularly high segregation, according to the results of the study. 

“In the US, there is a long tradition of highway construction through densely populated areas, which has led to segregation and a decline in local opportunities,” explains Juhász. “Urban planners often used to decide to build highways in such a way that they cut through large, homogeneous neighborhoods or physically separate different population groups​​—mostly Black and White communities”. 

The best-known example is probably Detroit with the 8 Mile Road. “Our measurements clearly show that there is still less social contact there today than would be the case without the highway,” adds Juhász.

In the US, there were already major programs such as the “Reconnecting Communities” initiative, which invested millions of dollars to make urban infrastructure more socially just. “So the problem was recognized, and there were active policies with increasing budgets. But more importantly, this program—like many others—was stopped by the new US government a few weeks ago,” says Juhász. This makes studies like this one, which show that urban highways have a significant influence on social connectivity, all the more important, according to Juhász. 

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About the Study

The study “Urban highways are barriers to social ties” by L.M. Aiello, A. Vybornova S. Juhász, M. Szell, and E. Bokányi was published in PNAS (doi: 10.1073/pnas.2408937122).

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About CSH

The Complexity Science Hub (CSH) is Europe’s research center for the study of complex systems. We derive meaning from data from a range of disciplines—economics, medicine, ecology, and the social sciences—as a basis for actionable solutions for a better world. Established in 2015, we have grown to over 70 researchers, driven by the increasing demand to gain a genuine understanding of the networks that underlie society, from healthcare to supply chains. Through our complexity science approaches linking physics, mathematics, and computational modeling with data and network science, we develop the capacity to address today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

 

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2408937122 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Urban highways are barriers to social ties

Article Publication Date

4-Mar-2025

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM

UK Ethnic minority immigrants consistently exposed to higher levels of air pollution

University College London

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Peer reviewed | Data analysis | People

Ethnic minority immigrants in England are exposed to significantly higher levels of air pollution than natives and immigrants from western countries, finds a new report led by UCL researchers, which also concludes that all immigrants in England are exposed to substantially higher levels of pollution than in Germany.

For the paper, published in Social Forces, researchers compared levels of pollution exposure – the pollution disadvantage – of immigrants in England to the pollution disadvantage in Germany, finding that all immigrants in both countries are exposed to higher levels of air pollution than natives in both countries.

However, the immigrant disadvantage in England is three times higher than in Germany. On average, all immigrants in England are exposed to 6.9μg/m3 higher levels of NO2, roughly 40% above the average for native British households.

Out of all immigrant groups, those in England from Bangladesh, the Caribbean and across Africa, and those in Germany from Turkey, are exposed to more pollution than those from western countries. For example, immigrants in England from Bangladesh are exposed to 15.4μg/m3 higher levels of NO2 than the native British, which is roughly twice the size of the overall immigrant disadvantage, and more than five times the average disadvantage of western immigrants (2.7μg/m3). In Germany, the pollution disadvantage for Turkish immigrants is roughly double the size of the disadvantage for immigrants from western countries.  

All immigrant groups in both countries also face a ‘pollution penalty’ when they move. This means that even when comparing immigrant and native households who start in similarly highly polluted areas, immigrant households are far less likely to move to an area with lower pollution levels. On average, a non-immigrant household improves its air quality roughly twice as much as an immigrant household with each move. This penalty is more pronounced in England, with ethnic minority immigrants in both countries faring worse.

Lead author Dr Tobias Rüttenauer (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education & Society) said: “We compared England to Germany because these two countries have different immigration histories, with England’s being strongly rooted in colonial history and migration patterns, and with different urban structures.

“Whilst in both countries we found ethnic minority immigrant households are consistently exposed to higher levels of air pollution than native households, we didn’t expect to see such a big gap in exposure levels for immigrant households between the two countries. The disadvantage is both substantial in scale and relevant for public health. Based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation separate to this research paper, we would translate this disadvantage into a roughly 6% higher mortality risk for immigrants in England.

“In Germany, the disadvantage is smaller, amounting to approximately one-third of the level observed in England. It’s hard to say exactly why there is such a difference without more research, although higher levels of economic inequality, ethnic residential segregation and the urban-rural divide in England could play a role.”

The researchers found that even when factors including socio-economic background and income were considered, the pollution disadvantage remained in both England and Germany, with immigrants of all income levels being more likely to stay living closer to city centres.

The researchers acknowledge that immigrants may choose to live in neighbourhoods where there is a larger proportion of residents from the same country or area. However, they found little direct evidence of preferences in living with other immigrants contributing to the pollution penalty.

Dr Rüttenauer continued: “Although we didn’t directly find enough evidence on this preference, there may be other indirect factors at play. For instance, immigrants may try to avoid racism and other forms of discrimination by avoiding less densely populated, and therefore less polluted areas. Particularly in England, immigrants and ethnic minorities are overrepresented in urban areas, where around 69% of immigrants live in urban areas compared to 28% of natives.

“In Germany, immigrants also face barriers to accessing rural, less polluted regions. However, medium-sized cities and suburban regions seem to buffer the pollution disadvantage to some extent.”

The researchers used data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) for England and the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for Germany, which were linked to air pollution estimates for NO2, PM2.5 and SO2 at neighbourhood levels. Pollution levels before and after a household’s relocation were compared and analysed to track residential migration patterns and their impact on air pollution exposure.

The researchers say further research is needed to fully understand the reasons behind the pollution penalty in order to support immigrant households in both countries to access cleaner living environments.

Dr Rüttenauer added: “Factors including housing discrimination by landlords and estate agents could play a role in preventing immigrant households from accessing less polluted areas. Equally important could be social networks and the need to be near those of the same or a similar culture.”

The research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).

 

Notes to Editors

For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact:

Kate Corry, UCL Media Relations. T: +44 (0)20 3108 6995 / +44 (0)7539 410 389, E: k.corry@ucl.ac.uk

Tobias Rüttenauer, Felix Bader, Ingmar Ehler, Henning Best. Breathing unequal air: environmental disadvantage and residential sorting of immigrant minorities in England and Germany on Wednesday 5th March 2025 at 00:01 UTC / 01:01 CET and is under a strict embargo until this time.

The DOI for this paper will be 10.1093/sf/soaf032

 

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Journal

Social Forces

DOI

10.1093/sf/soaf032 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Breathing unequal air: environmental disadvantage and residential sorting of immigrant minorities in England and Germany

Article Publication Date

5-Mar-2025