Timothy Lyons

Scientists think a crumbling supercontinent may have kickstarted life on Earth

tomwt — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 19:12:13 +0000

Scientists think a crumbling supercontinent may have kickstarted life on Earth tomwt Mon, 11/17/2025 - 11:12 More CNAS in the Media Darren Orf | Popular Mechanics November 13, 2025

POPULAR MECHANICS - For the past three decades, scientists have been bad-mouthing a sizable chunk of Earth’s history (roughly 1.8 billion years ago to 800 million years ago) by giving it nicknames like the “Barren Billion,” the “Boring Billion,” or the Earth’s “Middle Ages.” At first glance, the monikers may be warranted—compared to more dynamic eons in Earth’s history, this “boring” stretch (which includes the Statherian, Mesoproterozoic, and early Tonian periods) is characterized by relatively stable tectonics, an invariable climate, and generally uneventful progress in biological evolution.

But within the past decade, studies have been challenging this dull perception.

“For a long time, the boring billion was commonly thought to be remarkably unremarkable,” Timothy Lyons, a geochemist at the University of California Riverside, told Science News in 2015. “But it’s a critical chapter in the history of life on Earth, and there are basic questions we don’t understand.”

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Timothy Lyons

Rivers are turning orange. The effects are disastrous.

tomwt — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 16:22:56 +0000

Rivers are turning orange. The effects are disastrous. tomwt Mon, 09/15/2025 - 09:22 More CNAS in the Media Darren Orf | Popular Mechanics September 15, 2025

POPULAR MECHANICS - For the past several years, dozens of rivers throughout the Arctic watershed have been undergoing a shocking transformation: They’re turning orange. When rivers sport these troubling hues, humans are usually the culprit—whether through mining operations, agricultural runoff, or criminally dumping hazardous materials into waterways. With these rivers mostly tucked away in northern Alaska, humans aren’t the direct cause of this aquatic orange-ification, but we’re also not totally off the hook. Sadly, all roads lead back to anthropogenic climate change.

A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) recently published a paper on their analysis of the Salmon River located in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska, detailing the step-by-step process that lead from rising Arctic temperatures to these orange rivers. According to the study, published in the journal PNAS, warming permafrost—the permanently frozen ground that underlies upwards of 85 percent of Alaska’s landmass—invites water and oxygen to interact with sulfide-rich rocks like pyrite. This creates an abundance of sulfuric acid, which leeches naturally occurring metals such as iron, cadmium, and aluminum into the river.

Although small amounts of metals in rivers can be safe, these incredibly high concentrations exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s toxicity levels for aquatic life. They also turn the water orange, making the area look more like a human-made ecological disaster than a natural river.

“This is what acid mine drainage looks like,” UC Riverside’s Tim Lyons, senior author of the study, said in a press statement. “But here, there’s no mine. The permafrost is thawing and changing the chemistry of the landscape.”

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Orange rivers in Alaska signify a color-changing crisis, exposing fish to toxic metals

tomwt — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 21:29:51 +0000

Orange rivers in Alaska signify a color-changing crisis, exposing fish to toxic metals tomwt Wed, 09/10/2025 - 14:29 More CNAS in the Media Jack Knudson | Discover Magazine September 09, 2025

DISCOVER MAGAZINE - In the northern Alaskan wilderness, a bizarre symptom of climate change is emerging: The rivers there are turning unnaturally orange. This phenomenon paints a worrisome picture for watersheds all across the Arctic, now faced with toxic metals being released by melting permafrost.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows how orange rivers may start to become a familiar sight in the Arctic as the planet warms. But for ecosystems like those along the Brooks Range — a mountain range stretching from northern Alaska to Canada’s Yukon Territory — the color change underlies a host of problems.

The Rivers Turning Orange
When the water in a river or stream appears orange, it usually comes as a byproduct of mining activities. Oftentimes, sulfide minerals within abandoned mines are exposed to air and water, causing them to oxidize.

This process, called acid mine drainage (AMD), creates dissolved iron that changes the color of streams as it precipitates to form red, orange, or yellow sediments at the bottom of a stream. AMD also infuses streams with sulfuric acid that dissolves other heavy metals like copper, lead, and mercury into the water.

These rust-colored, highly acidic streams are often found where surface coal mining is prevalent — in the U.S., it occurs mostly in Central Appalachia and the Great Plains.

But much farther north, the orange rivers observed in the Brooks Range have nothing to do with AMD. The color-changing culprit, instead, is melting permafrost.

“This is what acid mine drainage looks like,” said author Tim Lyons, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Riverside, in a statement. “But here, there’s no mine. The permafrost is thawing and changing the chemistry of the landscape.”

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Alaska’s rivers used to run clear, now they’re turning orange for good

tomwt — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 21:15:47 +0000

Alaska’s rivers used to run clear, now they’re turning orange for good tomwt Wed, 09/10/2025 - 14:15 More CNAS in the Media Melissa Ait Lounis | Dailygalaxy.com September 10, 2025

DAILY GALAXY - In Alaska’s far north, something strange is happening. Rivers that once ran crystal clear are now turning a rusty orange, and scientists say the shift is permanent. A new study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has uncovered the hidden force behind this transformation, one that is quietly releasing metals into waterways and reshaping the Arctic landscape for good.

Orange Water Showing Up Everywhere
Over the last decade, people traveling through Alaska’s Brooks Range have noticed rivers that look more like they’ve been polluted by a mine than fed by melting snow. “This is what acid mine drainage looks like,” said Tim Lyons, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Riverside. “But here, there’s no mine. The permafrost is thawing and changing the chemistry of the landscape.”

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'Astounding:' Alaska researchers make alarming discovery in Arctic rivers

tomwt — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 21:59:18 +0000

'Astounding:' Alaska researchers make alarming discovery in Arctic rivers tomwt Tue, 09/09/2025 - 14:59 More CNAS in the Media Ariana Bindman | SFGate September 09, 2025

SFGATE - When John McPhee and his ragtag crew first kayaked into the pristine Alaskan wilderness in 1975, they were awestruck.

The author, who chronicled his reconnaissance trip in the literary classic “Coming into the Country,” was surrounded by an abundance of untouched flora and fauna. Beneath them, Arctic grayling, chum salmon and Dolly Varden swam in “the clearest, purest water” they had ever seen.

But if McPhee returned to the Salmon River in 2025 — exactly half a century after his initial exploration — chances are he would be deeply disturbed by what he saw.

According to a Sept. 8 paper published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an iconic Arctic watershed in Alaska’s Brooks Range has recently turned a dark, murky orange color, alarming scientists throughout California and Alaska.

“This is what acid mine drainage looks like,” Tim Lyons, a biogeochemist at UC Riverside, told the university in a September 2025 article. “But here, there’s no mine. The permafrost is thawing and changing the chemistry of the landscape.” According to the research paper, authors believe that permafrost — soil, rock or sediment that’s been frozen for at least two years — is thawing, exposing sulfide minerals and delivering iron and other potentially toxic metals to the remote Alaskan wilderness.

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A transatlantic flight may turn Saharan dust into a key ocean nutrient

tomwt — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 14:56:41 +0000

A transatlantic flight may turn Saharan dust into a key ocean nutrient tomwt Mon, 10/07/2024 - 07:56 More CNAS in the Media Douglas Fox | Science News October 04, 2024

SCIENCE NEWS - As dust from the Sahara blows thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes progressively more nutritious for marine microbes, a new study suggests.

Chemical reactions in the atmosphere chew on iron minerals in the dust, making them more water soluble and creating a crucial nutrient source for the iron-starved seas, researchers report September 20 in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Dust clouds settling on the Atlantic can spawn phytoplankton blooms that support marine ecosystems, says Timothy Lyons, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Riverside. “Iron is incredibly important for life,” he says. Phytoplankton require it to convert carbon dioxide into sugars during photosynthesis.

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Our Atmosphere Transforms Dust From The Sahara Into Minerals That Fuel Life

tomwt — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 16:27:14 +0000

Our Atmosphere Transforms Dust From The Sahara Into Minerals That Fuel Life tomwt Mon, 09/30/2024 - 09:27 More CNAS in the Media Tessa Koumoundouros | Science Alert September 29, 2024

SCIENCE ALERT - Dust swept from the Sahara desert provides life at the bottom of the marine food chain with a critical nutrient. Without the iron carried far and wide in this mineral cloud, oceanic phytoplankton would struggle to bloom.

According to a new study led by the University of California, Riverside, the more time the dust spends aloft in the atmosphere, and the further it travels, the more its iron is converted into a form that is easily accessed by the biosphere below.

"The transported iron seems to be stimulating biological processes much in the same way that iron fertilization can impact life in the oceans and on continents," says biogeochemist Timothy Lyons. "This study is a proof of concept confirming that iron-bound dust can have a major impact on life at vast distances from its source."

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Oceanic life found to be thriving thanks to Saharan dust blown from thousands of kilometers away

tomwt — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 14:55:24 +0000

Oceanic life found to be thriving thanks to Saharan dust blown from thousands of kilometers away tomwt Fri, 09/20/2024 - 07:55 More CNAS in the Media Michiel Dijkstra | Frontiers September 19, 2024

FRONTIERS - Scientists from the US measured the relative amounts of ‘bioreactive’ iron in four sediment cores from the bottom of the Atlantic. They showed for the first time that the further dust is blown from the Sahara, the more iron in it becomes bioreactive through chemical processes in the atmosphere. These results have important implications for our understanding of the growth-promoting effect of iron on oceanic phytoplankton, terrestrial ecosystems, and carbon cycling, including under global change.

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“Our results suggest that during long-distance atmospheric transport, the mineral properties of originally non-bioreactive dust-bound iron change, making it more bioreactive. This iron then gets taken up by phytoplankton, before it can reach the bottom,” said Dr. Timothy Lyons, a professor at the University of California at Riverside and the study’s final author.

“We conclude that dust that reaches regions like the Amazonian basin and the Bahamas may contain iron that is particularly soluble and available to life, thanks to the great distance from North Africa, and thus a longer exposure to atmospheric chemical processes,” said Lyons.

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The Salton Sea is now smelly all year long and making people's asthma worse. The culprit? Bacteria

tomwt — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 14:49:43 +0000

The Salton Sea is now smelly all year long and making people's asthma worse. The culprit? Bacteria tomwt Thu, 08/15/2024 - 07:49 More CNAS in the Media Lila Seidman | LA Times August 06, 2024

LOS ANGELES TIMES - Five years ago, Lisa Clark and her husband left her hometown of El Centro for Niland, a small town of 500, in search for more affordable housing. But now they’re paying a hidden cost for living just two miles southeast of the Salton Sea.

“I’ve been having very bad asthma lately,” the 56-year-old manager of the Oasis Mobile Village RV Park said. Before, she’d need to use only one inhaler a year; since moving to Niland, she’s been using three. “It’s getting worse, and my husband’s been experiencing the same effect. Our health seems [to be] declining.”

The air quality is notoriously bad near the Salton Sea. As California’s largest lake has continued to evaporate, it’s become saltier and dustier, causing breathing problems for locals like Clark. Alongside the health problems is what she describes as a “putrid dead smell” emanating constantly from the water.

A soon-to-be published study by UC Riverside shows that the Salton Sea’s rotting odors have become a yearlong nuisance for residents in cities near the lake. The South Coast Air Quality Management District recently issued another odor advisory for parts of the Coachella Valley just north of the Salton Sea, a warning that covered the last six days.

Several factors have contributed to this persistent stink, said Caroline Hung, a doctoral candidate and researcher in the Lyons Biogeochemistry Lab at UC Riverside.

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An ancient partnership: Co-evolution of Earth environments and microbial life

tomwt — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 15:29:55 +0000

An ancient partnership: Co-evolution of Earth environments and microbial life tomwt Fri, 07/19/2024 - 08:29 More CNAS in the Media Aaron Gronstal | NASA July 18, 2024

NASA - NASA-supported scientists have examined the long and intricately linked history of microbial life and the Earth's environment. By reviewing the current state of knowledge across fields like microbiology, molecular biology, and geology, the study looks at how microorganisms have both shaped and been shaped by chemical properties of our planet's oceans, land, and atmosphere. The study combines data across multiple fields of study and discusses how information on the complicated history of life on our planet from a single field cannot be viewed in isolation.

The first life on Earth was microbial. Today the vast majority of our planet's biomass is still made up of tiny, single-celled microorganisms. Although they're abundant, the history of microbes can be a challenge for astrobiologists to study. Microbes don't leave bones, shells or other large fossils behind like dinosaurs, fish or other large organisms. Because of this, scientists must look at different evidence to understand the evolution of microbial life through time.

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The study, “Co‐evolution of early Earth environments and microbial life,” was published in the journal Nature Reviews. Additional information on the study is available from the University of California, Riverside.

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