Mercury emissions from artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) are one of the main sources of mercury (Hg) release into the environment, yet they are by far the least understood. This, together with the fact that ASGM emissions (besides their global implications) also directly/locally affect the poorest communities makes this a critical research topic. The authors demonstrate that bioaccumulation pathways in globally important crops are often overlooked, with implications for interventions, international collaborations, and emerging technologies.

Soltani et al. present an automated workflow for transforming weakly annotated citizen science plant photographs into robust training data for drone-based remote sensing of vegetation. Their approach demonstrates that plant images collected by non-specialists can be effectively leveraged in machine learning models to improve the accuracy of species mapping using drones.

This publication provides a comprehensive review of the use of GDGTs (Glycerol Dialkyl Glycerol Tetraethers) for reconstructing past temperatures, with a particular focus on marine applications. It covers the full research workflow — from sample collection and processing to analytical methodologies, data interpretation, and data archiving. Importantly, the authors highlight best practices and propose recommendations to standardize approaches across the field. This review therefore serves as a valuable reference for both the paleoclimatology and organic geochemistry communities.

Disparities in ocean carbon sink estimates derived from observations and models raise questions about our ability to accurately assess its magnitude and trend. Surface ocean pCO2-data based carbon uptake inferences are systematically higher than estimates based on global ocean biogeochemical models. River carbon inputs and carbon burial in sediments contribute largely to this difference. Hence, it is critical to accurately constrain riverine carbon inputs (in the form of inorganic and organic carbon) and burial of organic and inorganic carbon in oceanic sediments. These are non-trivial task because part, but not all, of the organic carbon delivered by rivers is degraded to inorganic carbon and because of carbonate-system re-equilibrations, including calcium carbonate precipitation and dissolution. The Planchat et al. paper presents a simple conceptual model and explores its value using full scale ocean biogeochemical models. The resulting framework is useful for future model intercomparisons and for revising pre-industrial air-sea carbon fluxes when new carbon and alkalinity budgets become available.