Earthquakes drive large-scale submarine canyon development and sediment supply to deep-ocean basins.

Although the global flux of sediment and carbon from land to the coastal ocean is well known, the volume of material that reaches the deep ocean-the ultimate sink-and the mechanisms by which it is transferred are poorly documented. Using a globally unique data set of repeat seafloor measurements and samples, we show that the moment magnitude () 7.8 November 2016 Kaikōura earthquake (New Zealand) triggered widespread landslides in a submarine canyon, causing a powerful "canyon flushing" event and turbidity current that traveled >680 km along one of the world's longest deep-sea channels.

A simple law for ice-shelf calving.

A major problem for ice-sheet models is that no physically based law for the calving process has been established. Comparison across a diverse set of ice shelves demonstrates that iceberg calving increases with the along-flow spreading rate of a shelf. This relation suggests that frictional buttressing loss, which increases spreading, also leads to shelf retreat, a process known to accelerate ice-sheet flow and contribute to sea-level rise.

Discovery of till deposition at the grounding line of Whillans Ice Stream.

We report on the discovery of a grounding-line sedimentary wedge ("till delta") deposited by Whillans Ice Stream, West Antarctica. Our observation is that grounding-line deposition serves to thicken the ice and stabilize the position of the grounding line. The ice thickness at the grounding line is greater than that of floating ice in hydrostatic equilibrium.