The numbers behind the critical zone are striking. The layer ranges from just a few tens of meters to perhaps a few hundred meters in thickness, yet it supports a global population of 8 billion people along with virtually all terrestrial wildlife, many marine organisms, and the encompassing ecosystems on which they depend. Doss likens the zone to a human organ to make its scale and vulnerability vivid. “It envelops the Earth as a very thin layer…much like a human’s skin,” he says. “Our skin is our body’s largest organ, so a comparison is reasonable. We as humans don’t always walk around thinking about our skin as an organ like our heart or lungs—I think the Earth’s critical zone gets the same neglect.” The analogy is technically apt: like skin, the critical zone mediates exchanges of energy, water, gases, and nutrients between the deeper planet and the atmosphere, and like skin, it can be wounded faster than it can heal.

Nearly every process essential to the sustenance of life occurs within this narrow band. Weathering of bedrock releases the mineral nutrients—calcium, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium—that anchor food webs. Soils store and filter water, regulate carbon, and host microbial communities that drive biogeochemical cycles. Groundwater feeds streams, wetlands, and wells. Vegetation anchors the surface, moderates temperature, and photosynthesizes the base of nearly every terrestrial food chain. Remove or degrade any one of these linked components and the others feel the consequences, often in ways that take decades to become obvious. Doss has spent much of his career making exactly this point, from his early work in the Indiana Dunes to fieldwork in Yellowstone National Park, the Everglades, and the Manistee National Forest in Michigan. Across those radically different landscapes, he says, the inherent connection between geology and ecosystems has been consistently apparent.

What has also been consistent, in his experience, is the neglect of that geological foundation in ecological conversations. “In Yellowstone National Park, the absolute control of the biotic by the abiotic (geology) is on remarkable display, from microbial communities to the apex predators,” Doss states. The park makes the point almost nowhere else can match. Its hydrothermal basins, fed by volcanic heat and fractured rock, host microbial mats whose chemistry is dictated entirely by water temperature, pH, and dissolved minerals. Its wolf and elk populations move across landscapes shaped by lava flows, glacial deposits, and river-cut valleys that determine where soil, water, and forage accumulate. Yet, Doss observes, “I don’t always see the same recognition by life scientists. Importantly, when I’ve shared my thoughts about this with whoever will listen, ecologists have uniformly agreed that the abiotic is often neglected in their conceptual framework.”

That admission matters because the critical zone is not merely underappreciated—it is actively degrading. Doss attributes the decline to two main forces: human transformation of the Earth’s surface and climate change. The first is staggering in its magnitude. Humans now move more sediment, soil, and rock across the planet’s surface than wind, water, ice, and gravity combined. In effect, humanity has become the single largest geomorphic agent on Earth, outstripping every natural process of erosion and deposition. As a result, more than half of the planet’s arable land has been altered, habitats have been fragmented, and the hydrologic connections that ecosystems depend on—how water moves from ridge to valley, from aquifer to stream—have been reshaped, severed, or rerouted.

Climate change compounds the damage by altering the fundamental processes that govern the critical zone. Precipitation patterns are shifting, with consequences for soil moisture, groundwater recharge, and streamflow. Changes in the timing and intensity of rainfall affect erosion rates, nutrient transport, and the frequency of droughts and floods. Because the critical zone is a coupled system, a change in one input cascades through the whole: altered streamflow changes sediment delivery, which changes channel form, which changes habitat, which changes the biota. Together, Doss notes, these forces are driving extinctions, degrading habitats, eroding biodiversity, and changing the availability of the resources on which human societies depend.

One of the conceptual challenges, Doss suggests, is that these impacts unfold on geological time scales spanning years, decades, and centuries—slower than the news cycle, but not slower than the pace of human consequence. Soil that took millennia to form can be lost in a single storm on an unprotected field. An aquifer drawn down over decades may not recharge for generations. A fragmented habitat corridor, once severed, may take centuries of natural succession to reestablish—if it reestablishes at all. The critical zone operates on a budget: inputs of weathered rock, organic matter, and infiltrating water against outputs of erosion, extraction, and runoff. When human activity pushes outputs above inputs, the deficit accumulates silently, and the ledger is inherited by future generations.

Doss hopes to help illuminate what these changes mean right now, not just in the abstract future. “The earth sciences define, describe, and provide an understanding of how our planet works,” he states. “We’ve only got one of those, and it seems kind of important that humans have that understanding…particularly when we are so obviously capable of altering, damaging, and manipulating global-scale processes upon which life depends.” His argument is, at its core, a call for integration: for ecologists to treat geology, hydrology, and soil science as foundational rather than peripheral, and for geologists to engage more directly with biological and conservation questions. The critical zone is, by definition, where the abiotic and biotic worlds are inseparable, and any framework that studies one without the other is, in his view, incomplete.

The stakes extend well beyond academia. The critical zone is where food is grown, where drinking water is stored and filtered, where carbon is exchanged with the atmosphere, and where the raw materials of civilization are extracted. Its degradation is therefore not a niche scientific concern but a question of resource security, public health, and intergenerational equity. “We ALL need the critical zone. And so do our children and future generations,” Doss says. “We better understand it, advocate for it, and care for it.” Framing the ground beneath our feet as an organ—one that can be monitored, injured, and healed—offers a powerful rhetorical tool for communicating that urgency to audiences who may never think about weathering rates or water tables but who understand instinctively what it means when a vital organ begins to fail.

Doss will develop these arguments in his Michel T. Halbouty Distinguished Lecture, “Geologists in the Critical Zone…in a Critical Time,” delivered at GSA Connects 2026 on Wednesday, 14 October, from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. in room Bluebird 1AB of the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. The lecture platform is fitting: the Geological Society of America, a global professional society with more than 18,000 members across over 100 countries, has long championed the integration of Earth science into broader scientific and public conversations. Whether the critical zone gains the recognition Doss seeks will depend on whether researchers, educators, and communicators can persuade the public that the thin, living skin of the planet is not scenery but infrastructure—as essential, and as vulnerable, as any organ that keeps a body alive.

Subject of Research: The degradation of Earth's critical zone and the role of geology in ecosystem science

Article Title: Geologist makes the case for Earth’s most overlooked organ: the ground beneath our feet

Article References: Geologist makes the case for Earth’s most overlooked organ: the ground beneath our feet. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: critical zone, geology, soil, groundwater, ecosystems, climate change, biodiversity, Yellowstone, land degradation, Geological Society of America, hydrology, Earth science

The scientific scope of the meeting is deliberately encyclopedic. Organizers highlight upcoming coverage of climate variability across deep time and projected futures, the rapidly transforming Arctic, wildfire behavior and impacts, earthquake science, and the dynamics of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, among many other themes. For reporters, that breadth translates into a compressed news cycle in which a single day can yield findings on paleoclimate proxies, space weather, glacier dynamics and planetary geophysics. The meeting functions as a preview of the research that will shape policy debates, funding decisions and public understanding of the Earth system in the years ahead, and the press program is structured to help journalists identify and contextualize the most significant work before it appears in journals.

Eligibility for press registration extends beyond staff reporters at established outlets. Freelance and student journalists may apply, as may press officers and institutional writers who are covering the meeting for their organizations. Applications will remain open until the end of the conference on Friday, 11 December, but AGU has emphasized one critical logistical constraint: there will be no walk-in press registration on site in San Francisco. All eligible media must complete the registration process through the online portal before arriving at the convention center. Media access to the meeting is issued at the discretion of the AGU Media Relations Office, and reporters with questions about eligibility, registration categories or other conference matters are directed to contact the office directly by email.

Credentialing requirements apply universally, regardless of a reporter’s history with the meeting. All registrants must provide professional credentials even if they have attended previous AGU annual meetings, and media access is strictly non-transferable. Registered press receive, at no charge, access to all scientific sessions, an on-site press room and press events. The organization notes some important limits, however: certain activities, including invitation-only events and communications workshops, are excluded from press access. Reporters planning their coverage budgets should also note that hotel bookings at conference rates can be made during press registration or afterward through the booking page, with reservations closing on 19 November, although AGU cautions that room blocks may fill before that deadline. A practical warning accompanies the housing information: reporters who intend to register as press should not book housing through general registration, because doing so will block them from entering the press registration flow.

The physical infrastructure supporting reporters is substantial. Registered press attendees will have access to a dedicated press room equipped with high-speed Wi-Fi, working and discussion space, power outlets, refreshments, and smaller quiet rooms suitable for conducting interviews away from the bustle of the exhibit hall. The press room will operate from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Thursday of the meeting week, with abbreviated hours on Friday, 11 December, from 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The meeting itself is centered at the Moscone Convention Center at 747 Howard Street, with some events and sessions also taking place at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis on Mission Street and the InterContinental San Francisco on Howard Street, both within walking distance of the main venue.

The media program itself will follow a hybrid model designed to serve both attending and remote reporters. A press event schedule will be published in November, and press conferences will be hybrid, recorded events that are livestreamed and support participation by journalists who cannot travel to San Francisco. AGU media relations will host two distinct formats. The first is the traditional press conference, built around breaking research findings and timed to the release of new results. The second is a newer, in-person-only roundtable format, designed as an informal, ask-me-anything conversation about ongoing research projects, missions and programs. Roundtables give reporters the chance to probe the uncertainties, false starts and long-term trajectories of major scientific endeavors in a setting that is less scripted than a formal briefing, a format that has proven valuable for enterprise and investigative reporting.

Virtual access extends well beyond press events. Recordings of plenaries, named lectures, Union sessions, oral sessions, GeoBurst sessions and town halls will be posted on demand on the conference platform within 72 hours of the live sessions, allowing reporters who miss a talk in real time to catch up quickly. Poster presenters will have the option of uploading their posters to an online gallery, and online presenters can self-schedule video discussions with conference attendees, creating opportunities for remote interviews that would once have required travel. One limitation deserves emphasis for planning purposes: no part of the 2026 scientific program will be livestreamed. Reporters relying on remote coverage will therefore depend on the recorded sessions, the online poster gallery and the hybrid press conferences rather than real-time access to the scientific talks themselves. The full conference program will be available online in early October, giving media teams several weeks to build coverage plans before the December meeting.

The annual meeting is the flagship convening of an organization whose reach extends far beyond one week in December. AGU describes itself as a global community supporting more than half a million professionals and advocates in the Earth and space sciences. Its activities include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events, and providing career support for scientists at every stage. The organization frames its mission around advancing discovery and solution science that accelerates knowledge and produces solutions it characterizes as ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. That mission is reflected in institutional commitments, including a net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C., and an Ethics and Equity Center designed to foster a diverse and inclusive geoscience community and ensure responsible conduct across the field.

For science journalists, the practical takeaway is that preparation for AGU26 should begin well before December. Registration through the press portal is the essential first step, followed by a review of the eligibility and credentialing requirements published in the conference Press Center. Once the scientific program appears in early October, reporters can begin identifying sessions, named lectures and Union sessions most relevant to their beats, and once the press event schedule arrives in November, they can map out which press conferences and roundtables to attend in person or join remotely. Housing should be booked promptly given the 19 November closing date and the possibility that room blocks will fill earlier. With more than 24,000 researchers converging on San Francisco to present work ranging from ocean-floor processes to planetary exploration, the meeting promises a dense concentration of publishable science, and the press infrastructure, from the quiet interview rooms to the on-demand session recordings, is built to help reporters capture it.

Subject of Research: Press registration and media arrangements for the AGU 2026 annual meeting in Earth and space science

Article Title: Press registration open for 2026 AGU annual meeting

Article References: Press registration open for 2026 AGU annual meeting. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: AGU, annual meeting, press registration, Earth science, space science, San Francisco, science journalism, climate, wildfires, earthquakes, El Niño, Arctic change