Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Late Paleocene leaf macroflora from a destroyed outcrop of the Marcelina Formation, Paso Diablo Mine, Venezuela: a rescue record
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Other Plant Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
In 2016, a production blast at a mining face of the Paso Diablo Mine (Guasare Basin, northwestern Venezuela) exposed a level rich in fossil leaves of the Marcelina Formation (late Paleocene), located between coal seams 4O and 4M. The material was removed as overburden by a mining shovel a few hours after it was documented. We present the first published record of leaf macroflora from this [...]
Post-processing Subglacial Physics Model with Per-site JEPA Specialist Models Enable Natural-language Glaciological Intelligence
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Glaciers slide over their beds, and how fast they slide depends on the pressure of meltwater trapped beneath them. This subglacial environment is nearly impossible to observe directly and is one of the largest uncertainties in how fast glaciers lose ice and how much water they deliver to communities downstream. Ice-sheet models represent it with empirical rules that are hard to test, and although [...]
Satellite Quantification of Methane Emissions from Individual Countries in Southeast Asia: Roles of Dry and Wet Seasons
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Southeast Asia is a global methane (CH4) hotspot, yet its emissions remain highly uncertain particularly regarding seasonal variability. Here we quantify methane emissions over ten Southeast Asian countries using TROPOMI satellite observations and analytical inversions at up to 0.25°×0.3125° resolution (~25km×25km), separately for the dry (October 2021-April 2022) and wet (May-September 2022) [...]
Stock to crop? Quantifying agricultural expansion in northern Australia and examining its drivers
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In recent decades, local, state, and federal governments have actively promoted irrigation and rainfed cropping expansion as a pathway to regional economic development for inland northern Australia (INA). This has created tension and competing narratives about development in the region. This study seeks to ground discussion in observed patterns of change by synthesising the cropping, horticulture [...]
Protracted Dyking of High-Viscosity Magma into Near-Solidus Rock at Casiri, Peru
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Dykes are a key mechanism for material transport within volcanic arcs and typically propagate over days to months. We document an unusually slow dyking episode in the arc of southern Peru that lasted for 1.5 years. The dyke opened up to 0.5 m from 2-8 km depth and was coupled with inflation of an underlying arc-parallel magma reservoir. To reconcile the slow opening of such a thin dyke with [...]
Characterising Methane Concentration Variability at Coal Stockpiles in a Surface Coal Mine
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The spatiotemporal variability of atmospheric methane concentration at surface coal mines remains insufficiently characterised. The impact of local meteorology and mining activities on methane emission have not yet been fully evaluated. In this study, ground observations of the methane concentration along with meteorology were carried out around coal stockpiles (CSP) in an active surface coal [...]
Apatite inclusions in zircon reveal a crustal origin for HREE depletion in Archean granitoids
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Reconstructing the geodynamic conditions of the Hadean and Archean is essential for understanding Earth’s evolution and the conditions that ultimately enabled life to emerge. Archean tonalite–trondhjemite–granodiorite (TTG) suites have been studied extensively because their evolved compositions provide clues to the processes that formed the early continental crust. Their trace-element signatures, [...]
Triple oxygen isotope equilibrium between calcite and water: new constraints over 8–200 °C and their metrological implications
Published: 2026-10-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
High-precision measurements of carbonate oxygen-17 compositions are increasingly used for studying paleo-environments, hydrology, diagenesis, or biomineralization processes. Calibrating triple oxygen isotope equilibrium fractionations between calcite and water as a function of temperature provides a critical baseline for many applications. Here we report new observations constraining these [...]
Drivers of The Daggers: Backstress-triggered fracture propagation on the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf, West Antarctica
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The destabilization of ice shelves around Antarctica is not just a sea-level-rise priority, but an opportunity to observe and understand the mechanisms of ice-shelf failure. Recent studies show that ice shelves fail against their pinning points or ridges once sufficiently weakened by thinning and damage---a "backstress-triggered" failure mechanism that is not represented in ice-shelf collapse [...]
Surface signatures of surge dynamics over six decades at Tweedsmuir Glacier, Saint Elias Mountains, Canada
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The dynamically driven advance and retreat of surge-type glaciers shapes surrounding ecosystems and landscapes differently from non-surging glaciers; however, the diversity in surge behaviour, even among neighbouring glaciers, makes them challenging to predict. Here, we reconstruct the six-decade surge history of Tweedsmuir Glacier in the Saint Elias Mountains, capturing two surge cycles. We use [...]
Erosion-induced momentum production and system acceleration govern landslide mobility
Published: 2026-10-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geotechnical Engineering, Glaciology, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Erosion can fundamentally alter landslide acceleration through the produced momentum. However, existing analytical landslide velocity models do not account for the energy dissipation associated with erosion-induced system acceleration. Here, I present a novel, complete dynamical velocity model for erosive landslides that incorporates two intrinsically coupled mechanically essential processes: [...]
Contour-crossing calculations quantify decadal changes in the pCO2 impacts of inorganic chemical weathering in the North American Arctic
Published: 2026-10-25
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Degradation of Arctic permafrost is altering biogeochemical dynamics by exposing previously frozen sediment to water, acids, and oxidants. While thaw-driven enhancement of carbonate and silicate mineral weathering results in drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide (pCO2), acting as a negative feedback on modern climate change, enhancement of sulfide mineral oxidation increases pCO2 and acts as a [...]
Data-efficient prediction of rare earth leaching from industrial residues with physics-constrained machine learning
Published: 2026-10-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geochemistry, Mining Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coal ash, mine-water sludge, red mud and phosphogypsum contain rare earth elements, and each new feedstock needs its own leaching recipe. LixaLearn couples a small neural network to closed-form rate laws for four metal hosts (exchange sites, fast-dissolving minerals, slow-dissolving minerals and a locked fraction), with part of the fast host limited by the solubility of its mineral. The network [...]
The ocean’s gravity-driven carbon flux from serendipitous particle traps
Published: 2026-10-24
Subjects: Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Particles sinking into the ocean’s interior are a food source for deep-sea ecosystems and sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Yet, measurements of the sinking flux are sparse, leaving substantial uncertainties in its magnitude and variability. We demonstrate how a fleet of Argo floats has serendipitously measured the sinking flux for the last decade because particles settled onto the floats [...]
Incision Sets the Growth Rate of Delta Channel Networks
Published: 2026-10-24
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
River deltas support large human populations and diverse ecosystems, but many are increasingly threatened by relative sea-level rise and sediment deprivation. Delta growth is widely viewed as a depositional process driven by sediment accumulation. However, the distributary channels that deliver sediment across deltas often extend before major episodes of subaerial land growth. Recent field [...]