Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Relationships between soil chemical properties and rare earth element concentrations in the aboveground biomass of a tropical herbaceous plant
Published: 2019-07-18
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The geochemical behavior of rare earth elements (REE) has been mainly investigated in geological systems where they represent the best proxies for processes occurring at the interface between different media. REE concentrations, normalized with respect to the upper continental crust, were used to assess their behavior. In this study, REE geochemical behavior was investigated in plant shoots of a [...]
Pan-European groundwater to atmosphere terrestrial systems climatology from a physically consistent simulation
Published: 2019-07-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Applying the Terrestrial Systems Modeling Platform, TSMP, this study provides the first simulated long-term (1996-2018), high-resolution (~12.5km) terrestrial system climatology over Europe, which comprises variables from groundwater across the land surface to the top of the atmosphere (G2A). The data set offers an unprecedented opportunity to test hypotheses related to short- and long-range [...]
Urban Seismic Site Characterization by Fiber-Optic Seismology
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate ground-motion prediction requires detailed site effect assessment, but in urban areas where such assessments are most important, geotechnical surveys are difficult to perform, limiting their availability. Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) offers an appealing alternative by repurposing existing fiber-optic cables, normally employed for telecommunication, as an array of seismic sensors. [...]
The Baltic TRANSCOAST approach – investigating shallow coasts as terrestrial-marine interface of water and matter fluxes
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Biology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Plant Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences, Soil Science
In Baltic TRANSCOAST we study the physical, biogeochemical, and biological processes at the land-ocean interface. The coastal zone is heavily impacted by various human activities as well as by geomorphological and climatic processes – on both the land and the sea side. Land-sea interactions at low lying coastal areas that are often dominated by peatlands, and are a common feature along the Baltic [...]
Global coastal wetland expansion under accelerated sea-level rise is unlikely
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Schuerch et al. (2018) [1] deserve credit for compiling a wide range of disparate, global datasets that will be instrumental in predicting future coastal wetland change. However, we challenge their projections that range from modest losses to substantial gains worldwide by the end of this century. Their modeling does not adequately capture the role of sediment supply which must be treated [...]
The moment duration scaling relation for slow rupture arises from transient rupture speeds
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The relation between seismic moment and earthquake duration for slow rupture follows a different power law exponent than sub-shear rupture. The origin of this difference in exponents remains unclear. Here, we introduce a minimal one-dimensional Burridge-Knopoff model which contains slow, sub-shear and super-shear rupture, and demonstrate that different power law exponents occur because the [...]
Assessing Climate Model Projections of Anthropogenic Warming Patterns
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Projections of future anthropogenic climate change and their uncertainties are determined by analyzing large ensembles of numerical climate models. Since the late 1980s, transient climate models have projected a pronounced global warming, with relatively high warming in the Arctic and over land and low warming over the Southern Ocean. In general, confidence in climate model projections is based [...]
Terrane boundary reactivation, barriers to lateral fault propagation and reactivated fabrics - Rifting across the Median Batholith Zone, Great South Basin, New Zealand
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Prominent structural heterogeneities within the lithosphere may localise or partition strain and deformation during tectonic events. The NE-trending Great South Basin, offshore New Zealand, formed perpendicular to a series of underlying crustal terranes, including the dominantly granitic Median Batholith Zone, which along with boundaries between individual terranes, exert a strong control on rift [...]
Southern Ocean Phytoplankton Blooms Observed by Biogeochemical Floats
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The spring bloom in the Southern Ocean is the rapid-growth phase of the seasonal cycle in phytoplankton. Many previous studies have characterized the spring bloom using chlorophyll estimates from satellite ocean color observations. Assumptions regarding the chlorophyll-to-carbon ratio within phytoplankton and vertical structure of biogeochemical variables lead to uncertainty in satellite-based [...]
Heat distribution in the Southeast Pacific is only weakly sensitive to high-latitude heat flux and wind stress
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Southern Ocean features regionally-varying ventilation pathways that transport heat and carbon from the surface ocean to the interior thermocline on timescales of decades to centuries, but the factors that control the distribution of heat along these pathways are not well understood. In this study, we use a global ocean state estimate (ECCOv4) to (1) define the recently ventilated interior [...]
The sensitivity of Southeast Pacific heat distribution to local and remote changes in ocean properties
Published: 2019-07-16
Subjects: Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Southern Ocean features ventilation pathways that transport surface waters into the subsurface thermocline on timescales of decades to centuries, sequestering anomalies of heat and carbon away from the atmosphere and thereby regulating the rate of surface warming. Despite its importance for climate sensitivity, the factors that control the distribution of heat along these pathways are not [...]
Influence of fault roughness on surface displacement: from numerical simulations to coseismic slip distributions
Published: 2019-07-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Field studies characterized early on natural faults as rough, i.e. non-planar at all scales. Fault roughness induces local stress perturbations, which dramatically affect rupture behavior, resulting in slip heterogeneity. The relation between fault roughness and produced slip remains, however, a key knowledge gap in current numerical and field studies. In this study, we analyze numerical [...]
Seismological evidence for subcrustal magmatic injection beneath Fogo volcano, Cape Verde hotspot
Published: 2019-07-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Fogo volcano belongs to the Cape Verde hotspot and its most recent eruption occurred from November 2014 to February 2015. From January to December 2016 we operated a temporary seismic network on Fogo and were able to locate 289 earthquakes in total. While most of the events occur at distances > 25 km near the neighboring island of Brava. However, on 15th August 2016 we recorded an isolated [...]
δ13C values of bacterial hopanoids and leaf waxes as tracers for methanotrophy in peatlands
Published: 2019-07-09
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Methane emissions from peatlands contribute significantly to atmospheric CH4 levels and play an essential role in the global carbon cycle. The stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13C) of bacterial and plant lipids has been used to study modern and past peatland biogeochemistry, especially methane cycling. However, the small number of recent peatlands that have been characterised and the lack of [...]
Fringe or background: Characterizing deep-water mudstones beyond the basin-floor fan sandstone pinchout
Published: 2019-07-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Mud dominates volumetrically the fraction of sediment delivered and deposited in deep-water environments, and mudstone is a major component of basin-floor successions. However, studies of basin-floor deposits have mainly focused on their proximal sandstone-prone part. A consequent bias therefore remains in the understanding of depositional processes and stratigraphic architecture in [...]