Skip to main content

Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Geospatial Machine Learning for Predicting Flash Flood Response at Ungauged Appalachian Watersheds: Terrain, Soil, and Land Cover Controls

Sujan Bhattarai

Published: 2026-04-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Flash floods remain among the deadliest weather hazards in the United States, yet the majority of flood-prone watersheds in the Appalachian region lack streamflow monitoring. Predicting flood response characteristics at these ungauged sites requires understanding which landscape properties control hydrologic behavior. This study evaluates whether geospatial basin descriptors derived from [...]

Paleoarchean seawater and seafloor hydrothermal processes: insights from 3.5 to 3.3 Ga carbonate geochemistry

Wanli Xiang, Dr., Jan-Peter Duda, Prof. Dr., Andreas Pack, Prof. Dr., et al.

Published: 2026-04-13
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Carbonates (3.5 to 3.3 Ga) in the East Pilbara Terrane (EPT), Western Australia, including interstitial carbonate between pillow basalts, fracture-filling calcite, sedimentary carbonates and carbonate associated with stromatolites, provide valuable geochemical archives for reconstructing Early Earth environments. This study highlights three key findings: (1) Fracture-filling calcite D-2-W from [...]

Agent-based Modelling of Microbialite Formation through Sedimentation and Precipitation Dynamics

Niall Rodgers, Laurane Fogret, Mark Van Zuilen, et al.

Published: 2026-04-13
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Other Earth Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy

Fossil microbialites resulting from the interplay of sedimentation and microbially induced precipitation are among the oldest evidence of life on Earth and help geobiologists interpret many sedimentary environments. However, the factors governing their internal structure and external morphology are still poorly understood. Additionally, abiotic processes can mimic the morphology of some [...]

Learning-Based Methods and the Future of Numerical Ocean and Sea Ice Modeling

Charlotte Durand, Daria Botvynko, Hugo Frezat, et al.

Published: 2026-04-11
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The field of operational oceanography is undergoing a significant evolution with the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) methods, which are complementing and, in some cases, redefining traditional numerical modeling approaches. This review explores how AI methods—particularly model-based autoregressive emulators, hybrid modeling, and end-to-end model-free approaches—are [...]

Fractal Tomography and the Fisher Information Barrier of Seismicity: Addressing the Origin of Dual Paradoxes via Precision-Calibrated Bayesian Inference

Facundo Firmenich, Pau Firmenich, León Firmenich

Published: 2026-04-10
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Non-linear Dynamics, Other Statistics and Probability, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistical Methodology, Statistics and Probability, Tectonics and Structure

The spatial organization of seismicity presents dual multi-decade paradoxes: (1) earthquake catalogs exhibit quasi-planar correlation dimensions (D2 ≈ 2.0–2.6) despite volumetric lithospheric deformation (geometric projection paradox), and (2) Bayesian inference systematically yields D3 ≈ 3.0 contradicting structural geology (Bayesian saturation paradox). We address both through the Fractal [...]

Climate variability introduces uncertainty into future emissions pathways

James Gilroy Larson, Patrick W Keys, Frances Moore, et al.

Published: 2026-04-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Uncertainty in long-term climate outcomes arises not only from physical processes but also from societal responses to climate variability and change. Here we embed a range of temperature anomalies into an empirically-informed, coupled climate–social model to investigate how natural temperature variability shapes global emissions trajectories. Using Monte Carlo ensembles spanning social, [...]

Persistent Geochemical Zonation (“Striping”) within the Galápagos Mantle Plume

Matthew Lloyd Morgan Gleeson, Mark Richards, Cinzia G Farnetani, et al.

Published: 2026-04-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Some hotspot tracks, such as those formed by the Hawai’i and Galápagos mantle plumes, exhibit long-lived cross-track isotopic zonation, thought to reflect the streaking out of heterogeneous material in the plume conduit during upwelling. In lavas associated with the Galápagos mantle plume, three geochemical domains, present for at least 15 Myr, have been identified: northern, southern and [...]

HydroScholar AI: A Collaborative Agent for End-to-End Automated Hydrological Research Lifecycle

Vinay Pursnani, Yusuf Sermet, Ibrahim Demir

Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Hydrological research relies on multi-stage computational workflows that are often slow, fragmented across disparate tools, and inconsistently documented, limiting reproducibility. This study presents HydroScholar AI, an agentic, human-in-the-loop platform that consolidates the plan-to-paper research lifecycle into a single interactive automated framework. From a natural-language prompt, the [...]

Modeling PDC cutter-rock interactions using finite discrete element method for geothermal drilling applications

Erin Heilman, Bryan Euser, Luke Frash, et al.

Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) cutters are used in geothermal energy drilling operations as they are exceptionally effective due to their strength and resistance to abrasion. It is important to understand the effect of downhole conditions to accurately model rock-cutter-rock interactions, as well as wear on the bit and drilling efficiency. Cutting efficiency is determined through the [...]

Automated Detection of Slow Slip Events from InSAR: Application to the North Anatolian Fault

Estelle Neyrinck, Baptiste Rousset, Cécile Doubre, et al.

Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure

The growing volume of InSAR time series offers new opportunities to systematically detect transient aseismic deformation, but identifying low-amplitude slow slip events (SSEs) remains challenging due to noise and limited temporal resolution. Here, we adapt the geodetic matched filter, originally developed for GNSS data, to InSAR displacement time series in the context of shallow strike-slip [...]

Simulation of Groundwater Flow To Evaluate Hydrogeologic Controls on a PFAS Plume, Coakley Landfill Superfund Site, Rockingham County, New Hampshire

Philip T Harte, Andrew Collins

Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), have been detected at combined concentrations above 2,000 nanograms per liter (ng/L) at groundwater seep locations near the Coakley Landfill Superfund site, in North Hampton, New Hampshire. The landfill was active from 1972 to 1985. An impermeable cap was placed on the [...]

Geochemical and granulometric fingerprints of 8,200-year Westerly variability recorded in inner-fjord lake sediments from Central Svalbard

Zofia Stachowska, Willem G. M. van der Bilt, Jan Kavan, et al.

Published: 2026-04-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on Earth. As sea-ice diminishes, surface boundary conditions (roughness and air-sea coupling) change and open-water fetch increases, potentially strengthening the effective wind forcing on Arctic coasts. These changes can be recorded in lake sediments through the deposition of wind-blown grains and elements, offering insights into past wind and [...]

Seasonal Shift in the Dominant Pathway Energizing Mesoscale Eddies in the California Current

Jack Gazeley, Sarah T. Gille, Lia Siegelman, et al.

Published: 2026-04-08
Subjects: Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Mesoscale eddies are the dominant reservoir of kinetic energy in the ocean, yet the mechanisms that generate and maintain them in eastern boundary current systems remain incompletely assessed. Here we use a 1-km resolution simulation of the California Current System (CCS) to diagnose and quantify the processes that supply kinetic energy to the mesoscale band. A pronounced seasonal transition is [...]

Longitudinal stress induced by basal slippery patch

Joshua Harlan Rines, Ching-Yao Lai, Yongji Wang

Published: 2026-04-07
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Supraglacial lake drainages create spatially finite regions of reduced basal friction, slippery patches, at the ice-bed interface that perturb local stresses in the overlying ice, potentially sufficiently to trigger cascading hydrofracture-driven lake drainage events. We derive analytical solutions for the perturbed stress response to such slippery patches using the shallow shelf approximation [...]

Aerosol Removal and Solar Decline Drive Post-1980 Surface Warming Acceleration

Pochender Shenigarapu

Published: 2026-04-06
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Standard climate models do not fully reproduce post-1980 surface warming acceleration. Two forcing pathways explain the gap: Western clean air legislation progressively removed industrial sulphate aerosols from 1980 onward, unmasking suppressed greenhouse warming; and the Sun's magnetic output declined secularly after 1980, partially offsetting that unmasking. We quantify both using MERRA-2 [...]

search

You can search by:

  • Title
  • Keywords
  • Author Name
  • Author Affiliation