Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The role of thermal pressurization in driving deep fault slip during the 2021 Mw 8.2 Chignik, Alaska megathrust earthquake
Published: 2025-09-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 2021 Mw 8.2 Chignik earthquake ruptured a weakly coupled portion of the deep slab in the eastern Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone, with no significant shallow slip. The underlying physics driving such large earthquakes nucleating at large depth and their impact on seismic and tsunami hazards remain poorly understood. We perform 3D dynamic rupture simulations that couple thermal [...]
Assessment of Natural Gas Pipeline Construction on Stream Temperature and Turbidity in Southwestern Virginia, 2017—25
Published: 2025-09-03
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The natural gas pipeline network in the United States is extensive and often intersects streams and other sensitive habitats, yet there are limited case studies utilizing a comparative upstream-downstream approach to evaluate potential short- and long-term effects of pipeline stream crossing construction from pre-construction to post-site restoration. In 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey, in [...]
Some new Models of Earth’s Temperature Anomaly across various Epochs Predicting Present Warming with Ice Age Validity Testing and a Data set Bias examination.
Published: 2025-08-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The need for methods to assess earth’s temperature anomaly are briefly discussed together with shortcomings of existing climate models. The geomagnetic or Pole shift method of climate sensitivity is briefly reviewed. The hypothesis that the previous two warm periods shared a common driver is tested and proven. Granger causality tests have been made and indicate that Pole Shift is the driver of [...]
Using X-ray Fluorescence to Detect Automobile Heavy Metal Pollution in Los Angeles Soils with Copper and Palladium as Indicators
Published: 2025-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This project evaluates the effectiveness of using portable X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) to detect soil composition matrices that show patterns of anthropogenic influence. We explore 26 areas within Los Angeles County, California, that have various amounts of traffic; classifying each locale as Urban or Recreational. The main elements of interest are copper and palladium. These indicators are largely [...]
Using ruptures from an earthquake cycle simulator to test geodetic early warning system performance
Published: 2025-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
New Zealand's vulnerability to seismic hazards highlights the need for systems capable of providing earthquake early warning (EEW) or rapid notice of strong shaking. Large offshore earthquakes along the subduction zone east of the North Island could also trigger catastrophic tsunamis, inundating coastal communities in under an hour. While New Zealand operates a robust seismic and geodetic network [...]
Intelligent National Map: A Vision for Distributed and Agentic Geospatial Intelligence
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
An Intelligent National Map (INM) can change how worldwide mapping agencies, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, deliver the geospatial foundation of the Nation, as well as the capacity for the public to engage and use the data. It is envisioned as an innovative system that can coordinate analysis for spatial questions using structured reasoning grounded in semantic relationships, domain rules, [...]
Undrainable pore spaces comprise half of US groundwater storage
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Groundwater is vital to global freshwater access, streamflow generation, and biogeochemical cycling, but not all groundwater can be drained due to adhesive and capillary forces. Quantifying the proportion of groundwater that can be drained—and is, thus, theoretically recoverable—is critical for characterising groundwater’s role in earth system processes. Unfortunately, estimates of theoretically [...]
Testing the accuracy and transferability of remotely sensed biomass models across heterogeneous grasslands
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Grassland aboveground biomass provides key insights into ecological processes such as carbon sequestration, animal movement patterns, and agricultural management practices. Different model types have been developed to estimate grassland biomass from satellite imagery. However, differences in model performance across sites with different management regimes remain largely understudied. In this [...]
Band ratio to band difference for Chl of oceanic waters: broke a self-imposed no-touch zone
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
There are many empirical algorithms developed for the remote sensing of chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl) from ocean color measurements, with the blue-green band-ratio type of algorithms dominating these practices. During the phase of algorithm development, which is data-driven, generally the errors of remote sensing reflectance (Rrs) from satellites are ignored until Hu et al. (2012) developed a [...]
Surface Expression of Low Basal Friction Upstream of Antarctic Grounding Lines
Published: 2025-08-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ice sheets leave contact with the bed at grounding lines, beyond which floating ice shelves experience no friction at their base. In places where basal friction begins to decrease upstream of the grounding line, ice sheets respond more strongly to climate forcing. However, the spatial extent of zones of low grounding line friction is poorly constrained by observations. Here, we use a steady-state [...]
Strike-slip restraining screwed fault geometry reconstructed from the 2025 Myanmar earthquake
Published: 2025-08-25
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a fault surface model of the 2025 Mw 7.7 Myanmar earthquake based on the potency density tensor inversion (PDTI) of teleseismic P-waves combined with surface reconstruction from distributed potency tensor solutions. Our source model demonstrates that the earthquake fault is twisted, varying the dip angle along strike. Inferred fault twists are prominent near fault-segment junctions, [...]
Bayesian Estimation of Paleoearthquake Magnitudes in the Central Apennines
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Paleoseismic data provide critical constraints on earthquake recurrence where instrumental records are limited, but magnitude estimation from geologic evidence requires careful treatment of measurement uncertainties. We develop a Bayesian method with application to the estimation of paleoearthquake magnitudes in the central Apennines, Italy, by jointly analyzing rupture length (L), slip (S), and [...]
High-Resolution Simulation of the Urban Heat Island Effect in Grenoble During the 2018 Heatwave: Evaluating WRF Model Configurations
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Fluid Dynamics, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
This study investigates the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in Grenoble, France, during the August 2018 heatwave, using high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) simulations at 111 meters. The objective is to evaluate at this resolution the capac- ity of different WRF urban parameterizations such as the Building Effect Parameterization (BEP) and Building Energy Model (BEM), to [...]
WRFUP: A Python Package to Enhance Urban Simulations
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Fluid Dynamics, Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
WRFUP is a Python package designed to enhance urban climate modeling in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model by automating the sourcing and ingestion of high-resolution urban morphology data. This package calculates crucial urban canopy parameters—URB_PARAM and FRC_URB2D—enabling precise simulations for advanced urban canopy parameterizations like SLUCM, BEP, and BEP+BEM. This tool [...]
Megadyke propagation down dynamic topography
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Magmatic dykes that align vertically and extend laterally for hundreds to thousands of kilometres are known as megadykes. Observations of solidified swarms of megadykes suggest the dykes propagate away from a common source. We hypothesize that megadyke propagation is driven by dynamic topography above a buoyant mantle plume. We develop a model describing lateral dyke propagation from a [...]