Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Retrospective Detection of Seismic Precursors Using Multi-Scale Energy Curvature
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Energy curvature controls catastrophic failure in seismic systems. We show this through a self-normalizing logarithmic functional Fω = ω(t)² · log(1 + |ω(t)| / median(|ω|)), where ω is the second derivative of seismic energy release. When F stays bounded, the system remains stable. When F diverges, rupture becomes more probable. Our precursor detection method combines spectral analysis using [...]
Short-term morphological response of rubble coral islands to the impact of a small tropical cyclone
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Tropical cyclones (TCs) are extreme storm events with the potential to cause significant damage to coral reef and island ecosystems. The evolution of coral rubble (shingle) islands within these ecosystems relies on the complex eco-morphodynamic relationship between the supply of biogenic sediment from the reef and subsequent transport by hydrodynamic forces. Storms have the potential to alter [...]
A First Principles Critique of the Back Calculation Method: Understanding and Assessing the Alteration of Atmospheric Gases Trapped in Ancient Fluid Inclusions
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The extraction of atmospheric gases from fluid inclusions has emerged as an extremely promising approach for directly constraining the composition of Earth's ancient atmospheres. However, the veracity of data obtained from these inclusions critically depends on how well one can account for the effects of physical chemistry and post-depositional alteration. The Back Calculation Method (BCM) [...]
Timescales of Antarctic ice shelf loss via basal crevassing
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Antarctic ice-shelves are vulnerable to collapse in a warming climate. However, when this might happen is largely unknown, propagating significant uncertainty into sea-level-rise projections. To constrain this uncertainty, we use fracture modelling to predict the timescales on which crevasses fully penetrate ice-shelves, and consider how these timescales change under future warming. We find that [...]
Computation to Choose a Future: Planetary Stewardship in the Age of AI
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The accelerating transformations of the Anthropocene demand governance systems capable of anticipating and steering complex, nonlinear Earth-system dynamics. Existing models optimize for likely trajectories rather than exploring a broader set of futures. This commentary introduces the concept of Computational Foresight (CF): an integrative framework combining artificial intelligence, simulation, [...]
Numerical calculation of coastal trapped wave modes
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A numerical method is developed to calculate coastal trapped wave (CTW) modes in the low-frequency limit ω ≪ f. The modes are solutions to a 2-dimensional eigenvalue problem. Useful properties like orthogonality are derived from the bilinear form associated with the operator of the eigenvalue problem. Our formulation uses the z coordinates and the CTW equation is discretized with a [...]
Barrier vulnerability following outwash: A balance of overwash and dune gap recovery
Published: 2025-11-23
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Existing barrier evolution models only simulate storm impacts from landward-driven flows (overwash), neglecting the impacts of seaward-directed flows (outwash). Here, we modify an existing model to incorporate outwash processes. We find that outwash enhances barrier vulnerability (the tendency to drown) over decadal timescales by scarring the island interior, creating lower, narrower landforms. [...]
New insights into the cooling of the oceanic lithosphere from surface-wave tomographic inferences
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
How oceanic plates cool and thicken with age remains a subject of debate, with several thermal models supported by apparently contradictory data. Combining a novel imaging technique that balances resolution and uncertainty with finite-frequency surface-wave measurements, we build tomographic model SS3DPacific to revisit the cooling style of the oceanic lithosphere beneath the Pacific ocean. [...]
Simulation of the Impacts of Spring Diversions on Streamflow in the Strawberry Creek Watershed, San Bernardino County, California, Using an Integrated Hydrological Model
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Strawberry Creek watershed, situated in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California, features a group of natural springs known as Arrowhead Springs that have been augmented with diversions in the form of sub-horizontal borings and tunnels. Understanding the impact of these structures on streamflow through groundwater capture is crucial for managing surface-water resources in this [...]
Wetter Winters, Drier Summers: Quantifying the change in hydrological response around the Puget Sound area using the wflow_sbm hydrological model and CMIP6 projections
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Climate change is expected to impact hydrological regimes worldwide, including the Pacific Northwest of the United States. This study investigates how climate change will affect river discharge in the Puget Sound region of the State of Washington, with a focus on King and Pierce Counties. We simulated river discharge under historical and future conditions using the physically based, spatially [...]
Morphological Signatures of Planetary Fusion: A Unifying Framework for Earth's Deep Heterogeneities
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
ABSTRACT Studies show that the theoretical feasibility, described in the literature, of gravitational interactions between celestial bodies under certain conditions may result in collisions with complete fusion of masses is acknowledged. Accordingly, the objective is to characterize their long-term structural and biological consequences. This study presents a testable conceptual model in which [...]
A systematic review of microplastic pollution in rivers across Asia
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Microplastics are widely distributed in the aquatic ecosystem globally. They pose potential risks and harm to the ecosystem and human health. Contamination of river environments by microplastics has raised concern due to its negative effect on the aquatic system. Asian rivers serve the world’s most populous continent, encompassing many developing countries experiencing rapid development and [...]
Thermal Power and Climate Change: A Data-Driven Analysis of Cause and Effect, 1800-2100
Published: 2025-11-20
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Since 2020, global politics have shifted sharply to the right—nowhere more visibly than in the United States and Europe. By 2024, this rightward turn in the U.S. culminated in open climate-change denial, the defunding of clean-energy initiatives, and a widespread rejection of scientific evidence. Major domestic and international institutions—NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Weather Bureau, EPA, USDA, FDA, [...]
The slip distributions of the 1952 and 2025 Kamchatka earthquakes from tsunami waveforms recorded around the Pacific Ocean
Published: 2025-11-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The July 2025 Kamchatka earthquake (Mw 8.8) generated Pacific-wide tsunamis. Inversion of 40 DART bottom pressure records around the Pacific Ocean revealed a large (~ 9 m) slip at 200 – 400 km southwest of the epicenter, closely matching the USGS finite fault model based on teleseismic data. In this region, a similarly large megathrust earthquake (M ~ 9) occurred in 1952. The tsunami waveforms [...]
Comparative Evaluation of Threshold Pressure Measurement Techniques in Faulted and Shale Formations
Published: 2025-11-16
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Reliable estimation of capillary threshold pressure is essential for evaluating the sealing capacity of subsurface flow barriers, which has important applications in fluid storage. This study compares the results of capillary threshold pressure measurements obtained from four experimental techniques: (i) gas breakthrough, (ii) mercury injection capillary pressure (MICP), (iii) Porosimetry under [...]