Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Natural Origins of 3I/ATLAS: Why 3I/ATLAS is Not an Alien Probe
Published: 2025-08-04
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A number of scientists have talked about the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (C/2023 A3) since it was found in 2025. This is mostly because Dr. Avi Loeb thinks the object could be an alien probe because of its size, path, and chemical ambiguity. This work looks closely at Loeb's claims and gives a fresh astrogeological reason for them: Another group of scientists found that the lithified clastic [...]
Artificial Intelligence in Earth Science: A GeoAI Perspective
Published: 2025-08-03
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
GeoAI, or geospatial artificial intelligence, has transformative potential for Earth science by integrating geospatial data with artificial intelligence to enhance environmental monitoring, predictive modeling, and decision-making. This commentary, based on the Greg Leptoukh Lecture at AGU 2024, explores the evolving role of GeoAI in addressing pressing challenges—from environmental change in the [...]
Spaceborne mineral mapping reduces dust’s shortwave radiative impact uncertainty
Published: 2025-08-01
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Mineral dust impacts climate through complex interactions with radiation, which remain poorly quantified due to uncertainties in the amount of light-absorbing iron oxides within dust particles. NASA’s EMIT imaging spectrometer, now delivering high-resolution soil mineralogy from the International Space Station, provides the first observational basis to address this gap at a global scale. Using [...]
Slow Slip Events in Mexico: A Historical Perspective
Published: 2025-08-01
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This paper introduces a historical catalogue of slow slip events (SSE) for the Mexican subduction zone. The catalogue incorporates all 25 SSEs recorded since they were discovered in 1997. The inversion of GPS data for ten SSEs in Guerrero and five in Oaxaca reveals a clear slow slip segmentation along the Middle America Trench, with slip maxima between 30 and 40 km depth in both regions. SSEs in [...]
The 1908 Tunguska event and electromagnetic phenomena
Published: 2025-07-31
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This paper is a continuation of a series of works, devoted to various aspects of the 1908 Tunguska event. In this paper its author would like to draw attention to the arguments about the manifestations of electromagnetic phenomena in the 1908 Tunguska event. A review is provided of some data supporting the idea about the manifestation of electromagnetic phenomena. Although there is no direct [...]
Regionally divergent drivers behind transgressions of the freshwater change planetary boundary
Published: 2025-07-31
Subjects: Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Human-driven freshwater change contributes to elevated Earth system risks. Here, we advance the understanding of drivers behind the transgression of the planetary boundary for freshwater change (PB-FW), based on historical (1901–2019) streamflow (blue water) and soil moisture (green water) simulations from a large ensemble of global hydrological models. Since the former estimate ending in 2005, [...]
Future Sea Ice-Ocean and Biological Productivity Changes in the North Water Polynya Region under Policy Relevant Warming Levels
Published: 2025-07-30
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The North Water Polynya (NOW) is one of the most productive biological regions in the Arctic with high importance to Inuit and Greenlandic communities. To provide insights into the potential changes of this region as global temperatures rise, we investigated the sea ice, and physical and biological oceanic responses of the NOW to low (2 °C) and high (>3.5 °C) levels of warming using the [...]
Characterizing point-source carbon emissions by combining TROPOMI CO and OCO CO2 data.
Published: 2025-07-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding and independently validating carbon emissions from concentrated point sources is vital to support climate policy. Satellite-based quantifications of CO2 point source emissions have been limited by the spatial coverage of current satellite instruments. We combine three different satellite instruments to determine carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of seven large [...]
Nanoscale Interfacial Dissolution-Precipitation Reactions Drive Incipient Carbon Mineralization at the Tamarack Intrusive Complex Peridotite
Published: 2025-07-30
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Tamarack ultramafic intrusion in Minnesota, USA may be suited to host concurrent carbon sequestration and critical mineral recovery. These dual capabilities are vital to reduce carbon emissions and supply metals (e.g. nickel) necessary for electric vehicles and other rapidly upscaling energy technologies. To understand carbonation reaction pathways and assess carbon sequestration potential in [...]
Seismic precursors to the Blatten, Switzerland landslide revealed by unsupervised machine learning
Published: 2025-07-25
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The transition from stable to unstable states in geological systems, such as landslides and fault zones, remains poorly understood. Seismic precursors and foreshocks related to the transition are often difficult to observe and the interpretation remains challenging. Here, we report an observation of the nucleation process preceding the glacial landslide on May~28,~2025 in the village of Blatten, [...]
Quantum Entropy & Probabilistic Clustering for Uncertainty-Aware Groundwater Quality Assessment in Geochemically Complex Terrains of Eastern India
Published: 2025-07-25
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Groundwater quality assessment in geochemically heterogeneous regions is often constrained by deterministic models that overlook spatial variability, inter-parameter dependencies, and system uncertainty. This study proposes a novel Quantum Entropy-based Groundwater Quality Index (QEGWI), which leverages von Neumann entropy derived from quantum density matrices to weight hydrogeochemical [...]
Geochemical characteristics of orthopyroxene-bearing metamorphosed lithologies in the northern Chilka lake area, Eastern Ghats belt, India: Insights into the original nature and petrogenesis of precursors
Published: 2025-07-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The northern Chilka Lake area stone quarries expose a high-grade terrane comprising a metapelitic suite interbanded with orthopyroxene-bearing gneisses and garnet-biotite leucogneisses (leptynites). This study presents bulk-rock and mineral chemistry data of the orthopyroxene-bearing units to evaluate the true nature of their protoliths and to comment on their petrogenesis. Field, petrographic, [...]
Reduced-order modelling of Cascadia’s slow slip cycles
Published: 2025-07-25
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Slow-slip events (SSEs) modulate the earthquake cycle in subduction zones, yet understanding their physics remains challenging due to sparse observations and high computational cost of physics-based simulations. We present a scientific machine-learning approach using a data-driven reduced-order modelling (ROM) framework to efficiently simulate the SSE cycle governed by rate-and-state friction in [...]
A Spatial Analysis of the Groundwater Emergence Flood Hazard in Long Island, New York and near Coastal Areas Surrounding Long Island Sound in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island
Published: 2025-07-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Long Island, New York and near coastal areas surrounding Long Island Sound are densely populated and, like other coastal areas, are susceptible to flooding from several potential sources, including stormwater from precipitation events, tidal flooding and storm surge, and groundwater inundation or groundwater emergence flooding. The latter refers to the intersection of a rising water table with [...]
Slowly migrating fracture swarms in an actively serpentinizing borehole
Published: 2025-07-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Peridotite rocks are primary targets for engineered geological carbon sequestration efforts because they accommodate transfer carbon from aqueous fluids to rock during alteration reactions. Sequestration efforts must necessarily open fractures in the rocks surrounding a pumped borehole, but the current understanding of fracture growth during serpentinization of peridotite is limited to [...]