Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geochemistry
Disappearance of Homo floresiensis from Liang Bua alongside seasonal aridification of Flores 61,000-47,000 years ago
Published: 2024-12-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Fresh Water Studies, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Speleology
The cause of the disappearance of the primitive hominin, Homo floresiensis, from the Indonesian island of Flores ~50,000 years ago is a key question in palaeoanthropology. The potential roles of human agency and climate change continue to be debated, but the history of freshwater availability critical to survival at the type locality, Liang Bua, remains unknown. Although speleothem 18O is used [...]
A Millimeter-Scale Change in Leaf Litter Placement Within Soil-Water Interfaces Alters Carbon Dioxide and Methane Emission
Published: 2024-12-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Soil Science, Sustainability
Flooded soils play a critical role in global carbon cycling, serving as significant reservoirs of soil organic carbon and sources of carbon emissions. Leaf litter, particularly from local vegetation, is a major contributor to soil organic carbon formation in these ecosystems, with its decomposition driving the production of carbon dioxide and methane. While numerous studies have investigated the [...]
Ocean and Coastal Acidification Monitoring Priorities for the Northeast US and Eastern Canada
Published: 2024-11-06
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geochemistry, Oceanography, Planetary Geochemistry
The Interagency Working Group on Ocean Acidification monitoring Prioritization Plan 2024 calls for Coastal Acidification Networks to identify the ocean and coastal acidification (OCA) monitoring needs most important for their regions. The Northeast Coastal Acidification Network (NECAN) organized a webinar series to study regional needs, which culminated with a workshop in November 2023. This [...]
Phanerozoic thermochronology record of Afro-Arabia through space and time
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Low-temperature thermochronology has been widely used in eastern Africa and Arabia (Afro-Arabia) to investigate the long-term thermal evolution of the crust in response to Phanerozoic tectonism. Yet, utilisation of this invaluable thermochronology record to inform numerical investigations into the long-term tectonothermal, geodynamic and landscape evolution of the region has been limited by the [...]
The link between water and ferric iron in Earth's lower mantle
Published: 2024-10-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Mineral Physics
As the most massive geochemical reservoir, the lower mantle affects Earth's budget of volatile elements, including hydrogen or H2O. The properties of minerals in Earth's lower mantle are further affected by changes in the electronic configurations of iron cations, i.e., spin transitions. Potential feedback between deep H2O retention and spin transitions in mantle minerals, however, remain [...]
Questioning Dark Oxygen Production in the Deep-sea Ferromanganese Nodule Field
Published: 2024-10-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Oceanography
Previous studies have concluded that the natural process where oxygen is consumed as decomposition of organic matter that supplied from shallow waters occurs on the deep-sea floor. Sweetman et al.1 presented the surprising observation that deep-sea ferromanganese nodules generate oxygen, which they labelled as dark oxygen production. The authors claimed that oxygen was generated through the [...]
Hadean-aged felsic sediments recycled through the deep mantle by early plate tectonics
Published: 2024-10-02
Subjects: Geochemistry, Geology
The unresolved question of when modern tectonic processes arose on Earth has restricted our understanding of how and how quickly Earth reached its present, habitable form. Plate tectonics, and in particular deep subduction, is central to many facets of habitability: it controls heat flow, biogeochemical cycling, and creates a variety of marine and terrestrial biomes that are crucial for [...]
Rapid transformation of biogenic silica to authigenic clay during reverse weathering
Published: 2024-10-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry
Formation of authigenic clay minerals during early diagenesis of marine sediments, termed “reverse weathering” (RW), is an important process for regulating ocean pH and atmospheric CO2 over geologic time scales. It is also considered a“missing sink” of the modern marine Si cycle. Although the importance of RW has been increasingly recognized, the rate and mechanisms of this process remain [...]
Improved Precision and Reference Materials for Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis in Basaltic Glasses using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry
Published: 2024-09-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Volcanology
We introduce three new reference materials and a new high-precision set-up for stable carbon isotope analysis in basaltic glasses using large-geometry secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) instrument. The new hydrous basaltic reference materials, characterised for carbon concentration and isotope composition by step-heating gas extraction and manometry followed by isotope ratio mass [...]
Assessing the timing of deep ocean oxygenation from uranium elemental and isotopic compositions of ophiolites
Published: 2024-09-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology
The concentration of dissolved oxygen in the deep oceans has varied over Earth History, with the timing of the transition from anoxic to oxic deep oceans debated. Under modern-day, oxic, deep ocean conditions, alteration of the upper sections of mafic oceanic crust with U-rich seawater leads to U enrichment, low Th/U ratios, and heterogeneous 238U/235U ratios relative to fresh mid-ocean ridge [...]
Nd isotopic equilibration during channelized melt transport through the lithosphere: a feasibility study using idealized numerical models
Published: 2024-09-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry
Abstract {This study is motivated by the observed variability in trace element isotopic and chemical compositions of primitive (SiO$_2<$52 wt \%) basalts in southwest North America (SWNA) during the Cenozoic transition from subduction to extension. Specifically, we focus on processes that may explain the enigmatic observation that in some localities, basalts with low Ta/Th, consistent with [...]
Competitive and Cooperative Effects of Chloride on Palladium(II) Adsorption to Iron (Oxyhydr)oxides: Implications for Mobility During Weathering
Published: 2024-09-10
Subjects: Geochemistry
In surface and near-surface weathering environments, the mobilization and partial loss of palladium (Pd) under oxidizing and weakly acidic conditions has been attributed to aqueous chloride complexation. However, prior work has also observed that a portion of Pd is retained by iron (oxyhydr)oxides in the weathering zone. The effect chloride has on the relative amount of Pd mobilization versus [...]
Evidence supporting a broader than previously thought influence of solar activity over Earth system’s processes. Discussion of a possible mechanism.
Published: 2024-09-08
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology
In this article, I show lines of evidence supporting a modulation of volcanic activity and some weather phenomena by solar wind conditions in the near-Earth environment. On a daily timescale, a correlation is found between the LP earthquake activity of Kilauea volcano, related to magma transport, and the Bx component of the interplanetary magnetic field as measured in the OMNI database for [...]
Critical Review of the Article: "Evidence of Dark Oxygen Production at the Abyssal Seafloor" by Sweetman et al. in Nat. Geosci. 1–3 (2024)
Published: 2024-08-12
Subjects: Geochemistry
This review examines the findings and methodologies presented in Sweetman et al. (2024) (hereafter referred to as ‘the paper’). The paper presents findings contrasting those of all previous comparable work and has stirred international debate pertaining to deep-sea minerals. We identify significant issues in data collection, validation, and interpretation including unvalidated data collection [...]
Alteration processes of mantle peridotite in the Samail ophiolite inferred from independent component analysis of rock physical properties
Published: 2024-07-27
Subjects: Geochemistry, Mineral Physics, Multivariate Analysis
To quantify the alteration processes of mantle from geophysical data, an understanding of the relationship between alteration and the physical properties of mantle peridotite is essential. In this study, we employed independent component analysis (ICA) to evaluate variations in the physical properties of altered peridotites collected by the Oman Drilling Project, to understand the alteration [...]