Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Geological controls on Underground Hydrogen Storage in depleted gas fields
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Sustainability
The geological storage of hydrogen is an alternative for large-scale energy storage in support of expanding renewable energy systems. The North Sea has hundreds of depleted gas fields that are potential storage sites. Robust screening procedures are necessary to select the most suitable reservoirs in terms of geology. This study investigates the geological controls on hydrogen storage in depleted [...]
Decadal Evolution of Supraglacial Hydrology on the Nivlisen Ice Shelf: From Localized Ponding to Spatially Synchronized Hydrofracture Forcing (2015-2026)
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Computational Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics
Understanding the mechanical response of Antarctic ice shelves to surface meltwater is critical for evaluating their structural stability. This study presents 11 austral summer seasons (AS 2015-2016 to AS 2025-2026) assessment of supraglacial melt pond dynamics and their mechanical implications for the Nivlisen Ice Shelf grounding zone using Landsat-8/9 imagery combined with in-situ validation [...]
mineralML: Leveraging Machine Learning for Probabilistic Mineral Classification
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Statistical Methodology, Statistics and Probability, Volcanology
Characterizing phase assemblages in igneous rocks and the chemical variability within these phases is the fundamental basis of many petrological investigations. We present mineralML (mineral classification using Machine Learning), an open-source Python package that classifies common igneous minerals based on oxide chemical data, with prediction scores. mineralML employs a two-stage neural [...]
Nearly three decades of laser altimetry reveal strong regional contrasts and glacier-driven ice losses in Greenland
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Greenland Ice Sheet, a major contributor to sea-level rise, loses mass through complex processes that are not fully understood. Laser altimetry provides direct and accurate measurements of ice sheet surface elevation. Here, we present the first continuous, laser altimetry-based annual reconstruction of Greenland Ice Sheet mass change from 1994 to 2020 at 1 km horizontal resolution. Our novel [...]
Seasonal Anomaly Detection in the Halda River Using a Multivariate Deep Learning Framework
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Monitoring river water quality is essential to preserving ecological integrity, especially in ecologically significant rivers like the Halda, which is renowned for its natural freshwater carp spawning. This study presents a deep learning-based approach using a deep autoencoder neural network for unsupervised anomaly detection in water quality data. Two-year time-series data including daily [...]
Dataset of DInSAR wrapped phase signals for AI-based automated detection and classification of mass movements
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
With the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in remote sensing of mass movements, available datasets for model training and validation are increasingly needed. Although Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) is a widely used technique for studying mass movements, wrapped interferograms remain less exploited, and the importance of geomorphological expertise in their [...]
Analyzing Seasonal Variations in Air Quality with Google Earth Engine: A Case Study of Chattogram, Bangladesh
Published: 2026-03-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences
Air pollution is a serious environmental challenge in Bangladesh, significantly affecting public health and the ecosystem. This study considers analyzing the seasonal fluctuation of air quality in Chattogram by analyzing 13 significant areas near the industrial zone by using Google Earth Engine (GEE) to explore the SENTINEL-5P satellite data for key pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide (NO2), [...]
Atsusa samusa mo higan made: Statistical validation of a Japanese weather proverb across eight stations over 76 years
Published: 2026-03-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Background: Weather proverbs encode centuries of observational knowledge, yet few have been subjected to rigorous statistical testing. The Japanese proverb atsusa samusa mo higan made ("heat and cold last only until the equinox") asserts that seasonal temperature transitions coincide with the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. Despite growing international interest in weather folklore verification, [...]
Spatiotemporal Assessment of Urbanisation and Deforestation Impacts on Forest Structure and Vegetation Health in Ekiti State, Nigeria Using Multi-Sensor SAR, Optical, and GEDI Data.
Published: 2026-03-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Nigeria’s urban population is projected to reach 70% by 2050, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable land management strategies. This study integrates multi-sensor SAR (ALOS PALSAR, Sentinel-1), optical imagery (Landsat, Sentinel-2), and spaceborne LiDAR (GEDI) to quantify the impacts of urbanization and deforestation on forest structure in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Using Random Forest and [...]
On the Origin of Directional Variability in Earthquake Response Spectra: A Stochastic Covariance Framework
Published: 2026-03-22
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology
Directional variability of horizontal earthquake response spectra is commonly described using rotation-based measures such as RotD50 and RotD100, yet its physical and statistical origin remains unclear. This study shows that directional anisotropy arises fundamentally from finite-sample fluctuations of the covariance matrix of filtered ground-motion response. Even under perfectly isotropic [...]
Tectonic reconstruction
Published: 2026-03-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This is a book chapter that explains tectonic reconstruction techniques, from the field to the plate scale. It is directed at field geologists who want to place their detailed observations in regional (plate) tectonic context, relative to major plates, mantle or spin axis.
Spectral signatures in satellite soil moisture reveal irrigation patterns across the contiguous United States
Published: 2026-03-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Irrigation profoundly alters the terrestrial water cycle, yet its spatial distribution and temporal variability remain poorly constrained. Here, we introduce a new approach to detect irrigation in space based on spectral differences between modelled and satellite-observed soil moisture time series. Using wavelet decomposition, we isolate irrigation-induced variability at sub-annual scales by [...]
Paleomagnetism in tectonics: A user’s guide
Published: 2026-03-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Paleomagnetism can reveal the direction of the ancient geomagnetic field recorded in rocks and provides an invaluable quantitative reference for the study of tectonics. This chapter describes the basic principles of how the magnetic field is stored in rocks, how it may be measured, and how common pitfalls in paleomagnetic analysis may be recognized and corrected for. We then explain how [...]
Bimodal seismic-aseismic behavior of a weakly coupled megathrust segment revealed by kinematic analysis of a seismic swarm and slow slip event offshore Copiapó, Chile
Published: 2026-03-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A seismic swarm occurred in Chile in 2023, in a region well known for hosting this type of seismicity, the Atacama region, and more precisely within the low coupling zone of Barranquilla. It started on August 26th and lasts about 6~weeks, ending early October. Thanks to our high-density small-scale GNSS network, we recorded the spatio-temporal evolution of surface deformation generated by a slow [...]
Robust Uneven Shift of Extreme Storm Surges Observed in Data Sparse Northeast Indian Ocean Cities
Published: 2026-03-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Reanalysis-driven storm surge datasets enable extreme analysis in data-sparse regions, but most studies translate these time series into extremes using a single statistical model, leaving model-selection uncertainty unquantified. In this study, we analyze ERA5-forced surge residual dataset (1950–2024) from Copernicus Climate Change Service for 11 Northeast Indian Ocean (NIO) cities using an [...]