Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Joint falsification of gravity, magnetotelluric and surface-wave data resolves a fertile-corridor discriminator: the Al Amar suture, Arabian Shield
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A prospective mineral province is defined by deep structure that is known only from sparse geophysical data, and any one dataset permits several geological interpretations. This paper describes a prototype that converts a geologist's written tectonic history into a falsifiable prior on deep petrophysical structure and asks which measurements separate geologically distinct histories. A language [...]
Fluvial response and recovery after the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction revealed through quantitative paleohydrology
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Anthropogenic climate change represents the greatest modern forcing on global river dynamics. Investigating the sensitivity of rivers to past climate in the geological record is thus crucial in understanding future landscapes in a warming world. The Sherwood Sandstone Group, UK, a unit of early-middle Triassic (c. 248-239 Ma) dryland fluvial deposits, records events during and after the [...]
Improving PM2.5 Estimation from Satellite Aerosol Optical Depth Using Boundary Layer Height and Meteorological Variables
Published: 2026-07-15
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate estimation of surface particulate matter (PM2.5) from satellite observations remains challenging because aerosol optical depth (AOD) represents column-integrated aerosol loading and is strongly influenced by meteorological conditions. This study investigates the relationship between satellite-derived AOD, meteorological variables, and surface PM2.5 concentrations over Mumbai, India, [...]
The tidal-force theory of the Indian summer monsoon
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Science and Mathematics Education
This article elaborates on the theory that both lunar and solar tractive tidal forces generate the wind flows responsible for the ISMR. Monsoon variability shows that the monsoon (ISMR) is not periodic simply on the tropical year or the Gregorian calendar. However, it was observed that the seemingly delayed monsoons of 2004 and 2026 came right on time for the rainy season on the traditional [...]
Inferring the sub-surface connectivity and structural maturity of the Roccapreturo normal fault system, Central Apeninnes, Italy, using high-resolution structural mapping
Published: 2026-07-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Constraining how active faults link together in the sub-surface and understanding how fault geometry and structural maturity affect earthquake propagation are key tools for understanding earthquake behaviour and seismic hazard. We use the Roccapreturo fault system, from the Central Apennines, Italy, which has three closely spaced normal faults mapped at the surface as a case study to explore [...]
Thermodynamic modeling tools for the interpretation of melt inclusions and volcanic gases
Published: 2026-07-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Volcanology
H2O, CO2, and S are the most abundant volatiles in basaltic magmatic systems and are critical to understanding magma storage and the size and style of volcanic eruptions. Models for calculating melt–vapor (±mineral) equilibria are abundant in the literature but are not interoperable. Consequently, few comparisons of model outputs have been performed. To address this, we comprehensively compare [...]
Beyond a Single Risk Score: Posterior Rank Uncertainty in Wildfire Exposure of Transmission Corridors
Published: 2026-07-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Risk Analysis
Transmission-line wildfire risk management frequently demands segment-level priority triage, whereas records regarding equipment status, power outages and routine inspections remain non-public. This study establishes a reproducible framework relying solely on publicly accessible datasets to conduct retrospective external wildfire exposure ranking for transmission line segments across California. [...]
The Rise of Diamond Open Access Journals in Earth Sciences: Past Developments, Present Tensions, and Future Pathways
Published: 2026-07-08
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Library and Information Science, Paleontology, Planetary Sciences, Sedimentology, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology
Over roughly the last decade, a visible, community-led Diamond Open Access (OA) ecosystem has emerged in the Earth sciences, not as a departure from tradition, but as the latest expression of a long-standing culture of open, society-supported scholarly communication. While free-to-read, fee-free publishing initiatives have deep roots in the field, predating the Diamond terminology by decades and [...]
Well-log Analysis of Shale Gas Reservoirs
Published: 2026-07-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Well-logs provide continuous information about rocks and their pore fluid properties. Typical well-logs such as gamma-ray, density, neutron, sonic, and resistivity logs have been traditionally used to estimate shale volume, porosity, lithology, and fluid saturation in conventional oil and gas exploration, where shale formations are treated as hydrocarbon source rock and sandstone and carbonate [...]
CSUFlow25: Colorado Streamflow Ungaged Prediction Models
Published: 2026-07-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
CSUFlow25 is an updated set of statistical models for predicting streamflow in ungaged basins in Colorado, USA. It builds on the earlier CSUFlow18 models (Eurich et al., 2021) by extending the streamflow record from water years 2001–2018 to 2001–2024, expanding the pool of candidate predictor variables, and increasing the number of streamflow metrics predicted. Models were developed from a [...]
Surface, not exhaust: a multi-sensor satellite test bounds the local thermal footprint of hyperscale data centres
Published: 2026-07-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Whether hyperscale data centres (DCs) warm their surroundings has become a live policy question with directly conflicting answers: a coarse-resolution satellite preprint attributes ~2 °C of land-surface warming to facilities worldwide (Marinoni et al 2026), while peer-reviewed mobile transects near Phoenix measure +0.7-0.9 °C of near-ground air warming within a few hundred metres downwind (Sailor [...]
When does array moveout help borehole phase picking? A leave-one-site-out, confound-free benchmark of array versus per-trace deep learning
Published: 2026-07-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Deep-learning phase pickers are increasingly deployed on borehole microseismic arrays, yet two questions central to operational monitoring remain poorly quantified: how well such models generalize to a site they were not trained on, and whether the cross-station moveout that an array provides actually improves that generalization. We give the first confound-free answer using the AMBER benchmark [...]
Coupled geophysical and technoeconomic growth constraints on geological carbon storage scaleup with an application to the UK
Published: 2026-07-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering
Geological carbon dioxide storage is central to meeting many national climate change commitments. Yet large-scale deployment remains poorly constrained by both techno-economic limits on how rapidly the technology can scale and physics-based constraints imposed by the behavior of the subsurface. We here develop a modelling framework to identify feasible CO2 storage scaleup trajectories constrained [...]
WITHDRAWN: East-west Variability of Sea Level in the Red Sea
Published: 2026-07-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences
A Multi-Pathway Contamination Risk Model for Niger Delta Communities: Integrating Hydrocarbon Load, Heavy Metal Exposure, and Vegetation Stress Indices from Heterogeneous Observational Data
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
The Niger Delta is one of the most petroleum-impacted environments in the world, yet spatially explicit contamination risk assessments that integrate multiple exposure pathways remain scarce. This study presents a Composite Risk Score (CRS) model that fuses heavy metal soil and water measurements from nine peer-reviewed studies, total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) data from the 2011 UNEP [...]