Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Comment on Barboni et al. (2025), ‘Pervasive impact modification of pristine lunar clasts’
Published: 2025-12-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
In a recent contribution, Barboni et al. (2025) present an experimental calibration relating the aluminium content of zircon and its parent melt under lunar conditions. This calibration is then used to argue that lunar zircons are not in equilibrium with their host silicate melts, and that caution is required when interpreting zircon-derived U-Pb dates in evolved lunar rocks. Their contribution [...]
An assessment of the quality of microanalysis of silicate glass using scanning electron microscope-based energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS)
Published: 2025-12-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The composition of volcanic glass records important clues into the origin and evolution of magmatic systems. However, the analysis of volcanic glass presents challenges when performed using electron-beam techniques, particularly due to Na mobility. While microanalysis of geological materials is usually performed using electron microprobe-based wavelength-dispersive spectrometry (EMP-WDS), we [...]
Recurrent evacuation of mantle mush by mafic recharge in ocean island basalts, recorded by La Palma clinopyroxene
Published: 2025-12-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Temporal variations in magma plumbing architecture and magmatic processes can modulate eruption priming, with direct consequences for interpreting pre- and syn-eruptive signals. However, how such processes unfold in low-flux volcanoes remains poorly constrained, leaving a gap in our understanding of eruption precursors. Here we examine the temporal evolution of magmatic processes at La Palma, [...]
Revised History of Pleistocene Vertical Motions in NE Sicily and Southern Calabria, Italy, from 40Ar/39Ar Dating and Fault Zone Morphology
Published: 2025-12-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
Long-term rates of crustal uplift in southern Calabria and NE Sicily are incompletely understood due to limited information about the age of marine terraces at 1.0–1.3 km above sea level (asl). This study provides a new constraint on high-elevation terrace ages through integrated analysis of geochronology, stratigraphy, shoreline modeling, and fault-zone morphology. 40Ar/39Ar step-heating [...]
Ocean-arcs as a hidden cooling mechanism during the early Paleozoic
Published: 2025-12-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The late Cambrian to end Ordovician is marked by a long-term climatic cooling, culminating with the short lived (<2 Ma) Hirnantian icehouse, before recovering to warmer climates. Increased silicate weathering during the Laurentian Taconic orogeny, driven by the accretion of ocean island arcs and obduction of ophiolites, has been invoked as a causal mechanism to help explain cooling. However, [...]
Advancing CLMU for regional urban climate simulations through WRF coupling: intercomparison with NOAH–SLUCM
Published: 2025-12-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Urban areas are highly vulnerable to climate extremes, creating a pressing need for reliable modeling tools to support climate adaptation. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is widely used for regional urban climate simulations, and incorporating an alternative urban scheme for long-term climate projections expands the available modeling options and supports more robust simulation [...]
Evaluating Trade-offs Between Irrigation Profit and Streamflow Depletion Using a Hydro-Economic Model
Published: 2025-12-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Groundwater overexploitation can reduce flows in connected rivers through streamflow depletion, which threatens ecosystems and downstream users who often rely on these flows for their economic wellbeing. Quantifying groundwater-surface water interactions and their economic trade-offs remains challenging for sustainable water management. This study integrates analytical groundwater and streamflow [...]
Where were the mountains and how big were they?
Published: 2025-12-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Constraining past topography and the shape of Earth’s surface is the next frontier in palaeogeography and full-plate tectonic modelling. Mountains are highly dynamic on geological time scales, growing in response to tectonic processes such as subduction and continent collision, and eroding as they are exposed to precipitation and time. Mountain ranges regulate atmospheric circulation and enforce [...]
A lithium isotopic perspective of basalt weathering: Cycling of Li and its mobility relative to Ca and Mg
Published: 2025-12-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Lithium isotope composition (δ7Li) has been extensively utilized to trace silicate weathering. Although the direction and magnitude of Li isotope fractionation during Li adsorption onto secondary minerals are well understood, the relative importance of Li partitioning via its adsorption vis-à-vis structural incorporation into clay minerals on overall Li isotope fractionation remains poorly [...]
Matters Arising: Critical Methodological Flaws in Qin et al. (2025) "Mangrove sediment carbon burial offset by methane emissions from mangrove tree stems"
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences
The authors report global mangrove stem CH₄ emissions of 730.60 Gg yr⁻¹, offsetting 16.9% of carbon burial. However, their analysis suffers from critical methodological flaws involving the failure to remove extreme statistical outliers, with 14.2% of chamber measurements and 15.5% of site observations identified as outliers by standard criteria. The analysis demonstrates inappropriate handling of [...]
Sediment loading from the Río de la Plata as a driver of regional sea-level variability
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology
Sea-level reconstructions are critical benchmarks for testing models of ice-sheet stability and climate change. Their interpretation, however, is complicated by sea-level changes driven by different processes, among which the Earth’s response to sediment loading. Here we show that incorporating sediment isostasy reduces long-standing discrepancies among Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 5a and 5e [...]
Foreshock Behaviors and Mainshock Rupture Properties Associated with the 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka Earthquake Sequence
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The July 29 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka earthquake ruptured the plate interface off the east coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula along the Kuril-Kamchatka subduction zone. Following the mainshock, tsunamis were recorded in multiple countries along the Pacific Ocean boundary and its islands, along with the eruption of several volcanoes in Kamchatka. The mainshock was preceded by a strong foreshock sequence [...]
Oxidation state of Mayotte magmatic series: insights from Fe and S K-edge XANES spectroscopy
Published: 2025-11-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Volcanology
Following the 2018-2020 Fani Maoré submarine eruption near Mayotte Island, Indian Ocean, multiple oceanographic expeditions provide unprecedented access to fresh alkaline volcanic glasses spanning basanite to phonolite compositions from the East-Mayotte Volcanic Chain (EMVC). We applied Fe and S K-edge X-ray Absorption Near-Edge Spectroscopy (XANES) to determine iron and sulfur oxidation states [...]
Governing the cryosphere beyond political timeframes
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Glaciology, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Sustainability
Cryospheric systems are nearing irreversible thresholds, yet political processes remain misaligned with the long timescales of ice loss. Using COP30 as context, we argue that cryosphere science must inform governance capable of linking near-term decisions with long-term stability in a rapidly changing world.
Extremely Shallow Semi-Repeating Tremor Caused by Water Hammers in a Sewer Pipe in Social Circle, Georgia
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Repeating earthquakes are mostly generated by small asperities that are loaded by continuous creep surrounding them, and their recurrence times are inversely proportional to the loading rates. However, sometimes anthropogenic activities can also produce repeated seismic shakings with shorter recurrence intervals, and their source mechanisms can vary. Here we investigated semi-repeating ground [...]