Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Direct Dating of Lithic Cuts Using Cosmogenic Nuclides: A Methodological Proposal to Establish the Construction Chronology of Megalithic Megastructures
Published: 2026-06-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
ABSTRACT The chronology of megalithic megastructures is currently established through the analysis of organic matter — charcoal, bone, fibers — found in proximity to the constructions. This method dates the most recently documented human presence in the vicinity of a structure. It does not date the act of construction. If a temporal gap existed between the moment of construction and the moment of [...]
Denoising teleseismic data for deep Earth studies using a supervised deep-learning auto-encoder: a case study of diffracted waves from ULVZs
Published: 2026-06-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Seismic noise, particularly the microseism generated by the oceans, is a fundamental limitation on using short period (1 - 10 s) teleseismic data to study the deep Earth. Deep learning auto-encoders have proven effective at denoising seismic data in other applications. Here, we provide a demonstration of their potential for improving the quality of deep Earth seismic data, using Sdiff [...]
Glacier thickness, thermal regime, and subjective uncertainty from ground-penetrating radar of 25 Svalbard glaciers
Published: 2026-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Glacier thickness and thermal regime control glacier dynamics and long-term evolution, but observations are sparse at regional scales. Both can be measured using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), which requires manual or automated interpretation. Interpretation often depends on more than signal waveform analysis alone, and this subjectivity has not been thoroughly quantified before. We present 699 [...]
Sediment accumulation, rather than mixing, controls the temporal resolution of the sedimentological record
Published: 2026-06-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Sedimentary particles such as organismal remains carry information on the Earth’s past. As a result of mixing in surface sediments, particles of different ages can be found at the same depth (time-averaging), and particles of identical ages can be found at different stratigraphic positions (stratigraphic disorder). This results in simultaneous stratigraphic and temporal blurring of the recorded [...]
Where to Watch the Water: Multi-Sensor Network Design Optimization for Inland Flood Detection
Published: 2026-06-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Inland flood detection is often constrained less by sensor availability than by where sensors are placed along branching river networks, especially in ungauged headwaters where floods often initiate. We present a three-phase, decisionfocused framework for designing basin-by-basin multi-sensor flood detection networks that coordinate water-level, discharge, and camera sensors while explicitly [...]
Earthquakes Source Scaling at Subfault Scales
Published: 2026-06-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Establishing scaling laws for large earthquakes remains challenging due to the heterogeneity of methodologies and datasets used to produce finite-fault models. In this study, we analyze source properties for 264 earthquakes using the NEIC finite-fault database, expanding previous efforts by examining rupture behavior over a broader magnitude range and capturing both established scaling trends and [...]
A Phanerozoic Atlas of Earth’s Atmosphere, Surface, and Interior Derived from the PANALESIS Plate Tectonic Model
Published: 2026-06-22
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Other Environmental Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
Reconstructing the Earth system evolution through deep time requires spatially consistent, multi‑layer datasets that integrate geological, geophysical, and climatic information. Here we present a unified, high‑resolution (10×10km) global dataset describing the Earth’s evolution over the past 545 million years. This atlas provides 45 time slices spanning the Phanerozoic, each including quantified [...]
Stress triggering in a rain-induced earthquake swarm in the Palghar region, western India
Published: 2026-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rain-triggered seismicity has been reported only in a few regions globally and is typically short-lived. However, an earthquake swarm, inferred to be rain-induced in previous studies, persisted with intense activity for over two years in Palghar, western India. Between January 2019 and November 2020, ~8,300 well-located earthquakes with horizontal and depth uncertainties ≤ 1.5 km were recorded at [...]
Toward Fit-for-Purpose Evapotranspiration Observations
Published: 2026-06-20
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Evapotranspiration (ET) underpins water, energy, and carbon cycling, yet remains among the least observed hydrologic fluxes, creating a persistent paradox: hydrology is advancing rapidly through artificial intelligence and data-driven methods while its observational foundation remains sparse and fragmented. Eddy covariance provides robust ET measurements, but high cost and operational demands [...]
Global Gravitational-Resonant Waves in the Arctic Basin: Visualizing Hidden Ocean Macrodynamics using 22-Year Passive Microwave Radiometry Data
Published: 2026-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The dynamics of the Arctic Ocean's sea ice cover are traditionally viewed through the lens of atmospheric forcing, ocean currents, and thermodynamic processes. In this paper, we propose a fundamentally new paradigm: the sea ice cover acts not as an elastic membrane transmitting mechanical stress, but as a passive two-dimensional indicator (analogous to Chladni figures) that visualizes a [...]
AEF-Econ: Toward Plug-and-Play Socioeconomic Foundation Embeddings from AlphaEarth for Urban Remote Sensing
Published: 2026-06-19
Subjects: Computational Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AlphaEarth Foundations (AEF) unify global remote sensing foundation embeddings through multimodal self-supervised learning, but their pretraining focuses on physical land-surface signals, limiting plug-and-play use in socioeconomic tasks. We integrate seven heterogeneous data streams across 36 Chinese cities over eight years—AEF embeddings, population, nighttime lights, remote sensing indices, [...]
Spatial autocorrelation inflates the global leaf-wax d2H-precipitation slope
Published: 2026-06-19
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry
Leaf wax hydrogen isotope ratios (δ²Hwax) are used to make inferences about past hydroclimate, but global calibrations between δ²Hwax and precipitation isotopes (δ²Hprecip) ignore spatial autocorrelation and inflate apparent relationships. This study compiled 1,129 surface sediment and soil measurements of δ²Hwax from n-C29 alkanes and developed hierarchical Bayesian spatial models to separate [...]
Linking double seismic zones to oceanic lithosphere rheological layering: the role of mid-lithospheric discontinuities
Published: 2026-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The origin of the ubiquitous lower seismic layer (LSL) in double seismic zones (DSZs) within subducting oceanic lithosphere remains one of the most persistent unresolved problems in subduction-zone seismicity. Analysis of recent geophysical observations reveals a close spatial association between the LSL and the oceanic mid-lithospheric discontinuity (MLD), a feature attributed to the [...]
Why the Earth Exhibits Interhemispheric Albedo Symmetry: Erosion–formation asymmetry of low-cloud responses to circulation reorganization.
Published: 2026-06-16
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Earth exhibits a striking near symmetry in interhemispheric mean albedo despite substantial asymmetries in surface properties, aerosols, and geography. Whether this symmetry is coincidental or dynamically constrained remains unresolved. Here we present a minimal theoretical framework showing that a moist atmosphere provides a physically constrained, but bounded, tendency to oppose [...]
Novel Data-driven High-Frequency Mass Change Models from GRACE orbit residuals
Published: 2026-06-11
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Glaciology, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a fully data-driven framework for transforming residual K-band range-rate (KBRR) data from GRACE into 5-day mass change models expressed in Equivalent Water Height (EWH). The approach first derives residual range and Line-of-Sight Gravity Differences (LGDs) from monthly post-fit residual range-rates and combines them with 5-day post-fit residuals. A hybrid formulation, merging LGD- and [...]