Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
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 [...]
Detecting industrial ammonia and ethylene point sources with the thermal bands of Landsat 8 and 9
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences
Industrial point sources of ammonia (NH₃) and ethylene (C₂H₄) are poorly constrained in current inventories, in part because satellites tend to offer either fine spatial detail or frequent revisits. We show that the two thermal-infrared bands of the Landsat 8 and 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), though built for land-surface monitoring, can detect and spatially resolve such plumes at 100 m [...]
Quantifying Watershed Criticality via Deep Learning and Explainable AI for Groundwater Resilience
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Groundwater is a vital freshwater resource that supports drinking water supply, agricultural sustainability, ecosystem functioning, and drought resilience. As water scarcity and climate change impacts intensify, sustainable groundwater management plays an important role in groundwater management, with groundwater storage (GWS) acting as a key indicator of groundwater resilience. This study [...]
A Bayesian Inversion for the Generation of Felsic Archean Crust
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology
Archean continental crust is compositionally distinct from post-Archean continental crust; its felsic components predominantly comprise the tonalite, trondhjemite, and granodiorite suite, while its mafic components record evidence of secular mantle cooling. Although the geochemistry of these rocks have been well characterized, the production of Archean felsic magmas remains contested because the [...]
How Pre-Existing Strength Heterogeneities and Differential Extension Shaped Rift Initiation and Propagation in the South China Sea: An Analog Perspective
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Continental rifting rarely occurs synchronously along strike and with uniform width. Instead, it commonly involves diachronous, progressive opening and rift propagation resulting in V-shaped rifts. Rotational, scissor‐like opening is a common model explaining V‐shaped rifts near plate tectonic rotational poles with steep extension gradients along-strike. However, the mechanisms driving V‐shaped [...]
Clay Characterization of Tiller Flotten Quick Clay
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Mineral Physics, Other Earth Sciences, Soil Science
In this study, we investigate the mineralogical and physicochemical properties of the Tiller–Flotten quick clay formation in Trondheim, Norway. The objective is to enhance our understanding of particle interactions within this quick clay system, thereby contributing to the development of more environmentally friendly stabilization strategies. A comprehensive suite of analytical techniques was [...]
Merge Satellite and Gauge Daily Precipitation Data for Areas with Sparse-Gauge and Rugged Terrain: A High-Accuracy Gridded Dataset CGS01 (2000-2024) across China
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
High-precision quantiffcation of regional precipitation is the foundation of watershed water balance analysis and water resources management. However, current approaches are hindered by methodological diversity and inconsistent results, with limited accuracy, especially in gauge-sparse regions and areas with drastic topographic relief. This study proposes a dual thin-plate spline (TPS) fusion [...]