Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Comprehensive quantification of production costs for large-scale kelp aquaculture and cost reduction opportunities
Published: 2025-06-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A highly realistic techno-economic analysis (TEA) was developed to assess the cost of production (COP, US $ per fresh tonne kelp) for large-scale kelp aquaculture. The TEA resolves feedbacks across structural design and response, operational requirements and decisions, site properties, and biological response. We apply the TEA to a Saccharina latissima farming operation at a 100m deep, 405 [...]
Quantifying sulfur speciation in magmatic-hydrothermal fluids
Published: 2025-06-11
Subjects: Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Inorganic Chemistry, Natural Resource Economics, Physical Chemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Quantitative knowledge of sulfur speciation in the fluid phase is key to understanding sulfur degassing from magmas and its transfer along with metals by fluids across the lithosphere. Farsang and Zajacz(1) recently reported new sulfur speciation data using Raman spectroscopy measurements on aqueous H2SO4-NaCl(-KCl) solutions trapped as synthetic fluid inclusions in quartz at 875 °C and 2 kbar [...]
Data-Driven Facies Prediction: A Comparative Study of Random Forest, XGBoost, SVM, CatBoost, and K-Means
Published: 2025-06-10
Subjects: Analysis, Earth Sciences, Geology, Sedimentology
Facies classification plays a critical role in characterizing subsurface heterogeneity and supporting effective reservoir development. Traditional methods, which often rely on core interpretation and manual log analysis, are limited by subjective interpretation and sparse data coverage. This study aims to improve facies prediction by comparing the performance of five machine learning models: [...]
Linked canyons and fans communicate through a migrating bedrock-alluvial transition
Published: 2025-06-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The evolution of net-erosional fluvial landscapes is often treated separately from net-depositional fluvial landscapes, using different methods and different data input. Yet these landscapes are often tightly linked by means of a moving-boundary bedrock-alluvial transition. We consider a linked canyon-fan system in the setting of a Basin and Range province, basing our work loosely on Rainbow [...]
Coupled trace element and Hf-isotope measurements of Hadean through Paleoarchean zircons from the Singhbhum Craton indicate derivation from a long-lived, mantle-derived protocrust
Published: 2025-06-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology
Due to the dearth of rock records during the Hadean, little is known about early crustal chemistry and geodynamics. Here, we present zircon trace and rare earth element and Lu-Hf measurements of zircons ~ 3.3 Ga to ~ 4.2 Ga from the Older Metamorphic Tonalitic Gneiss in the Singhbhum Craton to better understand geodynamic changes during the Hadean and Archean. We find decreasing, subchondritic [...]
Supershear source model of the 2025 M7.8 Myanmar earthquake and paleoseismology of the Sagaing Fault: regions of significant overlap with past earthquakes
Published: 2025-06-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 2025 Mw 7.8 earthquake on the central Sagaing Fault is one of the most destructive seismic events in Myanmar's recorded history, producing near-fault shaking exceeding Modified Mercalli Intensity X and impacting tens of millions of people across Southeast Asia. We present a detailed kinematic rupture model of the event based on joint inversion of regional strong motion waveforms and [...]
Spatiotemporal dynamics of floodplain patterns during the last 400 years south of Leipzig - A regional scale analysis
Published: 2025-06-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Elster-Pleiße floodplain south of Leipzig has undergone significant hydromorphological changes over the past centuries, influenced by both natural processes and anthropogenic interventions. This study employs high-resolution LiDAR-based fluvial-geomorphological mapping (1x1 m resolution) and old maps analyses to reconstruct past river dynamics and identify shifts in channel morphology. [...]
Unprecedented decline in modern coral reef communities could indicate the onset of the Anthropocene
Published: 2025-06-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Stratigraphy
Coral reefs have experienced widespread and accelerated decline, driven by a combination of global and local anthropogenic stressors. To contextualize these changes, we compared the composition of coral reef communities on Curaçao between 1973 and 2023 with that of corals preserved in fossil reefs from the Last Interglacial period (128–116 ka). These fossil reefs, exposed along the island’s [...]
Improving magmatic CO2 reconstruction using X-ray Computed Tomography to accurately quantify melt inclusion volumes and geometries
Published: 2025-06-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Melt inclusions provide valuable insights into magmatic systems, allowing the study of otherwise inaccessible melts. Trapped volatile contents, commonly in the form of bubbles within melt inclusions, allow direct sampling and study of magmatic volatiles that are otherwise lost due to saturation and degassing. Quantifying magmatic volatiles such as CO2 is a complex process requiring multiple [...]
The magmatic-hydrothermal transition record in zircon: Implications for zircon texture, composition and rare-metal granite dating (Beauvoir granite, French Massif Central).
Published: 2025-05-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry
Zircon petrochronology is widely used to quantify the age and duration of magma differentiation and emplacement. However, 20 in highly differentiated magmas, such as those forming rare-metal granites, zircon may form at the magmatic-hydrothermal transition and its primary crystallisation history together with its secondary hydrothermal overprint need to be resolved and clarified. To resolve [...]
A revised boundary between the Scoor Pelitic Gneiss and the Lagan Mòr Formation in SW Mull?
Published: 2025-05-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
The Moine rocks of SW Mull have played a key role in our understanding of the Moine sequence in the NW Highlands. The Mull sequence was thought uniquely, to contain a continuous sedimentary sequence relating the Morar and Glenfinnan units seen elsewhere in Scotland. However, recent work by Krabbendam et al. (2021) and others, suggests that the Mull sequence does contain a major tectonic break, [...]
The Mesozoic Conundrum: Global Albedo Factors Resolve the Lack of Correlation Between Temperatures and CO2 Concentrations.
Published: 2025-05-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences
The "Mesozoic Conundrum" refers to the lack of correlation between CO₂ atmospheric concentration and global mean surface temperatures in Mesozoic climate reconstructions (Judd et al., 2024). Here, I show that Mesozoic forest cover, proxied by carbon burial flux (Nelsen et al., 2016), correlates strongly (R²=0.88, p<0.01) with GMST across the Mesozoic (252–66 Ma before present). The analysis [...]
Space-time data-driven modeling of wildfire initiation in the mountainous region of Trentino–South Tyrol, Italy
Published: 2025-05-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Multivariate Analysis, Probability, Statistical Models
Wildfires are complex hazards occurring worldwide, leading to substantial economic losses, fatalities, and carbon emissions. The interplay of climate change, land use alterations, and socioeconomic pressures is expected to further increase the frequency and intensity of wildfires. In this context, developing reliable, dynamic prediction tools is essential for risk mitigation. This work presents a [...]
Archaean basalts record evidence of lithospheric extension prior to cratonisation
Published: 2025-05-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology
The dynamics of Earth’s early mantle remain enigmatic. A wide range of tectonic settings have been proposed for the Archaean eon prior to cratonisation, a time from which few samples are preserved in the geological record. Here, we reexamine this topic by estimating temperatures and depths of melt generation in the late Archaean mantle using a new geochemical data compilation of mafic igneous [...]
Subsurface hydrothermal alteration mapping in the Reykjanes Geothermal area using a combined geoelectrical approach.
Published: 2025-05-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
The dynamic behavior of volcanic hydrothermal systems (VHS) and associated hydrothermal eruptions remains largely unknown, processes in VHS such as the circulation of hydrothermal fluids and formation of caprock give rise to a range of geophysical signals. Here we explore the combined use of three geo-electric methods: electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), induced polarization (IP), and [...]