Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
What Did the Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam Do to Vegetation? Separating Flood, Reservoir and Irrigation Effects with Satellite Data
Published: 2026-09-05
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, International and Area Studies, Other Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
The Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed on 6 June 2023. This could have changed vegetation in three ways: through the flood below the dam, the draining of the reservoir, and the loss of water for the irrigation canals. All three happened inside an active war zone. I tested each pathway separately with MODIS NDVI at 250 m resolution for 2016–2024. Treated land was defined by what [...]
DOUBLE JEOPARDY: The Vulnerability Spiral of Compound Climate Risk Across 5 Islands
Published: 2026-09-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Hydrology, International and Area Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resource Economics, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Sustainability
Low islands face two threats at once: the sea rising, and the reefs and mangroves that buffer it weakening. I measured both across 5 island groups in 3 ocean basins (Maldives, Lakshadweep, Seychelles, Fiji and the Canary Islands), testing mangroves and coral reefs as separate pathways. Exposure is the share of people (WorldPop 2020) living on land at or below 1 m, on a bare earth elevation model [...]
Ghost Infrastructure: Historical Industrial Geography and the Persistence of Path-Dependent Accessibility in Bochum, Germany
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Other Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Statistics and Probability
The complete 69,393 pedestrian street node network from Bochum was used for a Welch's t-test, which revealed as a surprise that street nodes with low accessibility are actually significantly farther from historical industrial sites than street nodes with high accessibility (t=42.887, p<0.00001, Cohen's d=0.589 - medium-to-large effect), which is the opposite of what the original hypothesis [...]
Stolen Strata: Brick Kilns and the Loss of Karewa Tableland in Budgam, Kashmir,1993–2025, with a Correction to an Earlier Estimate
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Other Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Karewa tablelands are the flat-topped, scarp-bounded remnants of the old lake and river deposits of the Kashmir Valley. Reporting from Kashmir has said for years that they are being dug away for brick clay and fill, but I did not find a satellite measurement of how much, where and when. This study asks three questions: how much karewa tableland that was vegetated in 2013–2015 is no longer [...]
Magnitude-order improvements to the measurement precision of Antarctic grounding zone dynamics using SAR satellite constellations
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Aerospace Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology
Glacier loss in Antarctica is strongly influenced by melt in the grounding zone, the transition between grounded and floating ice. Thwaites Glacier is a critical region, with 65 cm of sea-level-equivalent ice. A recent dataset tracks grounding line retreat for Thwaites and other Antarctic ice streams over 30 years. Despite this long-term record, significant uncertainty remains in predictions of [...]
The Cotton Line: Testing the Institutional Persistence of an Erased Colonial Land-Tenure Boundary Across Vidarbha's Agrarian and Vegetation Geography
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, International and Area Studies, Statistics and Probability
Can a provincial boundary abolished in 1956 still be detected in today's farmland? In the nineteenth century Berar, in western Vidarbha, was settled under the Ryotwari land-revenue system. The Central Provinces districts to the east were settled under Malguzari. On district lineage the old line matches the present boundary between Amravati and Nagpur Divisions, which I rebuild as a 384.7 km line [...]
Asthenosphere rheology and the continental-scale interseismic deformation driven by repeated megathrust earthquakes: Insights from the South American plate
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology
This study presents a framework for quantifying large-scale interseismic deformation of a tectonic plate overlying a viscoelastic asthenosphere. We explain and compare four common methods for modelling upper-plate surface deformation induced by time-dependent slip on the subduction interface. One method is a widely used, purely elastic model. The other three are viscoelastic models, in which slip [...]
Isochrone overturning in steady glacier flow
Published: 2026-09-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ancient ice recovered at Allan Hills extends into the Miocene, but steep layers, age reversals and folds complicate its interpretation. Whether steady glacier flow can overturn initially ordered layers remains uncertain. Here, we track the horizontal order of particles deposited sequentially at the surface. This order is measured by a signed Jacobian that is equivalent to the inverse [...]
Multi-Sensor Satellite-Based Retrospective Early-Warning Assessment of the 26 August 2026 Flood Event in the Langtang Region of Nepal
Published: 2026-09-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Rapid-onset floods in high-mountain environments can be difficult to anticipate because their triggering mechanisms may involve interactions among precipitation, glacierized terrain, surface-water dynamics, and sudden geomorphological disturbances. This study presents a retrospective multi-sensor satellite assessment of the flood event reported in the Langtang region of Nepal on 26 August 2026. [...]
The Elastic Stiffness C13 in Transversely Isotropic Shales
Published: 2026-09-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Shales are often anisotropic due to fine-scale layering and preferred alignment of clay particles with bedding. They may be approximated as transversely isotropic (TI) media with symmetry axis (x3) perpendicular to bedding. TI media have five independent elastic stiffnesses C11, C33, C55, C66 and C13, with C12 = C11−2C66. While C11, C33, C55 and C66 may be estimated from velocities measured [...]
Sea-Level Change in Asia since the Last Glacial Maximum
Published: 2026-09-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
As a ‘far-field’ area, distal from former ice sheets, Asia is minimally influenced by the glacial isostatic adjustment process. Therefore, Relative sea-level (RSL) data from Asia, recorded by various geological proxies, provide essential constraints on the history of ice-equavilent sea-level changes. The global mean sea-level has risen over 130 m on average since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), [...]
Seismoacoustic recovery of the SpaceX CRS-32 Dragon re-entry with a proof-of-concept for automated detection
Published: 2026-09-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Atmospheric re-entries of human-made objects are increasing in frequency, yet detailed information on their trajectory, fragmentation, and debris footprint is rarely made publicly available. This creates an information asymmetry in which regulators, independent agencies, and the scientific community lack the means to verify that re-entries occurred as reported or to characterize their physical [...]
Krasheninnikov eruption facilitated by M8.8 Kamchatka earthquake and hidden critical state
Published: 2026-09-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Large earthquakes can trigger volcanic eruptions, but the required conditions and mechanisms remain uncertain. Here, we investigate whether the August 2025 eruption of Krasheninnikov volcano, Russia, was facilitated by the July 29th, 2025, Mw 8.8 Kamchatka megathrust earthquake. InSAR observations from 2016 to 2025 show no pre-earthquake inflation and satellite SO2 data indicate no detectable [...]
Estimating CO2 Leakage Fluxes along Legacy Wells Using a Rapid Physics-Based Screening Approach
Published: 2026-09-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Petroleum Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Achieving net-zero targets demands the rapid expansion of CO2 geological storage, but legacy wells in mature petroleum provinces represent a significant containment risk when engineered barriers degrade. At the early assessment stage, storage projects need to rapidly bound plausible leakage magnitudes across large legacy-well inventories when integrity data are sparse; however, suitable modelling [...]
Investigation of Drivers and Sources of Potential Harmful Algal Blooms in Lake Anna, Virginia, 2023–24
Published: 2026-09-02
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Algal blooms in freshwater reservoirs are an increasing concern because of the risk to aquatic ecosystem health, recreational use, and water quality. Among the taxa that comprise an algal bloom, cyanobacteria are of particular concern due to the potential to produce toxic compounds which can cause acute and chronic illness in humans if ingested through contaminated water or shellfish. When toxins [...]