Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Global 1km Land Surface Parameters for Kilometer-Scale Earth System Modeling
Published: 2023-06-28
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Earth system models (ESMs) are progressively advancing towards the kilometer scale (k-scale). However, the surface parameters for Land Surface Models (LSMs) within ESMs running at the k-scale are typically derived from coarse resolution and outdated datasets. This study aims to develop a new set of global land surface parameters with a resolution of 1 km for multiple years from 2001 to 2020, [...]
Near-surface characterization using Distributed Acoustic Sensing in an urban area: Granada, Spain
Published: 2023-06-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The Granada Basin in southeast Spain is an area of moderate seismicity. Yet, it hosts some of the highest seismic hazards in the Iberian Peninsula due to the presence of shallow soft sediments amplifying local ground motion. In urban areas, seismic measurements often suffer from sparse instrumentation. An enticing alternative to conventional seismometers is the Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) [...]
Notes on the Pens Collection of Australites in the Tate Museum, University of Adelaide
Published: 2023-06-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Planetary Sciences
The Tate Museum holds a large collection of (tektites) australites including the Pens Collection from the Florieton area in east-central South Australia. Many of these specimens are intact or near-so and have the various forms ascribed to their behaviour as they entered the Earth’s atmosphere. However, a significant number, some of which may have been initially fractured and broken by erosional [...]
Decoding the Dynamics of Climate Change Impact: Temporal Patterns of Surface Warming and Melting on the Nivlisen Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica
Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Surface melting in Antarctica can result in the formation of meltwater ponds and streams, which can encourage glacier basal sliding and ice flow; long-term severe surface melting can result in the formation of melt ponds and, eventually, supraglacial lakes (SGLs), raising the prospect of hydrofracturing. Measurements of these surface melting characteristics are useful for studying glacier and ice [...]
The longest-lived Pacific hotspots reveal a plume tail for the largest oceanic plateau
Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Volcanic hotspots are thought to initially form by melting in an upwelling mantle plume head followed by melting of the plume tail. Plate motion then generates an age progressive volcanic track originating from a large igneous province that connects to an active hotspot. However, the most voluminous large igneous province, the ~120 Ma Ontong-Java Nui Plateau (OJP-Nui) in the mid-Pacific, appears [...]
A theory of stochastic fluvial landscape evolution
Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistics and Probability
Geometries of eroding landscapes contain important information about geologic, climatic, biotic and geomorphic processes. They are also characterised by variability, which makes disentangling their origins challenging. Observations and physical models of fluvial processes, which set the pace of erosion on most continents, emphasise complexity and variability. In contrast, the spectral content of [...]
Mind the uncertainty: Global plate model choice impacts deep-time palaeobiological studies
Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Climate, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geology, Life Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
1. Global plate models (GPMs) aim to reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the Earth by modelling the motion of the plates and continents through time. These models enable palaeobiologists to study the past distribution of extinct organisms. However, different GPMs exist that vary in their partitioning of the Earth's surface and the modelling of continental motions. Consequently, the preferred [...]
Towards Understanding the Geospatial Skills of ChatGPT: Taking a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Exam
Published: 2023-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Higher Education, Other Geography, Science and Mathematics Education, Spatial Science
This paper examines the performance of ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM), in a geographic information systems (GIS) exam. As LLMs like ChatGPT become increasingly prevalent in various domains, including education, it is important to understand their capabilities and limitations in specialized subject areas such as GIS. Human learning of spatial concepts significantly differs from LLM training [...]
Possible Eoarchean records of the geomagnetic field preserved in the Isua Supracrustal Belt, southern west Greenland
Published: 2023-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences
We present paleomagnetic field tests that hint that a record of Earth’s 3.7-billion-year (Ga) old magnetic field may be preserved as a chemical remanent magnetization acquired during amphibolite-grade metamorphism in the banded iron formation from the northeastern Isua Supracrustal Belt. Multiple petrological and geochronological lines of evidence indicate that the northern most part of Isua has [...]
A framework for estimating the anthropogenic part of Antarctica’s sea level contribution in a synthetic setting
Published: 2023-06-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The relative contributions of anthropogenic climate change and internal variability in sea level rise from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are yet to be determined. Even the way to address this question is not yet clear, since these two are linked through ice-ocean feedbacks and probed using ice sheet models with substantial uncertainty. Here we demonstrate how their relative contributions can be [...]
Water discharge and sediment flux intermittency in the fluvial Escanilla Formation, Spain: Implications for changes in stratigraphic architecture
Published: 2023-06-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Water discharge and sediment flux variations are important parameters controlling the morphodynamical behavior of rivers. Although quantitative estimates for discharge and flux variability are well constrained for modern rivers, far fewer assessments of flow and sediment flux intermittency in ancient fluvial systems from the rock record are available. In this study we explore the relationship [...]
Glacial Isostatic Adjustment modelling of the mid-Holocene sea-level highstand of Singapore and Southeast Asia
Published: 2023-06-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The mid-Holocene sea-level highstand refers to the development of higher-than-present relative sea levels (RSLs) in far-field regions between 7,000 and 4,000 years ago because of equatorial ocean syphoning and continental levering. The timing, magnitude and spatial variability of the highstand are uncertain and the highstand parameterization in Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) modelling is [...]
Automated detecting, segmenting and measuring of grains in images of fluvial sediments: The potential for large and precise data from specialist deep learning models and transfer learning
Published: 2023-06-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The size of sedimentary particles in rivers bears information on the sediment entrainment or deposition mechanisms and the hydraulic conditions controlling them. However, collecting such data from coarse-grained sediments is work intensive, both in the field and remotely. Therefore, attention has turned to machine learning models to improve the data acquisition. Despite their success, current [...]
Physical vulnerability curve construction and quantitative risk assessment of a typhoon-triggered debris flow via numerical simulation: A case study of Zhejiang Province, SE China
Published: 2023-06-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Typhoons are recurrent meteorological phenomena in the South-eastern coastal area of China. They often trigger debris flows and other types of slope failure which cause significant economic damage and loss of life in an area with dense population and high economic activities. Accurate prediction of Typhoon-triggered debris flows and determination of the potential risk zones are crucial for risk [...]
From space-time landslide susceptibility to landslide risk forecast
Published: 2023-06-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The literature on landslide susceptibility is rich with examples that span a large number of topics. However, the component that pertains to the extension of the susceptibility framework toward space-time modeling is largely unexplored. This statement is even more valid when looking at the landslide risk context, where hardly any scientific contribution investigates risk dynamics in space and [...]