Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Simultaneous deformation along the Main Ethiopian Rift and associated transversal lineaments: an analogue modelling perspective
Published: 2024-08-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
The interaction between the NE-SW striking Main Ethiopian Rift (MER) and the E-W oriented Yerrer-Tullu Wellel Volcano-tectonic lineament (YTVL) represents one of the least understood tectonic problems in the East African Rift System. Despite the numerous studies that have been conducted in the region, the following questions still remain to be answered: did the MER and YTVL evolve simultaneously? [...]
Towards a widely applicable earthquake detection algorithm for fibreoptic and hybrid fibreoptic-seismometer networks
Published: 2024-08-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is a promising technology for providing dense (metre-scale) sampling of the seismic wavefield. However, harnessing this potential for earthquake detection with accurate phase picking and associated localisation remains challenging. Single-channel algorithms are limited by individual channel noise, while machine learning and semblance methods are typically [...]
The extended Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset: Extending the GLCP to include ice, snow, and radiation-related climate variables
Published: 2024-08-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
A changing climate and increasing human population necessitate understanding global freshwater availability. To enable assessment of lake water variability from local-to-global and monthly-to-decadal scales, we extended the Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset, which contains monthly lake surface area for 1.42 million lakes with paired basin-level climate and population data [...]
On weighted ensembles of streamflow: bias correct separately and prefer constrained weights for more reliable and predictable outputs
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Hydrology, Statistical Models, Water Resource Management
It has become more and more common in hydrology to consider multiple estimates of hydrological variables – ensembles – over single model runs. Ensemble members represent different realisations of various model structures, input data, and/or parametrisations. Improved predictions can be made using weighted ensembles with wide variety of model averaging methods found in the literature, but only a [...]
Uncertainty aware sample mass determination of coarse-grained soils for particle size analyses
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Probability, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Stratigraphy
Determining particle size distributions (PSD) of soils is a basic first step in manygeotechnical analyses and guidance is given in different national standards. Forambiguous reasons, the recommended minimum sample mass (m_min) for the PSD-analyses of soils with a main component of gravel or greater is based on equationsincluding the soil's maximum grain diameter (D_max). We claim that the [...]
Array-based seismic measurements of OSIRIS-REx's re-entry
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
The return home of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in September 2023 marked only the fifth time that an artificial object entered the Earth's atmosphere at interplanetary velocities. Although rare, such events serve as valuable analogues for natural meteoroid re-entries; enabling study of hypersonic dynamics, shockwave generation, and acoustic-to-seismic coupling. Here, we report on the signatures [...]
Natural and human drivers of specific conductance and major ion composition in United States lakes
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Specific conductance (SC) and major ion composition are important for understanding and predicting lake water quality and ecosystem responses to global changes and human disturbances. However, little is known about SC and ionic composition for populations of lakes at the continental scale, nor their relationships with natural and human factors operating at multiple spatial scales. We examined the [...]
The Origin of Forearc Depressions
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Sedimentology, Tectonics and Structure
Forearc depressions form over continental subduction zones with young, slowly subducting slabs and thick trench fills. They are bound seaward by a coast range and landward by a volcanic arc such that subsidence in forearc depressions occurs between orogens and in areas characterized by plate convergence. We propose a model for forearc depression formation based on geophysical and seismic data [...]
Complex and confined laboratory ruptures explain scaling of the critical slip distance for earthquake faulting
Published: 2024-08-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Earthquake sequences in nature are complex, exhibiting a range of magnitudes and slip behaviors. In contrast, earthquake-like instabilities generated on frictional faults in the laboratory and in continuum numerical models are usually quasi-periodic with a smaller range of magnitudes and durations. The discrepancy, especially apparent for cm-sized samples used in lab friction experiments, has [...]
Novel landforms: integrating people as key drivers of process and form in geomorphology
Published: 2024-08-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology
People alter the earth’s surface in diverse and prolific ways, from enhancing physical and chemical erosion to controlling water transport across drainage networks. These modifications are often faster, more extensive, and wholly novel when compared to natural landscape evolutionary processes. Existing literature largely portrays people as independent of a landscape’s geologic and climatic [...]
A methodologically robust densification function for snow on multiyear Arctic sea ice
Published: 2024-08-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rapid Fault Leakage Modeling for CO2 Storage in Saline Aquifers
Published: 2024-08-12
Subjects: Chemical Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Petroleum Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis
Simulating the fluid flow along fault zones at different scales is essential for predicting the CO2 leakage and containment during injection and storage. However, this can be challenging, especially in the early stages of a storage project when knowledge of the reservoir and caprock is limited and the cost of obtaining the relevant data is high. This study proposes a tool for fast screening of [...]
Reconstructing past sea-level changes from storm-built beach ridges
Published: 2024-08-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology
Storm-built beach ridges, built by waves on sedimentary coasts, can be used as geomorphological indicators of past sea level. However, quantifying the relationship between the geomorphological elements of the ridge and the paleo sea level at the time of deposition is difficult, as a beach ridge is primarily correlated to wave energy and only secondarily to the position of sea level. In this work, [...]
The cyclical nature of normal fault growth: Insights from 4D analogue models
Published: 2024-08-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Exploring how normal faults evolve is important for understanding the dynamic processes underlying the initiation and evolution of rift systems. Early-stage fault growth has been largely under-explored due to resolution limitations in seismic reflection data and the lack of three-dimensional exposures in the field. Physical analogue modelling offers a unique way to visualize and analyse [...]
Survival of the brightest? pIRIR dating of volcanic sediments in Sulawesi, Indonesia, using micro-aliquots of K-rich feldspar
Published: 2024-08-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Volcanic sediments are challenging to date with luminescence-based methods. Both main minerals used for dating—quartz and K-rich feldspar—commonly have suboptimal luminescence properties when of volcanic origins, primarily a low signal intensity and, for K-rich feldspars, high rates of anomalous fading. The present work provides a case study of sediment samples from the Leang Bulu Bettue (LBB) [...]