Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Dampening effect of global flows on Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities: Implications for deep-mantle plumes vis-à-vis hotspot distributions
Published: 2023-01-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Fluid Dynamics, Numerical Analysis and Computation
It is a well-accepted hypothesis that deep-mantle primary plumes originate from a buoyant source layer at the core-mantle boundary (CMB), where Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) instabilities play a key role in the plume initiation process. Previous studies have characterized their growth rates mainly in terms of the density, viscosity and layer-thickness ratios between the denser overburden and the source [...]
From ground motion simulations to landslide occurrence prediction
Published: 2023-01-17
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Ground motion simulations solve wave equations in space and time, thus producing detailed estimates of the shaking time series. This is essentially uncharted territory for geomorphologists, for we have yet to understand which ground motion (synthetic or not) parameter, or combination of parameters, is more suitable to explain the coseismic landslide distribution. To address this gap, we developed [...]
A Bayesian Level Set Method for Identifying Subsurface Geometries and Rheological Properties in Stokes Flow
Published: 2023-01-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
We aim to simultaneously infer the shape of subsurface structures and material properties such as density or viscosity from surface observations. Modeling mantle flow using incompressible instantaneous Stokes equations, the problem is formulated as an infinite-dimensional Bayesian inverse problem. Subsurface structures are described as level sets of a smooth auxiliary function, allowing for [...]
Mapping glacier basal sliding with machine learning
Published: 2023-01-13
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology
During the RESOLVE project ("High-resolution imaging in subsurface geophysics: development of a multi-instrument platform for interdisciplinary research"), continuous surface displacement and seismic array observations were obtained on Glacier d'Argentière in the French Alps for 35 days in May 2018. The data set is used to perform a detailed study of targeted processes within the highly dynamic [...]
meltPT: A Python package for basaltic whole-rock thermobarometric analysis with application to Hawai'i
Published: 2023-01-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Quantifying the depths and temperatures from which igneous rocks are derived is an important step in understanding volcanic, magmatic and mantle processes. We present meltPT, a Python package that allows users to apply twelve published whole-rock thermobarometers within a consistent framework, as well as combine thermobarometric results and geothermal models to estimate mantle potential [...]
Residual U-Net with Attention for Detecting Clouds in Satellite Imagery
Published: 2023-01-13
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Semantic segmentation of clouds in Earth observation imagery is an important task in a variety of remote sensing contexts: from the application of atmospheric corrections to being able to accurately omit cloud pixels when extracting information about ground features. Here we introduce a deep learning approach based on the popular U-Net architecture. The core of the architecture is an U-Net with [...]
EZ-InSAR: An Easy-to-use Open-source Toolbox for Mapping Ground Surface Deformation using Satellite Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar
Published: 2023-01-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Software Engineering
Satellite Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a space-borne geodetic technique that can map ground displacement at millimetre accuracy. Via the new era for InSAR applications provided by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 SAR satellites, several open-source software packages exist for processing the SAR data, obtaining high- quality ground deformation maps but still requires a deep [...]
Identifying the regional emergence of climate patterns in the ARISE-SAI-1.5 simulations
Published: 2023-01-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Stratospheric aerosol injection is a proposed form of solar climate invention (SCI) that could potentially reduce the amount of future warming from externally-forced climate change. However, more research is needed, as there are significant uncertainties surrounding the possible impacts of SCI, including unforeseen effects on regional climate patterns. In this study, we consider a climate model [...]
Diffusion of halogens (F, Cl, Br, I) in silicic melt
Published: 2023-01-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Volcanology
Chemical diffusion of the halogens F, Cl, Br, and I in silica-rich natural melts was experimentally investigated by the diffusion couple technique. Experiments were conducted under anhydrous conditions at atmospheric pressure and hydrous conditions (~1.5 wt.% H2O) at 160 MPa, over a temperature range of 750–1000 °C and 1000–1200 °C, respectively. Quenched trachytic melt samples were analyzed [...]
An expanded database of Southern Hemisphere surface sediment dinoflagellate cyst assemblages and their oceanographic affinities
Published: 2023-01-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Dinoflagellate cyst assemblages present a valuable proxy to infer paleoceanographic conditions, yet factors influencing geographic distributions of species remain largely unknown, especially in the Southern Ocean. Strong lateral transport, sea-ice dynamics and a low and uneven geographic coverage of surface sediment samples have limited the use of dinocyst assemblages as a quantitative proxy for [...]
Are marl-limestone alternations mainly driven by CaCO3 variations at the astronomical timescale? New insights from extraterrestrial 3He
Published: 2023-01-07
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Marl-limestone alternations are rhythmical inter-bedded deposits that commonly occur in many sedimentological environments. It is quite well established that these lithological variations originate from astronomically-driven climatic variations paced by the Milankovitch cycles of main periods 19, 23, 41, 100 and 405 ka. However, the sedimentological mechanisms involved are not clear: some models [...]
Assessing automated gap imputation of regional scale groundwater level data sets with typical gap patterns
Published: 2023-01-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Large groundwater level (GWL) data sets are often patchy with hydrographs containing continuous gaps and irregular measurement frequencies. However, most statistical time series analyses require regular observations, thus hydrographs with larger gaps are routinely excluded from further analysis despite the loss of coverage and representativity of an initially large data set. Missing values can be [...]
Analysis of nationwide groundwater monitoring networks using lumped-parameter models
Published: 2022-12-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Many countries maintain nationwide groundwater networks to monitor the status of their groundwater resources. For effective groundwater resource management, it is fundamental to understand the groundwater dynamics measured in the individual monitoring wells. Nationwide monitoring networks typically cover multiple aquifer systems with different degrees of environmental complexity. The analysis of [...]
Two sources of uncertainty in estimating tephra volumes from isopachs: perspectives and quantification
Published: 2022-12-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Calculating the volume of tephra erupted is important for estimating eruption intensity and magnitude. Traditionally, tephra volumes are estimated by integrating the area under curves fit to the square root of hand-drawn isopach areas. Previous studies have attempted to quantify the uncertainty in this approach, but not all sources of uncertainty have been well-analyzed or addressed. In this [...]
Uncertainties in Water Scarcity Index due to water use and climate changes: Case of two Legal Amazon watersheds
Published: 2022-12-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Water scarcity is a major global problem with the potential to impact socioeconomic development and the environment. Currently, mitigating issues related to the lack of water has become an aim for the public and private sectors. Water scarcity can be estimated by the ratio between water use (withdrawal or consumption) and water availability (a minimum discharge), named Water Stress Index (WSI). [...]