Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Data from the drain: a sensor framework that captures multiple drivers of chronic coastal floods
Published: 2022-04-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Tide gauge water levels are commonly used as a proxy for flood incidence on land. These proxies are useful for projecting how sea-level rise (SLR) will increase the frequency of coastal flooding. However, tide gauges do not account for land-based sources of coastal flooding and therefore flood thresholds and the proxies derived from them likely underestimate the current and future frequency of [...]
Weathering intensity and lithium isotopes: A reactive transport perspective
Published: 2022-04-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Lithium isotopes have emerged as a powerful tool to probe the response of global weathering to changes in climate. Due to the preferential incorporation of 6Li into clay minerals during chemical weathering, the isotope ratio δ7Li may be used to interrogate the balance of primary mineral dissolution and clay precipitation. This balance has been linked to relative rates of chemical and physical [...]
A computational framework for time dependent deformation in viscoelastic magmatic systems
Published: 2022-04-01
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Mathematics
Time-dependent ground deformation is a key observable in active magmatic systems, but is challenging to characterize. Here we present a numerical framework for modeling transient deformation and stress around a subsurface, spheroidal pressurized magma reservoir within a viscoelastic half-space with variable material coefficients, utilizing a high-order finite-element method and explicit [...]
Fencing farm dams to exclude livestock halves methane emissions and improves water quality.
Published: 2022-03-31
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Life Sciences, Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Agricultural practices have created tens of millions of small artificial water bodies (“farm dams” or “agricultural ponds”) to provide water for domestic livestock worldwide. Among freshwater ecosystems, farm dams have some of the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per m2 due to fertilizer and manure run-off boosting methane production – an extremely potent GHG. However, management strategies [...]
Displacement/length scaling relationships for normal faults; a review, critique, and revised compilation
Published: 2022-03-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The relationship between normal fault displacement (D) and length (L) varies due to numerous factors, including fault size, maturity, basin tectonic history, and host rock lithology. Understanding how fault D and L relate is useful, given related scaling laws are often used to help refine interpretations of often incomplete, subsurface datasets, which has implications for hydrocarbon and [...]
Late Glacial and Holocene Palaeolake History of the Última Esperanza Region of Southern Patagonia
Published: 2022-03-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Volcanology
We undertook multiproxy analyses on two sediment cores from Lago Pato, a small lake basin at 51°S topographically separated from Lago del Toro in Torres del Paine (TdP), to provide insights into glacier dynamics and lake level change in the TdP and Última Esperanza region over the last ~30,000 cal a BP (30 ka). Lago Pato is situated in a region overridden by the Southern Patagonian Icefield [...]
Coastal River Response to Transgression: A New Look at the Trinity Incised Valley Using Multi-Resolution Seismic Imaging
Published: 2022-03-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Sedimentology
Modern lowland river systems show transitions in flow characteristics near coastlines that lead to systematic changes in sediment deposition and stratigraphic architecture. Sensitivity of fluvial morphodynamics to base-level has important implications for the prediction and interpretation of fluvial stratigraphy, particularly in deposits formed during periods of relative sea-level rise such as [...]
Stratigraphic architecture of the world’s oldest shale gas play: The 1400-1200 Ma Velkerri and Kyalla formations in the Beetaloo Sub-Basin
Published: 2022-03-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The Mesoproterozoic Velkerri and Kyalla formations in the Beetaloo Sub-basin in northern Australia contain the world’s oldest shale plays. In unconventional exploration, the main challenge is the identification of sweet spots from which hydrocarbons can be produced economically. In fine-grained siliciclastic intervals, the distribution of these sweet spots is mainly controlled by the evolution of [...]
Decoupling between strain localisation and the microstructural record revealed by in-situ strain measurements in polycrystalline ice
Published: 2022-03-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Tectonics and Structure
We explore the links between strain localisation and microstructural evolution in ice Ih deformed by dislocation creep. Using digital image correlation (DIC), we monitored the evolution of the strain field in two coarse-grained columnar ice samples deformed by creep (uniaxial compression at constant load) at -7 °C and 0.5 MPa up to 9.5% bulk shortening. After a brief transient (<0.2% bulk [...]
Practical Reproducibility in Geography and Geosciences
Published: 2022-03-28
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Higher Education
Reproducible research is often perceived as a technological challenge, but it is rooted in the challenge to improve scholarly communication in an age of digitisation. When computers become involved and researchers want to allow other scientists to inspect, understand, evaluate, and build upon their work, they need to create a research compendium that includes the code, data, computing [...]
A state estimate of Siberian summer temperature and moisture availability during the Last Glacial Maximum combining pollen records and climate simulations
Published: 2022-03-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ~21.000 years before present) was a period with significantly lower global mean temperature, large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, and low CO2 concentrations. Unlike other high-latitude areas, Siberia was not covered by a terrestrial ice sheet. Climate simulations with LGM boundary conditions show large inter-model differences especially in Northern Siberia, which [...]
Aerosol-rainfall relationship over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region from observations
Published: 2022-03-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Water is an essential element of life and rainfall. The amount of rainfall directly affects the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources on the Earth. Rainfall has direct impact on agricultural production, daily life activities, and human health. Atmospheric aerosols are essential for rainfall formation; therefore, understanding how dust compositions and distributions affect the [...]
Greenland ice sheet vulnerability under diverse climatic warming scenarios
Published: 2022-03-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Sea-level rise of even one meter will have drastic global impacts. Melting the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) would raise sea level by 7.4 meters. There is an urgent need to improve predictions of how quickly the GIS will contribute its first meter of sea-level rise, and from where on the ice sheet that water will come. Estimating the volume of Greenland ice that was lost during past warm periods [...]
Geochronology and formal stratigraphy of the Sturtian Glaciation in the Adelaide Superbasin
Published: 2022-03-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The glaciogenic nature of the Yudnamutana Subgroup was first identified over a century ago, and its global significance was recognised shortly after, eventually culminating with the global Sturtian Glaciation and Snowball Earth theory. Much debate on the origin and timing of these rocks, locally and globally, has ensued in the years since. A significant corpus of research on the lithology, [...]
Climate sensitivity & resistance since the Industrial Revolution
Published: 2022-03-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Climate sensitivity is a fundamental yet uncertain metric of Earth’s response to anthropogenic forcing; its temporal evolution in particular is poorly constrained yet critical for leveraging historical observations for future projections. A Bayesian energy balance model indicates a 83% (84%) probability that the climate sensitivity increased (decreased) from 1900-1940 (1940-2010). These trends [...]