Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Machine learning thermobarometry and chemometry using amphibole and clinopyroxene: a window into the roots of an arc volcano (Mount Liamuiga, Saint Kitts)
Published: 2021-07-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Mineral Physics, Stratigraphy, Volcanology
The physical and chemical properties of magma govern the eruptive style and behaviour of volcanoes. Many of these parameters are linked to the storage pressure and temperature of the erupted magma, and melt chemistry. However, reliable single-phase thermobarometers and chemometers which can recover this information, particularly using amphibole chemistry, remain elusive. We present a suite of [...]
Excitation of back-arc tsunamis from megathrust ruptures: The underdog hazard in the Sea of Japan
Published: 2021-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology
The 2011 Tohoku earthquake created a moderate tsunami in the back-arc Sea of Japan basin. This tsunami went largely unnoticed due to its small size and the significant coverage of the large fore-arc waves. We present a physical dislocation model for the excitation of back-arc tsunamis and identify fault dip as the main geometrical contributor to the propagation of back-arc tsunamis. Using [...]
A Model Workflow for GeoDeepDive: Locating Pliocene and Pleistocene Ice-Rafted Debris
Published: 2021-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Sedimentology
Machine learning technology promises a more efficient and scalable approach to locating and aggregating data and information from the burgeoning scientific literature. Realizing this promise requires provision of applications, data resources, and the documentation of analytic workflows. GeoDeepDive provides a digital library comprising over 13 million peer-reviewed documents and the computing [...]
C:N:P stoichiometry in six distinct habitats of a glacier terminus in the Yangtze River Source Area
Published: 2021-07-01
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Glaciology, Life Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
Glaciers are among the least explored environments on Earth, especially from a perspective of nutrient stoichiometry. In this study, we documented and compared the nutrient availabilities (concentrations) and composition (stoichiometric ratios) of nutrients (C, N, and P) in six distinct habitats of a glacier terminus in the Yangtze River Source area, including surface ice (SI), basal ice (BI), [...]
Subduction earthquakes controlled by incoming plate geometry: The 2020 M>7.5 Shumagin, Alaska, earthquake doublet
Published: 2021-07-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In 2020, an earthquake doublet, a M7.8 on July 22nd and a M7.6 on October 19th, struck the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone beneath the Shumagin Islands. This is the first documented earthquake doublet involving a megathrust event and a strike-slip event. The first event partially ruptured a seismic gap, which has not hosted large earthquakes since 1917, and the second event was unusual as it [...]
Using sedimentological priors to improve 14C calibration of bioturbated sediment archives.
Published: 2021-07-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Statistics and Probability
Radiocarbon (14C) dating is often carried out upon multi-specimen samples sourced from bioturbated sediment archives, such as deep-sea sediment. These samples are inherently heterogeneous in age, but current 14C calibration techniques applied to such age heterogenous samples were originally developed for age homogeneous material. A lack of information about age heterogeneity leads to a systematic [...]
Onset of runaway fragmentation of salt marshes
Published: 2021-07-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Sustainability
Salt marshes are valuable but vulnerable coastal ecosystems that adapt to relative sea level rise (RSLR) by accumulating organic matter and inorganic sediment. The natural limit of these processes defines a threshold rate of RSLR beyond which marshes drown, resulting in ponding and conversion to open waters. We develop a simplified formulation for sediment transport across marshes to show that [...]
Interplay of seismic and a-seismic deformation during the 2020 sequence of Atacama, Chile.
Published: 2021-07-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
An earthquake sequence occurred in the Atacama region of Chile throughout September 2020. The sequence initiated by a mainshock of magnitude Mw6.9, followed 17 hours later by a Mw6.4 aftershock. The sequence lasted several weeks, during which more than a thousand events larger than Ml 1 occurred, including several larger earthquakes of magnitudes between 5.5 and 6.4. Using a dense network that [...]
Knowing the whole world from the top of a mountain: from orderly systematization to complex explanatory systems
Published: 2021-06-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Systems Biology
Fast and fascinating changes in views on nature and systems occurred around 1800, for example in the works of Alexander von Humboldt. While Humboldt rarely used the word system, he searched for the pattern-forming forces of nature by gruesome experiments on animals, including himself, and then drew a map of a mountain that became the basis of biogeography. What did ‘system’ mean then and now, how [...]
Paleoenvironmental change recorded in submarine fans: the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition in the Alpine foreland basin
Published: 2021-06-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
The Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT) was a period of considerable environmental change, signifying the transition from Paleocene greenhouse to Oligocene icehouse conditions. Preservation of the sedimentary signal of such an environmental change is most likely in net-depositional environments, such as submarine fans, which are the terminal parts of sedimentary systems. Here, using sedimentary and [...]
Controls on submarine canyon connection to the shoreline: a numerical modelling approach
Published: 2021-06-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Submarine canyons with heads located close to shorelines, known as shore-connected canyons, provide a focussed pathway for basinward sediment transport. Placing greater constraints on the key parameters that control the formation of shore-connected canyons can help us predict the efficiency of sediment export to deep-water under different environmental conditions and through time. Using a [...]
Deglaciation-enhanced mantle CO2 fluxes at Yellowstone imply positive climate feedback
Published: 2021-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology
The generation of mantle melts in response to decompression by glacial unloading has been linked to enhanced volcanic activity and volatile release in Iceland and in global eruptive records. However, it is unclear whether this process is also important in magmatically-active systems that do not show evidence of enhanced eruption rates. For example, the deglaciation of the Yellowstone ice cap did [...]
Late Quaternary climatic histories from the Hermes Cave, Corinth Rift, Greece
Published: 2021-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geomorphology, Sedimentology, Speleology
The Greek peninsula is located at the crossroads of several major atmospheric circulation patterns and is consequently characterized by high variability in climatic conditions, making it an important location to examine past climate variability. Over the last decades, the focus of many studies in the region has been to unravel Holocene paleoclimatic oscillations and their impact on the [...]
Rift kinematics preserved in deep-time erosional landscape below the northern North Sea
Published: 2021-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Our understanding of continental rifting is, in large parts, derived from the stratigraphic record. This record is, however, incomplete as it does not often capture the geomorphic and erosional signal of rifting. New 3D seismic reflection data reveals a Late Permian-Early Triassic landscape incised into the pre-rift basement of the northern North Sea. This landscape, which covers at least 542 [...]
Emergent simplicity despite local complexity in eroding fluvial landscapes
Published: 2021-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Much understanding of continental topographic evolution is rooted in measuring and predicting rates at which rivers erode. Flume tank and field observations indicate that stochasticity and local conditions play important roles in determining rates at small scales (e.g. < 10 km, thousands of years). Obversely, preserved river profiles and common shapes of rivers atop uplifting topography indicate [...]