Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Reevaluating sedimentary signatures of micro-tidal processes in fluvial-dominated rivers: the Po River (Italy)
Published: 2025-06-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences
In microtidally influenced rivers, tides are generally assumed to leave virtually no signatures in the sedimentary record. However, this hypothesis has been surprisingly poorly tested using modern river analogues, which provide an opportunity to assess whether sedimentary signatures of microtidal regimes can develop in rivers that lack diagnostic evidence of tidal control on large-scale channel [...]
An explainable machine learning prediction system for early-warning of heat stress on Florida’s Coral Reef
Published: 2025-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coral reefs are facing increasing threats from rising ocean temperatures, necessitating timely and localized prediction tools to inform reef management and conservation. This study introduces a machine learning framework capable of forecasting the onset of moderate coral heat stress at site-specific resolution on Florida’s Coral Reef. Leveraging the XGBoost algorithm, the data-driven prediction [...]
Mapping textures of polar ice cores using 3D laboratory X-ray microscopy
Published: 2025-06-20
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Glaciology
Deep ice cores from polar ice sheets enable reconstructions of Earth’s past climate. Ice-core records are therefore crucial for projecting future climate change, however, our ability to interpret them relies on our understanding of polycrystalline-ice microstructures and mechanics. In turn, these microstructures enable modeling of ice flow and large-scale effects of ice-sheet evolution. Since [...]
CO2-Based Leaching of Sulfidic Peridotite Drives Critical Mineral Mobilization and Carbonate Precipitation
Published: 2025-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology
The transition towards green energy requires both carbon dioxide removal and consistent supplies of energy-critical minerals. Injection and mineralization of supercritical CO2 at active mafic and ultramafic-hosted mines provides a potential avenue to achieve both, through the stable geologic storage of carbon and subsequent mobilization of critical metals. A sample from the Eagle occurrence, an [...]
Topographic evidence for recent intraplate reactivation in NW Uruguay
Published: 2025-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Located in eastern South America, Uruguay has been considered tectonically inactive since rifting in the Late Cretaceous. Here, we use a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) and field observations to investigate the presence of recent tectonic activity in the Basaltic Plateau, northwest Uruguay. Based on topographic-, drainage network- and field-based data, we identify evidence for [...]
PDCD-DAT – A global database of pyroclastic density current deposit field data
Published: 2025-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Pyroclastic density currents represent one of the deadliest hazards posed by active volcanoes. Analysis of their deposits provides valuable insights into their internal dynamics and informs numerical simulations of pyroclastic density currents which underpin many volcanic hazard assessments. We present PDCD-DAT, a global database of pyroclastic density current deposit characteristics compiled [...]
Lagged impacts of groundwater pumping on streamflow due to stream drying: Incorporation into analytical streamflow depletion estimation methods
Published: 2025-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Water management often requires accounting for reductions in streamflow caused by groundwater pumping (‘streamflow depletion’). Since streamflow depletion cannot be quantified from observational data, it is typically modeled. Analytical depletion functions (ADFs) are a low-cost, low-complexity approach for estimating streamflow depletion with utility for decision support, but ADFs adopt several [...]
The Stotfield silcrete (or ‘Stotfield Cherty Rock’), Moray, eastern Scotland: Characterization and discussion of an archaeologically important lithic raw material
Published: 2025-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Human Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
We describe and discuss a lithic raw material new to Scottish prehistoric research: the Stotfield silcrete or Stotfield Cherty Rock. This material was well-known to Scottish geologists, but it was only recently realized that it had been used by prehistoric people in Moray, eastern Scotland. We describe our examination of archaeological Stotfield silcrete, as well as field information relating to [...]
Operational Flood Forecasting System in Denmark – Integrating Groundwater and Surface-water
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology
Most operational flood forecasting systems provide predictions of pluvial and fluvial floods, often neglecting groundwater flooding processes. Groundwater flooding occurs when natural drainage system cannot drain water away quick enough, causing the water table to rise above ground. This study presents an operational integrated flood forecasting system that combines surface water and groundwater [...]
WITHDRAWN: Constraining the onset of future irreversible retreat of Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica
Published: 2025-06-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology
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A century of flow and surge history of Sít’ Tlein(Malaspina Glacier), Southeast Alaska
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Sít' Tlein (Malaspina Glacier), located in Southeast Alaska, has a complex flow history. This piedmont glacier, the largest in the world of its kind, is fed by three main tributaries that all exhibit similar flow patterns, yet with varying surge cycles. The piedmont lobe is dramatically reshaped by surges that occur at approximately decadal timescales. By combining historical accounts with modern [...]
Combined thermodynamic-kinetic-competitive controls on anaerobic respiration pathways and the chemistry of natural waters
Published: 2025-06-13
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences
Microbial metabolisms underpin geochemical cycling in nearly all of the Earth's biosphere. Anaerobic pathways of carbon mineralization by iron and sulfate reduction and methanogenesis, in particular, have existed over most of Earth history and have been central in shaping the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere. The governing principles by which microbial metabolisms contribute to water-column [...]
Comprehensive quantification of production costs for large-scale kelp aquaculture and cost reduction opportunities
Published: 2025-06-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A highly realistic techno-economic analysis (TEA) was developed to assess the cost of production (COP, US $ per fresh tonne kelp) for large-scale kelp aquaculture. The TEA resolves feedbacks across structural design and response, operational requirements and decisions, site properties, and biological response. We apply the TEA to a Saccharina latissima farming operation at a 100m deep, 405 [...]
The geomorphological and sedimentological legacy of the historical Lake Lorsch within the Weschnitz floodplain (northeastern Upper Rhine Graben, Germany)
Published: 2025-06-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology
The artificial historical Lake Lorsch (1474/79 to 1718/20 CE) in the northeastern Upper Rhine Graben (Germany) is known from various historical sources, e.g. for fish farming, as a significant anthropogenic imprint of the Weschnitz floodplain. Nevertheless, there have been no geomorphological and sedimentological investigations about the (quasi-)natural context for the creation of the lake, its [...]
Quantifying sulfur speciation in magmatic-hydrothermal fluids
Published: 2025-06-11
Subjects: Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Inorganic Chemistry, Natural Resource Economics, Physical Chemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Quantitative knowledge of sulfur speciation in the fluid phase is key to understanding sulfur degassing from magmas and its transfer along with metals by fluids across the lithosphere. Farsang and Zajacz(1) recently reported new sulfur speciation data using Raman spectroscopy measurements on aqueous H2SO4-NaCl(-KCl) solutions trapped as synthetic fluid inclusions in quartz at 875 °C and 2 kbar [...]