Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Earth Sciences
Climate controls the length and shape of the world’s drainage basins
Published: 2020-04-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Submitted manuscript currently under review at Geophysical Research Letters (American Geophysical Union publication).
Global Sensitivity Analysis to Optimize Basin-Scale Conductive Model Calibration – A Case Study From the Upper Rhine Graben
Published: 2020-04-01
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Calibrating geothermal simulations is a critical step, both in scientific and industrial contexts, with suitable model parameterizations being optimised to reduce discrepancies between simulated and measured temperatures. Here we present a methodology to identify unaccounted physical processes in the process and overcome the problem of measurement sparsity. With an application to the Upper Rhine [...]
Ultraviolet camera measurements of passive and explosive sulphur dioxide emissions at Yasur volcano, Vanuatu
Published: 2020-03-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Here, we present the first ultraviolet (UV) camera measurements of sulphur dioxide (SO2) flux from Yasur volcano, Vanuatu, for the period 6th – 9th July 2018. These data yield the first direct gas measurement-derived calculations of explosion gas masses at Yasur. Yasur typically exhibits persistent passive gas release interspersed with frequent strombolian explosions. We used compact forms of the [...]
Continuum of earthquake rupture speeds enabled by oblique slip
Published: 2020-03-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Earthquake rupture speed can affect ground shaking and thus seismic hazard. Seismological observations show that large earthquakes span a continuum of rupture speeds, from slower than Rayleigh waves up to P wave speed, and include speeds that are predicted to be unstable by 2D theory. This discrepancy between observations and theory has not yet been reconciled by a quantitative model. Here we [...]
International disparities in open access practices of the Earth Sciences community
Published: 2020-03-31
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Library and Information Science, Mineral Physics, Other Earth Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Soil Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology
Short communication on international disparities in open access practices of the Earth Sciences community
The mechanism of Mg diffusion in forsterite and the controls on its anisotropy
Published: 2020-03-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Mg diffusion is important for explaining many rheological properties in forsterite but its mechanism is unknown. Without knowing a mechanism the effect of variables such as pressure are hard to constrain. In this study we used Density Functional Theory (DFT) to calculate the diffusivity of Mg vacancies and interstitials in forsterite and thus the diffusion rate of Mg in forsterite. We predict [...]
A New Synergistic Approach for Monitoring Wetlands Using 1 Sentinels -1 and 2 data With Object-based Machine Learning 2 Algorithms
Published: 2020-03-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In this work the synergistic use of Sentinel-1 and 2 combined with the System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses (SAGA) Wetness Index in the content of land use/cover (LULC) mapping with emphasis in wetlands is evaluated. A further objectivehas been to a new Object-based Image Analysis (OBIA) approach for mapping wetland areas using Sentinel-1 and 2 data, where the latter is also tested [...]
Shallow-water mudstone architecture and depositional process variability: evidence for heterogeneity at kilometre-scale
Published: 2020-03-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Mudstone studies that use a large spacing (>5km) between datapoints provide little insight into the architecture and depositional process variability at kilometre scale. This often leads to the assumption that mudstones are laterally homogenous at kilometre and sub-kilometre scales. To better understand the lateral variability of mudstones at kilometre scale, the Mancos Shale in the eastern [...]
RainDisaggGAN - Temporal Disaggregation of Spatial Rainfall Fields with Generative Adversarial Networks
Published: 2020-03-30
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Creating spatially coherent rainfall patterns with high temporal resolution from data with lower temporal resolution is an important topic in many geoscientific applications. From a statistical perspective, this presents a high-dimensional and highly under-determined problem. However, recent advances in unsupervised machine learning provide methods for learning such high-dimensional probability [...]
Saturation excess overland flow accelerates the spread of a generalist soil-borne pathogen
Published: 2020-03-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Plant pathogens are a major agent of disturbance in ecosystems worldwide. Disturbance by disease can alter the hydrological function of affected ecosystems. However, many plant pathogens are also sensitive to soil moisture and can be propagated by the transport of infectious tissue or reproductive structures in surface flow, so that hydrological processes can drive pathogen infection. These [...]
Streamflow depletion estimation for conjunctive water management in a heavily-stressed aquifer using analytical depletion functions
Published: 2020-03-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Groundwater pumping can lead to reductions in streamflow (‘streamflow depletion’) and estimating streamflow depletion is critical for conjunctive groundwater-surface water management. Streamflow depletion can be quantified using either analytical models, which have low data requirements but many simplifying assumptions, or numerical models, which represent physical processes more realistically [...]
Seismic expression, structure and evolution of flow cells within a mass-transport complex
Published: 2020-03-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Mass flows evolve longitudinally during emplacement, but they can also vary laterally by forming discrete, shear zone-bound intraflow cells with different rheological states. Despite being documented in several field and subsurface studies, the controls on the initiation, translation, and cessation of these flow cells remain unclear. We here use five, high-quality post-stack time-migrated (PSTM) [...]
Against Steady State
Published: 2020-03-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Nature is never at a steady state. Natural history is generated by ever-new and ever-interacting forces that produce continuous changes. At virtually all timescales, the geological record shows that these changes do not cancel each other out and, thus, that the steady state is utopic. However, we need a state of equilibrium as a starting point for modelling Nature, and the steady-state condition [...]
Toward stable, general machine-learned models of the atmospheric chemical system
Published: 2020-03-23
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Chemistry, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Atmospheric chemistry models—used as components in models that simulate air pollution and climate change—are computationally expensive. Previous studies have shown that machine-learned atmospheric chemical solvers can be orders of magnitude faster than traditional integration methods but tend to suffer from numerical instability. Here, we present a modeling framework that reduces error [...]
Evaluating the capabilities of optical/TIR imagine sensing systems for quantifying soil water content
Published: 2020-03-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) is a key parameter of the global energy and water cycle and knowing its spatio-temporal variability is of key importance in an array of research topics and in several practical applications alike. Recent developments in Earth Observation (EO) have indicated that SSM can be retrieved from different regions of electromagnetic spectrum and numerous approaches have been [...]