Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geophysics and Seismology
Estimating bounds on coherent acceleration and velocity pulses from video-recorded rocking of vehicles in Caraballeda during the Mw 7.5 Venezuela earthquake
Published: 2026-11-15
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Structural Engineering, Tectonics and Structure
The lack of accelerograms in the heavily damaged coastal towns of La Guaira state north of Caracas to record the motions of the Mw7.5 earthquake motivate the present inverse analyses to estimate plausible ranges of coherent ground-velocity and acceleration pulse amplitudes at a particular coastal site. To this end, we utilize an exceptionally revealing video recorded by two CCTV stations during [...]
GRIDWELL Atlas: a self-updating screen to find the abandoned oil and gas wells best placed to add Enhanced Geothermal System electricity to the U.S. grid
Published: 2026-11-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Engineering, Power and Energy
Drilling is the largest single cost of geothermal electricity, and the United States already has about 4.1 million abandoned oil and gas wells. However, the potential of these wells for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) has been screened at each well's own depth only for documented orphaned wells. Earlier screens treated orphaned wells as a separate population, although an orphaned well is an [...]
Seismic evidence for a two-stage origin of the October 2026 Budhi Gandaki landslide in the Nepal Himalaya
Published: 2026-11-12
Subjects: Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology
On 10 October 2026 a rock avalanche left the south face of the Chamar massif, Nepal, ran 8.7 km down the Ungilung and dammed the Shyar above the Budhi Gandaki. Single-force inversions of one regional and 28 teleseismic records resolve four force pulses 23–26 s apart, alternating westward and eastward. Flow simulations released from the face favor two stages of failure, a smaller one at the onset [...]
Source Representation and Earthquake-Ocean Coupling in Tsunami Generation by the 2020 Samos Normal-Faulting Earthquake
Published: 2026-11-07
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
The 2020 Mw 7.0 Samos normal-faulting earthquake produced damaging ground shaking and a destructive local tsunami. We construct a three-dimensional kinematic rupture model from a finite-fault inversion and use its shear stress changes to inform two dynamic rupture models. We initialize a non-linear shallow-water tsunami simulation with instantaneous Okada displacement and source one-way linked [...]
The width beyond a static arrest point predicts which static arrests span the fault
Published: 2026-11-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Population models treat a static arrest as the end of the rupture, although some of those arrests span the fault in a fully dynamic calculation. This paper tests whether the static crack itself shows which ones. A static stress-intensity criterion and a fully dynamic rupture were compared on 180 new random stress fields on one 120 km antiplane fault with linear slip weakening. The predictor is [...]
Repeatability-dependent detection thresholds for time-lapse seismic CO₂ monitoring
Published: 2026-11-03
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
We quantify the smallest CO₂ layer that a time-lapse seismic survey pair can detect as a function of repeatability, measured by the normalized root-mean-square (NRMS) difference, in a Sleipner-like synthetic study. Gassmann fluid substitution under four mixing treatments feeds one-dimensional layer models, checked against two-dimensional finite-difference gathers, and calibrated nonrepeatability [...]
The remote reference as an instrumental variable in model space: time-series magnetotelluric inversion with noisy magnetic fields
Published: 2026-10-31
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
Noise in the local magnetic field biases magnetotelluric (MT) responses, and a relevant, valid remote magnetic record removes the bias. For an earth model inverted from time series, remote referencing becomes estimating equations: the residual formed with the local field is orthogonal to the sensitivities driven by its projection on the remote field. Their solution, relevance and validity must be [...]
Prospectivity model for magmatic Nickel, Copper, Cobalt, and Platinum-Group Elements in the Midcontinent Rift
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Volcanology
Much of the Midcontinent Rift is concealed beneath glacial sediment, which limits direct geological observation and makes it difficult to evaluate the potential for undiscovered magmatic Ni–Cu–PGE deposits with publicly available data. The 1.1 Ga rift hosts the Eagle Ni–Cu–PGE deposit of northern Michigan, one of the few domestic sources of nickel, a critical mineral of the United States. We [...]
Explainable and Uncertainty-Aware Computational Geodetic Inversion: A Review and Framework for Multi-Source Earth Observation
Published: 2026-10-30
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Geophysics and Seismology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
Geodetic inversion converts surface and remote sensing data into estimates of concealed Earth system parameters, including fault slip, magma-source geometry, subsurface mass changes, crustal strain, and time-dependent geohazard activities. This review explores geodetic inversion as a computational challenge that involves combining diverse data, optimizing and quantifying uncertainty, and [...]
Dehydration of Serpentinized Ultramafic Rocks as a Candidate Deep Crustal Source of Natural Hydrogen and Hydrocarbons: Experimental Evidence from the Lesser Caucasus
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology
Natural hydrogen generated by serpentinization — the hydration of ultramafic rocks, in which ferrous iron is oxidised and molecular hydrogen is liberated from water — has recently been shown to proceed at rates of only 0.1 to 0.5 tonnes H₂ yr⁻¹ km⁻³ of reactive rock, implying that economically significant accumulations would require 10³ to 10⁴ years to develop [1]. A complementary process [...]
Laboratory Spectroradiometric Temperature Retrieval of Silicates Using Linearized Wien Approximations and Polynomial Regression
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geophysics and Seismology, Mineral Physics
Thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing provides critical diagnostic capabilities for surface temperature and spectral emissivity retrieval. However, extracting these parameters from at-target radiance measurements is fundamentally ill-posed because Planck's radiation law non-linearly couples kinetic temperature and spectral emissivity, creating an underdetermined system of N spectral bands with [...]
Seismic Discrimination of Natural and Anthropogenic Events Near Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
Distinguishing small earthquakes from anthropogenic seismic sources is important for accurate fault characterization and seismic hazard assessment, yet remains challenging in regions with sparse seismic networks and frequent quarry activities. Around Atlanta, Georgia, only a small number of local natural earthquakes and one operator-confirmed quarry blast in July 2026 are reported in regional [...]
Geodetic and gravimetric constraints on regional glacier mass changes in High Mountain Asia
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Hydrology
Regional glacier assessments often require mass-change estimates over periods that differ from the intervals measured geodetically. We quantify how native cumulative-mass adjustments and within-interval variation contribute to the regional estimates obtained by adding GRACE. A linear joint inversion represents glacier, lake, non-glacier and exterior mass across High Mountain Asia. Geodetic-only, [...]
Assessing Basin Amplification and Rupture Directivity Effects Using Physics-Based Ground Motion Simulations in Wellington
Published: 2026-10-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology
Near-surface velocity structure plays a crucial role in modulating ground motion, and, in turn, contributes to seismic risk. However, a complete understanding of the basin effect is limited, owing to the paucity of detailed shallow basin structure, geological structures and near-field seismic sources. In this study, we perform physics-based simulations of ground motions incorporating the [...]
Integrating rapid 3D structural validation into interpretation: forward modelling of the Katnook Graben, Otway Basin
Published: 2026-10-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Structural validation of a prospect is invariably applied after the interpretation is finished, by restoring one or two key lines in 2D or, rarely, by a full 3D restoration that needs finished horizons and a specialist. The authors propose that a simple 3D kinematic forward model, built in minutes using a few explicit structural rules, fully restorable and scaled onto the mapped horizons, is a [...]