Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Reporting negative results to stimulate experimental hydrology
Published: 2018-03-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Experimental work in hydrology is in decline. Based on a community survey, Blume et al. showed that the hydrological community associates experimental work with greater risks. One of the main issues with experimental work is the higher chance on negative results (defined here as when the expected or wanted result was not observed despite careful experimental design, planning and execution), [...]
What caused Earths largest mass extinction event? New evidence from the Permian-Triassic boundary in northeastern Utah
Published: 2018-02-26
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Life Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
The discovery of a Permian-Triassic boundary section in northeastern Utah reveals a detailed record of events that led to one of the greatest mass extinctions on the planet. From 83% to 97% of the species living on the planet went extinct during this relatively short interval of geological time, which defines the major geological boundary between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras. The cause and [...]
Global inventory of landscape patterns and latent variables of landscape spatial configuration
Published: 2018-02-15
Subjects: Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
We present a regionalization of the entire Earth’s landmass into land units of homogeneous landscape patterns. The input to the regionalization is a high resolution Global Land Cover (GLC) dataset. The GLC is first divided into local landscapes – small non-overlapping square blocks of GLC cells. These blocks are agglomerated into much larger land units using a pattern-based segmentation [...]
Erosion-initiated stromatolite formation in a recent hypersaline sabkha setting (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates)
Published: 2018-02-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Laminated microbial mats and microbialites are documented from a variety of coastal marine environments. These features form through: a) the combination of trapping and binding of allochthonous grains, and b) microbially-mediated or controlled precipitation of a variety of minerals, including high-magnesium calcite and dolomite. Intertidal pools and associated microbial features have been [...]
A consistent global approach for morphometric characterisation of subaqueous landslides
Published: 2018-01-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Landslides are common in aquatic settings worldwide, from lakes and coastal environments to the deep-sea. Fast-moving, large volume landslides can potentially trigger destructive tsunamis. Landslides damage and disrupt global communication links and other critical marine infrastructure. Landslide deposits act as foci for localised, but important deep-seafloor biological communities. Under burial, [...]
Leaf trait acclimation amplifies simulated climate warming in response to elevated carbon dioxide
Published: 2018-01-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physiology, Plant Sciences
Vegetation modifies Earth’s climate by controlling the fluxes of energy, carbon, and water. Of critical importance is a better understanding of how vegetation responses to climate change will feedback on climate. Observations show that plant traits respond to elevated carbon dioxide concentrations. These plant trait acclimations can alter leaf area and thus productivity and surface energy fluxes. [...]
Lake sediment records of persistent organic pollutants and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Southern Siberia mirror the changing fortunes of the Russian economy over the past 70 years
Published: 2017-12-18
Subjects: Chemistry, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have previously been detected in the surface sediments, water, and endemic organisms of Lake Baikal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Selenga River is the primary source of freshwater to Lake Baikal, and transports pollutants accumulating in the Selenga River basin to the lake. Sources of POPs and PAHs in the [...]
Global Sensitivity Analysis of Parameter Uncertainty in Landscape Evolution Models
Published: 2017-11-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Landscape Evolution Models have a long history of use as exploratory models, providing greater understanding of the role large scale processes have on the long-term development of the Earth’s surface. As computational power has advanced so has the development and sophistication of these models. This has seen them applied at increasingly smaller scale and shorter-term simulations at greater [...]
A general model for the helical structure of geophysical flows in channel bends
Published: 2017-10-31
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Fluid Dynamics, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, Risk Analysis, Sedimentology
Meandering channels host geophysical flows that form the most extensive sediment transport systems on Earth (i.e. rivers and submarine channels). Measurements of helical flow structures in bends have been key to understanding sediment transport in rivers. Turbidity currents differ from rivers in both density and velocity profiles. These differences, and the lack of field measurements of turbidity [...]
The prognostic equation for biogeochemical tracers has no unique solution.
Published: 2017-10-26
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In this paper, a tracer prognostic differential equation related to the marine chemistry HAMOCC model is studied. Recently the present 5 6 7 8 author found that the Navier -Stokes equation has no unique general solution [Geurdes, 2017]. The following question can therefore be justified. Do numerical solutions, found from prognostic equations akin to the Navier Stokes equation, provide unique [...]
Modelling silicon supply during the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e) at Lake Baikal
Published: 2017-10-24
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Throughout the Quaternary, lake productivity has been shown to be sensitive to drivers such as climate change, landscape evolution and lake ontogeny. In particular, sediments from Lake Baikal, Siberia, provide a valuable uninterrupted and continuous sequence of palaeoproductivity, which document orbital and sub-orbital frequencies of regional climate change. Here we augment these records through [...]