Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Earth Sciences
Economic and biophysical limits to seaweed-based climate solutions
Published: 2022-02-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets are driving interest in opportunities for biomass-based negative emissions and bioenergy, including from marine sources such as seaweed. Yet the biophysical and economic limits to farming seaweed at scales relevant to the global carbon budget have not been assessed in detail. We use coupled seaweed growth and technoeconomic models to estimate the costs of [...]
Trench migration and slab buckling control the formation of the Central Andes
Published: 2022-02-03
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Other Earth Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
The formation of the Central Andes dates back to ~50 Ma, but its most pronounced phase, including the growth of the Altiplano-Puna Plateau and pulsatile tectonic shortening phases, occurred within the last 25 Ma. The reason for this evolution remains unexplained. Using geodynamic numerical modeling we infer that the primary cause of the pulses of tectonic shortening and growth of Central Andes is [...]
Explaining Variance of Pleistocene Climate Sensitivity: Path, Epochal and CO2 dependence
Published: 2022-01-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Improved high-resolution paleo records of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and reconstructions of Earth’s surface temperature are available. We analyze one authoritative Pleistocene data set to explore how the climate sensitivity parameter S varies under different system states, using linear regression of mean annual surface temperature changes against CO2 forcing changes. On the [...]
Deep submarine infiltration of altered geothermal groundwater on the south Chilean Margin
Published: 2022-01-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Hydrology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Submarine groundwater discharge is increasingly recognized as an important component of the oceanic geochemical budget, but knowledge of the distribution of this phenomenon is limited. To date, reports of meteoric inputs to marine sediments are typically limited to shallow shelf and coastal environments, whereas contributions of freshwater along deeper sections of tectonically active margins like [...]
Seismic velocity recovery in the subsurface: transient damage and groundwater drainage following the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Nepal
Published: 2022-01-04
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Shallow earthquakes frequently disturb the hydrological and mechanical state of the subsurface, with consequences for hazard and water management. Transient post-seismic hydrological behaviour has been widely reported, suggesting that the recovery of material properties (relaxation) following ground shaking may impact groundwater fluctuations. However, the monitoring of seismic velocity [...]
Structural traps and seals for expanding CO2 storage in the northern Horda Platform, North Sea
Published: 2021-12-24
Subjects: Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
The maturation of geological CCS along the Norwegian Continental Shelf is ongoing in the Norwegian North Sea, however, more storage sites are needed to reach climate mitigation goals by 2050. In order to augment the Aurora site and expand CO2 storage in the northern Horda Platform, regional traps and seals must be assessed to better understand the area’s potential. Here, we leverage wellbore and [...]
Hermann Löns’ “Quintär” – an early approach to the geological stratigraphy of the Age of Humans and its significance in geosciences
Published: 2021-12-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Other Earth Sciences, Stratigraphy
In 1908, Hermann Löns outlined the concept of a Quintär” (“Quintary period”) to describe geological and biological manifestations of the Age of Humans. His definition of the “Quintary” consisted of two components: a lithostratigraphic (“Quintary deposits” or “Quintary stratum”), and a faunistic (“Quintary fauna”) one. With a view on the stratigraphic component, Löns already anticipated the [...]
A copula-based assessment of renewable energy droughts across Europe
Published: 2021-12-05
Subjects: Multivariate Analysis, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences
Meeting carbon-reduction targets will require thorough consideration of climate variability and climate change due to the increasing share of climate-sensitive renewable energy sources (RES). One of the main concerns arises from situations of low renewable production and high demand, which can hinder the power system. We analysed energy droughts, defined as periods of low energy production (wind [...]
Estuarine-deltaic controls on coastal carbon burial in the western Ganges-Brahmaputra delta over the last 5,000 years
Published: 2021-11-26
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Statistics and Probability, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Water Resource Management
The Ganges–Brahmaputra fluvial system drains the Himalayas and is one of the largest sources of terrestrial biosphere carbon to the ocean. It represents a major continental reservoir of CO2 associated with c. 1–2 billion tons of sediment transported each year. Shallow coastal environments receive substantial inputs of terrestrial carbon (900 Tg C yr−1), with allochthonous carbon capture on [...]
Vertical Deformation and Residual Altimeter Systematic Errors around Continental Australia Inferred from a Kalman-Based Approach
Published: 2021-11-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Other Earth Sciences
We further developed a space-time Kalman approach to estimate time-variable signals in residual altimeter systematic errors and vertical land motion (VLM) around the Australian coast since the 1990s, through combining multi-mission absolute sea-level (ASL), relative sea-level (RSL) from tide gauges (TGs) and GPS heights records. Our results confirmed continent-wide subsidence and TG-specific VLMs [...]
From offshore to onshore probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment via efficient Monte-Carlo sampling
Published: 2021-11-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences
Offshore Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessments (offshore PTHAs) provide large-scale analyses of earthquake-tsunami frequencies and uncertainties in the deep ocean, but do not provide high-resolution onshore tsunami hazard information as required for many risk-management applications. To understand the implications of an offshore PTHA for the onshore hazard at any site, in principle the tsunami [...]
Mesophotic Depth Biogenic Accumulations (“Biogenic Mounds”) Offshore the Maltese Islands, Central Mediterranean Sea
Published: 2021-10-28
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
The mesophotic domain is a poorly explored part of the oceans, notably in the Mediterranean Sea. Benthic communities in these depths are not well documented and as such are under higher risk from anthropogenic impacts. Hard substrate habitats in this depth window are not common and are a key ecotope. The Malta Plateau in the central Mediterranean, which is characterized by low sedimentation [...]
Reproducibility in subsurface geoscience
Published: 2021-10-26
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management
Reproducibility, the extent to which consistent results are obtained when an experiment or study is repeated, sits at the foundation of science. The aim of this process is to produce robust findings and knowledge, with reproducibility being the screening tool to benchmark how well we are implementing the scientific method. However, the re-examination of results from many disciplines has caused [...]
Linking technical geothermal potential from borehole heat exchangers and heating demand scenarios on a regional scale
Published: 2021-10-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Extracting shallow geothermal energy using borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) can help decarbonising the residential heating sector. To assist urban planers and policy makers in developing carbon-neutral heating plans the regional technical shallow geothermal potential must be analysed. Here, we propose a methodology to estimate the technical geothermal potential of BHE fields on a regional scale [...]
An experimental combination of IGS repro3 campaign’s orbit products using a variance component estimation strategy
Published: 2021-10-05
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Navigation, Guidance, Control and Dynamics, Other Earth Sciences, Other Mathematics
Over the past years, the International GNSS Service (IGS) has put efforts into reprocessing campaigns reanalyzing the full data collected by the IGS network since 1994. The goal is to provide a consistent set of orbits, station coordinates, and earth rotation parameters using state-of-the-art models. Different from the previous campaigns - namely: repro1 and repro2 - the repro3 includes not only [...]