Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geology
Unconformity-related rare earth element mineral potential of Australia
Published: 2026-01-28
Subjects: Geology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Other Earth Sciences
Heavy rare earth elements are critical for the transition to net zero in addition to being key to manufacturing defence technologies. Unconformity-related rare earth element (REE) deposits represent an important source of heavy rare earth elements (HREE), including key elements such as dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb). Given the strategic importance of these critical minerals to the national [...]
A New Paradigm for High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal: Intrinsic Radionuclide Properties and Comparative Hazard
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology
This paper develops a hazard- and pathway-based framework for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal grounded in intrinsic radionuclide decay characteristics, geochemical behavior, and comparative hazard. We examine the physical and geochemical properties of key radionuclides and quantify lifetime cancer risk from chronic ingestion on a per-unit-mass basis using established regulatory [...]
Magmatic degassing as the primary source of salt in Archean oceans
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The salinification of Earth’s early oceans impacted both the climate and the evolution of life. However, available halogen data of Archean seawater samples are at apparent odds with a conventionally assumed mantle origin of sea salt, highlighting a critical lack of mechanistic understanding of how the Archean oceans became salty. Here, we present new triple halogen (Cl-Br-I) data from high [...]
Last Interglacial shoreline successions in southeastern Australia: A framework for identifying a waning mantle plume, neotectonic movements and sea-level change
Published: 2026-01-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
Relict shoreline successions are critically important for investigations of recent tectonism, as they are commonly amenable to dating and may provide information about surface displacement and changes in sea level since their deposition. In this study, Last Interglacial (MIS 5e; 128–116 ka) shoreline successions from 47 locations across southeastern Australia are reviewed. The surface [...]
Role of Lithospheric and Upper-Mantle Heterogeneities in Controlling Intraplate Seismicity in Central and Southeastern Brazil
Published: 2026-01-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology
Seismicity in Central and Southeastern Brazil is spatially heterogeneous, with active zones showing little correspondence to major geological provinces, a pattern typical of many intraplate settings worldwide. While previous studies have explored possible controls using geophysical observations, the relative roles of crustal and upper-mantle heterogeneities in shaping the regional stress fields [...]
Reconstruction of plate tectonic evolution and orogenesis of the Central Tethysides (Iran, Afghanistan) since the Permian
Published: 2026-01-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
The Central Tethysides constitute the Iranian and Afghan section of the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt. Two large sutures in the north and south are widely considered to represent the closed Paleo- and Neotethys ocean, respectively, with a 'Cimmerian' continent in between that traveled from Gondwana-Land to Eurasia in the Permo-Triassic and reconnected with Arabia in the late Oligocene. However, [...]
Reviewing chronostratigraphic uncertainty of the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition
Published: 2026-01-02
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Stratigraphy
The Ediacaran-Cambrian transition archives the widespread disappearance of ‘Ediacaran-type’ soft-bodied biota and the appearance of most modern animal body plans, including a major diversification of skeletal animals and styles of animal-substrate interaction. Despite over a century of study, our ability to confidently reconstruct the series of macroevolutionary events that inform origination and [...]
Spatial Clustering and Reservoir Analysis: An Expert-Guided Synergy Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) Machine Learning Technique on Volve and Norne Fields
Published: 2025-12-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Geotechnical Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
This study introduces an expert-guided application for clustering production wells using Machine Learning (ML), focusing on the Volve and Norne Field datasets to optimise reservoir analysis and decision-making. The Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm was employed for clustering and further enhanced by spatial visualisation through Voronoi polygons on topographic maps. The study presents a [...]
Large-scale rotational extension triggered basin formation in interior East Antarctica
Published: 2025-12-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Tectonics and Structure
Recent sub-ice topography investigations have imaged with greatly improved detail a set of enigmatic low-elevation V-shaped basins hidden beneath a very large sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here we show that these basins form a semi-continental sized fan shaped physiographic unit which radiates from a pin point near the South Pole and name it the East Antarctic Fan-shaped Basin Province. [...]
Joint Rock Physics Inversion and Basin Modeling for Comprehensive Source Rock Characterization
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
This study presents an integrated workflow that combines statistical rock physics inversion with Monte Carlo basin modeling to comprehensively quantify source rock properties and their uncertainties. First, well-log and seismically-derived elastic properties are used in a statistical rock physics inversion to estimate porosity, kerogen content, and mineral fractions. These posterior distributions [...]
Solubility and speciation of sulfur in silicate melts under crustal conditions
Published: 2025-12-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Volcanology
We have determined the solubility of sulfur as either sulfide (S2-) or sulfate (S6+) in a wide range of silicate melts at 1 atm pressure and temperatures of 1050° to 1250°C. The method involved suspension of the melt in either a mixture of CO2-CO-SO2 (sulfide solubility) or SO2 and air (sulfate solubility) for periods of up to 120 hours. Sulfur concentrations, measured by electron microprobe were [...]
Hidden early clinopyroxene relicts record reactive porous flow in oceanic plutonic series
Published: 2025-12-12
Subjects: Geology
Almost two-thirds of the Earth’s magmatic budget is concentrated at mid-ocean ridges, with 85% of this being emplaced as intrusive rocks. In these systems, now understood to consist mostly of a crystal-dominated igneous medium (mush), melt differentiation at depth is predominantly governed by melt-mush reactions. These reactions have been well described for primitive lithologies (ranging from [...]
A Himalayan-Scale Orogen in the Central African Copperbelt and the Formation of a World-Class Metal Province.
Published: 2025-12-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Tectonics and Structure
The Central African Copperbelt (CACB) of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the world’s largest sediment-hosted copper-cobalt province. It comprises Tonian–Ediacaran sedimentary rocks of the Katangan Basin and Ediacaran–Cambrian metamorphic and intrusive rocks formed during the assembly of Gondwana. The age distribution of metal deposits within the CACB peaks during the orogeny, [...]
ShallowLandslider: a physics-based component for predicting regional distributions of coseismic landslides
Published: 2025-12-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology
Earthquakes can trigger thousands of shallow landslides across mountainous terrain, reshaping landscapes and posing severe hazards. Predicting their spatial distribution remains challenging because most existing models are empirical, event-specific, and lack physical interpretability. We introduce ShallowLandslider, a physics-based component within the open-source Landlab framework for regional [...]
Sediment loading from the Río de la Plata as a driver of regional sea-level variability
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology
Sea-level reconstructions are critical benchmarks for testing models of ice-sheet stability and climate change. Their interpretation, however, is complicated by sea-level changes driven by different processes, among which the Earth’s response to sediment loading. Here we show that incorporating sediment isostasy reduces long-standing discrepancies among Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 5a and 5e [...]