Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geology
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: 2025-12-12
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: 2025-12-11
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: 2025-11-27
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 [...]
Model of Cortical Mosaics (MMC): An Auto-Organized Evolutionary Trajectory from the Primitive Crust to Proto-Plates
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
The structure and dynamics of Earth’s crust during the Hadean–Eoarchean remain one of the central challenges in geodynamics. Traditional models describe early states in terms of discrete regimes—stagnant lid, heat-pipe, episodic tectonics, or proto-plates—but none provides a continuous framework linking primitive fragmentation with the late emergence of plate tectonics. This work proposes the [...]
Lithological heterogeneity controls high-temperature ductile deformation and late melt infiltration in moderately-magmatic OCCs
Published: 2025-11-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Tectonics and Structure
Oceanic core complexes (OCCs) are a fundamental component of slow-to-ultraslow spreading mid-ocean ridges, yet the processes that control OCC formation and evolution are poorly understood especially with respect to their high-temperature lithospheric roots. We present detailed analyses of high-temperature ductile deformation preserved in drill-core from IODP Hole U1601C, on the Atlantis Massif [...]
Crystalline silica content of natural, engineered, and synthetic stone products and their relation to silicosis policy development
Published: 2025-11-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Materials Science and Engineering, Public Health
Crystalline silica minerals – quartz, cristobalite, and tridymite – are hazardous when inhaled. They are at least an order of magnitude more toxic than crystalline silica-free inert mineral dusts. Workplace exposure to hazardous levels of crystalline silica is entirely preventable, yet accelerated silicosis is emerging in developed countries, from the fabrication of crystalline silica-rich [...]
Relict landscapes and fluvial landforms: Catastrophic outflow following a major Late Messinian base-level fall
Published: 2025-11-06
Subjects: Analysis, Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Mathematics, Physics, Stratigraphy
During the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC), the entire Mediterranean basin experienced deep canyon incision along its margins as the result of sea-level variations and rapidly increasing salinity. Yet, the processes and water sources capable of generating such dramatic incision have never been quantitatively demonstrated. Using high-resolution 3-D seismic reflection data and paleo-stream network [...]
A new source-to-sink synthesis of the Middle Triassic Helsby Sandstone Formation (Sherwood Sandstone Group) river systems in the British Isles
Published: 2025-10-30
Subjects: Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Sediment grain size and mineralogy change in sediment routing systems from source to sink. A better understanding of sediment routing allows improved predictions to be made of the bulk grain-size and mineralogy of sandstone fairways. We present a new appraisal of sediment routing in the Triassic Helsby Sandstone Formation (Sherwood Sandstone Group) and lowermost Mercia Mudstone Group of the [...]
Intermittent supershear rupture punctuated by barrier-induced stopping phase during the 2025 Mw 7.8 Myanmar Earthquake: Evidence from near-fault strong motion observation
Published: 2025-10-24
Subjects: Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Supershear rupture has been investigated by many studies, yet its exact characteristics during natural earthquakes are not fully clear, due to the paucity of near-field constraints. Here we analyze the strong motion data recorded at a near-fault station during the 2025 Mw 7.8 Myanmar earthquake to estimate the detailed source process around that station. By comparing simulated velocity waveforms [...]
Radiogenic Sr-Nd-Pb isotope behavior in different grain-sized fine lithic materials during basalt weathering
Published: 2025-10-16
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Radiogenic isotopes are widely used as sediment provenance tracers; however, their weathering response has not been fully established. This study investigates the weathering sensitivity of Sr-Nd-Pb isotopes in fine lithic fractions (FLF; grain size <2 μm, <5 μm, and <20 μm) capable of long-range transport. Geochemical and isotope compositions have been measured in the physicochemically [...]
FluvDepoSet: A dataset of synthetic 3D models of fluvial deposits
Published: 2025-10-14
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Sediments deposited by rivers constitute a key source for the water, energy, and raw materials that fuel our everyday lives. To find and manage these resources, we need to predict the spatial distribution of those fluvial deposits in the subsurface. This remains a major challenge due to the scarcity and poor quality of subsurface data, but also because traditional modeling approaches struggle to [...]