Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geology
A National Screening Framework for Critical Mineral Potential and Heavy Metal Hazard in U.S. Mine Waste
Published: 2026-11-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Natural Resource Economics, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Mine Waste Inventory (NMWI) Version 2.0 provides the first comprehensive national database of mine-waste features across the United States, but it does not directly evaluate their critical-mineral potential or environmental hazard. We linked 1,498 tailings, waste-rock, leach, and slag features at 343 sites to nearby public geochemical observations from [...]
Fertile or Barren: an open benchmark for testing geochemical fertility indices on mineralized and barren mafic-ultramafic intrusions.
Published: 2026-11-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology
Magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits form through a sequence of processes (e.g., magma generation, transport, crustal interaction, sulfur saturation, and sulfide accumulation). These processes can modify whole-rock compositions in different ways, making it challenging to evaluate the geochemical fertility of mafic-ultramafic magmatic intrusions. Several whole-rock fertility indices have been [...]
Lithologic Period Predicts Yttrium Enrichment in Western United States Stream Sediments
Published: 2026-11-01
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Design of Experiments and Sample Surveys, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability
Screening ground for heavy rare earth prospecting potential at regional scale depends upon archived geochemistry, because favorable intrusive terrain in the western U.S. greatly exceeds what any drilling program could evaluate directly. This research examined whether the lithologic period of intrusive igneous terrain can reliably predict acid-leachable yttrium using only the stream sediment [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Late Paleocene leaf macroflora from a destroyed outcrop of the Marcelina Formation, Paso Diablo Mine, Venezuela: a rescue record
Published: 2026-10-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Other Plant Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
In 2016, a production blast at a mining face of the Paso Diablo Mine (Guasare Basin, northwestern Venezuela) exposed a level rich in fossil leaves of the Marcelina Formation (late Paleocene), located between coal seams 4O and 4M. The material was removed as overburden by a mining shovel a few hours after it was documented. We present the first published record of leaf macroflora from this [...]
Forward-testing mineral prospectivity models with discovery dates: Quebec graphite and nickel
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Geology, Mining Engineering
Mineral prospectivity models are usually evaluated with spatial cross-validation, but known occurrences cluster around past exploration, so this may measure performance within the explored footprint rather than the ability to rank later discoveries. We trained seven prospectivity models on graphite and nickel occurrences known in Quebec, Canada, before 2000 and tested how they ranked cells with [...]
Erosion-induced momentum production and system acceleration govern landslide mobility
Published: 2026-10-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geotechnical Engineering, Glaciology, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Erosion can fundamentally alter landslide acceleration through the produced momentum. However, existing analytical landslide velocity models do not account for the energy dissipation associated with erosion-induced system acceleration. Here, I present a novel, complete dynamical velocity model for erosive landslides that incorporates two intrinsically coupled mechanically essential processes: [...]
From rifting to collision: deep closure of a Wilson cycle during the Archean–Paleoproterozoic transition at the Carajás-Bacajá boundary, Amazonian Craton
Published: 2026-10-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Tectonics and Structure
The Carajás-Bacajá boundary preserves complementary archives of continental rifting, passive-margin development, subduction, collision and post-collisional exhumation across the Archean-Paleoproterozoic transition. We present whole-rock lithogeochemistry, Sm-Nd isotopes, U-Pb zircon geochronology and thermobarometry from the Vila Santa Fé-Rio Preto association, a mafic-felsic granulitic [...]
Decoupling ore formation, ductile fabric and hydrothermal upgrading in the giant Salobo IOCG deposit, Carajás Province, Brazil
Published: 2026-10-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Tectonics and Structure
The Salobo deposit is the largest Cu-Au deposit of the Carajás Mineral Province, northern Brazil, and is hosted by altered volcanosedimentary schists of the Itacaiúnas Supergroup along the Cinzento Lineament. Multiscale structural analysis, mineral chemistry and published geochronology define four structural families: Pre-Dn, Dn, Dn+1 and Dn+2. The Pre-Dn event comprises high-temperature K, K-Fe [...]
MCR-GeoChem: A harmonized, quality-flagged open compilation of whole-rock and mineral geochemistry for the 1.1 Ga Midcontinent Rift in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin
Published: 2026-10-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Higher Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Nickel, copper, cobalt, and the platinum-group metals are all on the final 2025 U.S. List of Critical Minerals, and the 1.1-billion-year-old Midcontinent Rift around Lake Superior hosts some of the largest domestic resources of them. The rock chemistry needed to study these systems is public but fragmented: it is spread across the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geochemical Database, [...]
3D inversions of magnetic and gravity data for the Yaouré region, Ivory Coast: a greenstone belt characterization
Published: 2026-10-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology
We carried out 3D inverse modeling of full tensor gravity gradiometry data, its derived products (Tz and Tz residual), and magnetic data to recover the density and magnetic susceptibility distributions of the Yaouré Greenstone Belt in Ivory Coast, West Africa. The study area presents significant challenges: it lacks well-defined stratigraphy and structural measurements, and it lies close to the [...]
Earth's Bad Decades: A Sedimentary Record of the Chicxulub Aftermath from the New Jersey Coastal Plain and Offshore
Published: 2026-10-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The New Jersey Coastal Plain (NJCP) preserves records of the Chicxulub impact approximately 2,500 km from the crater, providing a unique archive of ejecta fallout, sediment reworking, ecological disruption, and recovery following the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Preservation of impact deposits varies with depositional setting. Offshore sections beneath the NJ continental shelf and slope [...]
Characteristics and consequences of H2O undersaturation and low melt fertility in mountain belt interiors
Published: 2026-10-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Tectonics and Structure
Continental deformation and crustal magmatism in orogenic settings are fundamentally linked to fluid availability and melting processes. Critical rheological transitions occur at approximately 7% melt volume, whereby melt-film connectivity reduces rock strength by as much as c. 90%, and at 20%, marking an onset of solid-to-liquid behaviour. The Mesoproterozoic Grenville orogen in Canada provides [...]
Active hazardous slow faults drive drainage evolution in the Atacama Desert
Published: 2026-10-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Tectonics and Structure
The Atacama Desert of the Central Andean forearc is the driest non-polar region on Earth, where extremely low erosion rates preserve geomorphic markers over Myr timescales. Between 19°S and 20°S, subtle Quaternary east-vergent reverse faults deform the west-sloping landscape and disrupt drainage development. This setting provides a unique opportunity to investigate fault evolution, uplift [...]