Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Tectonics and Structure
The Role of Flexure Margins in Controlling Open Fracture Distribution: Insights from Analogue Modeling of Orthogonal Rift and Pull-Apart Systems
Published: 2026-02-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Hydrocarbon exploration in Basement Fracture Reservoirs faces significant challenges in predicting fracture connectivity below seismic resolution. This study utilizes analogue sandbox modeling to compare the spatial distribution of open fractures in orthogonal normal fault systems and pull-apart basins. Methodological innovation is implemented through the use of a 1 mm thick gypsum layer atop 8 [...]
A preliminary seismic catalog for the Mozambique Channel
Published: 2026-02-12
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
The Mozambique Channel is a 1,600-km long, 950 – 1,000-km wide deep-water arm of southwestern Indian Ocean, located between Mozambique and Madagascar Island. The channel hosts the offshore continuation of the East African Rift System, an active divergent plate boundary that has propagated from the African continent, across Mesozoic continental rifted margins, into Mesozoic oceanic lithosphere. [...]
Shifting the Paradigm: Redefining the Chronostratigraphy of the Triassic Rewan Group, Bowen Basin, Australia
Published: 2026-02-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
The Triassic continental Rewan Group in the northern Bowen Basin, Queensland, Australia, consisting of the Sagittarius Sandstone and the Arcadia Formation, preserves a key record of terrestrial environments and faunas that have been assumed to document recovery following the end‑Permian mass extinction (EPME). The Rewan Group accumulated in a retroarc foreland basin during the Hunter–Bowen [...]
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 [...]
Reconstruction of plate tectonic evolution and orogenesis of the Central Tethysides (Iran, Afghanistan) since the Permian
Published: 2026-01-07
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, [...]
Comment on Rodríguez Collantes et al. A New Earth Crustal Velocity Field Estimation from ROA cGNSS Station Networks in the South of Spain and North Africa. Remote Sens. 2025, 17, 704
Published: 2026-01-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
In their recent study, Rodríguez Collantes et al. presented a new GNSS velocity field from the Royal Institute and Observatory of the Spanish Navy (ROA) network, deployed in southern Spain and northern Africa. However, their claims regarding the novelty of certain results and the precision of their findings compared to recent publications are questionable. I present previous studies not cited by [...]
Large Earthquakes: a Way of Formation and Prediction
Published: 2025-12-26
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
It is believed that the accumulation of small fractures (small earthquakes) in the crust is one of many ways for the formation of large fractures (large earthquakes). In such cases, the temporal variations in the accumulation number of small earthquakes can be used to predict future seismic activity in the region. To do so, a structural system of the crust is constructed using the logarithmic [...]
Fault migration and basin evolution during complex rifting: examples from the western North Gulf of Evia, Greece
Published: 2025-12-24
Subjects: Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
Understanding dynamic processes of faulting and basin evolution across timescales in complex rift settings remains a key challenge in active continental tectonics. This is in part due to a limited number of young rift systems with well constrained, high-resolution age models derived from subsurface datasets. We aim to address this challenge and advance our understanding of time-dependent [...]
Large-scale rotational extension triggered basin formation in interior East Antarctica
Published: 2025-12-18
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. [...]
The role of the Hikurangi subduction interface in enabling Kaikōura-like earthquakes: Insights from synthetic earthquake catalogues
Published: 2025-12-09
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
A well-known problem in seismic hazard is the short duration of the historical record relative to the time between large earthquakes. This short record means that not all possible earthquakes have been observed, and that the statistics of earthquake recurrence intervals and magnitudes are poorly constrained. These issues are particularly acute for earthquakes involving multiple faults, such as [...]
A Himalayan-Scale Orogen in the Central African Copperbelt and the Formation of a World-Class Metal Province.
Published: 2025-12-08
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, [...]
Revised History of Pleistocene Vertical Motions in NE Sicily and Southern Calabria, Italy, from 40Ar/39Ar Dating and Fault Zone Morphology
Published: 2025-12-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
Long-term rates of crustal uplift in southern Calabria and NE Sicily are incompletely understood due to limited information about the age of marine terraces at 1.0–1.3 km above sea level (asl). This study provides a new constraint on high-elevation terrace ages through integrated analysis of geochronology, stratigraphy, shoreline modeling, and fault-zone morphology. 40Ar/39Ar step-heating [...]
Throw rate acceleration caused by dip-linkage on normal faults
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Tectonics and Structure
Areas of crustal extension often contain pre-existing structures that can reactivate or influence the geometry and growth of new, overlying faults. As strain accumulates, it is well know that new faults may link down-dip with pre-existing faults. Such linkage invariably leads to an increase in fault surface area, which is empirically linked to increasing seismic hazard. However, the timescales [...]
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 [...]