Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geomorphology
The geomorphological and sedimentological legacy of the historical Lake Lorsch within the Weschnitz floodplain (northeastern Upper Rhine Graben, Germany)
Published: 2025-06-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology
The artificial historical Lake Lorsch (1474/79 to 1718/20 CE) in the northeastern Upper Rhine Graben (Germany) is known from various historical sources, e.g. for fish farming, as a significant anthropogenic imprint of the Weschnitz floodplain. Nevertheless, there have been no geomorphological and sedimentological investigations about the (quasi-)natural context for the creation of the lake, its [...]
Linked canyons and fans communicate through a migrating bedrock-alluvial transition
Published: 2025-06-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The evolution of net-erosional fluvial landscapes is often treated separately from net-depositional fluvial landscapes, using different methods and different data input. Yet these landscapes are often tightly linked by means of a moving-boundary bedrock-alluvial transition. We consider a linked canyon-fan system in the setting of a Basin and Range province, basing our work loosely on Rainbow [...]
Spatiotemporal dynamics of floodplain patterns during the last 400 years south of Leipzig - A regional scale analysis
Published: 2025-06-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Elster-Pleiße floodplain south of Leipzig has undergone significant hydromorphological changes over the past centuries, influenced by both natural processes and anthropogenic interventions. This study employs high-resolution LiDAR-based fluvial-geomorphological mapping (1x1 m resolution) and old maps analyses to reconstruct past river dynamics and identify shifts in channel morphology. [...]
Unprecedented decline in modern coral reef communities could indicate the onset of the Anthropocene
Published: 2025-06-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Stratigraphy
Coral reefs have experienced widespread and accelerated decline, driven by a combination of global and local anthropogenic stressors. To contextualize these changes, we compared the composition of coral reef communities on Curaçao between 1973 and 2023 with that of corals preserved in fossil reefs from the Last Interglacial period (128–116 ka). These fossil reefs, exposed along the island’s [...]
Coral microatoll partial mortality after multi-hour subaerial exposure: Implications for relative sea-level studies
Published: 2025-05-30
Subjects: Geomorphology, Marine Biology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Some intertidal corals, known as microatolls, have a distinct morphology that reflects changes in local relative sea level. While past observations have shown that the top surface of these corals may be killed by subaerial exposure, little is known about the exact oceanographic or environmental conditions that cause a coral to die down to a particular level. Here, we combine field surveys, [...]
Paleo extreme waves in the North Atlantic: geological evidence from Sal Island, Cape Verde Archipelago.
Published: 2025-05-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology
The northwestern coast of Sal Island (Cape Verde Archipelago) is characterized by a rocky shoreline that is regularly impacted by Atlantic swells exceeding 4 m in height and 20 s in period. Yet, the only significant geomorphic expression of wave action is an extensive boulder ridge situated atop a rocky cliff, up to 80–100 m inland and between 10 and 15 m above present sea level. The presence of [...]
Holocene deglaciation of Prudhoe Dome, northwest Greenland
Published: 2025-05-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology
Projections of future sea-level rise benefit from understanding the response of past ice sheets to interglacial warmth. Constraints on the extent of inland Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) recession during the Middle Holocene (~8 – 4 ka) are limited because geological records of a smaller-than-modern phase largely remain beneath the modern ice sheet. We drilled through 509 m of firn and ice at Prudhoe [...]
The Apalachicola Barrier Island complex: a benchmark for MIS 5e (125 ka) sea-level oscillations?
Published: 2025-05-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology
Coastal sandy barrier systems develop under moderate wave energy, sufficient sediment supply, and adequate accommodation space, and can preserve critical paleoenvironmental records of past sea-level variations, climatic shifts, and storm histories within their geomorphological and stratigraphic frameworks. Beach ridges, identifiable on both horizontal (ridge-swale morphology) and vertical [...]
Earthquake faults recorded in the near-shore bathymetry of Japan's back-arc
Published: 2025-04-27
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure
The eastern margin of the Sea of Japan is a zone of great seismic and tsunami hazard due to multiple offshore and nearshore reverse faults as shown by the 2024 Mw 7.5 Noto Peninsula Earthquake. Here we compare coseismic deformation of the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake with 4767 individual marine terraces spanning the last Myr. This reveals that the earthquake faults started slipping between 326 [...]
Floods and Water Management in Chiang Mai and the Upper Ping catchment, Northern Thailand
Published: 2025-04-17
Subjects: Geomorphology, Hydrology, Sedimentology, Water Resource Management
The city of Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand has been subject to regular major floods in the past couple of decades. In this review, we provide some background information on the hydrology of Upper Ping river catchment, the hydrogeology of the Chiang Mai – Lamphun basin, historical records of hydrological events in the area and more recent depictions of major floods. In the second part of this [...]
Modern Cave Monitoring Informs Interpretations of Past Climate Change: Applications to Titan Cave, Wyoming
Published: 2025-03-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Speleology
Monitoring of cave environments is an essential process for deciphering records of past climate change preserved in the geochemical composition of speleothems, or mineral cave deposits. This study presents data from a multi-year monitoring effort in Titan Cave, Wyoming, a site of interest due to the abundance of speleothems suitable for paleoclimate reconstruction. Titan Cave exhibits annual cave [...]
Neoproterozoic denudation of a Laurentian superbasin
Published: 2025-02-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Tectonics and Structure
It has long been speculated that isolated Paleoproterozoic basins of northern Laurentia are remnants of a once contiguous sedimentary cover due to similarities in stratigraphy, paleocurrent directions, sediment provenance, and geochronological data. However, corroborating evidence for this 'superbasin hypothesis' has been lacking outside the footprints of the preserved basins. We present new [...]
Thermal channelization of suprapermafrost flows
Published: 2025-02-19
Subjects: Geomorphology, Hydrology
On many frozen hillslopes, subsurface water above permafrost is routed through regularly spaced, linear features known as water tracks. We test whether water tracks form through thermal channelization, where heat from viscous dissipation in flowpaths deepens the active layer, creating a preferred flow path that attracts more water. We derive equations for suprapermafrost Darcy flow and, using [...]
Where has all the Sinter gone? From the Pink and White Terraces, the Greatest Tourist Attraction of the Southern Hemisphere
Published: 2025-02-02
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geology, Geomorphology, Other Geography, Paleontology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science, Stratigraphy, Volcanology
Debate continues over the silica sinter Pink and White Terraces, the greatest tourist attraction of the southern hemisphere. The 1886 Tarawera eruption may or may not have destroyed them by burial or eruption. This research compiles surviving sinter. The volume is unexpectedly tiny, which bears on the debate. A database was developed including photography. A forensic approach was taken to [...]
A New Interpretation of Ptolemy's Germania Magna: Employing Computer-Assisted Image Distortion of a Medieval Map by Donnus Nicolaus Germanus to Examine Post-Glacial Geodynamics in Europe
Published: 2025-02-02
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Nature and Society Relations, Other Astrophysics and Astronomy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Geography, Other Planetary Sciences, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure, The Sun and the Solar System
This paper revisits Claudius Ptolemy's depiction of Germania Magna through a multidisciplinary approach, integrating computer-aided distortion analysis of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus's medieval cartography with geological insights. The study proposes that the region underwent significant and complex transformations, likely influenced by tectonic activity, such as the reactivation of the Caledonian [...]