Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geomorphology
Reconstructing the morphologies and hydrodynamics of ancient rivers from source to sink: Cretaceous Western Interior Basin, Utah, USA
Published: 2020-11-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Quantitative reconstruction of palaeohydrology from fluvial stratigraphy provides sophisticated insights into the response, and relative impact, of tectonic and climatic drivers on ancient fluvial landscapes. Here, field measurements and a suite of quantitative approaches are used to develop a four-dimensional (space and time) reconstruction of palaeohydrology in Late Cretaceous palaeorivers of [...]
A Vision for the Future Low-Temperature Geochemical Data-scape
Published: 2020-11-21
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Other Computer Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Soil Science
Data sharing benefits the researcher, the scientific community, and most importantly, the public by enabling more impactful analysis of data and greater transparency in scientific research. However, like many other scientists, the low-temperature geochemistry (LTG) community has generally not developed protocols and standards for publishing, citing, and versioning datasets. This paper is the [...]
Particle energy partitioning and transverse diffusion during rarefied travel on an experimental hillslope
Published: 2020-11-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology
Recent theoretical and experimental work (Furbish et al., 2020a, 2020b) indicates that rarefied particle motions on rough hillslope surfaces are controlled by the balance between gravitational heating of particles due to conversion of potential to kinetic energy and frictional cooling of the particles due to collisions with the surface. Here we elaborate how particle energy is partitioned [...]
Comparing patterns of hurricane washover into built and unbuilt environments
Published: 2020-10-23
Subjects: Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Sustainability
Extreme geohazard events can change landscape morphology by redistributing huge volumes of sediment. Event-driven sediment deposition is typically studied in unbuilt settings – despite the ubiquity of occurrence and high economic cost of these geohazard impacts in built environments. Moreover, sedimentary consequences of extreme events in built settings tend to go unrecorded because they are [...]
A single multi-scale and multi-sourced semi-automated lineament detection technique for detailed structural mapping with applications to geothermal energy exploration
Published: 2020-10-22
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Tectonics and Structure
A multitude of semi-automated algorithms, many incorporating multi-sourced datasets into a single analysis, now exist. However, these operate at a fixed pixel resolution resulting in multi-sourced methods being limited by the largest input pixel size. Multi-scale lineament detection circumvents this issue and allows increased levels of detail to be captured. In this study we present a [...]
Multi-scale hydro-morphodynamic modelling using mesh movement methods.
Published: 2020-10-22
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Geomorphology, Mathematics, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Partial Differential Equations
Hydro-morphodynamic models are an important tool that can be used in the protection of coastal zones. They can be required to resolve spatial scales ranging from sub-metre to hundreds of kilometres and are computationally expensive. In this work, we apply mesh movement methods to a depth-averaged hydro-morphodynamic model for the first time, in order to tackle both these issues. Mesh movement [...]
Controls on denudation along the East Australian continental margin
Published: 2020-10-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We report a comprehensive inventory of Be-10-based basin-wide denudation rates (n=160) and Al-26/Be-10 ratios (n=67) from 48 drainage basins along a 3,000 km stretch of the East Australian passive continental margin. We provide data from both basins draining east of the continental divide (n=37) and discharging into the Tasman and Coral Seas, and from basins draining to the west as part of the [...]
River Planform Extraction From High-Resolution SAR Images Via Generalised Gamma Distribution Superpixel Classification
Published: 2020-10-21
Subjects: Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology
The extraction of river planforms from remotely sensed satellite images is a task of crucial importance to many applications such as land planning, water resource monitoring or flood prediction. In this paper we present a novel framework for the extraction of rivers from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images, based on superpixel segmentation and subsequent classification. Superpixel segmentation [...]
Fernandes and Roberts (2020) - preprint
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
There are many geoscience problems for which constraining histories of uplift or subsidence of Earth’s surface is of direct or indirect importance, for example reconstructing tectonics, mantle convection, geomorphology, sedimentary and chemical flux, biodiversity, glacio-eustasy and climate change. The least equivocal constraints on timing and amplitude of vertical motions on geological [...]
Bedload transport in rivers: size matters but so does shape!
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Bedload transport modelling in rivers, which defines the threshold for pebble movement, takes into account the size and density of pebbles, but does not formally consider particle shape. The lack of analyses evaluating the influences of shape and density on particle mobility presents a major deficiency. To address this issue and to compare the relative roles of the density and shape of particles, [...]
Bridging the gap between geophysics and geology with Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Natural Resource Economics, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Water Resource Management
Inverse mapping from geophysics to geology is a difficult problem due to the inherent uncertainty of geophysical data and the spatially heterogeneous patterns (structure) in geology. We describe GANSim, a type of generative adversarial networks (GANs) that discovers the mapping between remotely-sensed geophysical information and geology with realistic patterns, with a specially designed loss [...]
A general expression for wave-induced sediment bypassing of an isolated headland
Published: 2020-07-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate knowledge of the sediment budget of a coastal cell is necessary for coastal management and predicting long-term coastal change. An important component in the sediment budget of many wave-dominated embayed coastlines is the amount of sediment that bypasses rocky headlands, which present partial barriers to alongshore transport. Despite a recent surge in research interest in headland [...]
Frequent Mass Movements from Glacial and Lahar Terraces, Controlled by Both Hillslope Characteristics and Fluvial Erosion, are an Important Sediment Source to Puget Sound Rivers
Published: 2020-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Mass movements from glacial and lahar terraces in the middle and lower reaches of rivers draining the Washington Cascade Range to Puget Sound may represent a substantial portion of those rivers’ sediment supply and pose significant mass movement hazards. However, the quantitative importance of this sediment source is unknown, and the magnitudes, spatial distribution, styles, and controls of these [...]
An Early Pliocene relative sea level record from Patagonia (Argentina)
Published: 2020-07-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We report a geological unit surveyed and dated in central Patagonia, Argentina (Camarones town, San Jorge Gulf). The unit was interpreted as representative of an intertidal environment and dated to the Early Pliocene (4.69-5.23 Ma) with strontium isotope stratigraphy. The elevation of this unit was measured with differential GPS at ca. 36 m above present-day sea level. Considering modern tidal [...]
Application of the tilt derivative transform to bathymetric data for structural lineament mapping
Published: 2020-07-08
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
High-resolution bathymetry surveys provide an opportunity to analyse local geological structure where onshore areas afford limited exposure. Semi-automated lineament detection methods are necessary for areas of large coverage where a manual analysis would be subjective and time-consuming. However, semi-automated approaches are dependent on effective feature extraction methods to identify genuine [...]