Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geomorphology
Multi-temporal relative landslide risk analysis for sustainable development of rapidly growing cities
Published: 2021-10-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In the last decades, developing countries have experienced an increase in impact of natural disasters due to both the ongoing climate change and the sustained expansion of urban areas. Intrinsic vulnerability of settlements due to poverty and poor governance, as well as the lack of tools for urban occupation planning and mitigation protocols, have made such impact particularly severe. Cuenca [...]
Grain shape effects in bed load sediment transport
Published: 2021-10-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geomorphology
Bed load sediment transport, in which wind or water flowing over a bed of sediment causes grains to roll or hop along the bed, is a critically important mechanism in contexts ranging from river restoration to planetary exploration. Despite its widespread occurrence, predictions of bed load sediment flux are notoriously imprecise. Many studies have focused on grain size variability as a source of [...]
The Effect of Formation Processes on The Frequency of Palaeolithic Cave Sites in Semi-Arid Zones: Insights From Kazakhstan
Published: 2021-10-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Speleology, Stratigraphy
Central Asian caves with Palaeolithic deposits are few but they provide a rich record of human fossils and cultural assemblages that has been used to model Late Pleistocene hominin dispersals. However, previous research has not yet systematically evaluated the formation processes that influence the frequency of Palaeolithic cave sites in the region. To address this deficiency, we combined field [...]
Rapid characterisation of the extremely large landslide threatening the Rules Reservoir (Southern Spain)
Published: 2021-10-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology
When an active landslide is first identified in an artificial reservoir, a comprehensive study has to be quickly conducted to analyse the possible hazard that it may represent to such a critical infrastructure. This paper presents the case of the El Arrecife Landslide, located in a slope of the Rules Reservoir (Southern Spain), as an example of geological and motion data integration for [...]
Discontinuity in Equilibrium Wave-Current Ripple Size and Shape Caused by a Winnowing Threshold in Cohesive Sand-Clay Beds
Published: 2021-09-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Sedimentology
Sediments composed of mixed cohesive clay and non-cohesive sand are widespread in a range of aquatic environments. The dynamics of ripples in mixed sand–clay substrates have been studied under pure current and pure wave conditions. However, the effect of cohesive clay on ripple development under combined currents and waves has not been examined, even though combined flows are common in estuaries, [...]
A survey of storm-induced seaward-transport features observed during the 2019 and 2020 hurricane seasons
Published: 2021-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Hurricanes are known to play a critical role in reshaping coastlines, particularly on the open ocean coast in cases of overwash, but storm induced seaward-directed flow and responses are often ignored or un-documented. Subaerial evidence for seaward sediment transport (outwash, return-flow) increases our understanding of the impact hurricanes have on coastal and barrier island evolution. Towards [...]
Assessment pebble virtual velocity from combined active RFID fixed stations and geophones
Published: 2021-09-06
Subjects: Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology
The monitoring of coarse sediment transport is a domain teeming with technical innovations and methodological developments aimed at improving the characterization of bedload processes at different spatial and temporal scales. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has improved sediment tracking experiments, allowing the characterization of processes at the individual particle and [...]
High interstadial sea levels over the past 420ka from the Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea
Published: 2021-09-06
Subjects: Climate, Geology, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Tectonics and Structure
The history of sea level across the Quaternary is essential for assessing past and future climate. Global sea-level reconstructions are typically derived from oxygen isotope curves, but require calibration with geological constraints that are scarce prior to the last glacial cycle (>130 thousand years ago). Here we show that the coral reef terrace sequence at the Huon Peninsula (Papua New Guinea) [...]
Centennial- and orbital-scale erosion beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet
Published: 2021-09-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geomorphology, Glaciology
Erosion beneath glaciers and ice sheets is a fundamental Earth-surface process dictating landscape development, which in turn influences ice-flow dynamics and the climate sensitivity of ice masses. The rate at which subglacial erosion takes place, however, is notoriously difficult to observe because it occurs beneath modern glaciers in a largely inaccessible environment. Here, we present 1) [...]
Safety and Belonging in the Field: A Checklist for Educators
Published: 2021-08-19
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Fresh Water Studies, Geochemistry, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Higher Education, Human Geography, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Meteorology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Planetary Sciences, Outdoor Education, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Glaciology, Planetary Hydrology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences, Planetary Sedimentology, Remote Sensing, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Soil Science, Spatial Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management
Ensuring taught fieldwork is a positive, generative, collective, and valuable experience for all participants requires considerations beyond course content. To guarantee safety and belonging, participants’ identities (backgrounds and protected characteristics) must be considered as a part of fieldwork planning and implementation. Furthermore, getting fieldwork right is an important step in [...]
Calibration, inversion and sensitivity analysis for hydro-morphodynamic models
Published: 2021-08-03
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Fluid Dynamics, Geomorphology, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Partial Differential Equations, Programming Languages and Compilers
The development of reliable, sophisticated hydro-morphodynamic models is essential for protecting the coastal environment against hazards such as flooding and erosion. There exists a high degree of uncertainty associated with the application of these models, in part due to incomplete knowledge of various physical, empirical and numerical closure related parameters in both the hydrodynamic and [...]
The world’s second-largest, recorded landslide event: lessons learnt from the landslides triggered during and after the 2018 Mw 7.5 Papua New Guinea earthquake
Published: 2021-07-31
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Other Earth Sciences
Widespread landslide events provide rare but valuable opportunities to investigate the spatial and size distributions of landslides in relation to seismic, climatic, geological and morphological factors. This study presents a unique event inventory for the co-seismic landslides induced by the February 25, 2018 Mw 7.5 Papua New Guinea earthquake as well as its post-seismic counterparts including [...]
Contrasting geomorphic and stratigraphic responses to normal fault development during single and multi-phase rifting
Published: 2021-07-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Understanding the impact of tectonics on surface processes and the resultant stratigraphic evolution in multi-phase rifts is challenging, as patterns of erosion and deposition related to older phases of extension are overprinted by the subsequent extensional phases. In this study, we use a one-way coupled numerical modelling approach between a tectonic and a surface processes model to investigate [...]
Floods on alluvial fans: implications for reworking rates, morphology and fan hazards
Published: 2021-07-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Flood events are the agents of change on alluvial fans. However, most alluvial fan experiments have used constant flows to model fans and the channels upon them. Here, we present results from a series of alluvial fan experiments with different patterns of flow variation (i.e. different hydrograph shapes). We conducted experiments with 1) constant flow, 2) alternating high and low flows, 3) a [...]
When does faulting-induced subsidence drive distributary network reorganization?
Published: 2021-07-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology
Deltas exhibit spatially and temporally variable subsidence, including vertical displacement due to movement along fault planes. Faulting-induced subsidence perturbs delta-surface gradients, potentially causing distributary networks to shift sediment dispersal within the landscape. Sediment dispersal restricted to part of the landscape could hinder billion-dollar investments aiming to restore [...]