Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Planetary Sciences
Viewing Lobate Patterns on Mars and Earth as Climate Modulated Fluid-like Instabilities
Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Planetary Sciences
Lobate features found on high-latitude slopes on Mars resemble terrestrial cold-climate soil patterns known as solifluction lobes. Whether this provides evidence of freeze thaw processes on Mars or pattern equifinality is up for debate. Guided by recently developed theory for solifluction pattern formation inspired by fluid instabilities, here we compare HiRISE imagery of Martian lobes with a [...]
Al Hawi, a 4-km-wide impact structure in northern Saudi Arabia
Published: 2024-09-23
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, Planetary Geology, Planetary Sciences, The Sun and the Solar System
The northern region of Saudi Arabia hosts several impact craters and structures. This paper describes the discovery of a 4-km-wide complex impact structure located in the paleozoic sedimentary rocks of northern Saudi Arabia 210 kilometers north east of the city of Tabuk. The impact structure is composed of a central peak displaying intense folding and shock metamorphism surrounded by an inner [...]
Gravity affects magma-induced crustal deformation: comparing laccoliths on the Moon, Mars, and Earth
Published: 2024-09-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Planetary Sciences
Dome-shaped, uplifted surface areas and associated fractures on Mars and the Moon are inferred to result from the shallow emplacement of magma intrusions. This inference originates from analog observations of Earth’s volcanic and igneous plumbing systems. Computational models help estimate those inferred magma bodies' geometry and emplacement depth. Such models have not yet simulated the dynamic [...]
Array-based seismic measurements of OSIRIS-REx's re-entry
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
The return home of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in September 2023 marked only the fifth time that an artificial object entered the Earth's atmosphere at interplanetary velocities. Although rare, such events serve as valuable analogues for natural meteoroid re-entries; enabling study of hypersonic dynamics, shockwave generation, and acoustic-to-seismic coupling. Here, we report on the signatures [...]
Reduced contribution of sulfur to the mass extinction associated with the Chicxulub impact event
Published: 2024-08-14
Subjects: Planetary Sciences
The Chicxulub asteroid impact event at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary ~66 Myr ago is widely considered responsible for the mass extinction event leading to the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs. Short-term cooling due to massive release of climate-active agents is hypothesized to have been crucial, with S-bearing gases originating from the target rock vaporization considered a main [...]
Constraining Earth's core composition from inner core nucleation.
Published: 2024-08-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences
TROPICAL STORM SURGE: FORMATION, IMPACT, AND RECENT ADVANCES IN ITS PREDICTION TOWARDS DEVELOPING MITIGATION STRATEGIES
Published: 2024-07-19
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, Planetary Sciences
Tropical storm surge poses significant risks to coastal areas, necessitating precise prediction for effective emergency preparedness and mitigation. Recent advances in numerical models such as SLOSH, ADCIRC, and FVCOM have revolutionized storm surge forecasting by accurately simulating complex hydrodynamic processes, bolstered by ADCIRC's use of high-resolution grids and parallel computing for [...]
Mantle avalanches in a Venus-like stagnant lid planet
Published: 2024-06-28
Subjects: Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences
Stagnant lid planets are characterized by a globe-encircling, conducting lid that is thick and strong, which leads to reduced global surface heat flows. Consequently, the mantles of such planets can have warmer interiors than Earth, and interestingly, a pyrolitic mantle composition under warmer conditions is predicted to have a distinctly different mantle transition zone compared to the [...]
Diversity at Goldschmidt conference
Published: 2024-06-19
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Sciences
The field of geochemistry has grown significantly over the past seventy years, contributing to our understanding of Earth's processes. However, geochemists often identify with broader fields like geology or oceanography, reflecting an identity crisis within the discipline. The Goldschmidt Conference, established in 1988, serves as a central international meeting for geochemists, promoting their [...]
Ultramafic Melt Viscosity: A Model
Published: 2024-05-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
A non-Arrhenian model for the Newtonian viscosity (η) of ultramafic melts is presented. The model predicts the viscosity of ultramafic melts as a function of temperature (T), pressure (P), H2O content and for a range of melt compositions (70 < Mg# < 100). The calibration consists of 63 viscosity measurements at ambient pressure for 20 individual melt compositions and 5 high-P measurements [...]
Geostratigraphic mapping of the intrusive Valentine Domes on the Moon
Published: 2024-04-05
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
Lunar intrusive igneous domes have not been the center of much research in the past due to their rare occurrence on the lunar surface, and the difficulty in locating them. Most of the known structures were discovered using images with low illumination angles, including data from the Lunar Orbiter, telescopic images, and photos taken during the Apollo Missions. These intrusive domes are [...]
Grüneisen parameter formalism in the study of the Earth's core formation: a sensitivity study
Published: 2024-03-21
Subjects: Condensed Matter Physics, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Mineral Physics, Other Earth Sciences, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences
The Grüneisen parameter is an important parameter for the thermal state and evolution of the core, but its uncertainties and their implications are sometimes overlooked . Several formalisms using different parameters values have been used in different studies, making comparison between studies difficult. In this paper, we use previously published datasets to test the sensitivity of modeling the [...]
Development of metrics and indices for assessing national progress on climate risk, adaptation and dissonance based on observations, perceptions, and projections.
Published: 2024-01-18
Subjects: Planetary Sciences
The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) included the first Global Stocktake (GST) as part of the implementation of the Paris Agreement. GST is a five-yearly assessment of the state and advancements in global climate action and aims to help national governments keep track of their climate ambitions and implementation progress. This paper contributes to the discussion through the analysis of [...]
Diverse Carbonates in Exoplanet Oceans Promote the Carbon Cycle
Published: 2023-12-22
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Sciences
Carbonate precipitation in oceans is essential for the carbonate-silicate cycle (inorganic carbon cycle) to maintain temperate climates. By considering the thermodynamics of carbonate chemistry, we demonstrate that the ocean pH decreases by approximately 0.5 for a factor of 10 increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide content. The upper and lower limits of ocean pH are within 1-4 of each other, [...]
MoonIndex, an Open-Source Tool to Generate Spectral Indexes for the Moon from M3 Data
Published: 2023-12-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
Spectral indexes are tools widely used to analyze the composition of planetary surfaces. Many indexes have been formulated over the years to map the lunar surface, but there is no unified database for them. In this work we describe an Open-Source Python package called MoonIndex, that recreates thirty-eight indexes compiled from the literature, using data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3). The [...]