Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Planetary Sciences
ICESat-2 and ocean particulates: Building a roadmap for calculating Kd from space-based lidar photon profiles
Published: 2023-11-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
ICESat-2’s Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) has emerged as useful tool for calculating attenuation signals in natural surface waters, thus improving our understanding of particulates from open-ocean plankton to nearshore suspended terrigenous sediments. While several studies have employed methods based on Beer’s Law to derive attenuation coefficients (including through a [...]
Complementary classifications of aeolian dunes based on morphology, dynamics, and fluid mechanics
Published: 2023-10-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Fluid Dynamics, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Sciences, Sedimentology
Dunes form where winds blow over a bed of mobile sediment grains – conditions that are common in our solar system. On Earth, dunes abound in arid continental interiors and along sandy coastlines. Dune fields have also been recognized on Venus, Mars, Saturn's moon Titan, and Pluto. In response to the different boundary conditions and other environmental forcings, dunes adopt a rich diversity [...]
Effects on Target Geology
Published: 2023-09-15
Subjects: Planetary Sciences
The process of impact crater formation can fundamentally change the nature of target materials, creating products that can be observed from planetary-scale geophysics all the way down to mineral microstructure. Impact-generated shock waves can vaporise, melt, and permanently deform the materials they pass through. Large quantities of the target are damaged and displaced, ejecting material outside [...]
A scoping review on climate change education
Published: 2023-07-28
Subjects: Planetary Sciences
Escalating climate impacts predicted in the past decades are now a reality almost everywhere on the planet, and the time-critical dimension of the climate crisis means that the coming years will be instrumental in securing a climate resilient future for generations to come. Education is central to promoting climate action, yet the role that climate change education plays in advancing climate [...]
Discovery of a new 12-km impact crater candidate at As Sail Al Kabeer, Saudi Arabia
Published: 2023-07-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geology, Planetary Sciences
The Arabian shield of Saudi Arabia likely has many impact craters due to the old age of its rocks, however many of them have not yet been discovered due to their resemblance to plutons. Using satellite imagery, a 12-km wide circular structure with a central peak was identified at As Sail Al Kabeer, 40 kilometers north of the city of Taif in western Saudi Arabia. Fieldwork has shown that this [...]
Making Planets on Earth: How Experimental Petrology Is Essential to Planetary Exploration
Published: 2023-04-26
Subjects: Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Sciences
Our knowledge of the evolution of the solar system relies upon our ability to interpret a limited set of observations, including geochemical data from returned samples and meteorites, remotely sensed data from spacecraft and telescopes, and information measured in situ via landers and rovers. Our ability to obtain these data is constantly improving in quality and quantity, but the understanding [...]
Calling for a National Model Benchmarking Facility
Published: 2023-04-14
Subjects: Biology, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Life Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences, Systems Biology
The modern world uses predictive computer models for many important purposes, including weather predictions, epidemic management, flood forecasting and warnings, and economic policymaking. We need to know how much we can trust the projections of these models, not only to achieve more accurate projections for systems, but also to undertake scientific learning about systems by incrementally testing [...]
Examining the power supplied to Earth's dynamo by magnesium precipitation and radiogenic heat production
Published: 2023-04-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
We examine magnesium and potassium solubility in liquid Fe mixtures, representative of Earth’s core composition, in equilibrium with liquid silicate mixtures representative of an early magma ocean. Our study is based on the calculation of the chemical potentials of MgO and K2O in both phases, using density functional theory. For MgO, we also study stability against precipitation of the solid [...]
Reconciling fast and slow cooling during planetary formation as recorded in the main group pallasites
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Cosmochemistry, Other Planetary Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geology, Planetary Sciences
Pallasite meteorites contain evidence for vastly different cooling timescales: rapid cooling at high temperatures (K/yrs) and slow cooling at lower temperatures (K/Myrs). Pallasite olivine also shows contrasting textures ranging from well-rounded to angular and fragmental, and some samples record chemical zoning. Previous pallasite formation models have required fortuitous changes to the parent [...]
False positives are common in single-station template matching
Published: 2023-02-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Sciences
Template matching has become a cornerstone technique of observational seismology. By taking known events, and scanning them against a continuous record, new events smaller than the signal-to-noise ratio can be found, substantially improving the magnitude of completeness of earthquake catalogues. Template matching is normally used in an array setting, however as we move into the era of planetary [...]
Numerical simulation of meteorite impact on basaltic lavas at Lonar Crater, India
Published: 2023-01-28
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Astrophysics and Astronomy, Planetary Sciences
Lonar lake is a hypervelocity impact crater formed in a basaltic terrain of Deccan Traps in the state of Maharashtra, India. The crater has an approximate radius of 915 m and an average depth of about 137 m. Here we report the results of our numerical investigations aimed to elucidate the physical characteristics of incoming asteroid. For realistic simulation, we not only consider [...]
Trends in Planetary Science research in the Puna and Atacama desert regions: under-representation of local scientific institutions?
Published: 2022-12-19
Subjects: Planetary Sciences
In 2019 while launching a multidisciplinary research project aimed at developing the Puna de Atacama region as a natural laboratory, investigators within the University of Atacama (Chile) conducted a bibliographic search identifying previously studied geographical points of the region and of potential interest for planetary science and astrobiology research. This preliminary work highlighted a [...]
Comment on "Estimates on the Frequency of Volcanic Eruptions on Venus" by Byrne & Krishnamoorthy (2022)
Published: 2022-12-01
Subjects: Other Planetary Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Sciences
Byrne & Krishnamoorthy (2022) estimated the frequency of volcanic eruptions on Venus by scaling the eruption frequency obtained from a database containing Earth data. In reproducing their study, I found that the estimated number of new and ongoing volcanic eruptions on Venus in a given year is approximately 42, instead of the previously reported 120 eruptions. This updated estimate of Byrne & [...]
Geosphere and Biosphere coevolution: the role of trace metals availability in the evolution of biogeochemistry
Published: 2022-11-21
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Microbiology, Planetary Sciences
Earth’s geosphere and biosphere have coevolved over time, influencing each other’s stability and keeping our planet habitable for most of its 4.543 billion years of history. Biogeochemical cycles play a key role in controlling this interaction, connecting long-term geological cycles and the much faster evolution of the Earth’s outer biologically dominated envelopes. A small set of [...]
Efficient Estimation of Climate State and Its Uncertainty Using Kalman Filtering with Application to Policy Thresholds and Volcanism
Published: 2022-10-18
Subjects: Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Non-linear Dynamics, Planetary Sciences, Statistical Models
We present the Energy Balance Model – Kalman Filter (EBM-KF), a hybrid model projecting and assimilating the global mean surface temperature (GMST) and ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA). It combines an annual energy balance model (difference equations) with 17 parameters drawn from the literature and a statistical Extended Kalman Filter assimilating GMST and OHCA, either observed timeseries or [...]