Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Sedimentology
Deglaciation history and relative sea level changes since the Last Glacial Maximum in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada
Published: 2025-07-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
During the last glacial period, continents and surrounding shelves in high latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere were covered by ice sheets. Their retreat during the late Pleistocene and Holocene resulted in isostatic adjustments of the previously glaciated landmass, which influenced post-glacial changes in relative sea level (RSL). Many questions, however, remain about the timing and [...]
Constraining the paleoclimate and paleoecology of the Selandian – Thanetian transition in the Lower Wilcox, Texas Gulf Coast
Published: 2025-07-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The Selandian–Thanetian Transition Event (STTE) represents a relatively understudied interval of carbon cycle instability and environmental disruption during the Paleocene. This study presents a comprehensive sedimentological, palynological, and geochemical record of the STTE based on two shallow marine wells (Moczygemba VT #11 and Vogelsang Frieda #1) from the Texas Gulf Coast. Our multi-proxy [...]
Continental-Scale Carbonate Sedimentation and Environmental Correlates of the Shuram-Wonoka Excursion
Published: 2025-07-01
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Strata of the Ediacaran Period record many Earth-Life features that distinguish the Neoproterozoic-Phanerozoic transition. However, it is difficult to determine cause and effect relationships between Ediacaran events. Continental-scale patterns of sedimentation have been used as proxies to investigate controls on Phanerozoic macroevolution, including sea level drivers and potential carbon cycling [...]
Generative geomodelling: Deep Learning vs. Geostatistics
Published: 2025-06-20
Subjects: Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Generative geomodelling aims to simulate subsurface facies distributions while honoring multiple types of conditioning data and geological knowledge. This study selects three typical multiple-point statistics (MPS) approaches—Direct Sampling (DS), Quick Sampling (QS), and SNESIM—and two Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) workflows—post-GANs perturbation and GANSim—as representatives to compare [...]
Data-Driven Facies Prediction: A Comparative Study of Random Forest, XGBoost, SVM, CatBoost, and K-Means
Published: 2025-06-10
Subjects: Analysis, Earth Sciences, Geology, Sedimentology
Facies classification plays a critical role in characterizing subsurface heterogeneity and supporting effective reservoir development. Traditional methods, which often rely on core interpretation and manual log analysis, are limited by subjective interpretation and sparse data coverage. This study aims to improve facies prediction by comparing the performance of five machine learning models: [...]
Calcium isotope constraints on Mesoarchean seawater
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
The cause of the Great Oxidation Event ~2.4 billion-years-ago (Ga) is hotly debated. Recent models favor the emergence of continents as driving the event. However, we suggest that extensive shallow-marine carbonate platforms existed in the Mesoarchean. This conclusion is based on Ca isotopes from 2.8 Ga carbonate rocks, that constrains the Ca isotope value of Mesoarchean seawater to -0.5‰ [...]
Spatio-economic valuation of sand in the context of shoreline (in)stability in the Senegal estuary (West Africa), integrating DeltaDTM and LiDAR technology
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Natural Resource Economics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Statistics and Probability
Coastal erosion is an increasing challenge in coastal management, resulting from complex interactions between geomorphological features, marine forcing, and anthropogenic interventions. The growing influence of human development and intervention on estuaries and coastal area evolution has led to a global sediment crisis, particularly in tropical or low-lying deltas (for example, Niger, Senegal, [...]
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 [...]
Ediacaran coupling of climate and biosphere dynamics
Published: 2025-03-14
Subjects: Climate, Glaciology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Throughout the Phanerozoic (538.8 Ma to present), climate change is demonstrably linked to radiations, extinctions, and turnovers in the biosphere. Here, we show that this connection existed in the late Ediacaran (~579 to 538.8 Ma), the first interval in Earth’s history to host complex macro-organisms, including early metazoans. Current correlations of glacial sedimentary deposits have been used [...]
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 [...]
Algal lipid distributions and hydrogen isotope ratios reflect phytoplankton community dynamics
Published: 2025-01-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Reconstructions of past changes in algal community composition provide important context for future alterations in biogeochemical cycling. However, many existing phytoplankton proxies are indicative of individual algal groups and are not fully representative of the whole community. Here, we evaluated hydrogen isotope ratios of algal lipids (δ2HLipid) as a potential proxy for phytoplankton [...]
Cambrian foreland phosphogenesis in the Khuvsgul Basin of Mongolia
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
Ediacaran-Cambrian phosphorite deposits in northern Mongolia have been associated with a putative increase in nutrient delivery to the global oceans that drove oxygenation and the rise of animals. However, like many phosphorites from this ~130 Myr interval, the precise age and depositional setting of these deposits remain poorly constrained. Here, we integrate new geological mapping, [...]
Challenging the turbidity current maximum run-up height paradigm
Published: 2024-12-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Fluid Dynamics, Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Turbidity currents are a primary mechanism for transporting sediments, pollutants, and organic carbon into the deep ocean. They are strongly influenced by seafloor topography because of their relative bulk density and associated gravitational influence being 3-4 orders of magnitude smaller than in terrestrial systems. Marked run-up of turbidity currents on slopes poses a hazard to seafloor [...]
Effective permeability of fluvial lithofacies in the Bunter Sandstone Formation, UK
Published: 2024-11-30
Subjects: Oil, Gas, and Energy, Sedimentology, Water Resource Management
Understanding effective permeability is crucial for predicting fluid migration and trapping in subsurface reservoirs. The Bunter Sandstone of North-West Europe hosts major groundwater and geothermal resources and is targeted for CO2 and hydrogen storage projects. Here the effective permeability of fluvial facies within the Bunter Sandstone Formation was assessed using facies-scale models. Twelve [...]
Seafloor character of the Roman Rock area in False Bay, South Africa
Published: 2024-10-04
Subjects: Geology, Sedimentology
Context: This study investigates the seafloor character of a 12 km2 area off Simon’s Town in False Bay, South Africa. Aims: The goal was to map the seafloor geology around Roman Rock Lighthouse, focusing on sedimentology. Methods: Side-scan sonar and single-beam echosounder were used, complemented by sediment sampling and diver observations for ground-truthing. Sediment samples were analysed for [...]