Preprints
There are 7665 Preprints listed.
Characterizing and Predicting Change in the Global Ocean Biosphere: A Four-Dimensional Observing Strategy for the 2028–2037 Decadal Survey
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Ocean ecosystems constitute the largest habitable volume on Earth and regulate climate, support fisheries and a global Blue Economy valued at an estimated $1.5 trillion annually and provide services on which human wellbeing depends. Four decades of satellite ocean color observations have transformed understanding of phytoplankton distribution, biodiversity, and productivity, and NASA's PACE [...]
Topology-Aware Quality Control of Triangulated Terrain Models Using Local Euler Curvature and Elevation-Filtration Curves
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Triangulated irregular networks (TINs) are widely used to represent topography and bathymetry, but their quali-ty control is usually dominated by geometric criteria such as minimum angle and aspect ratio, which do not test whether connectivity errors have changed the topology of the mesh. We present a topology-aware quali-ty-control framework based on a local Euler-curvature identity and on [...]
Was the Pre-Event SWIR Anomaly at Tsangbu Ri a Genuine Glacier-Collapse Precursor? A Calibrated Multi-Glacier Test of the 2026 Case
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Geographic Information Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Planetary Geology, Planetary Glaciology, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Tectonics and Structure
On 26 August 2026 a compound bedrock-and-glacier failure on the northern flank of the Langtang Lirung–Tsangbu Ri (Kimshung) massif, Nepal–China border, generated a rock–ice avalanche and a catastrophic downstream flood along the Bhotekoshi–Trishuli river system. A pre-event Sentinel-2 shortwave-infrared (SWIR2–NIR–Red) composite (12 August 2026) shows a sharply bounded, strongly saturated [...]
Quantification of Power Plant NOx Emissions: A Reference for Diurnal and Seasonal Accuracy of TEMPO
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Remote Sensing
Satellite observations of NO2 from geostationary orbit provide an opportunity to study daytime emissions with hourly temporal resolution. We used NO2 column measurements from Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) with a new fitting function, the rise-decay (RD) model, to derive NOx emissions at 64 power plants in the continental United States. The RD model separately fits the [...]
A One-Dimensional Framework for Three-Phase Flow in Immiscible and Near-Miscible CO2 Injection: Application to Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2 Storage
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Engineering
We develop an integrated analytical framework for one-dimensional three-phase flow - involving rarefaction waves, shocks generated through the elliptic region and shock locus, as well as water and oil banks - for the analysis of oil recovery and CO2 storage. The solutions are compared with numerical approximations from a commercial reservoir simulator and an explicit finite difference code, [...]
The mortality burden of airborne fine mineral dust in the United States
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Regulation under the Clean Air Act has reduced combustion-derived fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the United States, leaving windblown mineral dust—driven by drought, shrinking water bodies, and fallowed farmland—as a growing and largely unregulated share of what remains. Existing mortality burden estimates have had to borrow concentration–response functions from total PM2.5 and disagree [...]
Pareidolia in the Taupō volcanic zone: How misconstructed survey cartography condemned the white terrace, wonder of the world
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Chaotic conditions prevailed after the 1886 Tarawera eruption, when the loss of the Pink and White Terraces, New Zealand’s Eighth Wonder of the World, was rapidly declared. Four days after the eruption, surveyor Percy Smith approached about four kilometres from his supposed site of the White Terrace and mistakenly identified what he described as a “west opening horseshoe bay” adjacent to a hill, [...]
One Plate to find Them, How a unique surviving photograph confirmed the Hochstetter Paradigm and located the White Terrace—Eighth Wonder of the World
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This empirical research analyses a unique vintage photographic plate that confirms the location of a lost Wonder of the World, the Pink and White Terraces. Their location has been debated since 1886 when they were buried in a volcanic eruption. The paper is a meta-analysis that develops a Parallax Effect methodology with a Skyline Gauge to consolidate and test all 1886–2024 claims to the White [...]
Reconstructing a 140-Year Historiography of Misinterpretation: A Forensic Reassessment of the Tarawera Eruption and the Pink and White Terraces
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The eruption of Mount Tarawera on 10 June 1886 devastated the region and buried one of the Victorian world’s natural wonders, prompting widespread concern across the British Empire. The fate of the Pink and White Terraces has long been treated as settled: that both formations were destroyed. This paper re-examines that conclusion through an historiographic and spatial analysis of the [...]
The BLiSS model: Four-way triangulation of a buried 293-m horizon at the White Terrace site, Taupō Volcanic Zone
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Following the 1886 Mount Tarawera eruption, the Pink and White Terraces, New Zealand’s Eighth Wonder of the World, were widely assumed to have been destroyed and/or submerged in the new Lake Rotomahana, which formed in the Rotomahana crater. This research records how independent historical, geological, topographic, and geophysical evidence can be combined to solve a problem that none of these [...]
Can a Data Repository Survive a Crisis? Development of the Repository Crisis Scorecards
Published: 2026-09-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Disaster scenarios are not usually considered by scientists when publishing or archiving data. The goal is often to satisfy more immediate needs and requirements of funders, journal publishers, or collaborators. Yet, recent events around the globe, combined with the increased need for high-quality data to solve large-scale problems, have highlighted the vulnerability of data stored in [...]
Compound Supershear Rupture During the 2026 Venezuela Earthquake Doublet
Published: 2026-09-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 24 June 2026 Venezuela earthquake doublet occurred along a complex transform-fault system. Teleseismic P waves encompassing both cataloged events were analyzed using potency density tensor inversion with seven structure models. All models indicate predominantly eastward rupture over approximately 220 km, including several stages of supershear propagation. Three apparent rupture stalls [...]
The single-pair unwrapping ceiling is a property of the track, not of the radar
Published: 2026-09-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology
The half-fringe limit of a repeat-pass interferogram is quoted as a property of the sensor: a quarter wavelength of line-of-sight displacement per pair. On a slope it is not. Sensitivity to downslope motion is f = |m · u|, and at a mountain source f varies with the track, with the site, and across the source itself. We compute f per pixel over 500 m source discs at two rock–ice avalanche sources, [...]
Biomarkers Thermal Maturity Parameters in Bitumen as a Proxy for Seismic vs. Aseismic Mirror-like Fault Surfaces
Published: 2026-09-18
Subjects: Geology
Mirror-like Surfaces (MSs) are ultra-polished fault surfaces that experimental studies have shown can form during seismic and aseismic deformation (slip rates ≈1 m/s vs. <0.0001 m/s). To determine which MSs form during seismic (rapid temperature increase) or aseismic (negligible temperature increase) slip along the fault, we measured sterane and hopane thermal maturity parameters in bituminous [...]
New insights into rift evolution from data-constrained burial and thermal histories at the northern South China Sea margin
Published: 2026-09-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology
The evolution of the rifted margin of the northern South China Sea challenges predictions of previous models but a knowledge gap still exists regarding how thermal history varies at different locations and times of rifting. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expeditions 367/368/368X collected samples of sediment that can be used to model the thermal evolution at different rifting stages [...]