Preprints
There are 5493 Preprints listed.
Upstream propagation of sea-level signals in fluvio-deltaic environments: time-lags and the dynamics of the fluvial surface
Published: 2022-04-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Stratigraphic interpretation generally relies upon the assumption that the fluvio-deltaic surface responds uniformly to sea-level changes; however, recent theoretical work suggests that changes in its relief and concavity can influence the propagation of sea-level information upstream and result in geologically long-lived lags in the system response. We test this theoretical result using [...]
Expansion and intensification of the North American Monsoon during the Pliocene
Published: 2022-04-14
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Southwestern North America, like many subtropical regions, is predicted to become drier in response to anthropogenic warming. However, during the Pliocene, when carbon dioxide was above pre-industrial levels, multiple lines of evidence suggest that southwestern North America was much wetter. While existing explanations for a wet Pliocene invoke increases in winter rain, recent modeling studies [...]
Maars, tuff rings, and tuff cones at the Manyara rift escarpment, Tanzania.
Published: 2022-04-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
About 350 maar craters, tuff rings, and tuff cones are spread along the Manyara rift escarpment, and clustered around the Hanang and Kwahara volcanoes in North Tanzania. They lie in the East African Rift, an active extensional setting, where the magma composition is moderately to highly alkaline and carbonate-rich. We present newly-collected depositional characteristic observations, grain size [...]
On the timing and nature of magmatism in the North Atlantic Igneous Province: New implications from basaltic rocks of the Faroe Islands
Published: 2022-04-14
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
New 40Ar/39Ar ages representing a number of basaltic sills and a key lava flow from the Faroe Islands are presented in this contribution and utilised in order to assess the igneous history of parts of this region. In turn, the acquired ages are contrasted against other Faroese rocks of known ages as well as against other comparable igneous regions in the North Atlantic area. Altogether, the novel [...]
Interactive Hydrological Modelling and Simulation on Client-Side Web Systems: An Educational Case Study
Published: 2022-04-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Engineering Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Science and Mathematics Education, Water Resource Management
Computational hydrological models and simulations are fundamental pieces of the workflow of contemporary hydroscience research, education, and professional engineering activities. In support of hydrological modelling efforts, web-enabled tools for data processing, storage, computation, and visualization have proliferated. Most of these efforts rely on server resources for computation and data [...]
Plate Tectonics, Mixed Heating Convection and the Divergence of Mantle and Plume Temperatures
Published: 2022-04-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Petrological data indicate that upper mantle and mantle plume temperatures diverged 2.5 billion years ago. This has been interpreted as plate tectonics initiating at 2.5 Ga with Earth operating as a single plate planet before then. We take an Occam’s razor view that the continuous operation of plate tectonics can explain the divergence. We validate this hypothesis by comparing petrological data [...]
A unified numerical model for two-phase porous, mush and suspension flow dynamics in magmatic systems
Published: 2022-04-13
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Magmatic systems in the Earth's mantle and crust contain multiple phases including solid crystals, liquid melt and low viscosity fluids. Depending on depth, tectonic setting and chemical composition, magmatic systems can range from partially molten rock at low melt fraction to magma mushes at intermediate melt fraction to magmatic suspensions at high melt fraction. However, the theories [...]
DEM-assisted in-season soil moisture estimation based on normalized Sentinel-1 SAR imagery
Published: 2022-04-13
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Soil moisture is a crucial in-field variable used in many applications. Soil moisture might be measured in the field using soil sensors and can be estimated via satellite imagery. The present study proposes an innovative SAR-based method that significantly improves the accuracy of soil moisture estimation and does not require field-measured data. The method is based on the previously developed [...]
Observations and models of dynamic topography: Current status and future directions.
Published: 2022-04-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The slow creeping motion of Earth’s mantle drives transient changes in surface topography across a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Recent decades have seen substantial progress in understanding this so-called `dynamic topography’, with a growing number of studies highlighting its fundamental role in shaping the surface of our planet. In this review, we outline the current frontiers of [...]
Comparative Analysis of Performance and Mechanisms of Flood Inundation Map Generation using Height Above Nearest Drainage
Published: 2022-04-08
Subjects: Engineering
For flood inundation extent prediction, it is important to have a faster, more accurate, and input-parsimonious model during response and recovery efforts. Height Above Nearest Drainage (HAND) is a simplified conceptual model whose efficacy and utility have been demonstrated in previous studies. This study aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of prediction performance of the [...]
Groundwater connections and sustainability in social-ecological systems
Published: 2022-04-08
Subjects: Dynamical Systems, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Groundwater resources are connected with social, economic, ecological, and Earth systems. We introduce the framing of groundwater-connected systems to better represent the nature and complexity of these connections in data collection, scientific investigations, governance and management approaches, and groundwater education. Groundwater-connected systems are social, economic, ecological, or Earth [...]
Knowledge co-production reveals nuanced societal dynamics and sectoral connections in mapping sustainable human-natural systems
Published: 2022-04-08
Subjects: Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encompass environmental, social, and economic dimensions which are linked to the characteristics of place and have a strong local dimension. They are interconnected at local scales in complex ways which makes progress towards them difficult to predict. To understand how these interconnections play out at the local scale, we used knowledge co-production [...]
Quantifying Rates of Landscape Unzipping
Published: 2022-04-07
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Measuring rates of valley head migration and determining the timing of canyon-opening are insightful for the evolution of planetary surfaces. Spatial gradients of in situ-produced cosmogenic nuclide concentrations along horizontal transects provide a framework for assessing the migration of valley networks and similar topographic features. We developed a new derivation for valley head retreat [...]
Rivers of the Variscan Foreland: fluvial morphodynamics in the Pennant Formation of South Wales, UK
Published: 2022-04-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Sedimentology
The morphodynamics of ancient rivers can be reconstructed from fluvial stratigraphy using quantitative techniques to provide insights into the driving forces behind the sedimentary systems. This work explores how these drivers can be evaluated from Paleozoic stratigraphy. Field measurements are taken in fluvial sediments from the Westphalian (Bolsovian and Asturian; 315.2–308 Ma) Pennant [...]
Comment on “If not brittle: Ductile, Plastic, or Viscous? By Kelin Wang”
Published: 2022-04-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering
In continuum mechanics, viscous materials are those that lack rigidity and elastic response under shear stress. We argue that using the term viscous to refer to the aseismic lithosphere is thus a misnomer, as it denies the propagation of S-waves through the lithosphere in total contradiction to decades of seismic surveys. Likewise, viscous materials lack yield stress, which is another feature [...]