Preprints
There are 6248 Preprints listed.
Middle Miocene (Serravallian) wetland development on the northwest edge of Europe based on palynological analysis of the uppermost Brassington Formation of Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Published: 2022-07-23
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Middle Miocene was a warmer and wetter interval than present-day (Steinthorsdottir et al., 2021). In the UK, the most extensive Middle Miocene deposit is the Serravallian Kenslow Member of the Brassington Formation as exposed at Bees Nest Pit, near Brassington, Derbyshire, UK. While known to contain a diverse palynological and palaeobotanical record, the stratigraphical distribution of these [...]
A scalable framework for soil property mapping tested across a highly diverse tropical data-scarce region
Published: 2022-07-22
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Soil Science, Statistical Models
Reliable soil property maps are essential for environmental modeling, yet conventional mapping methods remain costly and time-consuming. We developed a machine learning framework that integrates the Soil-Landscape Estimation and Evaluation Program (SLEEP) with gradient boosting to predict soil properties at regional scales and multiple depths. Our approach addresses multicollinearity through a [...]
Improving slope stability estimates by incorporating geophysical and remote sensing monitoring data into hydro-geomechanical modeling
Published: 2022-07-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Landslides are a major natural hazard, threatening communities and infrastructure worldwide. The mitigation of these hazards relies on the understanding of their causes and triggering processes, directly depending on soil properties, land use, and their variations over time. In this study, we propose a new approach combining geophysics and remote sensing with hydrological and geomechanical [...]
Understanding Slow-moving Landslide Triggering Processes Using Low-cost Passive Seismic and Inclinometer Monitoring
Published: 2022-07-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Landslides are a major natural hazard, threatening communities and infrastructures worldwide. Mitigation of these hazards relies on understanding their causes and triggering processes, which critically depend on subsurface characteristics and their variations over time. In this study, we present a novel approach combining passive seismic and low-cost inclinometer monitoring methods to improve the [...]
A Technical Overview of the North Carolina ECONet
Published: 2022-07-20
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Education, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Forest Management, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Plant Sciences
Regional weather networks–also referred to as mesonets–are imperative for filling in the spatial and temporal data gaps between nationally supported weather stations. The North Carolina Environment and Climate Observing Network (ECONet) fills this regional role; it is a mesoscale network of 44 (as of 2023) automated stations collecting 12 environmental variables every minute across North [...]
Mechanical Analysis of Fault Slip Rate Sites within the San Gorgonio Pass Region, Southern California USA
Published: 2022-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
Crustal deformation models show incompatibility between inferred fault geometry and geologic slip rates where model and geologic slip rates disagree. We do not know if the impact of these incompatibilities is local to sites or has wider effect on the fault system deformation. Here, we investigate the roles of structural position of sites and uncertainty of slip rates using one suite of mechanical [...]
An adaptive auto-reduction solver for speeding up integration of chemical kinetics in atmospheric chemistry models: implementation and evaluation in the Kinetic Pre-Processor (KPP) version 3.0.0
Published: 2022-07-15
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
Kinetic integration of large and stiff chemical mechanisms is a computational bottleneck in models of atmospheric chemistry. It requires implicit solution of the coupled system of kinetic differential equations with time-consuming construction and inversion of the Jacobian matrix. We present here a new version of the Kinetic Pre-Processor (KPP 3.0.0) for fast integration of chemical kinetics [...]
Large hot provinces at the base of the mantle stabilise the palaeomagnetic field
Published: 2022-07-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences
A crucial characteristic of Earth’s magnetic field, known since 1600, is that it approximates a dipole (bar magnet) aligned with the planetary rotation axis. Previous studies have disagreed over the extent to which this situation has persisted through geological time which is important for determining solar wind shielding and building palaeogeographic reconstructions. It has recently become [...]
Sinh-arcsinh-normal distributions to add uncertainty to neural network regression tasks: applications to tropical cyclone intensity forecasts
Published: 2022-07-15
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Earth Sciences, Statistical Methodology
A simple method for adding uncertainty to neural network regression tasks in earth science via estimation of a general probability distribution is described. Specifically, we highlight the sinh-arcsinh-normal distributions as particularly well suited for neural network uncertainty estimation. The methodology supports estimation of heteroscedastic, asymmetric uncertainties by a simple modification [...]
Slab to back-arc to arc: fluid and melt pathways through the mantle wedge beneath the Lesser Antilles
Published: 2022-07-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geophysics and Seismology, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology
Volatiles expelled from subducted plates melt the overlying warm mantle, feeding arc volcanism. However, debates continue over the factors controlling melt generation and transport and how these determine the placement of volcanoes. To broaden our synoptic view of these fundamental mantle wedge processes, we image seismic attenuation beneath the Lesser Antilles arc, an end-member system that [...]
Single-blind validation of space-based point-source methane emissions detection and quantification
Published: 2022-07-14
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences
Satellites are increasingly seen as a tool for identifying large greenhouse gas point sources for mitigation, but independent verification of satellite performance is needed for acceptance and use by policy makers and stakeholders. We conduct to our knowledge the first single-blind controlled methane release testing of satellite-based methane emissions detection and quantification, with five [...]
Applying a science-forward approach to groundwater regulatory design
Published: 2022-07-14
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Nature and Society Relations
Groundwater sustainability is challenged by the difference between legal and scientific understanding of groundwater as well as the lack of focused attention to regulatory design in the literature on groundwater institutions, governance and management. The purpose of this paper is to use groundwater science to direct the necessary elements of regulatory design for the unique characteristics of [...]
Scaling the primary production of lakes
Published: 2022-07-13
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Kleiber’s ¾-scaling Law for metabolism with mass is one of the most striking regularities in the biological sciences. We demonstrate that whole-lake primary production scales to the ¾-power of lake volume, consistent with Kleiber’s Law but not explicable by analogy to theories developed for individual organisms. Instead, dimensional analysis offers a simple explanation. Because Earth's topography [...]
Analytical and numerical models of viscous anisotropy: A toolset to constrain the role of mechanical anisotropy for regional tectonics and fault loading
Published: 2022-07-13
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
To what extent mechanical anisotropy is required to explain the dynamics of the lithosphere is an important yet unresolved question. If anisotropy affects stress and deformation, and hence processes such as fault loading, how can we quantify its role from observations? Here, we derive analytical solutions and build a theoretical framework to explore how a shear zone with anisotropic viscosity can [...]
High-Precision Triple Oxygen Isotope Analysis of Carbon Dioxide by Tunable Infrared Laser Absorption Spectroscopy
Published: 2022-07-12
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Precision measurements of the stable isotope ratios of oxygen (18O/16O, 17O/16O) in CO2 are critical to atmospheric monitoring and terrestrial climate research. High-precision 17O measurements by isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) are challenging because they require complicated sample preparation procedures, long measurement times, and relatively large samples sizes. Recently, tunable [...]