Preprints
There are 5541 Preprints listed.
Recrystallization of ice enhances the creep and vulnerability to fracture of ice shelves
Published: 2021-03-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The initiation of fractures and fast flow in floating regions of Antarctica have the potential to destabilize large regions of the grounded ice sheet, leading to significant sea-level rise. While observations have shown rapid, localized deformation and damage in the margins of fast-flowing glaciers, there remain gaps in our understanding of how rapid deformation affects the viscosity and [...]
A Regional Semi-Distributed Streamflow Model Using Deep Learning
Published: 2021-03-08
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Hydrology
Recent studies have shown that deep learning models in hydrological applications significantly improved streamflow predictions at multiple stations compared to traditional machine learning approaches. However, most studies lack generalization; i.e. researchers are training separate models for each location. The spatial and temporal generalization ability of deep learning models in hydrology that [...]
fv3gfs-wrapper: a Python wrapper of the FV3GFS atmospheric model
Published: 2021-03-06
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Software Engineering
Simulation software in geophysics is traditionally written in Fortran or C++ due to the stringent performance requirements these codes have to satisfy. As a result, these codes are often hard to understand, hard to modify and hard to interface with high-productivity languages used for exploratory work. \texttt{fv3gfs-wrapper} is an open-source Python-wrapped version of NOAA's FV3GFS global [...]
Topographic response to Neogene variations in slab geometry, climate and drainage reorganization in the Northern Andes of Colombia
Published: 2021-03-06
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The tropical Northern Andes of Colombia are one the world's most biodiverse places, offering an ideal location for unraveling the linkages between the geodynamic forces that build topography and the evolution of the biota that inhabit it. In this study, we utilize geomorphic analysis to characterize the topography of the Western and Central Cordilleras of the Northern Andes. We supplement our [...]
Mechanical properties of quartz sand and gypsum powder (plaster) mixtures: implications for laboratory model analogues for the Earth’s upper crust
Published: 2021-03-06
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Granular materials are a useful analogue for the Earth’s crust in laboratory models of deformation. Constraining their mechanical properties is critical for such model’s scaling and interpretation. Much information exists about monomineralic granular materials, such as quartz sand, but the mechanical characteristics of bimineralic mixtures, such as commonly-used quartz sand mixed with gypsum [...]
Land-tenure regimes determine tropical deforestation rates across socio-environmental contexts
Published: 2021-03-06
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Many tropical forestlands are experiencing changes in land-tenure regimes, but how these changes may affect deforestation rates remains ambiguous. Using Brazil’s uniquely comprehensive land-tenure and deforestation data and quasi-experimental methods, we analyzed causal effects of six alternative tenure regimes on deforestation across 49 spatiotemporal scales corresponding to distinct [...]
New insight into post-seismic landslide evolution processes in the tropics
Published: 2021-03-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology
Earthquakes do not only trigger landslides in co-seismic phases but also elevate post-seismic landslide susceptibility either by causing a strength reduction in hillslope materials or by producing co-seismic landslide deposits, which are prone to further remobilization under the external forces generated by subsequent rainfall events. However, we still have limited observations regarding the [...]
Space-time susceptibility modeling of hydro-morphological processes at the Chinese national scale
Published: 2021-03-05
Subjects: Geomorphology
Hydro-morphological processes (HMP; any process in the spectrum between debris flows and flash floods) threaten human infrastructures and lives; and their effects are only expected to worsen in the context of climate change. One of the ways to limit the potential damage of HMP is to take preventive or remedial actions probabilistically knowing where and how frequently they may occur. The expected [...]
Assessing Margin-Wide Rupture Behaviors along the Cascadia Megathrust with 3-D Dynamic Rupture Simulations
Published: 2021-03-05
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
From California to British Columbia, the Pacific Northwest coast bears an omnipresent earthquake and tsunami hazard from the Cascadia subduction zone. Multiple lines of evidence suggests that magnitude eight and greater megathrust earthquakes have occurred - the most recent being 321 years ago (i.e., 1700 A.D.). Outstanding questions for the next great megathrust event include where it will [...]
An analytical solution for the exhumation of an orogenic wedge and a comparison with thermochronology data
Published: 2021-03-05
Subjects: Geology, Tectonics and Structure
Thermochronology data is key for quantifying the exhumation history and dynamics of mountain belts. Here we present a new analytical solution for the steady-state exhumation of an orogenic wedge that undergoes transport along a basal detachment, uniform internal deformation, basal and frontal accretion. The solution predicts an increase in exhumation towards the interior of the wedge, with the [...]
Mars Dichotomy: Prospects for human life on Mars
Published: 2021-03-04
Subjects: Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, Other Astrophysics and Astronomy, Other Food Science, Planetary Geology, Planetary Sciences
Within the framework of the Mars City State Contest 2020 of The Mars Society, from Colombia, with an interdisciplinary and academic perspective, it was sought to give a perspective of solutions and answers to the challenges of possible human life on Mars. Thus, the document initially addresses a forward-looking prologue, an introduction to the concept of the proposed state, taking as a starting [...]
A Self-Supervised Deep Learning Approach for Blind Denoising and Waveform Coherence Enhancement in Distributed Acoustic Sensing Data
Published: 2021-03-04
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Geophysics and Seismology
Fibre-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is an emerging technology for vibration measurements with numerous applications in seismic signal analysis, including microseismicity detection, ambient noise tomography, earthquake source characterisation, and active source seismology. Using laser-pulse techniques, DAS turns (commercial) fibre-optic cables into seismic arrays with a spatial sampling [...]
Crisis at the Salton Sea: The Vital Role of Science
Published: 2021-03-04
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Chemistry, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Salton Sea—a hypersaline, terminal lake in southern California—is in crisis. A combination of mismanagement and competition among federal, state and local agencies has hindered efforts to address declining lake levels and unstable water chemistry. This delay has heightened the public health threat to regional communities as retreating shorelines expose dry lakebed— a source of potentially [...]
Inversionson: Fully Automated Seismic Waveform Inversions
Published: 2021-03-03
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Software Engineering
We present Inversionson, a Python package that fully automates modern full-waveform inversions (FWI). It supports traditional FWI, which uses the same set of events and a single simulation mesh in each iteration, as well as more advanced workflows that exploit the use of dynamic mini-batches and wavefield-adapted meshes. These recently introduced advancements can be time-consuming and [...]
Use of machine learning to estimate statistics of the posterior distribution in probabilistic inverse problems - an application to airborne EM data.
Published: 2021-03-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The solution to a probabilistic inverse problem is the posterior probability distribution for which a full analytic expression is rarely possible. Sampling methods are therefore often used to generate a sample from the posterior. Decision-makers may be interested in the probability of features related to model parameters (for example existence of a pollution or the cumulative clay thickness) [...]