Preprints
There are 6174 Preprints listed.
Selling the Earth: re-purposing geoscience communications
Published: 2021-09-16
Subjects: Education, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Earth scientists have a critical role to play in communicating to the public and policy makers what we know about looming societal threats including climate change, extreme natural events, resource conflicts and the energy transition. But whilst geoscientists are being encouraged - and, increasingly, trained - to ‘go public’ with our science, what is less clear is to what extent our current [...]
The Impact of Neglecting Climate Change and Variability on ERCOT’s Forecasts of Electricity Demand in Texas
Published: 2021-09-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Risk Analysis
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the electric power across most of Texas. They make short-term assessments of electricity demand based on historical weather over the last decade or two, thereby ignoring the effects of climate change and the possibility of weather variability outside of the recent historical range. In this paper, we develop an empirical methodology to [...]
Stress-based forecasting of induced seismicity with instantaneous earthquake failure functions: Applications to the Groningen Gas Reservoir
Published: 2021-09-15
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
In this study we use the Groningen gas field to test a new method to assess stress changes due to gas extraction and forecast induced seismicity. We take advantage of the detailed knowledge of the reservoir geometry and production history, and of the availability of surface subsidence measurements and high quality seismicity data. The subsurface is represented as a homogeneous isotropic linear [...]
AGE, PETROGENESIS AND TECTONIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE LATE PERMIAN PERALUMINOUS AND METALUMINOUS MAGMATIC ROCKS IN THE MIDDLE GOBI VOLCANOPLUTONIC BELT, MONGOLIA
Published: 2021-09-15
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Mongol–Okhotsk Belt, the youngest segment of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt, formed by the evolution and closure of the Mongol–Okhotsk Ocean. The oceanic closure formed two volcanoplutonic belts: Selenge Belt in the north and Middle Gobi Belt in the south (in present day coordinates). However, the origin and tectonic evolution of the Mongol–Okhotsk Belt in general, the origin and formation [...]
Process drivers, inter-model spread, and the path forward: A review of amplified Arctic warming
Published: 2021-09-15
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Arctic amplification (AA) is a coupled atmosphere-sea ice-ocean process. This understanding has evolved from the early concept of AA, as a consequence of snow-ice line progressions, through more than a century of research that has clarified the relevant processes and driving mechanisms of AA. The predictions made by early modeling studies, namely the fall/winter maximum, bottom-heavy structure, [...]
Modeling the Responses of Dissolved Oxygen and Nitrate Concentrations due to Land Use and Land Cover Change Scenarios in a Large Subtropical Reservoir
Published: 2021-09-15
Subjects: Biochemistry, Environmental Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Itupararanga reservoir is a large reservoir built in the Southeast of Brazil to support multiple uses, mainly hydropower generation and drinking water supply for almost 1 million people. We applied a process-based biogeochemical model and a distributed basin load model to assess the responses of dissolved oxygen and nitrate concentrations in the Itupararanga reservoir based on three land use and [...]
Acquisition of Data for Building Photogrammetric Virtual Outcrop Models for the Geosciences using Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs)
Published: 2021-09-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Over the past five years the use of 3D models in the Earth Sciences has become ubiquitous. These models, termed Virtual outcrops, are most commonly generated using Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry, an image-based modelling method that has achieved widespread uptake and utilization. Data for these models is commonly acquired using remotely piloted aerial vehicles (RPVs), commonly called [...]
Scum of the Earth: a hypothesis for prebiotic multi-compartmentalised environments}
Published: 2021-09-14
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Earth Sciences, Planetary Sciences
Compartmentalisation by bioenergetic membranes is a universal feature of life. The eventual compartmentalisation of prebiotic systems is therefore often argued to comprise a key step during the origin of life. Compartments may have been active participants in prebiotic chemistry, concentrating and spatially organising key reactants. However, most prebiotically plausible compartments are leaky or [...]
Discovery of Deccan Inclination Anomaly and its possible geodynamic implications over the Indian Plate
Published: 2021-09-13
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The rapid northward drift of the Indian plate during Deccan volcanism assumes a gradual shallowing of paleomagnetic inclinations in subsequent lava flow formations. A comparison of palaeomagnetic data produced during the last six decades reveals an inclination anomaly during Chron C29r (66.398 - 65.688 Ma) along with brief clockwise-counter-clockwise rotations during and after the main phase [...]
Three-dimensional fluid-driven stable frictional ruptures
Published: 2021-09-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
We investigate the quasi-static growth of a fluid-driven frictional shear crack that propagates in mixed mode (II+III) on a planar fault interface that separates two identical half-spaces of a three-dimensional solid. The fault interface is characterized by a shear strength equal to the product of a constant friction coefficient and the local effective normal stress. Fluid is injected into the [...]
On the asymmetry of cyclones and anticyclones in the cellular regime of rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection
Published: 2021-09-12
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RRBC) denotes the free convection between two parallel plates with a fixed temperature difference, placed in a rotating reference frame. It is a prototype model of geophysical and astrophysical convection. Rotation breaks the symmetry on its rotating axis, making the cyclones and anticyclones unequal in size and magnitude. Such an asymmetry has long been [...]
A NEW APPROACH TO IDENTIFY ON-GROUND LAMP TYPES FROM NIGHT-TIME ISS IMAGES
Published: 2021-09-12
Subjects: Planetary Sciences
Artificial night-time light (NTL), emitted by various on-ground human activities, becomes further intensive in many regions worldwide. Its adverse effects on humans’ and ecosystems’ health crucially depend on the light spectrum, making the remote discrimination between different lamps a highly important task. However, such studies remain extremely limited, and none of them exploits freely [...]
GAIANIZING DARWIN: NATURAL SELECTION IMPAIRS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PLANETARY TEMPERATURE SELF-REGULATION
Published: 2021-09-11
Subjects: Life Sciences
Many neo-Darwinists have rejected the Gaia hypothesis, arguing that organisms cannot reach a common good by natural selection and that natural selection cannot act on the whole planet. In response, Watson and Lovelock put forward a model they called Daisyworld (Dw), a hypothetical planet which can regulate its temperature over a wide range of solar luminosities. This is accomplished by ordinary [...]
A re-evaluation of wetland carbon sink mitigation concepts and measurements: A diagenetic solution
Published: 2021-09-10
Subjects: Life Sciences
The capacity of wetlands to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is the sum of two services–the protection of vulnerable organic stocks from remineralisation, and the capacity to sequester GHGs relative to their anthropogenic replacements. Organic carbon accumulation (CA) down through the sediment column is often taken as the measure of sequestration because of its capacity to record long-term [...]
Streambed pollution: A comprehensive review of its sources, eco-hydro-geo-chemical impacts, assessment, and mitigation strategies
Published: 2021-09-10
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Streambeds are an integral component of the river ecosystems. It provides habitat for a vast array of benthic and aquatic organisms as well as facilitates the bio-degradation and transformation of organic matter and other nutrients. Increasing anthropogenic influence introduces multiple stressors to the stream networks resulting in pollution of streambeds, which in turn, could have detrimental [...]