Preprints
There are 5726 Preprints listed.
Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group Members Survey 2020
Published: 2020-07-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
The Volcanic & Magmatic Studies Group (VMSG) is a joint Special Interest Group of the Geological Society of London and Mineralogical Society. In January 2020 we conducted an online questionnaire to establish if (and how) VMSG fulfils its mission to serve the volcanology, petrology and geochemistry community. The survey was distributed via the VMSG mailing list, publicised at the VMSG annual [...]
Small-scale capillary heterogeneity linked to rapid plume migration during CO2 storage
Published: 2020-07-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Unpredicted, rapid plume elongation has been observed at subsurface CO2 storage projects worldwide, exemplified by the Sleipner project. We show that conventionally ignored centimetre-metre scale heterogeneity in capillary pressure characteristics can manifest as rapid field-scale, decametre-kilometre, plume migration. We analyse the effect in the Goldeneye Field, UK, a proposed storage site with [...]
Comparison of U-Pb detrital zircon signatures across sediment routing system segments: insights from the late Pleistocene Mississippi River and Deep-sea fan
Published: 2020-07-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The Pleistocene Mississippi sediment routing system has experienced significant drainage reorganizations in response to Northern Hemisphere glaciation. Geologically recent (<25 ka) and large (~90 km) river avulsions have occurred in the Mississippi’s lower alluvial valley, yet whether these punctuated autogenic phenomena influenced down system records of sedimentary provenance is unknown. We [...]
Transgressive sills and lateral lava flows: On the visual observation of igneous sheets in rugged terrains and the optical illusion factor
Published: 2020-07-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Abstract Transgressive sills are of common occurrences in rift-related offshore and onshore sedimentary settings worldwide and have been reported in onshore volcanic settings in e.g. flood basalt provinces as well. General geometries of individual sills and of entire sill complexes too are well documented from seismic images in many offshore sedimentary settings of exploration interest, but [...]
Visualizing the daily evolution and extent of snow drought
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Snow droughts are commonly defined as below average snowpack at a point in time, typically 1 April in the western United States. This definition is valuable for interpreting the state of the snowpack for resource management but obscures the temporal evolution of snow drought. Borrowing from dynamical systems theory, we applied phase diagrams to visually examine the evolution of snowpack [...]
Estimating survival probability using the terrestrial extinction history for the search for extraterrestrial life
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
Several exoplanets have been discovered to date, and the next step is the search for extraterrestrial life. However, it is difficult to estimate the number of life-bearing exoplanets because our only template is based on life on Earth. In this paper, a new approach is introduced to estimate the probability that life on Earth has survived from birth to the present based on its terrestrial [...]
Changes in temperature and rainfall extremes across East Asia in the CMIP5 ensemble
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We analyze annual extremes of daily maximum and minimum surface air temperature and of daily rainfall in East Asia and the Korean peninsula. This study made intensive use of the simulation data available from the CMIP5 (Coupled Model intercomparison Project Phase 5) multimodels in historical and future experiments up to year 2100, employing three different radiative forcings: RCP2.6, RCP4.5, [...]
The Anthropozoic era revisited
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Stratigraphy
This paper explains in some detail the poorly known proposal of Stoppani (1873) regarding the Anthropozoic era, whose beginning was defined by the first traces of human presence on Earth. This author set the stratigraphic bases for the definition of the “human era”, but the proposal had two main weaknesses: the dismissal of biological evolution and the lack of an absolute chronology. Further [...]
Contributions of paleoecology to Easter Island’s prehistory: a thorough review
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences, Sustainability
Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is well known for the enigmas surrounding its unique megalithic statues, the moai, and the prehistoric (i.e., pre-European contact) Rapanui society that built them. These enigmas include, among others, the time of the island’s settlement, the geographical origin of the first settlers, the technology associated with moai transportation and emplacement, the occurrence (or [...]
Observing traveling waves in glaciers with remote sensing: New flexible time series methods and application to Sermeq Kujalleq (Jakobshavn Isbræ), Greenland
Published: 2020-07-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The recent influx of remote sensing data provides new opportunities for quantifying spatiotemporal variations in glacier surface velocity and elevation fields. Here, we introduce a flexible time series reconstruction and decomposition technique for forming continuous, time-dependent surface velocity and elevation fields from discontinuous data and partitioning these time series into short- and [...]
Energetic Rupture and Tsunamigenesis during the 2020 Mw 7.4 La Crucecita, Mexico Earthquake
Published: 2020-07-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The La Crucecita earthquake ruptured on the megathrust generating strong shaking and a modest, long-lived tsunami. This is a significant earthquake that illuminates important aspects of the behavior of the megathrust as well as the potential related hazards. The rupture is contained within 15-30km depth, ground motions are elevated and the energy to moment ratio is high. We argue that it [...]
A general expression for wave-induced sediment bypassing of an isolated headland
Published: 2020-07-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate knowledge of the sediment budget of a coastal cell is necessary for coastal management and predicting long-term coastal change. An important component in the sediment budget of many wave-dominated embayed coastlines is the amount of sediment that bypasses rocky headlands, which present partial barriers to alongshore transport. Despite a recent surge in research interest in headland [...]
An Eddy-Zonal Flow Feedback Model for Propagating Annular Modes
Published: 2020-07-20
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The variability of the zonal-mean large-scale extratropical circulation is often studied using individual modes obtained from empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analyses. The prevailing reduced-order model of the leading EOF (EOF1) of zonal-mean zonal wind, called the annular mode, consists of an eddy-mean flow interaction mechanism that results in a positive feedback of EOF1 onto itself. [...]
How Extreme Weather Events Are Attributed to Anthropogenic Global Warming
Published: 2020-07-19
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Many politicians and media personalities continue to cast doubt on the idea that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) – the primary driver of current global climate change – could possibly be behind the growing frequency and severity of extreme weather events – the droughts, heatwaves, flooding, etc. that are every year breaking 100 year or greater historical records. This takes the form not just [...]
Navigating groundwater model uncertainty analysis
Published: 2020-07-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The design of a groundwater model is based on the model objective, the management or research question that the model seeks to address. Designing the uncertainty analysis of a groundwater models likewise needs to consider the objective of the uncertainty analysis; how the uncertainty in model predictions will be used. In this paper a framework is presented to consider the various dimensions of [...]