Preprints
There are 4725 Preprints listed.
Tracing marine cryptotephras in the North Atlantic during the Last Glacial Period: Identification, characterisation and depositional controls
Published: 2018-12-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Tephrochronology is increasingly being utilised as a key tool for improving chronological models and correlating disparate palaeoclimatic sequences. For many sedimentary environments, however, there is an increased recognition that a range of processes may impart a delay in deposition and/or rework tephra. These processes can affect the integrity of tephra deposits as time-synchronous markers, [...]
Summary Report of China-UK Knowledge Exchange Project for Their Critical Zone Programme
Published: 2018-12-12
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Water Resource Management
Global to local environmental policy-making is increasingly evidenced-based. Knowledge exchange (KE) is increasingly used by environmental scientists and policymakers, to deliver evidence-based policy and practice. This study presents the output from the KE research project within the China-UK Critical Zone (CZ) programme in China from 2016 to 2018, focussing on understanding: (i) the key issues [...]
Separating the impact of individual land surface properties on the terrestrial surface energy budget in both the coupled and un-coupled land-atmosphere system
Published: 2018-12-12
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Changes in the land surface can drive large responses in the atmosphere on local, regional, and global scales. Surface properties control the partitioning of energy within the surface energy budget to fluxes of shortwave and longwave radiation, sensible and latent heat, and ground heat storage. Changes in surface energy fluxes can impact the atmosphere across scales through changes in [...]
Submarine channels "swept" downstream after bend cutoff in salt basins
Published: 2018-12-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Channel-bend expansion and downstream translation, as well as vertical movements by aggradation and incision, set the stratigraphic architecture of channelized depositional systems. Early work on submarine-channel evolution has suggested that downstream translation is rare. We propose that downstream translation of bends might be common in deep-water salt-tectonic provinces, where complex [...]
No evidence for sea level fall in the Cretaceous strata of the Book Cliffs of Eastern Utah
Published: 2018-12-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A core component of the sequence stratigraphic model is the implicit assumption of a semi-sinusoidal relative sea-level curve, and the occurrence of “sequence boundaries” formed during intervals of sea-level fall, recognized primarily by the presence of incised valleys. Late Cretaceous paralic deposits in the Book Cliffs, Utah, have been one of the main testing and teaching grounds for [...]
Tectonic controls on deposition in the late Cambrian - Early Ordovician Central Andean Basin (Cordillera Oriental; northwest Argentina) – the first step towards an integrative reconstruction
Published: 2018-12-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
This study focuses on upper Cambrian – Lower Ordovician strata containing the lowermost fossil-bearing levels of the basin (Santa Rosita Formation and Guayoc Chico Group). Bounded by two major regional unconformities, this stratigraphic interval was previously considered as a retro-arc foreland basin displaying evidence of westward progradation without tectonic activity during its deposition. [...]
Toward a unified approach to quantify uncertainties in sea-level projections
Published: 2018-12-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coastal impacts of climate change and the related mitigation and adaptation needs requires assessments of future sea-level changes. Following a common practice in coastal engineering, probabilistic sea-level projections have been proposed for at least 20 years. This requires a probability model to represent the uncertainties of future sea-level rise, which is not achievable because potential ice [...]
Early Last Interglacial ocean warming drove substantial ice mass loss from Antarctica
Published: 2018-12-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The future response of the Antarctic ice sheets to rising temperatures remains highly uncertain. A valuable analogue for assessing the sensitivity of Antarctica to warming is the Last Interglacial (129-116 kyr), when global sea level peaked 6 to 9 meters above present. Here we report a blue-ice record of ice-sheet and environmental change from the periphery of the marine-based West Antarctic Ice [...]
Critical Review of Polyphosphate and Polyphosphate Accumulating Organisms for Agricultural Water Quality Management
Published: 2018-12-03
Subjects: Agriculture, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science, Water Resource Management
Despite ongoing management efforts, phosphorus (P) loading from agricultural landscapes continues to impair water quality. Wastewater treatment research has enhanced our knowledge of microbial mechanisms influencing P cycling, especially regarding microbes known as polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs) that store P as polyphosphate (polyP) under oxic conditions and release P under anoxic [...]
Episodic fluid flow in an active fault
Published: 2018-11-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
We present a 250 ka record of episodic fluid flow along the Malpais fault which hosts the Beowawe hydrothermal system, Nevada, USA. The history of fluid flow was quantified using a novel combination of the apatite (U-Th)/He (AHe) thermochronometer and a model of the thermal effects of fluid flow. Samples show partial resetting of the AHe thermochronometer in a 40 m wide zone around the normal [...]
Evolving marginal terranes during Neoproterozoic supercontinent reorganisation: constraints from the Bemarivo Domain in northern Madagascar
Published: 2018-11-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Madagascar is important for unravelling the geodynamic evolution of the transition between the Rodinia and Gondwana supercontinents as it contains several suites of c. 850–700 Ma magmatic rocks that have been postulated to correlate with other ex-Rodinia terranes. The Bemarivo Belt of northern Madagascar contains the youngest suite of these magmatic rocks that date to c. 750–700 Ma. We present [...]
Extreme weather events in early Summer 2018 connected by a recurrent hemispheric wave-7 pattern.
Published: 2018-11-28
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The summer of 2018 witnessed a number of extreme weather events such as heatwaves in North America, Western Europe and the Caspian Sea region and rainfall extremes in South-East Europe and Japan that occurred near-simultaneously. Here we show that these extremes were connected by an amplified hemisphere-wide wavenumber 7 circulation pattern. We show that this pattern constitutes a teleconnection [...]
Exceptionally large block-and-ash flows: a detailed study of the 2005 and 2010 eruption deposits of Shiveluch volcano
Published: 2018-11-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Volcanology
Two of the largest known historic block-and-ash flow (BAF) fields are located on Shiveluch volcano, Kamchatka. The deposits were produced during retrogressive and pulsatory dome collapse events that occurred over 6-9 hour-long eruptions on 27-28 February 2005 and 27 October 2010. The BAFs that were produced by these partial dome collapse events extend up to 19 km from the dome and inundate areas [...]
Analysis of atmospheric thermodynamics using the R package aiRthermo
Published: 2018-11-26
Subjects: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This is a non-peer reviewed preprint submitted to EarthArxiv. It corresponds to the version initially submitted to Computers and Geosciences corresponding to final paper "Analysis of atmospheric thermodynamics using the R package aiRthermo", describing a new package for R which has been designed for computations of quantities related to atmospheric thermodynamics. The paper was finally accepted [...]
Changes in global groundwater organic carbon driven by climate change and urbanization
Published: 2018-11-21
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rapid urban growth is increasing demand for potable groundwater. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a major control of groundwater potability and treatment costs. We hypothesize that climate change and urbanization will not only decrease groundwater availability, but also its quality. Here, we summarize global groundwater DOC data (n = 6781) to identify its drivers and predict future changes. Our [...]