Preprints
There are 5432 Preprints listed.
Mercury budget in global rivers at present-day: impacts from reservoirs and dams
Published: 2025-03-14
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Water Resource Management
Many world rivers are currently polluted by mercury (Hg) compounds, leading to the bioaccumulation of methylmercury (MeHg) in the food web, which poses potential health risks to humans. However, the riverine Hg budgets of global scale remain poorly understood due to limited observations, complicating efficient environmental governance. Here, we employ a process-driven Hg model to track its [...]
Plausible global emissions scenario for the 2℃-target aligned with China’s net-zero pathway
Published: 2025-03-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Due to sizeable anthropogenic CO2 emissions, China’s transition towards carbon neutrality will fundamentally alter global CO2 emissions, providing critical insights into warming levels, extreme events, overshoot, tipping points, and regional climate impacts. Existing emission scenarios that fail to reflect this transition increasingly diverge from reality. To bridge this gap, we developed an [...]
Is abyssal dark oxygen production even possible at all?
Published: 2025-03-10
Subjects: Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Physical principles need to be respected when interpreting controversial findings such as the production of abyssal oxygen. Such extraordinary claims must be analysed carefully before a large research effort is mounted and valuable human and financial resources are wasted based on flawed data. We are aware of the sensitivities around polymetallic nodules and their potential value as a source of [...]
Modern Cave Monitoring Informs Interpretations of Past Climate Change: Applications to Titan Cave, Wyoming
Published: 2025-03-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Speleology
Monitoring of cave environments is an essential process for deciphering records of past climate change preserved in the geochemical composition of speleothems, or mineral cave deposits. This study presents data from a multi-year monitoring effort in Titan Cave, Wyoming, a site of interest due to the abundance of speleothems suitable for paleoclimate reconstruction. Titan Cave exhibits annual cave [...]
Persistent high-pressure magma storage beneath a near-ridge ocean island volcano (Isla Floreana, Galápagos)
Published: 2025-03-09
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Volcanic evolution in ocean island settings is often controlled by variations in the chemistry and volumetric flux of magma from an underlying mantle plume. In locations such as Hawaiʻi or Réunion, this results in predictable variations in magma chemistry, the rate of volcanic activity, and the depth of magma storage with volcanic age and/or distance from the center of plume upwelling. These [...]
Fracturing during freezing in salty ice: preliminary analysis using a low-cost model system
Published: 2025-03-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The fracture properties of saline water ice play an important role in governing the mechanical behavior of sea ice, marine ice sheets, and icy planetary bodies. Here, we design a low-cost experimental system based on a simple observation: fractures form when freshwater is frozen in a plastic bag, but do not form when a small amount of NaCl salt (several g/L) is added before freezing. We [...]
A comment on the indicator capacity of Artemisia pollen in pre-Holocene paleoecology
Published: 2025-03-07
Subjects: Paleontology
In pre-Holocene paleoecology, Artemisia (Asteraceae) pollen is commonly considered an indicator of arid steppic environments in temperate regions. However, the >520 known species of this genus occur across a wide range of bioclimatic conditions. This paper comments on a recent comprehensive study that examined the identification of Artemisia pollen at the species level in relation to the [...]
Drastic Changes in Atmospheric CO2 Concentration Led to Biological Mass Extinction and Explosion
Published: 2025-03-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Paleontology
When the area of polar ice caps expands to a certain threshold, a positive feedback effect will occur. Due to the strong reflection of sunlight by ice and snow, the global climate will become cold and dry. CO₂ in the atmosphere will be rapidly sequestered in the seabed and permafrost through the biological carbon pump, thereby affecting plant photosynthesis, reducing NPP and the nutritional value [...]
Improved LA-Q-ICP-MS U-Pb Zircon Age Estimates for Young (< 10 Ma) Zircons & Quantification of Bias in CL Guided Spot Selection
Published: 2025-03-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a new approach to reducing U-Pb data from zircons obtained by laser ablation-quadrupole-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-Q-ICP-MS), with emphasis on young (< 10 Ma) zircons. In young zircons the 207Pb yield is extremely low, generating a relatively high abundance of zero values during analyses. This impacts the use of 207Pb/206Pb in application of Tera-Wasserburg [...]
A GPR Based Non-destructive Approach to Monitor the Engineering Properties of Compacted Base Layer
Published: 2025-03-07
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Transportation Engineering
Construction variability and isolated defects in base layer can be limiting factors in pavement’s service life. To control construction quality and implement an efficient quality management system, this study develops a quick, accurate, and simple non-destructive method using ground penetrating radar (GPR) to determine reliable values of in-place compacted base material properties, such as [...]
Low computational cost stochastic Gassmann fluid substitution modelling of hydrogen and carbon dioxide in clastic storage reservoirs
Published: 2025-03-06
Subjects: Geology, Geophysics and Seismology
The ability to safely store non-hydrocarbon fluids in the subsurface, such as carbon dioxide or hydrogen, will likely be vital in all pathways to decarbonise global energy systems. Storage of these fluids will require monitoring programmes to identify dynamic changes during the injection and storage phases and to identify unintended migration. Seismic monitoring is widely adopted in monitoring [...]
Orange and Orange-Volcanoes: a New Open and Collaborative Platform to Perform Data-Driven Investigations and Machine Learning Analyses in Petrology and Volcanology
Published: 2025-03-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Multivariate Analysis, Volcanology
Orange-Volcanoes is an extension of the open-source Orange data mining platform specifically tailored for geochemical, petrological, and volcanological investigations. Orange-Volcanoes enhances the original platform by incorporating specialized tools to enable interactive data-driven investigations in geochemistry, such as performing Compositional Data Analysis (CoDA). Applying CoDA [...]
Detecting rapid lateral changes of upper mantle discontinuities using azimuth-dependent P-wave receiver functions and multimode surface waves
Published: 2025-03-06
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Lateral structural variations in the upper mantle generate azimuthal dependence in receiver functions (RFs) based on incoming directions of body waves. Although these azimuthal variations in RFs have not been considered in earlier studies of RF inversions, they provide a means to image localized changes in upper mantle interfaces. In this study, we incorporate azimuth-dependent RFs into a joint [...]
Velocity of climate change and the vulnerability of mountain lake landscapes
Published: 2025-03-05
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Freshwater ecosystems in mountain landscapes are increasingly threatened by climate change. Accumulated heat in ecosystems can result in lethal short-term heat exposure, while the velocity of change governs severity and rates of long-term heat exposure. Here, we novelly integrate heat accumulation and velocity of change approaches to classify climate-vulnerable USA mountain lake watersheds. Our [...]
Generative Data Assimilation for Surface Ocean State Estimation from Multi-Modal Satellite Observations
Published: 2025-03-05
Subjects: Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Estimating the surface ocean state at mesoscale eddy-resolving scales is essential for understanding the role of eddies in climate and marine ecosystems. Satellites provide multi-modal observations through sea surface height, temperature (SST), and salinity (SSS). However, each variable is observed with varying resolutions and sparsity, while some variables, such as surface currents, are not yet [...]