Preprints
There are 6519 Preprints listed.
Advancing continuous in-situ quantification of microbial contamination in environmental waters using tryptophan-like fluorescence - Sensor design and validation
Published: 2026-01-23
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring
Microbial contamination of recreational and source waters poses persistent public health risks, yet conventional monitoring based on laboratory culture methods provides delayed results and limited temporal resolution. These constraints hinder timely identification of short-duration contamination events and effective management of recreation advisories. This study evaluates the performance of a [...]
AI-assisted identification of stromatoporoids
Published: 2026-01-23
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Stromatoporoid sponge fossils were major diverse reef-builders in the Palaeozoic Era; their taxonomic identification relies on thin sections examined under transmit-ted light microscopy, where vertical and transverse skeletal elements reveal diag-nostic architectural features that vary with taxa. These elements typically appear darker than the cement-filled internal spaces, allowing [...]
Storm signals in coastal sediments: A review of palaeostorm archives and analytical approaches in north-west Europe
Published: 2026-01-22
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coastal sedimentary archives offer key insights into past severe storms and related flooding, contributing to a better understanding of long-term coastal hazard histories. Although interest in palaeostorm reconstructions has increased in recent decades, a comprehensive overview and information for north-west Europe is missing. This synoptic literature review compiles all known sedimentary storm [...]
Estimation of Near-Surface Density using Vertical Gravity Gradients in Central and Western Japan
Published: 2026-01-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The Vertical Gravity Gradient (VGG), derived from the difference between terrestrial and airborne gravity data, highlights shallow density contrasts. We estimated the near-surface density structure of Central and Western Japan using VGGs derived from terrestrial data within 3 km of airborne flight lines. We constructed an inversion model on a 1/7-degree grid to estimate surface density and a [...]
Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to assess changes in transdisciplinary understandings across a large research consortium
Published: 2026-01-22
Subjects: Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering
Researching how to create just and sustainable futures for all requires innovative and mission-oriented transdisciplinary approaches. This article sets out our approach and findings following the assessment, using Natural Language Processing (NLP), of the development in transdisciplinary understandings across a large and newly-forming research consortium as it changed over the six-year period of [...]
Fabric, texture, and bubble characteristics of the million-year old Allan Hills blue ice core ALHIC1901
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ice cores from the Allan Hills blue ice area in Antarctica have been dated to several million years of age. However, the stratigraphy of these cores is often disturbed, and age reversals are common, hampering the interpretation of the derived climate records. To better understand the physical processes affecting the ice, we here use a variety of microstructural methods to investigate the fabric, [...]
A New Paradigm for High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal: Intrinsic Radionuclide Properties and Comparative Hazard
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology
This paper develops a hazard- and pathway-based framework for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal grounded in intrinsic radionuclide decay characteristics, geochemical behavior, and comparative hazard. We examine the physical and geochemical properties of key radionuclides and quantify lifetime cancer risk from chronic ingestion on a per-unit-mass basis using established regulatory [...]
Multi-level geothermal analysis of urban heat-in-place: a Leeds case study
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
As cities across the UK seek to decarbonise heat and achieve net-zero targets, shallow geothermal energy presents an underutilised yet promising resource. In this study, we evaluate the geothermal potential of the upper 1,000 m of the subsurface beneath Leeds, a major urban centre underlain by Carboniferous sandstone aquifers and abandoned coal mine workings. Using geological maps and legacy [...]
Magmatic degassing as the primary source of salt in Archean oceans
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The salinification of Earth’s early oceans impacted both the climate and the evolution of life. However, available halogen data of Archean seawater samples are at apparent odds with a conventionally assumed mantle origin of sea salt, highlighting a critical lack of mechanistic understanding of how the Archean oceans became salty. Here, we present new triple halogen (Cl-Br-I) data from high [...]
Petrological insights into magma storage and evolution at Rabaul Caldera, Papua New Guinea
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Volcanology
Rabaul is a caldera volcano in Papua New Guinea. Its most recent caldera-forming eruption occurred ~1400 years ago, with numerous intra-caldera eruptions since. Erupted whole rock compositions are commonly attributed to fractional crystallisation along a single liquid line of descent, but mafic mineral clots indicate mafic recharge and magma mixing also influence whole rock compositions. [...]
From Points to Predictions: Data Curation for Geospatial Machine Learning
Published: 2026-01-20
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The quality of training datasets can have a large impact on Machine Learning (ML) models, yet this aspect of the pipeline frequently receives less scrutiny than it should. In the context of geospatial mapping from point-scale field data, quality control strategies to remove erroneous or misleading data can be applied prior to model training to improve performance. However, such strategies and [...]
Secular Cooling Shapes Core–Mantle Heat Transfer and Mantle Plume Dynamics over 1.8 Billion Years
Published: 2026-01-20
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Petrological evidence and global heat budgets indicate that the solid Earth has cooled substantially over geological time, yet the influence of secular cooling on mantle dynamics in global 3D models remains poorly quantified. We incorporate secular cooling into 3D global mantle flow models using plate reconstructions extending back 1.8 billion years. The core-mantle boundary (CMB) temperature is [...]
A detailed picture of Haiti’s seismicity given by deep learning and template matching
Published: 2026-01-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Haiti regularly experiences destructive earthquakes, but seismic monitoring in the region has historically been limited. Recent deployments of citizen-hosted RaspberryShake seismometers and temporary seismic deployment following the 2021 Mw 7.2 earthquake provide new data to study the region’s seismotectonics. However, high noise levels at many stations, in particular the RaspberryShake ones, [...]
Manganese redox cycling drives the epitaxial growth of dolomite on metastable kutnahorite templates
Published: 2026-01-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
Fine-crystalline, fabric-preserving dolostones in deep-time successions defy high-temperature burial models, implying an elusive low-temperature formation pathway hindered by the kinetic hydration barrier of Mg2+ and the thermodynamic miscibility gap separating calcite from ordered dolomite. Here, we demonstrate a kinetically facile route to self-assembling dolomite driven by the synergy of [...]
Identification and verification of worst-case radiological transport scenarios for Ireland: a simulation-based approach to nuclear emergency preparedness (2011-2024)
Published: 2026-01-19
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences
This study presents a comprehensive simulation-based assessment of potential transboundary radiological transport to Ireland from six nuclear facilities in the United Kingdom and France, utilising weather data over a fourteen-year period (2011–2024). Systematic screening of 2.2 million HYSPLIT atmospheric dispersion simulations identified eighteen worst-case scenarios representing conditions of [...]