Preprints
There are 5987 Preprints listed.
An Ice Core Snapshot of Past Atmospheric Chemistry in Mt. Everest’s 'Death Zone'
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Glaciology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a unique atmospheric chemistry record from the highest ice core ever recovered (8020 m, South Col Glacier (SCG), Mt. Everest), that captures ~400 years of deposition during the latter half of the first millennium BCE. Due to recent glacier thinning, the upper ~2000 years of accumulation have been lost, however, this is the only ice core record ever recovered from the “Death Zone [...]
Finding Inter-species Associations on Large Citizen Science Datasets
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Determining associations among different species from citizen science databases is challenging due to observer behavior and intrinsic density variations that give rise to correlations that do not imply species associations. This paper introduces a method that can efficiently analyze large datasets to extract likely species associations. It tiles space into small blocks chosen to be of the [...]
How do climate, geomorphology, and land-use control sediment yield generation in an anthropogenically modified landscape?
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Sedimentology
Understanding the controls on sediment yield (SY) is essential for water resource management. However, in the Cauvery basin in India, progress is hindered by fragmented studies that lack an integrated analysis. This research quantifies sub-catchment SY using long-term gauging data and employs Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) and multiple regression (MLR) to evaluate geomorphic, climatic, [...]
Newly discovered active faults in the Wairarapa Valley: Implications for multi-fault rupture and kinematics in the southern North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Active fault locations and constraints on the timing and size of earthquakes are important for understanding and mitigating seismic hazard in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, historical and instrumental records are too short to provide these data on most earthquake-generating faults. Light detection and ranging (lidar) data provide us with the ability to locate and describe active faults and [...]
Turkana’s Boiling Bowl: Extreme Heat and Social Norms fuel Gender Inequality
Published: 2025-08-20
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Climate change impedes human and economic development globally. The frequency, intensity, and duration of climate extremes, including droughts, floods, heatwaves and cyclones, pose significant threats to health, nutrition, water access, livelihoods and ecosystems. Due to escalating extreme weather events, more populations are becoming vulnerable with women and girls increasingly exposed to [...]
Assessing inversion uncertainty from initial model variability: A practical approach for geothermal MT exploration
Published: 2025-08-19
Subjects: Computational Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Power and Energy
We propose a simple and computationally efficient approach to evaluate the uncertainty in magnetotelluric (MT) inversion results arising from differences in initial models. Spatially smooth initial resistivity structures are generated by assigning random resistivity values to fixed representative points and applying Kriging-based interpolation. A series of 3D inversions was conducted using these [...]
Geological CO2 Storage in Poland: Review of Sequestration Potential, Policy Development, and Socio-Economic Factors
Published: 2025-08-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Poland's coal-reliant economy faces challenges in meeting European Union climate mandates. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is pivotal for decarbonizing high-emission sectors (e.g., cement, chemicals, refineries, and steel), enabling substantial CO_2 emission reductions while sustaining industrial competitiveness. This multidisciplinary review assesses Poland's CO_2 storage potential, integrating [...]
Trade-offs Between Discretization Approaches in Urban Stormwater Modeling: Accuracy, Interpretability, and Practical Implications
Published: 2025-08-18
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Stormwater models are important tools for urban drainage design, planning, and analysis, but their performance and interpretation depend heavily on how spatial discretization is handled. This study evaluates the influence of two common discretization strategies – topography- and sewer geometry-based – on hydrological representation and simulation accuracy in the Storm Water Management Model [...]
Development of an Integrated Geological-Engineering Framework for Assessing the Heat Extraction Potential from the Geopressured Wilcox Reservoir on the Gulf Coast of Texas
Published: 2025-08-18
Subjects: Engineering
This study aims to establish a comprehensive framework for evaluating the geothermal potential of High-Pressure and High-Temperature (HPHT) aquifers or geopressured geothermal reservoirs in the Wilcox Formation on the onshore Gulf Coast of Texas, USA. The framework integrates geological and engineering approaches to determine the feasibility and viability of harnessing geothermal energy from [...]
Quantifying the intensity of crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO): some practical considerations and recommended practices
Published: 2025-08-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Crystallographic preferred orientations (CPOs) commonly develop during the crystal-plastic deformation of rocks and minerals and are widely used to infer strain intensity and geometry, reconstruct deformation conditions, and estimate mechanical anisotropy. Numerous methods have been proposed to quantify CPO intensity as a scalar metric, but these metrics can be highly sensitive to their [...]
Participatory assessment of French Reed Beds (FRB) as natural based solution for rural sanitation in arid environments: insights from Ouijjane project in Morocco
Published: 2025-08-16
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Water Resource Management
Rural improved sanitation remains a major challenge to achieving the UN SDG 6 goal. In this regard, this study evaluates, with local stakeholders, an operational rural sanitation project in Ouijjane commune, Morocco, using French Reed Bed (FRB) technology. Data from project documentation, as well as field interviews and focus group discussions, were used to carry out a participatory evaluation. [...]
The Role of Tectonic Luck in Long-Term Habitability of Abiotic Earth-like Planets
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Planetary Geology, Planetary Sciences
Carbonate-silicate weathering feedback is thought to stabilize Earth's climate on geologic timescales. If climate warms, faster mineral dissolution and increased rainfall speed up weathering, increasing CO2 drawdown and opposing the initial warming. Limits to where this feedback might operate on terrestrial exoplanets with N2-O2-CO2-H2O atmospheres are used to define the 'habitable zone'-the [...]
Relationships between water quality, stream metabolism, and water stargrass growth in the lower Yakima River, 2018 to 2020
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Life Sciences
Since the early 2000s, water clarity on the lower Yakima River has improved. Changes in best management practices combined with a total maximum daily load for suspended sediment led to these improved conditions. As water clarity improved, so did conditions for aquatic plants; the clearer the water, the better the light penetration, and dramatic increases in plant biomass were observed. In the [...]
Tradeoffs between crop yield, agricultural residue burning, and groundwater depletion in India's wheat belt
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Agriculture
Wheat is a staple crop in India, but yields have stagnated and are projected to further decline due to climate change. One way to increase yields is to ensure timely sowing, which allows the crop to mature prior to damaging heat stress at the end of the growing season. Using novel satellite data products that we developed along with a unique village-level dataset that we collated across India's [...]
Low-cost autonomous chambers enable high spatial and temporal resolution monitoring of soil CO₂ exchange across landscapes
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Meteorology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Soil Science, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Soil CO₂ flux is a critical component of ecosystem carbon cycling, but due to high cost and mechanistic constraints, existing measurement systems are often limited by trade-offs between resolution (temporal and spatial), and spatial coverage. These constraints hinder efforts to monitor soil fluxes across diverse, heterogeneous landscapes and environmental gradients. 2. We developed Fluxbot [...]