Preprints
There are 7997 Preprints listed.
Towards underwater plastic monitoring using echo sounding
Published: 2021-01-25
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Fresh Water Studies, Hydrology
Plastics originating from land are mainly transported to the oceans by rivers. The total plastic transport from land to seas remains uncertain because of difficulties in measuring and the lack of standard observation techniques. A large focus in observations is on plastics floating on the water surface. However, an increasing number of observations suggest that large quantities of plastics are [...]
Was the January 26th, 1700 Cascadia earthquake part of an event sequence?
Published: 2021-01-30
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coastal subsidence, dating of soil samples and tree rings, and sedimentological evidence of a tsunami point to coseismic activity on a sizable portion of the Cascadia subduction zone circa 1700. Documents from Japan reveal that on January 26th of that year there were tsunami impacts across distant locations in the country and past modeling shows that a large Cascadia earthquake is the most likely [...]
Learning in a Crisis: Online Skill Building Workshop Addresses Immediate Pandemic Needs and Offers Possibilities for Future Trainings
Published: 2021-01-28
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Education, Geophysics and Seismology, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
The COVID-19 pandemic led to the suspension of many summer research opportunities for STEM students. In response, the IRIS Education and Outreach program, in collaboration with Miami University, offered a free online Seismology Skill Building Workshop to increase undergraduates' knowledge, skills, self-efficacy, and interest in observational seismology and scientific computing. Registrations were [...]
Goal-Oriented Error Estimation and Mesh Adaptation for Tracer Transport Modelling
Published: 2021-01-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This paper applies metric-based mesh adaptation methods to advection-dominated tracer transport modelling problems in two and three dimensions, using the finite element package Firedrake. In particular, the mesh adaptation methods considered are built upon goal-oriented estimates for the error incurred in evaluating a diagnostic quantity of interest (QoI). In the motivating example of modelling [...]
The active and passive roles of the ocean in generating basin-scale heat content variability
Published: 2021-01-28
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The role of ocean circulation in transforming surface forcing into interannual-to-multidecadal oceanic variability is an area of ongoing debate. Here, a novel method, establishing exact causal links, is used to quantitatively determine the role of ocean active and passive processes in transforming stochastic surface forcing into heat content variability. To this end, we use a global ocean model [...]
COMMENT ON“RECENT GLOBAL DECLINE OF CO2 FERTILIZATION EFFECTS ON VEGETATION PHOTOSYNTHESIS”
Published: 2021-01-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Wang et al. (Science 370, 1295–1300, 2020) report a significant decline in CO$_2$ fertilization effects using photosynthesis proxies from long-term satellite records. We find that small systematic biases in AVHRR data impact their analysis to the degree that the key finding is not robust.
Preliminary assessment of shipping noise monitoring using Distributed Acoustic Sensing on an optical fiber telecom cable
Published: 2021-01-30
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a recent instrumental approach allowing to turn fiber-optic cables into dense arrays of acoustic sensors. This technology is attractive in marine environments where instrumentation is difficult to implement. A promising application is the monitoring of environmental and anthropic noise, leveraging existing telecommunication cables on the seafloor. We assess [...]
Back-propagating rupture evolution within a curved slab during the 2019 Mw 8.0 Peru intraslab earthquake
Published: 2021-01-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 26 May 2019 Mw 8.0 Peru intraslab earthquake ruptured the subducting Nazca plate where the dip angle of the slab increases sharply and the strike angle rotates clockwise from the epicentre to north. To obtain a detailed seismic source model of the 2019 Peru earthquake, including not only the rupture evolution but also the spatiotemporal distribution of focal mechanisms, we performed [...]
Tectonic evolution of an Early Cryogenian late-magmatic basin in central Madagascar
Published: 2021-01-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Central and southern Madagascar comprise a number of distinctive Archaean crustal blocks (the Antongil-Masora and Antananarivo domains) overlain by Proterozoic supracrustal sequences, preserved in the East African Orogen. Here, we present U–Pb and Lu–Hf isotopic data for two supracrustal units from detrital and metamorphic zircon grains. The lower sequence is comprised of quartzite and [...]
Upper Mississippi River Flow and Sediment Characteristics and Their Effect on a Harbor Siltation Case
Published: 2021-01-28
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geomorphology, Hydraulic Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Upper Mississippi River flow and sediment characteristics downstream of St. Louis are presented in this study. Available and measured data were used to assess a harbor siltation case and dredging needs. Such data are also useful to researchers and engineers conducting work in the Mississippi River and large rivers in general. Flows were characterized in terms of the mean annual hydrograph, flow [...]
Urban Running Activity Detected Using a Seismic Sensor duringCOVID-19 Pandemic
Published: 2021-01-30
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Human foot traffic in urban environments provides essential information for city planners to manage the urban resources and urban residents to plan their activities. Compared to camera or mobile-based solutions, seismic sensors detect human footstep signals with fewer privacy concerns. However, seismic sensors often record signals generated from multiple sources, particularly in an urban outdoor [...]
Seasonal Arctic sea ice forecasting with probabilistic deep learning
Published: 2021-02-02
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Earth Sciences, Statistics and Probability
Anthropogenic warming has led to an unprecedented year-round reduction in Arctic sea ice extent. This has far-reaching consequences for indigenous and local communities, polar ecosystems, and global climate, motivating the need for accurate seasonal sea ice forecasts. While physics-based dynamical models can successfully forecast sea ice concentration several weeks ahead, they struggle to [...]
Upper Mantle Radial Anisotropy Under the Indian Ocean from Higher Mode Surface Waves and a Hierarchical Transdismensional Approach
Published: 2021-02-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology
We investigated the likelihood of radial anisotropy in the shallow and deep upper mantle, including the mantle transition zone (MTZ) under the Indian Ocean. Seismic anisotropy can be an indicator of mantle deformation through lattice preferred orientation of anisotropic crystals in the mantle. It has thus the potential to illuminate Earth's dynamic interior, but previous seismic tomography [...]
Rift Interaction Zones and the Stages of Rift Linkage in Active Segmented Continental Rift Systems
Published: 2021-01-30
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Although much is known about the interaction of faulting and sedimentation within the basins of active segmented continental rift systems, little is known about these processes within the interaction zones of varying geometries that separate the young interacting segments. We address this problem in the humid, magma-poor juvenile western branch of the East African Rift System (WB-EARS). First, we [...]
Shear wave velocity structure beneath North-Western Himalaya and adjoining areas
Published: 2021-01-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Shear wave velocity structure, together with Moho depths have been estimated in northwestern Himalaya, Hindu Kush and the Pamirs at a potential resolution of 0.5×0.5 degrees and at 1×1 degrees in the surrounding area, by inverting fundamental mode Rayleigh wave group velocities calculated from regional earthquake (Δ ≤ 2500 km) data, and also from their joint inversions with teleseismic receiver [...]