Preprints
There are 6976 Preprints listed.
An Integrated Flood Risk Assessment and Mitigation Framework: Middle Cedar River Basin Case Study
Published: 2020-08-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Property buyout is one of the most frequently preferred flood mitigation applications by decision-makers for long-term risk reduction. Due to its high-level funding requirements as a mitigation solution, it requires extensive benefits and costs analysis for the selected region. Many communities in the State of Iowa experienced flood events (i.e. 1993, 2008, 2014, 2019) which resulted in a heavy [...]
Complex and cascading triggering of submarine landslides and turbidity currents at volcanic islands revealed from integration of high-resolution onshore and offshore surveys
Published: 2018-09-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Volcanology
Submerged flanks of volcanic islands are prone to hazards including submarine landslides that may trigger damaging tsunamis and fast-moving sediment-laden seafloor flows (turbidity currents) that break critical seafloor infrastructure. Small Island Developing States are particularly vulnerable to these hazards due to their remote and isolated nature, small size, high population densities and weak [...]
Comment: The effect of post-conflict transition on deforestation in protected areas in Colombia
Published: 2020-08-20
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A recent study on Colombian protected areas has found an increase in deforestation after ending armed conflict. The authors propose several drivers behind this trend and take their findings as proof of how these drivers specifically affect protected areas and render them particularly vulnerable to deforestation during post-conflict transition. However, after conducting an extended analysis of the [...]
Structure of the North Anatolian Fault Zone imaged via teleseismic scattering tomography
Published: 2020-08-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Information on fault zone structure is essential for our understanding of earthquake mechanics, continental deformation and our understanding of seismic hazard. We use the scattered seismic wavefield to study the subsurface structure of the North-Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) in the region of the 1999 {\.I}zmit and D\"uzce rupture using data from an 18-month dense deployment of seismometers with a [...]
Citizen science reveals the population exposure to air pollution
Published: 2020-08-18
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Air pollution remains a key environmental problem in an increasingly urbanized world. To quantify health impacts and support informed policies, the population exposure needs to be accurately monitored. However, the inherent spatial variability of air quality poses a tenacious challenge to this. While concentrations of traffic-related pollutants like nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are known to vary over [...]
Evolution of normal fault displacement and length as the continental lithosphere stretches
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Continental rifting is accommodated by the development of normal fault arrays. Fault growth patterns control their related seismic hazards, as well as influencing the tectonostratigraphic evolution, resource extraction and CO2 storage potential of rifts. Our understanding of fault evolution is largely derived by observing the final geometry and displacement (D)-length (L) characteristics of [...]
Resolving the Kinematics and Moment Release of Early Afterslip within the First Hours following the 2016 Mw 7.1 Kumamoto Earthquake: Implications for the Shallow Slip Deficit and Frictional Behavior of Aseismic Creep
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Continuous measurements of postseismic surface deformation provide insight into variations of the frictional strength of faults and the rheology of the lower crust and upper mantle as stresses following rupture are dissipated. However, due to the difficulty of capturing the earliest phase of afterslip, most analyses have focused on understanding postseismic processes over timescales of [...]
The role of upper level diffluence in the Tropical Easterly Jet in the formation of the recent strongest Atlantic hurricanes
Published: 2018-04-08
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In this paper we report the evidence of the potential role of diffluence in the 200hPa wind field off the coast of West Africa in the formation of a significant number of Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes in the recent decade. It is shown that on an average of 65% cases of hurricanes at Category 4 and above is preceded by upper level diffluence in the Tropical Easterly Jet (TEJ) by 0–3 days. [...]
Rapid finite-frequency microseismic noise source inversion at regional to global scales
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Ambient noise cross-correlations can be used as self-consistent observables, opening novel possibilities for investigating ambient noise sources. To optimise the forward- modelling of global ambient cross-correlations for any given noise distribution of noise sources in the microseismic frequency range up to 0.2 Hz, we implement (i) pre-computed wavefields and (ii) spatially variable grids. This [...]
Apatite fission-track dating by LA-Q-ICP-MS mapping
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Obtaining accurate and precise apatite fission-track (AFT) ages is dependent on producing plentiful high-quality apatite grains from a sample, ideally with high spontaneous fission-track densities (c. >105 tracks.cm-2). Many natural samples, such as bedrock samples from young orogenic belts or low-grade metamorphic samples with low U contents yield low spontaneous fission-track densities. Such [...]
Marine mineral-catalyzed NO and N2O formation on the anoxic early Earth
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Microbial metabolisms were limited by available terminal electron acceptors in the anoxic environment of the early Archean. However, iron mineral phases in Fe2+-rich (ferruginous) oceans could have catalyzed reactions with abiotically fixed nitrogen leading to the formation of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potentially favorable terminal electron acceptor. We experimentally simulated anoxic [...]
On the Evolution of Thermally Stratified Layers at the top of Earth’s Core
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Stable stratification at the top of the Earth’s outer core has been suggested based upon seismic and geomagnetic observations, however, the origin of the layer is still unknown. In this paper we focus on a thermal origin for the layer and conduct a systematic study on the thermal evolution of the core. We develop a new numerical code to model the growth of thermally stable layers beneath the CMB, [...]
Unequal anthropogenic enrichment of mercury in Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres
Published: 2020-08-16
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Remote northern (NH) and southern hemisphere (SH) lake sediment and peat records of mercury (Hg) deposition show a ×3 to ×5 Hg enrichment since pre-industrial times (<1880AD), leading to the common perception that global atmospheric Hg enrichment is moderate and uniform. Anthropogenic Hg emission in the NH is, however, approximately four times higher than in the SH. Here we reconstruct [...]
Use of geochemical and ecotoxicological approaches to evaluate sediment quality in differentially-contaminated, legally protected reserves along the coast of São Paulo State, Brazil
Published: 2020-08-18
Subjects: Life Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Toxicology
We compared sediment quality in estuaries at three locations along the coast of São Paulo State, Brazil, using geochemical analyses and whole sediment toxicity tests, performed during the southern winter and summer of 2013. Each locality is afforded a different degree of legal protection, and shows a distinct level of pollution: overall, Rio Diana (RD, most polluted, Permanent Protection Area) [...]
The 23 June 2020, Mw 7.4 La Crucecita, Oaxaca, Mexico earthquake and tsunami: A Rapid Response Field Survey during COVID-19 crisis
Published: 2020-08-19
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 23 June 2020 La Crucecita earthquake occurred at 10:29 hr on the coast of Oaxaca in a Mw 7.4 megathrust event at 22.6 km depth, and triggered a tsunami recorded at Huatulco and Salina Cruz tide gauge stations and a DART off the coast of Mexico. Immediately after the earthquake, a rapid response effort was coordinated by members of the Tsunami and Paleoseismology Laboratory UNAM, despite the [...]