ALBERT

Description: This article summarizes the ground-motion characterization (GMC) model component of the 2022 New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model (2022 NZ NSHM). The model development process included establishing a NZ-specific context through the creation of a new ground-motion database, and consideration of alternative ground-motion models (GMMs) that have been historically used in NZ or have been recently developed for global application with or without NZ-specific regionalizations. Explicit attention was given to models employing state-of-the-art approaches in terms of their ability to provide robust predictions when extrapolated beyond the predictor variable scenarios that are well constrained by empirical data alone. We adopted a “hybrid” logic tree that combined both a “weightson- models” approach along with backbone models (i.e., metamodels), the former being the conventional approach to GMC logic tree modeling for NSHM applications using published models, and the latter being increasingly used in research literature and site-specific studies. In this vein, two NZ-specific GMMs were developed employing the backbone model construct. All of the adopted subduction GMMs in the logic tree were further modified from their published versions to include the effects of increased attenuation in the back-arc region; and, all but one model was modified to account for the reduction in ground-motion standard deviations as a result of nonlinear surficial site response. As well as being based on theoretical arguments, these adjustments were implemented as a result of hazard sensitivity analyses using models without these effects, which we consider gave unrealistically high hazard estimates.

Description: Seismicity usually exhibits a non-Poisson spatiotemporal distribution and could undergo nonstationary processes. However, the Poisson assumption is still deeply rooted in current probabilistic seismic hazard analysis models, especially when input catalogs must be declustered to obtain a Poisson background rate. In addition, nonstationary behavior and scarce earthquake records in regions of low seismicity can bias hazard estimates that use stationary or spatially precise forecasts. In this work, we implement hazard formulations using forecasts that trade-off spatial precision to account for overdispersion and nonstationarity of seismicity in the form of uniform rate zones (URZs), which describe rate variability using non-Poisson probabilistic distributions of earthquake numbers. The impact of these forecasts in the hazard space is investigated by implementing a negative- binomial formulation in the OpenQuake hazard software suite, which is adopted by the 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model. For a 10% exceedance probability of peak ground acceleration (PGA) in 50 yr, forecasts that only reduce the spatial precision, that is, stationary Poisson URZ models, cause up to a twofold increase in hazard for low-seismicity regions compared to spatially precise forecasts. Furthermore, the inclusion of non-Poisson temporal processes in URZ models increases the expected PGA by up to three times in low-seismicity regions, whereas the effect on high-seismicity is minimal (∼5%). The hazard estimates presented here highlight the relevance, as well as the feasibility, of incorporating analytical formulations of seismicity that go beyond the inadequate stationary Poisson description of seismicity.

Description: The distribution of earthquakes in time and space is seldom stationary, which could hinder a robust statistical analysis, particularly in low-seismicity regions with limited data. This work investigates the performance of stationary Poisson and spatially precise forecasts, such as smoothed seismicity models (SSMs), in terms of the available training data. Catalog bootstrap experiments are conducted to: (1) identify the number of training data necessary for SSMs to perform spatially better than the least-informative Uniform Rate Zone (URZ) models; and (2) describe the rate temporal variability accounting for the overdispersion and nonstationarity of seismicity. Formally, the strict-stationarity assumption used in traditional forecasts is relaxed into local and incremental stationarity (i.e., a catalog is only stationary in the vicinity of a given time point t) along with self-similar behavior described by a power law. The results reveal rate dispersion up to 10 times higher than predicted by Poisson models and highlight the impact of nonstationarity in assuming a constant mean rate within training-forecast intervals. The temporal rate variability is translated into a reduction of spatial precision by means of URZmodels. First, counting processes are devised to capture rate distributions, considering the rate as a random variable. Second, we devise a data-driven method based on geodetic strain rate to spatially delimit the precision of URZs, assuming that strain/stress rate is related to the timescales of earthquake interactions. Finally, rate distributions are inferred from the available data within each URZ. We provide forecasts for the New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model update,which can exhibit rates up to ten times higher in low-seismicity regions compared with SSMs. This study highlights the need to consider nonstationarity in seismicity models and underscores the importance of appropriate statistical descriptions of rate variability in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis.

Description: National-scale seismic hazard models with large logic trees can be difficult to calculate using traditional seismic hazard software. To calculate the complete 2022 revision of the New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model—Te Tauira Matapae Pūmate Rū i Aotearoa, including epistemic uncertainty, we have developed a method in which the calculation is broken into two separate stages. This method takes advantage of logic tree structures that comprise multiple, independent logic trees from which complete realizations are formed by combination. In the first stage, we precalculate the independent realizations of the logic trees. In the second stage, we assemble the full ensemble of logic tree realizations by combining components from the first stage. Once all realizations of the full logic tree have been calculated, we can compute aggregate statistics for the model. This method benefits both from the reduction in the amount of computation necessary and its parallelism. In addition to facilitating the computation of a large seismic hazard model, the method described can also be used for sensitivity testing of model components and to speed up experimentation with logic tree structure and weights.

Description: Central America is a seismically active region where six tectonic plates (North America, Caribbean, Cocos, Nazca, Panama, and South America) interact in a subduction zone with transform faults and two triple points. This complex tectonic setting makes the maximum magnitude—Mmax—estimation a challenging task, with the crustal fault earthquakes being the most damaging in the seismic history of Central America. The empirical source scaling relations (ESSR) allow the Mmax of faults to be determined from rupture parameters. In this study, we use a dataset of well-characterized earthquakes in the region, comprising 64 events from 1972 to 2021 with magnitudes between Mw 4.1 and 7.7. The dataset incorporates records of rupture parameters (length, width, area, slip, and magnitude) and information on the faults and aftershocks associated. This database is an important product in itself, and through its use we determine which global relations fit best to our data via a residual analysis. Moreover, based on the best-quality records, we develop scaling relations for Central America (CA-ESSR) for rupture length, width, and area. These new relations were tested and compared with recent earthquakes, and logic trees are proposed to combine the CA-ESSR and the best-fit global relations. Therefore, we estimate the Mmax for 30 faults using the logic tree for rupture length, considering a total rupture of the fault andmultifault scenarios. Our results suggest that in CentralAmerica rupture areas larger than other regions are required to generate the samemagnitudes.We associate this with the shear modulus (μ), which seems to be lower (∼ 30% less) than the global mean values for crustal rocks. Furthermore, considering multifault ruptures, we found several fault systems with potential Mmax ≥Mw 7.0. These findings contribute to a better understanding of regional seismotectonics and to the efficient characterization of fault rupture models for seismic hazards.

Description: Earthquake precursory processes have been central to scientific inquiry for nearly a century. Recent advancements in earthquake monitoring, geodesy, and data analysis including artificial intelligence, have substantially improved our understanding of how earthquake sequences unfold leading to the mainshock. We examine the available seismological and geodetic evidence describing preparatory processes in 33 earthquake sequences with MW [3.2–9.0] across different tectonic and stress conditions. Our analysis reveals common patterns, and sheds light on the interplay of structural, tectonic and other boundary conditions that influence the dynamics of earthquake sequences, and hence, in the seismo-geodetic observables prior to the mainshock. We place particular emphasis on connecting observed phenomena to the underlying physical processes driving the sequences. From our findings, we propose a conceptual framework viewing earthquake preparation as a process involving several juxtaposed driving physical mechanisms on different temporal and spatial scales, jointly leading to the stress increase in the future epicenter.

Description: Seafloor massive sulfides are modern analogues to ancient volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits, which are particularly enriched in volatile and precious metals (e.g., Te, Au, Ag, Cu, Bi, Se) in subduction-related settings. However, the sources of metals are still poorly constrained, and it remains elusive, whether magmatic volatile influx controls their distribution in submarine hydrothermal systems on the plate tectonic-scale. Here, we demonstrate, for the first time, that Te, As, and Sb contents as well as related Te/As and Te/Sb ratios vary systematically with the δ34S composition of pyrite and native S, as reported by high-resolution coupled SIMS δ34S and trace element LA-ICP-MS micro-analysis. The better correlation of element ratios (Te/As, Te/Sb) opposed to trace element contents (e.g., Te) with δ34S in pyrite demonstrates that element ratios provide a more robust record of magmatic volatile influx than their absolute contents. On this basis, we define a quantitative threshold of high Te/As (〉0.004) and Te/Sb (〉0.6) ratios in pyrite that are indicative of magmatic volatile influx to submarine subduction-related hydrothermal systems. Two-component fluid mixing simulations further revealed that 〈5 % of magmatic volatile influx drastically changes the Te/As (and Te/Sb) ratio of the modelled fluid, but only slightly changes its δ34S composition. This suggests that Te/As and Te/Sb ratios are more sensitive to a magmatic volatile influx into seawater-dominated hydrothermal systems than δ34S signatures if the magmatic volatile influx was low. Beyond this, our results demonstrate that magma-derived fluid mixing with seawater only has a negligible effect on the magmatic volatile record of Te/As and Te/Sb, while the S isotope system is prone for seawater overprinting leading to commonly ambiguous source signatures. Thus, Te/As and Te/Sb systematics in pyrite provide a robust proxy to evaluate the contribution of magmatic volatiles to submarine hydrothermal systems from the grain- to plate tectonic-scale.

Description: Bones and teeth are often the only fossil remains of vertebrates that are preserved over geological time in sedimentary rocks. They render valuable archives for geochemical proxies which are commonly used for paleo-reconstructions. However, the fossilization mechanisms of bone are not yet well understood. Crucial processes are the transformation of bioapatite and the replacement of collagen by thermodynamically more stable apatite phases, such as fluorapatite. In the present study, aqueous alteration experiments on cortical bone samples were performed under simulated early diagenetic conditions in order to investigate whether and how an external PO4 source affects post mortem bone mineralization. Additionally, abiotic oxygen isotope exchange mechanisms between bioapatite and aqueous solutions were assessed by using either 18O-enriched water or phosphate as a tracer. The presence of an external sedimentary 18O-labeled PO4 source led to a rapid formation of new fluorapatite crystallites at the sample’s margin that was highly enriched in 18O. Meanwhile, in the interior of the samples carbonate-poor HAp formed through a dissolution-precipitation process without incorporating any of the 18O tracer. These two processes appear to act independently from each other. In samples exposed to 18O-labeled aqueous solutions lacking a PO4 source, no newly grown apatite crystallites were found, however in the interior of these samples, nano-crystalline carbonate-poor or -free hydroxylapatite precipitated. A comparatively low but uniform 18O-enrichment was measured from the sample’s margin towards its interior, which is assumed to have resulted from the adsorption of H218O onto crystallite surface sites and collagen. Overall, our results suggest that a fast incorporation of 18O-doped PO4 from the sediment source accelerated bone mineralization and consequently changed the oxygen isotope composition of the PO4 group in the bone mineral phase more rapidly and to a greater extent than in a diagenetic setting lacking additional external PO4. Dissolved phosphate from the taphonomic setting thus seems to be an important factor fostering bone fossilization and preservation as well as oxygen isotope alteration.

Description: Phosphatized fish fossils occur in various locations worldwide. Although these fossils have been intensively studied over the past decades they remain a matter of ongoing research. The mechanism of the permineralization reaction itself remains still debated in the community. The mineralization in apatite of a whole fish requires a substantial amount of phosphate which is scarce in seawater, so the origin of the excess is unknown. Previous research has shown that alkaline phosphatase, a ubiquitous enzyme, can increase the phosphate content in vitro in a medium to the degree of saturation concerning apatite. We applied this principle to an experimental setup where fish scales were exposed to commercial bovine alkaline phosphatase. We analyzed the samples with SEM and TEM and found that apatite crystals had formed on the remaining soft tissue. A comparison of these newly formed apatite crystals with fish fossils from the Solnhofen and Santana fossil deposits showed striking similarities. Both are made up of almost identically sized and shaped nano-apatites. This suggests a common formation process: the spontaneous precipitation from an oversaturated solution. The excess activity of alkaline phosphatase could explain that effect. Therefore, our findings could provide insight into the formation of well-preserved fossils.

Description: Strain engineering beyond substrate limitation of colossal magnetoresistant thin (La0.6Pr0.4)0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (LPCMO) films on LaAlO3-buffered SrTiO3 (LAO/STO) substrates has been demonstrated using metalorganic aerosol deposition technique. By growing partially relaxed 7–27 nm thick heteroepitaxial LAO buffer layers on STO a perfect lattice matching to the LPCMO has been achieved. As a result, strain-free heteroepitaxial 10–20 nm thick LPCMO/LAO/STO films with bulk-like ferromagnetic metallic ground state were obtained. Without buffer the coherently strained thin LPCMO/STO and LPCMO/LAO films were insulating and weakly magnetic. The reason for the optimized magnetotransport in strain-free LPCMO films was found to be a large octahedral Mn–O–Mn bond angle φOOR ~ 166–168° as compared to the significantly smaller one of φOOR ~ 152–156° determined for the tensile (LPCMO/STO) and compressively (LPCMO/LAO) strained films.

Description: Application of Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage with High Temperatures (HT-ATES) ranging from 60–90 is a promising technique to store large amounts of energy in urban areas. However, these areas typically lack information on hydrogeological and thermal parameters of the subsurface to determine the potential for energy storage. Moreover, conventional exploration methods as pumping tests do not account for the variation in density caused by the high temperature gradients or changes in salinity as encountered in HT-ATES operation. The objective of this study is therefore to develop best practices for characterizing the hydrogeological and thermal properties of groundwater wells and their surrounding formation that determine the potential performance of HT-ATES-systems. In addition to conventional pumping tests, a set of Push–Pull tracer Tests (PPTs) with cold and hot water are proposed and scrutinized using Berlin as case study. There, the research well Gt BChb 1/2015, which is characterized by a reservoir temperature of 17 at a depth between 220 und 230 m below ground surface was tested. In 2017, seven Slug-Withdrawal Tests (SWTs), a Step-Rate-Test (SRT), a production tests, and two Push–Pull tracer Tests (PPTs) with hot and cold water were performed during a period of 40 days. These tests were accompanied by Distributed-Temperature-Sensing (DTS) monitoring. The temperature measurements provide indications of injection areas based on the warmback period during a PPT with 81 hot water. The determined aquifer transmissibility , the related Productivity Index (), and maximum flow rates of about indicate that the aquifer has potential for HT-ATES. However, the PPT and the DTS monitoring revealed cross flow between the target aquifer and an overlying aquifer. Thus, a new well with a design avoiding cross flow is required to utilize the aquifer’s energy storage potential. A set of best practices for characterizing HT-ATES potential was derived from the experiences in this study.

Description: In this study, we investigated four different ferroan dolomite samples using in situ Raman spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) at high pressures up to 48 GPa and at room temperature. Our results show that the transition from Dolomite-I (Dol-I) to Dolomite-II (Dol-II) occurs above 13-16 GPa, and the transition pressure depends on the composition of the solid solution. Compression above 32-35 GPa results in the appearance of the Dolomite-IIIc (Dol-IIIc) or Dolomite-IIIb (Dol-IIIb). In the high-pressure XRD study, we found that the XRD patterns of the Ca0.97(Mg0.77,Fe0.23Mn0.03)(CO3)2 (xFe = 0.23, Ank23) can be indexed as Dol-IIIc at 44 GPa, while the rhombohedral Dol-IIIb structure matches better with the XRD patterns of the xFe = 0.40 (Ank40) and 0.64 (Ank64) solid solutions. Additionally, in the Raman spectra of the Fe-richest sample (Ca0.99(Mg0.33Fe0.64Mn0.05) (CO3)2 (Ank64), we observed an abrupt frequency downshift of the CO3-stretching vibrations between 40 – 42 GPa, which may reflect a pressure-induced Fe2+ spin transition. We further investigated two samples with xFe= 0.19 (Ank19) and 0.23 (Ank23) at high pressure and high temperatures, up to at least 2600 K. The experiments revealed that the unquenchable Dol-IIIc structure could be a stable high-pressure/high-temperature polymorph in ferroan dolomite up to at least 2600 K.

Description: The gravity anomalies reflect density perturbations at different depths, which control the physical state and dynamics of the lithosphere and sub-lithospheric mantle. However, the gravity effect of the crust masks the mantle signals. In this study, we develop two frameworks (correction with density contrasts and actual densities) to calculate the gravity anomalies generated by the layered crust. We apply the proposed approaches to evaluate the global mantle gravity disturbances based on the new crustal models. Consistent patterns and an increasing linear trend of the mantle gravity disturbances with lithospheric thickness and Vs velocities at 150 km depth are obtained. Our results indicate denser lithospheric roots in most cratons and lighter materials in the oceanic mantle. Furthermore, our gravity map corresponds well to regional geological features, providing new insights into mantle structure and dynamics. Specifically, (1) reduced anomalies associated with the Superior and Rae cratons indicate more depleted roots compared with other cratons of North America. (2) Negative anomalies along the Cordillera (western North America) suggest mass deficits owing to the buoyant hot mantle. (3) Positive anomalies in the Baltic, East European, and Siberian cratons support thick, dense lithosphere with significant density heterogeneities, which could result from thermo-chemical modifications of the cratonic roots. (4) Pronounced positive anomalies correspond to stable blocks, e.g., Arabian Platform, Indian Craton, and Tarim basin, indicating a thick, dense lithosphere. (5) Low anomalies in the active tectonic units and back-arc basins suggest local mantle upwellings. (6) The cold subducting/detached plates may result in the high anomalies observed in the Zagros and Tibet.

Description: The 1400 km long North Anatolian Fault Zone in Türkiye runs through numerous densely populated regions, including the city of Düzce that was recently hit by an Mw 6.1 earthquake on 23 November 2022. This was the first moderate event in the region after the devastating Mw 7.2 earthquake in 1999, which cost the lives of over 700 people. Despite its moderate size, the earthquake caused unexpected severe damage to a significant number of buildings, as reported by local institutions (Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, AFAD). It is well established that ground motions in the near field can lead to increased damage due to near-field domain effects, such as groundmotion pulses and directivity effects (i.e., when the site is aligned with rupture propagation). We examine potential near-field effects using the strong ground motion database of AFAD-Turkish Accelerometric Database and Analysis Systems. To achieve this, we first analyze the behavior of the ground-motion intensities in terms of their spatial distribution and observe higher peak ground velocity than expected by ground-motion models in spatially constrained azimuthal ranges. Furthermore, we find that the majority of the near-fault recordings contain velocity pulses that are primary concentrated on the fault-parallel component. This outcome questions the widely accepted understanding from the previous studies, which mainly suggested that impulsive ground motions that are associated with directivity effects primarily occur on the fault-normal component of large-magnitude events.

Description: We report uplift and shortening rates from a late Neogene–Pleistocene deformation stage of the frontal fold-thrust belt and adjacent wedge-top in the Principal Cordillera of the southern Central Andes (33-39° SL). A structural model is presented based on integration of surface field data and subsurface 2D seismic sections. Shortening, uplift, and sedimentation rates were calculated from different steps of kinematic modelling. Our structural interpretations and modelling are integrated with new detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology to define a previously overlooked Pleistocene period of orogenic shortening and syntectonic sedimentation in the Malargüe basin. This task was possible due to the dating of three samples yielding between ∼12 and 1 Ma obtained from a 900 m deep well located in the foreland. From stratigraphic correlations, our data records an active Plio-Pleistocene wedge-top depozone coeval with retreat of the volcanism, and the emplacement of retroarc basalts. Structural modelling, together with detrital zircon U-Pb provenance data register shortening producing a foredeep to wedge-top Plio-Pleistocene transition, adjusting and completing the knowledge of the frontal fold-thrust belt and foreland basin in the southern Central Andes.

Description: Arsenic and silica are known inhibitors of the crystallization of iron minerals from poorly ordered precursor phases. However, little is known about the effects of co-existing As and Si on the crystallization and long-term stability of mixed-valence Fe minerals such as green rust (GR). GR usually forms in anoxic, Fe2+-rich, near-neutral pH environments, where they influence the speciation and mobility of trace elements, nutrients and contaminants. In this work, the Fe2+-induced transformation of As- and/or Si-bearing ferrihydrite (FHY) was monitored at pH 8 ([As]initial = 100 μM, Si/As = 10) over 720 h. Our results showed that in the presence of As(III) + Si or As(V) + Si, GR sulfate (GRSO4) formation from FHY was up to four times slower compared to single species system containing only As(III), As(V) or Si. Co-existing As(III) + Si and As(V) + Si also inhibited GRSO4 transformation to magnetite, contrary to systems with only Si or As(V). Overall, our findings demonstrate the synergistic inhibitory effect of co-existing Si on the crystallization and solid-phase stability of As-bearing GRSO4, establishing an inhibitory effect ladder: As(III) + Si 〉 As(V) + Si 〉 As(III) 〉 Si 〉 As(V). This further highlights the importance of GR in potentially controlling the fate and mobility of As in ferruginous, Si-rich groundwater and sediments such as those in South and Southeast Asia.

Description: Lava flows form important fluid reservoirs and have been extensively exploited for water aquifers, geothermal energy, hydrocarbon production and, more recently, for carbon storage. Effusive subaerial mafic to intermediate lava flows account for vast rock volumes globally, and form reservoirs with properties dictated by well-known lava flow facies ranging from pāhoehoe through several transitional forms to ‘a’ā lava. These variations in flow type lead to critical differences in the pore structure, distribution, connectivity, strength and fracturing of individual lava flows, which, alongside lava flow package architectures, determine primary reservoir potential. Lava flow margins with vesicular, fracture and often autobreccia-hosted pore structures can have porosities commonly exceeding 40% and matrix permeabilities over 10−11 m2 (〉10 D) separated by much lower porosity and permeability flow interiors. Secondary post-emplacement physicochemical changes related to fracturing, meteoric, diagenetic and hydrothermal alteration can significantly modify reservoir potential through a complex interplay of mineral transformation, pore-clogging secondary minerals and dissolution, which must be carefully characterized and assessed during exploration and appraisal. Within this contribution, a review of selected global lava flow-hosted reservoir occurrences is presented, followed by a discussion of the factors that influence lava flow reservoir potential.

Description: For an ω2-source model, moment-based estimates of the stress drop are obtained by combining corner frequency and seismic moment source parameters. Therefore, the moment-based estimates of the stress drop are informative about the amount of energy radiated at high frequencies by dynamic rupture processes. This study aims to systematically estimate such stress drop from the harmonized dataset at the European scale and to characterize the distributions of the stress drop for application in future stochastic simulations. We analyze the seismological records associated with shallow crustal seismic events that occurred in Western Europe between January 1990 and May 2020. We processed 220,000 high-quality records and isolated the contributions of the source, site, and path contributions using the Generalized Inversion Technique. The source parameters, including the corner frequency, moment magnitude, and stress drop, of 6135 seismic events are calculated. The events processed are mainly tectonic events (e.g., earthquakes of the central Italy 2009–2016 sequence), although non-tectonic events associated with the Groningen gas field and mining activities in Western Europe are also included in the analysis. The impact of different attenuation models and reference site choices are evaluated. Most of the obtained source spectra follow the standard ω2-model except for a few events where the data sampling considered does not allow an effective spectral decomposition. The resulting stress drop shows a positive correlation with moment magnitude between 3 and 4, and a self-similarity for magnitudes greater than 4 with a mean stress drop of 13.8 MPa.

Description: During flood events near real-time, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite imagery has proven to be an efficient management tool for disaster management authorities. However, one of the challenges is accurate classification and segmentation of flooded water. A common method of SAR-based flood mapping is binary segmentation by thresholding, but this method is limited due to the effects of backscatter, geographical area, and surface characterstics. Recent advancements in deep learning algorithms for image segmentation have demonstrated excellent potential for improving flood detection. In this paper, we present a deep learning approach with a nested UNet architecture based on a backbone of EfficientNet-B7 by leveraging a publicly available Sentinel‑1 dataset provided jointly by NASA and the IEEE GRSS Committee. The performance of the nested UNet model was compared with several other UNet-based convolutional neural network architectures. The models were trained on flood events from Nebraska and North Alabama in the USA, Bangladesh, and Florence, Italy. Finally, the generalization capacity of the trained nested UNet model was compared to the other architectures by testing on Sentinel‑1 data from flood events of varied geographical regions such as Spain, India, and Vietnam. The impact of using different polarization band combinations of input data on the segmentation capabilities of the nested UNet and other models is also evaluated using Shapley scores. The results of these experiments show that the UNet model architectures perform comparably to the UNet++ with EfficientNet-B7 backbone for both the NASA dataset as well as the other test cases. Therefore, it can be inferred that these models can be trained on certain flood events provided in the dataset and used for flood detection in other geographical areas, thus proving the transferability of these models. However, the effect of polarization still varies across different test cases from around the world in terms of performance; the model trained with the combinations of individual bands, VV and VH, and polarization ratios gives the best results.

Description: To trace Critical Zone processes and to quantify Li fluxes from one Critical Zone compartment into another, we investigated the Li concentration and isotopic composition (δ7Li) of time-series water samples (including subsurface flow, groundwater and creek water), vegetation, bedrock (including separated minerals from bedrock), and regolith (including exchangeable fraction and clay-sized fraction of regolith) in a temperate forested headwater catchment in the Black Forest, Conventwald, Germany. Our estimation of the Li budget shows that atmospheric deposition and biological processes played minor roles in the Li cycle relative to chemical weathering. All water samples (δ 7Li value of 6.5 to 20.4 ‰) were enriched in 7Li compared to bedrock (-1.3 ‰) and regolith (∼-1.7 ‰), but δ7Li differed between water pathways: δ7Li variations in subsurface flow, creek water and groundwater were controlled by conservative mixing, exchangeable pool buffering and Li incorporation/adsorption, respectively. Fractionated heavy Li isotopes in water samples resulted from the formation of secondary solids which preferentially incorporated 6Li, with the separated clay-sized fraction of the regolith exhibiting more negative δ7Li values (-5.4 to −3.5 ‰) than the bulk regolith (∼-1.7 ‰). However, Li in secondary solids only accounted for 8 ± 6 % of the total Li hosted in bulk regolith, and consequently δ7Li in soil did not differ significantly from δ 7Li in bedrock. This is unexpected considering water is continuously removing 7Li in preference over 6Li from regolith. Mass balance calculations applied at the catchment scale point to an irreconcilable imbalance with our data. On one hand, the regolith’s δ7Li values are not negative enough to balance the 7Li export by river water, and on the other hand Li in the riverine dissolved load only accounts for ∼ 30 % of the Li solubilized from regolith. Therefore, we suggest that there might be a “hidden export pathway” for Li at our site, possibly subsurface removal of fine particles enriched in 6Li. In light of increasingly frequent observations of such isotopic imbalances in the Critical Zone this phenomenon deserves increased attention.

Description: Estuarine processes are key in modulating the riverine input of particle-reactive trace elements to the ocean. An important, but still under-utilized member of these elements is beryllium-9 (9Be) that together with cosmogenic 10Be has been suggested to serve as a quantitative tracer of present and past continental weathering flux. This study investigates different pathways of terrigenous 9Be through coastal areas into the ocean, based on dissolved 9Be concentrations in surface and bottom waters together with corresponding particulate 9Be concentrations along the salinity gradient in the Changjiang Estuary. Dissolved 9Be in the Changjiang Estuary shows a non-conservative behavior: At low to mid-salinity where water is well-mixed, 9Be is removed from both surface and bottom waters at low salinity and then released back into the water column at mid-salinity. At high salinity where water is stratified, dissolved 9Be is removed from surface waters, but is released back into bottom waters. In combination with hydrochemical (e.g., dissolved oxygen) and particulate 9Be data obtained from different extracted phases, we attribute the removal of dissolved 9Be at low salinity to salt-induced colloidal flocculation, whereas in surface waters at high salinity, we ascribe the removal to biological scavenging facilitated by phytoplankton blooms. The release of 9Be into mid- and high-salinity bottom waters is likely dominated by benthic processes, including porewater diffusion and/or submarine groundwater discharge. The contribution from desorption of 9Be from suspended particulate matter is negligible throughout the entire estuary. We propose that the release of 9Be through benthic processes potentially presents the most important contributor to the marine 9Be budget, where this benthic flux of 9Be is likely enhanced by hypoxic conditions in coastal bottom waters.

Description: The recent rapid improvement of machine learning techniques had a large impact on the way seismological data can be processed. During the last years several machine learning algorithms determining seismic onset times have been published facilitating the automatic picking of large data sets. Here we apply the deep neural network PhaseNet to a network of over 900 permanent and temporal broad band stations that were deployed as part of the AlpArray research initiative in the Greater Alpine Region (GAR) during 2016-2020. We selected 384 well distributed earthquakes with ML ≥ 2.5 for our study and developed a purely data-driven pre-inversion pick selection method to consistently remove outliers from the automatic pick catalog. This allows us to include observations throughout the crustal triplication zone resulting in 39,599 P and 13,188 S observations. Using the established VELEST and the recently developed McMC codes we invert for the 1D P- and S-wave velocity structure including station correction terms while simultaneously relocating the events. As a result we present two separate models differing in the maximum included observation distance and therefore their suggested usage. The model AlpsLocPS is based on arrivals from ≤ 130 km and therefore should be used to consistently (re)-locate seismicity based on P & S observations. The model GAR1D_PS includes the entire observable distance range of up to 1000 km and for the first time provides consistent P- & S-phase synthetic travel times for the entire Alpine orogen. Comparing our relocated seismicity with hypocentral parameters from other studies in the area we quantify the absolute horizontal and vertical accuracy of event locations as ≈ 2.0 km and ≈ 6.0 km, respectively.

Description: Significance Continental glaciers and ice sheets are excellent indicators of ongoing and past climate changes. The Patagonian ice sheet (PIS) was the largest extrapolar ice sheet in the Southern Hemisphere. Many studies have investigated the advances of the PIS on its eastern side, but there are only a few PIS records on the Pacific side. We show that three active intervals occurred during the last ~140 ka, with an extended PIS that contributed to the release of large amounts of freshwater and sediment into the Pacific. Active intervals during the last glacial period occurred from ~70 to 60 ka and from ~40 to 18 ka, with four and five phases of increased ice discharge, respectively, most likely driven by precipitation changes. Abstract Terrestrial glacial records from the Patagonian Andes and New Zealand Alps document quasi-synchronous Southern Hemisphere–wide glacier advances during the late Quaternary. However, these records are inherently incomplete. Here, we provide a continuous marine record of western–central Patagonian ice sheet (PIS) extent over a complete glacial–interglacial cycle back into the penultimate glacial (~140 ka). Sediment core MR16-09 PC03, located at 46°S and ~150 km offshore Chile, received high terrestrial sediment and meltwater input when the central PIS extended westward. We use biomarkers, foraminiferal oxygen isotopes, and major elemental data to reconstruct terrestrial sediment and freshwater input related to PIS variations. Our sediment record documents three intervals of general PIS marginal fluctuations, during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (140 to 135 ka), MIS 4 (~70 to 60 ka), and late MIS 3 to MIS 2 (~40 to 18 ka). These higher terrigenous input intervals occurred during sea-level low stands, when the western PIS covered most of the Chilean fjords, which today retain glaciofluvial sediments. During these intervals, high-amplitude phases of enhanced sediment supply occur at millennial timescales, reflecting increased ice discharge most likely due to a growing PIS. We assign the late MIS 3 to MIS 2 phases and, by inference, older advances to Antarctic cold stages. We conclude that the increased sediment/meltwater release during Southern Hemisphere millennial-scale cold phases was likely related to higher precipitation caused by enhanced westerly winds at the northwestern margin of the PIS. Our records complement terrestrial archives and provide evidence for PIS climate sensitivity.

Description: The empirical Båth’s law states that the average magnitude difference (⁠⁠) between a mainshock and its strongest aftershock is ∼1.2, independent of the size of the mainshock. Although this observation can generally be explained by a scaling of aftershock productivity with mainshock magnitude in combination with a Gutenberg–Richter frequency–magnitude distribution, estimates of may be preferable because they are directly related to the most interesting information, namely the magnitudes of the main events, without relying on assumptions. However, a major challenge in calculating this value is the bias introduced by missing data points when the strongest aftershock is below the observed cut‐off magnitude. Ignoring missing values leads to a systematic error because the data points removed are those with particularly large magnitude differences ⁠. The error can be minimized by restricting the statistics to mainshocks that are at least 2 magnitude units above the cutoff, but then the sample size is strongly reduced. This work provides an innovative approach for modeling by adapting methods for time‐to‐event data, which often suffer from incomplete observations (censoring). In doing so, we adequately account for unobserved values and estimate a fully parametric distribution of the magnitude differences for mainshocks in a global earthquake catalog. Our results suggest that magnitude differences are best modeled by the Gompertz distribution and that larger are expected at increasing depths and higher heat flows.

Description: Using Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) for soil moisture (SM) retrieval has recently gained importance due to its high temporal-spatial resolution. However, the current methods, i.e., constructing a single machine learning (ML)-based model, have large model uncertainty resulting from ML networks and input schemes. Moreover, traditional Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) cannot capture the rapid vegetation changes well. In this paper, a new SM retrieval method of constructing a hybrid model based on Bayesian model averaging (BMA) is employed to reduce the model uncertainty. Meanwhile, novel Sun-induced fluorescence (SIF) data is used as ancillary data to represent the rapid change of vegetation. We validate the proposed method at point and regional scales using in-situ data and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) product. The results demonstrate that our method has high accuracy and low uncertainty in SM retrieval. At the point scale, as accuracy indices, the average R () of BMA increases from 0.90 to 0.93 and the average root-mean-square-error () decreases from 0.034 to 0.029 ; as indices of uncertainty, the standard deviations of R and RMSE ( and ) decrease by 32 % and 9 % compared to the single ML-based model. For the regional scale, the increases from 0.79 to 0.81, the decreases from 0.024 to 0.023 , and the decreases by 19 %. Moreover, we take the point-scale experiment as an example for comparison to compare the performance of SIF with that of NDVI. The of BMA trained by SIF is 0.03 higher than that trained by NDVI and the decreases by 0.002 ; and decrease by 25 % and 6 %. Based on these results, the proposed method can reduce the uncertainty and the advantage of SIF has potential for improving the SM retrieval.

Description: The Lacq area in southwest France has been associated with continuous moderate induced seismic activity since 1969. However, the mechanisms driving this induced seismicity are not fully understood: reservoir depletion has been proposed as the main factor, and more recently wastewater injection has been suggested to play a more important role (Grasso et al., 2021). The interpretation of these mechanisms relies heavily on the quality of earthquake locations, which we prove to be weak due to a lack of local instrumentation for several years. In order to provide the most complete and reliable induced event catalog for the studies of the Lacq induced seismicity mechanisms & seismic hazard, we made an exhaustive compilation, analysis and improvement of all available catalogs. We also provided new earthquake detections & relocations in a 3D velocity model from past and present temporary deployments never used for studying the Lacq area. Important remaining location uncertainties lead us to also carefully sort the events according to their location confidence, defining 3 classes of events (unconstrained location, location constrained within 2-3 km and 1-2 km respectively). This new harmonized catalog and the identification of well-constrained events, covering 50 years of induced seismicity, allow us to propose that wastewater injection is almost certainly the main mechanism driving the seismicity, with (i) most of the constrained events located within the reservoir boundaries and (ii) the released seismic energy variations following variations in injection operations at different scales. In particular, we have also highlighted a change in the injection-seismicity relationship around 2010–2013. From 2013, despite lower injection volumes, seismicity remained persistent and some clusters of earthquakes were detected predominantly in spring, summer, and early autumn, except in winter periods. From 2016, we observed a strong temporal relationship between days with higher rate/volume injections (approximately above 400m3/day) and both clustered events and higher magnitude earthquakes (greater than 2.4).

Description: This dataset reports measurements from a laboratory incubation of soils sourced from a boreal peatland and surrounding habitats (Siikaneva Bog, Finland). In August 2021, soil cores were collected from three habitat zones: a well-drained upland forest, an intermediate margin ecotone, and a Sphagnum moss bog. The cores from each habitat were taken from surface to approximately 50cm below surface using an Eijelkamp peat corer and subdivided by soil horizon. The samples were then incubated anaerobically for 140 days in three temperature treatment groups (0, 4, 20°C). Subsamples of the incubations headspace (250 µL) were measured on a gas chromatograph (7890A, Agilent Technologies, USA) with flame ionization detection (FID) for CO2 and CH4 concentrations. The rate of respiration from the samples were calculated per gram carbon and per gram soil as described in the method of Robertson., et al. (1999) and reported here, along with other relevant parameters.

Description: The 2022 revision of Aotearoa New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model (NZ NSHM2022) has involved significant revision of all datasets and model components. In this article, we present a subset of many results from the model as well as an overview of the governance, scientific, and review processes followed by the NZ NSHM team. The calculated hazard from the NZ NSHM 2022 has increased for most of New Zealand when compared with the previous models. The NZ NSHM 2022 models and results are available online.

Description: Underwater Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) utilizes optical fiber as a continuous sensor array. It enables high-resolution data collection over long distances and holds promise to enhance tsunami early warning capabilities. This research focuses on detecting infragravity and tsunami waves associated with earthquakes and understanding their origin and dispersion characteristics through frequency-wavenumber domain transformations and beamforming techniques. We propose a velocity correction method based on adjusting the apparent channel spacing according to water depth to overcome the challenge of detecting long-wavelength and long-period tsunami signals. Experimental results demonstrate the successful retrieval of infragravity and tsunami waves using a subsea optical fiber in offshore Oregon. These findings underscore the potential of DAS technology to complement existing infragravity waves detection systems, enhance preparedness, and improve response efforts in coastal communities. Further research and development in this field are crucial to fully utilize the capabilities of DAS for enhanced tsunami monitoring and warning systems.

Description: A seismicity rate model (SRM) has been developed as part of the 2022 Aotearoa New Zealand National Seismic Hazard Model revision. The SRM consists of many component models, each of which falls into one of two classes: (1) inversion fault model (IFM); or (2) distributed seismicity model (DSM). Here we provide an overview of the SRM and a brief description of each of the component models. The upper plate IFM forecasts the occurrence rate for hundreds of thousands of potential ruptures derived from the New Zealand Community Fault Model version 1.0 and utilizing either geologic- or geodeticbased fault-slip rates. These ruptures are typically less than a couple of hundred kilometers long, but can exceed 1500 km and extend along most of the length of the country (albeit with very low probabilities of exceedance [PoE]). We have also applied the IFM method to the two subduction zones of New Zealand and forecast earthquake magnitudes of up to ∼Mw 9.4, again with very low PoE. The DSM combines a hybrid model developed using multiple datasets with a non-Poisson uniform rate zone model for lower seismicity regions of New Zealand. Forecasts for 100 yr are derived that account for overdispersion of the rate variability when compared with Poisson. Finally, the epistemic uncertainty has been modeled via the range of models and parameters implemented in an SRM logic tree. Results are presented, which indicate the sensitivity of hazard results to the logic tree branches and that were used to reduce the overall complexity of the logic tree.

Description: We present a kinematic model developed from geodetic observations, topography analysis and analogue tectonic modelling results, which reveals a striking similarity between the rotational tectonic settings of the Gakkel Ridge-Chersky Range system in the Arctic, and the Central Indian Tectonic Zone within the Indian subcontinent. A crucial aspect of large-scale extensional rift systems is the gradual variation of extension along the rift axis, due to plate rotation about a Euler pole, which may lead to contraction on the opposite side of the Euler pole to form a rotational tectonic system. Our geodetic and topographic analysis, combined with the reanalysis of analogue tectonic modelling results demonstrates such rotational tectonic plate motion in both the Arctic and Indian case. However, the plate boundary between the North American and Eurasian Plates as represented by the Arctic Gakkel Ridge-Chersky Range system is strongly localized, whereas the Central Indian Tectonic Zone that separates the North and South India Plates involves diffuse deformation instead. Furthermore, in both the Arctic and Central Indian we find that the relative Euler rotation pole is located near an indenter-like feature, which possibly controls the present-day rotational tectonics and contrasting topography on opposite sides of the Euler pole.

Description: We present a seismic catalog (Bindi et al., 2024, https://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.2.6.2023.010) including energy magnitude Me estimated from P waves recorded at teleseismic distances in the range 20° 1 98° and for depths shorter than 80 km. The catalog is built starting from the event catalog disseminated by GEOFON (GEOFOrschungsNetz), considering 6349 earthquakes with moment magnitude Mw 5 occurring between 2011 and 2023. Magnitudes are computed using 1 031 396 freely available waveforms archived in EIDA (European Integrated Data Archive) and IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) repositories, retrieved through the standard International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks (FDSN) web services (https://www.fdsn.org/webservices/, last access: March 2024). A reduced, high-quality catalog for events with Mw 5〉_8 and from which stations and events with only few recordings were removed forms the basis of a detailed analysis of the residuals of individual station measurements, which are decomposed into station- and event-specific terms and a term accounting for remaining variability. The derived Me values are compared to Mw computed by GEOFON and with the Me values calculated by IRIS. Software and tools developed for downloading and processing waveforms for bulk analysis and an add-on for SeisComP for real-time assessment of Me in a monitoring context are also provided alongside the catalog. The SeisComP add-on has been part of the GEOFON routine processing since December 2021 to compute and disseminate Me for major events via the existing services.

Description: To test whether a globally inferred sediment thickness value from geomorphological studies can be used as a proxy to predict earthquake site amplification, we derive site-amplification models from the relation between empirical amplification for sites in Europe and Türkiye and the geomorphological sediment thickness. The new site-amplification predictions are then compared to predictions from site-amplification models derived using the traditional site proxies, VS30 inferred from slope, slope itself, and geological era and slope combined. The ability of each proxy to capture the site amplification is evaluated based on the reduction in site-to-site variability caused by each proxy. The results show that the highest reduction is caused by geological era and slope combined, while the geomorphological sediment thickness shows a slightly larger or equal reduction in site-to-site variability as inferred VS30 and slope. We therefore argue that including geology and geomorphology in site-amplification modelling on regional scale can give an important added value and that globally or regionally inferred models for soil and sediment thickness from fields beyond engineering seismology can have a great potential in regional seismic hazard and risk assessments. Furthermore, the differences between the site-amplification maps derived from different proxies capture the epistemic uncertainty of site-amplification modelling. While the different proxies predict similar features on a large scale, local differences can be large. This shows that using only one proxy when predicting site amplification does not capture the full epistemic uncertainty, which is demonstrated by looking into detail on the site-amplification maps predicted for eastern Türkiye and Syria, where the devastating Kahramanmaraş earthquake sequence occurred in February 2023.

Description: Assessing alternative agricultural water management strategies requires long-term field trials or vast data collection for model calibration and simulation. This work aims to assess whether an uncalibrated agro-hydrological model using global input datasets for climate, soil and crop information can serve as a decision support tool for crop water management under data scarcity. This study employs the Cool Farm Tool Water (CFTW) at eight eddy covariance sites of the FLUXNET2015 dataset. CFTW is tested using global (CFTWglobal) and local (CFTWlocal) input datasets under current and alternative management scenarios. Results show that the use of global datasets for estimating daily evapotranspiration had little effect on the median Root Mean Square Error ( ) (CFTWglobal: 1.70 mm, CFTWlocal: 1.79 mm), while, however, the median model is much greater (CFTWglobal: −18.6%, CFTWlocal: −4.3%). Furthermore, the periods of water stress were little affected by the use of local or global data (median accuracy: 0.84), whereas the use of global data inputs led to a significant overestimation of irrigation water requirements (median difference: 110 mm). The model performance improves predominantly through the use of more representative local precipitation data, followed by local reference evapotranspiration and soil for some European growing seasons. We identify model outputs that can support decision-making when relying on global data, such as periods of water stress and the daily dynamics of water use. However, our findings also emphasize the difficulty of overcoming data scarcity in decision-making in agricultural water management. Furthermore, we provide recommendations for enhancing model performance and thus may increase the accessibility of reliable decision support tools in the future.

Description: The death toll andmonetary damages from landslides continue to rise despite advancements in predictive modeling. These models’ performances are limited as landslide databases used in developing them often miss crucial information, e.g., underlying movement types. This study introduces a method of discerning landslide movements, such as slides, flows, and falls, by analyzing landslides’ 3D shapes. By examining landslide topological properties, we discover distinct patterns in their morphology, indicating different movements including complex ones with multiple coupled movements. We achieve 80- 94% accuracy by applying topological properties in identifying landslide movements across diverse geographical and climatic regions, including Italy, the US Pacific Northwest, Denmark, Turkey, and Wenchuan in China. Furthermore, we demonstrate a real-world application on undocumented datasets from Wenchuan. Our work introduces a paradigm for studying landslide shapes to understand their underlying movements through the lens of landslide topology, which could aid landslide predictive models and risk evaluations.

Description: We present transient simulations of the last glacial inception using the Earth system model CLIMBER-X with dynamic vegetation, interactive ice sheets, and visco-elastic solid Earth responses. The simulations are initialized at the middle of the Eemian interglacial (125 kiloyears before present, ka) and run until 100 ka, driven by prescribed changes in Earth's orbital parameters and greenhouse gas concentrations from ice core data. CLIMBER-X simulates a rapid increase in Northern Hemisphere ice sheet area through MIS5d, with ice sheets expanding over northern North America and Scandinavia, in broad agreement with proxy reconstructions. While most of the increase in ice sheet area occurs over a relatively short period between 119 and 117 ka, the larger part of the increase in ice volume occurs afterwards with an almost constant ice sheet extent. We show that the vegetation feedback plays a fundamental role in controlling the ice sheet expansion during the last glacial inception. In particular, with prescribed present-day vegetation the model simulates a global sea level drop of only ∼ 20 m, compared with the ∼ 35 m decrease in sea level with dynamic vegetation response. The ice sheet and carbon cycle feedbacks play only a minor role during the ice sheet expansion phase prior to ∼ 115 ka but are important in limiting the deglaciation during the following phase characterized by increasing summer insolation. The model results are sensitive to climate model biases and to the parameterization of snow albedo, while they show only a weak dependence on changes in the ice sheet model resolution and the acceleration factor used to speed up the climate component. Overall, our simulations confirm and refine previous results showing that climate–vegetation–cryosphere feedbacks play a fundamental role in the transition from interglacial to glacial states characterizing Quaternary glacial cycles.

Description: The Atmosphere and Ocean non-tidal De-aliasing Level-1B (AOD1B) product is widely used in precise orbit determination and satellite gravimetry to correct for transient effects of atmosphere–ocean mass variability that would otherwise alias into monthly mean global gravity fields. The most recent release is based on the global ERA5 reanalysis and ECMWF operational data together with simulations from the general ocean circulation model MPIOM consistently forced with fields from the corresponding atmospheric dataset. As background models are inevitably imperfect, residual errors will consequently propagate into the resulting geodetic products. Accounting for uncertainties of the background model data in a statistical sense, however, has been shown before to be a useful approach to mitigate the impact of residual errors leading to temporal aliasing artefacts. In light of the changes made in the new release RL07 of AOD1B, previous uncertainty assessments are deemed too pessimistic and thus need to be revisited. We here present an analysis of the residual errors in AOD1B RL07 based on ensemble statistics derived from different atmospheric reanalyses, including ERA5, MERRA2 and JRA55. For the oceans, we investigate the impact of both the forced and intrinsic variability through differences in MPIOM simulation experiments. The atmospheric and oceanic information is then combined to produce a new time-series of true errors, called AOe07, which is applicable in combination with AOD1B RL07. AOe07 is further complemented by a new spatial error variance–covariance matrix. Results from gravity field recovery simulation experiments for the planned Mass-Change and Geosciences International Constellation (MAGIC) based on GFZ’s EPOS software demonstrate improvements that can be expected from rigorously implementing the newly available stochastic information from AOD1B RL07 into the gravity field estimation process.

Description: In near-Earth space, a large population of high-energy electrons are trapped by Earth’s magnetic field. These energetic electrons are trapped in the regions called Earth’s ring current and radiation belts. They are very dynamic and show a very strong dependence on solar wind and geomagnetic conditions. These energetic electrons can be dangerous to satellites in the near-Earth space. Therefore, it is very important to understand the mechanisms which drive the dynamics of these energetic electrons. Wave-particle interaction is one of the most important mechanisms. Among the waves that can be encountered by the energetic electrons when they move around our Earth, whistler mode chorus waves can cause both acceleration and the loss of energetic electrons in the Earth's radiation belts and ring current. Using more than 5 years of wave measurements from NASA’s Van Allen Probe mission, Wang et al (2019) developed chorus wave models which depend on magnetic local time (MLT), Magnetic Latitude (MLat), L-shell, and geomagnetic condition index Kp. To quantify the effect of chorus waves on energetic electrons, we calculated the bounce-averaged quasi-linear diffusion coefficients using the chorus wave model developed by Wang et al (2019) and extended to higher latitudes according to Wang and Shprits (2019). Using these diffusion coefficients, we calculated the lifetime of the electrons with an energy range from 1 keV to 2 MeV. In each MLT, we calculate the lifetime for each energy and L-shell using two different methods according to Shprits et al (2007) and Albert and Shprits (2009). We make the calculated electron lifetime database available here. Please notice that the chorus wave model by Wang et al (2019) is valid when Kp 〈= 6. If the user wants to use this lifetime database for Kp 〉6, please be careful and contact the authors.

Description: Microseismic monitoring represents a key surveillance technology to verify the integrity of subsurface CO storage sites. The precise location of microseismic events is first and foremost a direct and immediate indication of caprock and seal behavior but could also provide insight into CO plume migration. Tiny precursor movements provide diagnostic information about injection-related reservoir and caprock dynamics long before potential seal failure occurs. We present a case study from the Quest CCS facility in Canada, where a variety of different monitoring technologies are employed. We present the different microseismic sensor technologies and array configurations currently installed at the site and compare them against each other with respect to their reliability and effectiveness in providing the required verification information.

Description: Dynamic rupture simulations generate synthetic waveforms that account for nonlinear source and path complexity. Here, we analyze millions of spatially dense waveforms from 3D dynamic rupture simulations in a novel way to illuminate the spectral fingerprints of earthquake physics. We define a Brune-type equivalent near-field corner frequency (f c ) to analyze the spatial variability of ground-motion spectra and unravel their link to source complexity. We first investigate a simple 3D strike-slip setup, including an asper- ity and a barrier, and illustrate basic relations between source properties and f c varia- tions. Next, we analyze 〉 13,000,000 synthetic near-field strong-motion waveforms generated in three high-resolution dynamic rupture simulations of real earthquakes, the 2019 Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest mainshock, the Mw 6.4 Searles Valley foreshock, and the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers earthquake. All scenarios consider 3D fault geometries, topography, off-fault plasticity, viscoelastic attenuation, and 3D velocity structure and resolve frequencies up to 1–2 Hz. Our analysis reveals pronounced and localized patterns of elevated f c , specifically in the vertical components. We validate such f c variability with observed near-fault spectra. Using isochrone analysis, we identify the complex dynamic mechanisms that explain rays of elevated f c and cause unexpectedly impulsive, localized, vertical ground motions. Although the high vertical frequencies are also associated with path effects, rupture directivity, and coalescence of multiple rupture fronts, we show that they are dominantly caused by rake-rotated surface-breaking rupture fronts that decel- erate due to fault heterogeneities or geometric complexity. Our findings highlight the potential of spatially dense ground-motion observations to further our understanding of earthquake physics directly from near-field data. Observed near-field f c variability may inform on directivity, surface rupture, and slip segmentation. Physics-based models can identify “what to look for,” for example, in the potentially vast amount of near-field large array or distributed acoustic sensing data.

Description: Within the framework of the Intercontinental Scientific Drilling Programme (ICDP) ‘Drilling the Eger Rift’ project, five boreholes were drilled in the Vogtland (Germany) and West Bohemia (Czech Republic) regions. Three of them will be used to install high-frequency three-dimensional (3D) seismic arrays. The pilot 3D array is located 1.5 km south of Landwüst (Vogtland). The borehole, with a depth of 402 m, was equipped with eight geophones and a fibre optic cable behind the casing used for distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) measurements. The borehole is surrounded by a surface array consisting of 12 seismic stations with an aperture of 400 m. During drilling, a highly fractured zone was detected between 90 m and 165 m depth and interpreted as a possible fault zone. To characterize the fault zone, two vertical seismic profiling (VSP) experiments with drop weight sources at the surface were conducted. The aim of the VSP experiments was to estimate a local 3D seismic velocity tomography including the imaging of the steep fault zone. Our 3D tomography indicates P-wave velocities between 1500 m/s and 3000 m/s at shallow depths (0–20 m) and higher P-wave velocities of up to 5000 m/s at greater depths. In addition, the results suggest a NW–SE striking low-velocity zone (LVZ; characterized by = 1500–3000 m/s), which crosses the borehole at a depth of about 90–165 m. This LVZ is inferred to be a shallow non-tectonic, steep fault zone with a dip angle of about . The depth and width of the fault zone are supported by logging data as electrical conductivity, core recovery and changes in lithology. In this study, we present an example to test and verify 3D tomography and imaging approaches of shallow non-tectonic fault zones based on active seismic experiments using simple surface drop weights as sources and borehole chains as well as borehole DAS behind casing as sensors, complemented by seismic stand-alone surface arrays.

Description: Garnet is a prominent mineral in skarn deposits and its rare earth elements (REE) geochemistry is pivotal for understanding skarn mineralization and fluid evolution. In contrast to magmatic and metamorphic garnets, skarn garnets are mainly grossular-andradite in composition. They exhibit variable REE patterns, spanning from notable heavy (H)-REE enrichment to significant light (L)-REE enrichment, accompanied by negative to positive europium (Eu) anomalies. However, the key factors governing REE fractionation in skarn garnets remain uncertain. This study applies the lattice-strain theory (LST) to investigate the influence of crystal chemistry and structure on REE fractionation in garnets from the Lazhushan Fe skarn deposit in eastern China. Our results demonstrate that the garnet-liquid partition coefficient ratios of DLa/DYb significantly increase (up to 5–7 orders of magnitude) with rising andradite content in garnet. This variation underscores the pivotal role of garnet structure in controlling LREE/HREE fractionation. The results further show that partition coefficient ratios of DLa/DSm are strongly dependent on andradite content in garnets, whereas the DGd/DYb ratios only show a weak correlation to the garnet composition. This contrast suggests that fractionation of LREE in garnet is more sensitive to variations of andradite content than HREE. Data compilation of major elements and REE for garnet from the Lazhushan Fe skarn deposit and other skarn deposits worldwide shows that the garnet REE patterns vary from positive through concave to negative shapes with the garnet ranging from grossularitic to andraditic compositions. Such variations in garnet REE patterns are consistent with the results of geochemical modeling based on the LST. This study demonstrates that, through LST equations, the shape of fluid REE patterns can be predicted from garnet REE patterns, and vice versa. Furthermore, the Eu anomaly (Eu/Eu*Grt) in skarn garnet depends mainly on fluid Eu anomaly (Eu/Eu*fluid) and garnet-fluid partition coefficient ratio of D(Eu2+)/D(Eu3+) with the latter being influenced by garnet composition. These findings highlight the critical role of crystal chemistry and structure in garnet REE fractionation, enhancing our ability to utilize garnet REE in tracing the origin and evolution of skarn-forming fluids.

Description: Tsunamigenic earthquakes pose considerable risks, both economically and socially, yet earthquake and tsunami hazard assessments are typically conducted separately. Earthquakes associated with unexpected tsunamis, such as the 2018 Mw  7.5 strike-slip Sulawesi earthquake, emphasize the need to study the tsunami potential of active submarine faults in different tectonic settings. Here, we investigate physics-based scenarios combining simulations of 3D earthquake dynamic rupture and seismic wave propagation with tsunami generation and propagation. We present time-dependent modeling of one-way linked and 3D fully coupled earthquakes and tsunamis for the ∼ 100 km long Húsavík–Flatey Fault Zone (HFFZ) in North Iceland. Our analysis shows that the HFFZ has the potential to generate sizable tsunamis. The six dynamic rupture models sourcing our tsunami scenarios vary regarding hypocenter location, spatiotemporal evolution, fault slip, and fault structure complexity but coincide with historical earthquake magnitudes. Earthquake dynamic rupture scenarios on a less segmented fault system, particularly with a hypocenter location in the eastern part of the fault system, have a larger potential for local tsunami generation. Here, dynamically evolving large shallow fault slip (∼ 8 m), near-surface rake rotation (± 20∘), and significant coseismic vertical displacements of the local bathymetry (± 1 m) facilitate strike-slip faulting tsunami generation. We model tsunami crest to trough differences (total wave heights) of up to ∼ 0.9 m near the town Ólafsfjörður. In contrast, none of our scenarios endanger the town of Akureyri, which is shielded by multiple reflections within the narrow Eyjafjörður bay and by Hrísey island. We compare the modeled one-way linked tsunami waveforms with simulation results using a 3D fully coupled approach. We find good agreement in the tsunami arrival times and location of maximum tsunami heights. While seismic waves result in transient motions of the sea surface and affect the ocean response, they do not appear to contribute to tsunami generation. However, complex source effects arise in the fully coupled simulations, such as tsunami dispersion effects and the complex superposition of seismic and acoustic waves within the shallow continental shelf of North Iceland. We find that the vertical velocity amplitudes of near-source acoustic waves are unexpectedly high – larger than those corresponding to the actual tsunami – which may serve as a rapid indicator of surface dynamic rupture. Our results have important implications for understanding the tsunamigenic potential of strike-slip fault systems worldwide and the coseismic acoustic wave excitation during tsunami generation and may help to inform future tsunami early warning systems.

Description: The epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model is the state-of-the-art approach for modelling short-term earthquake clustering and is preferable for short-term aftershock forecasting. However, due to the large variability of different earthquake sequences, the model parameters must be adjusted to the local seismicity for accurate forecasting. Such an adjustment based on the first aftershocks is hampered by the incompleteness of earthquake catalogues after a mainshock, which can be explained by a blind period of the seismic networks after each earthquake, during which smaller events with lower magnitudes cannot be detected. Assuming a constant blind time, direct relationships based only on this additional parameter can be established between the actual seismicity rate and magnitude distributions and those that can be detected. The ETAS-incomplete (ETASI) model uses these relationships to estimate the true ETAS parameters and the catalogue incompleteness jointly. In this study, we apply the ETASI model to the SE Türkiye earthquake sequence, consisting of a doublet of M 7.7 and M 7.6 earthquakes that occurred within less than half a day of each other on 6 February 2023. We show that the ETASI model can explain the catalogue incompleteness and fits the observed earthquake numbers and magnitudes well. A pseudo-prospective forecasting experiment shows that the daily number of detectable m ≥ 2 can be well predicted based on minimal and incomplete information from early aftershocks. However, the maximum magnitude (Mmax ) of the next day’s aftershocks would have been overestimated due to the highly variable b value within the sequence. Instead, using the regional b value estimated for 2000–2022 would have well predicted the observed Mmax  values.

Description: Massive sediment pulses in catchments are a key alpine multi-risk component. Substantial sediment redistribution in alpine catchments frequently causes flooding, river erosion, and landsliding and affects infrastructure such as dam reservoirs as well as aquatic ecosystems and water quality. While systematic rock slope failure inventories have been collected in several countries, the subsequent cascading sediment redistribution is virtually unaccessed. For the first time, this contribution reports the massive sediment redistribution triggered by the multi-stage failure of more than 130 000 m3 from the Hochvogel dolomite peak during the summer of 2016. We applied change detection techniques to seven 3D-coregistered high-resolution true orthophotos and digital surface models (DSMs) obtained through digital aerial photogrammetry later optimized for precise volume calculation in steep terrain. The analysis of seismic information from surrounding stations revealed the temporal evolution of the cliff fall. We identified the proportional contribution of 〉 600 rockfall events (〉 1 m3) from four rock slope catchments with different slope aspects and their volume estimates. In a sediment cascade approach, we evaluated erosion, transport, and deposition from the rock face to the upper channelized erosive debris flow channel, then to the widened dispersive debris flow channel, and finally to the outlet into the braided sediment-supercharged Jochbach river. We observe the decadal flux of more than 400 000 m3 of sediment, characterized by massive sediment waves that (i) exhibit reaction times of 0–4 years in response to a cliff fall sediment input and relaxation times beyond 10 years. The sediment waves (ii) manifest with faster response times of 0–2 years in the upper catchment and over 2 years in the lower catchments. The entire catchment (iii) undergoes a rapid shift from sedimentary (102–103 mm a−1) to massive erosive regimes (102 mm a−1) within single years, and the massive sediment redistribution (iv) shows limited dependency on rainfall frequency and intensity. This study provides generic information on spatial and temporal patterns of massive sediment pulses in highly sediment-charged alpine catchments.

Description: The ocean basins contain numerous volcanic ridges, seamounts and large igneous provinces (LIPs). Numerous studies have focused on the origin of seamount chains and LIPs but much less focus has been applied to understanding the genesis of large volcanic structures formed from a combination or series of volcanic drivers. Here we propose the term Oceanic Mid-plate Superstructures (OMS) to describe independent bathymetric swells or volcanic structures that are constructed through superimposing pulses of volcanism, over long time periods and from multiple sources. These sources can represent periods when the lithosphere drifted over different mantle plumes and/or experienced pulses of volcanism associated with shallow tectonic drivers (e.g. plate flexure; lithospheric extension). Here we focus on the Melanesian Border Plateau (MBP), one example of an OMS that has a complex and enigmatic origin. The MBP is a region of shallow Pacific lithosphere consisting of high volumes of volcanic guyots, ridges and seamounts that resides on the northern edge of the Vitiaz Lineament. Here we reconcile recently published constraints to build a comprehensive volcanic history of the MBP. The MBP was built through four distinct episodes: (1) Volcanism associated with the Louisville hotspot likely generating Robbie Ridge and some Cretaceous seamounts near the MBP. (2) Construction of oceanic islands and seamounts during the Eocene when the lithosphere passed over the Rurutu-Arago hotspot. (3) Reactivation of previous oceanic islands/seamounts and construction of new volcanos in the Miocene when the lithosphere passed over the Samoa hotspot. (4) Miocene to modern volcanism driven by lithospheric deformation and/or westward entrainment of enriched plume mantle due to toroidal mantle flow driven by the rollback of the Pacific plate beneath the Tonga trench. The combination of these processes is responsible for ∼222,000 km2 of intraplate volcanism in the MBP and indicates that this OMS was constructed from multiple volcanic drivers.

Description: We compared the performance of DREAM3D simulations in reproducing the long‐term radiation belt dynamics observed by Van Allen Probes over the entire year of 2017 with various boundary conditions (BCs) and model inputs. Specifically, we investigated the effects of three different outer boundary conditions, two different low‐energy boundary conditions for seed electrons, four different radial diffusion (RD) coefficients (DLL), four hiss wave models, and two chorus wave models from the literature. Using the outer boundary condition driven by GOES data, our benchmark simulation generally well reproduces the observed radiation belt dynamics inside L* = 6, with a better model performance at lower μ than higher μ, where μ is the first adiabatic invariant. By varying the boundary conditions and inputs, we find that: (a) The data‐driven outer boundary condition is critical to the model performance, while adding in the data‐driven seed population doesn't further improve the performance. (b) The model shows comparable performance with DLL from Brautigam and Albert (2000, https://doi.org/10.1029/1999ja900344), Ozeke et al. (2014, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013ja019204), and Liu et al. (2016, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015gl067398), while with DLL from Ali et al. (2016, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016ja023002) the model shows less RD compared to data. (c) The model performance is similar with data‐based hiss models, but the results show faster loss is still needed inside the plasmasphere. (d) The model performs similarly with the two different chorus models, but better capturing the electron enhancement at higher μ using the Wang et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ja026183) model due to its stronger wave power, since local heating for higher energy electrons is under‐reproduced in the current model.

Description: Rare metals (Nb, Ta, Y, Zr, Sn, U, W and REE) are economically important and new supplies need to be found. In order to understand Neoproterozoic rare metal granites of the Arabian–Nubian Shield (ANS), six samples from five rare-metal mineralized alkali feldspar granites, syenogranites and granodiorite from the Central and SE Desert of Egypt were studied for zircon U–Pb ages and O-isotopic compositions as well as whole-rock Sr- and Nd- and alkali feldspar Pb-isotopic compositions. These are transitional between I-type and A-type granites, mostly high-K calc-alkaline, peraluminous granites with gullwing-shaped REE patterns and strongly negative Eu anomalies. Four granites gave mantle-like zircon 18OV-SMOW between 4.2 and 5.96‰ and yielded ages of 628–633 Ma. This is about when subduction-related magmatism began to be replaced by collision-related magmatism. Igla Ahmr granites are older, formed at 691.7–678.9 Ma with 18OV-SMOW c. 5.95‰. All have positive initial Nd values (+3.3 to +6.9) typical for mantle and juvenile crust. Pb isotopic compositions are unusually radiogenic compared with unmineralized ANS granitic rocks. The data indicate similar magmatic sources for ANS mineralized and unmineralized granites. Exploration for other rare-metal mineralized granites in the ANS should focus on bodies with similar characteristics

Description: The Tieshajie Cu deposit, located in the northeastern part of the Qin-Hang Metallogenic Belt (QHMB), South China, has long been regarded as a representative Meso-Neoproterozoic volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit. Here we present a hydrothermal titanite U-Pb age, Re-Os and in-situ S-Cu isotope data for chalcopyrite to constrain the timing and ore genesis of the Tieshajie deposit. Laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) U-Pb dating of titanite from the disseminated Cu ore yielded a weighted mean 206Pb/238U age of 160.1 ± 4.4 Ma. Chalcopyrite from different ore types has low 187Os/188Os (0.85–3.60) and 187Re/188Os (46.1–614.0) ratios, combined with initial 187Os/188Os (0.74–2.00), excluding a mantle source. A Re-Os isochron age (188 ± 30 Ma) for five chalcopyrite samples is consistent with the titanite U-Pb age within errors. Moreover, the variations in Cu isotope compositions (δ65Cu: −1.13 to +0.12 ‰) and δ34S values (+3.8 to +7.7 ‰) of chalcopyrite are inconsistent with those reported from the ancient VMS deposits in previous studies. Therefore, our results are indicative of a Late Jurassic magmatic-hydrothermal origin instead of a VMS origin for the Tieshajie deposit. In combination with previous studies, we propose that the Tieshajie Cu deposit belongs to the distal part of the Mid-Late Jurassic (170–150 Ma) porphyry-skarn Cu mineralization event in the QHMB, likely triggered by the subduction of the Paleo-Pacific plate during the Late Mesozoic. This study also has new insights into the genesis of Cu mineralization in the QHMB and further provides implications for future exploration.

Description: The use of intermittent renewable energy sources is of great importance for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Medium-deep borehole thermal energy storage systems (MD-BTES) represent an economic solution. At the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, an MD-BTES consisting of three 750 m deep borehole heat exchangers was constructed as a demonstrator. Before construction, a comprehensive dataset consisting of electrical conductivity tomography profiles, gravity measurements, 2D seismic profiles, and petrophysical data of nearby outcrops was obtained. In the seismic data, multiple geological facies and faults could be identified and correlated with lithologies based on the gravimetric dataset and drilling data. The data facilitated optimization of the drilling work, modeling, and planning of the system. In this project, the combination of 2D-seismic with well data proved to be especially useful for detailed site characterization, while electrical resistivity tomography and gravimetry provided additional constraints on the subsurface and were used for data regionalization. The results emphasize that at least one exploratory well should be included when planning medium-deep reservoirs in potentially heterogeneous crystalline settings with insufficient outcrop data. The experiences made during this work greatly benefit the planning and execution of future MD-BTES projects by facilitating the development of a cost-efficient site characterization strategy.

Description: Low Earth Orbit satellites offer extensive data of the radiation belt region, but utilizing these observations is challenging due to potential contamination and difficulty of intercalibration with spacecraft measurements at Highly Elliptic Orbit that can observe all equatorial pitch-angles. This study introduces a new intercalibration method for satellite measurements of energetic electrons in the radiation belts using a Data assimilation (DA) approach. We demonstrate our technique by intercalibrating the electron flux measurements of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) NOAA-15,-16,-17,-18,-19, and MetOp-02 against Van Allen Probes observations from October 2012 to September 2013. We use a reanalysis of the radiation belts obtained by assimilating Van Allen Probes and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites observations into 3-D Versatile Electron Radiation Belt (VERB-3D) code simulations via a standard Kalman filter. We compare the reanalysis to the POES data set and estimate the flux ratios at each time, location, and energy. From these ratios, we derive energy and L* dependent recalibration coefficients. To validate our results, we analyze on-orbit conjunctions between POES and Van Allen Probes. The conjunction recalibration coefficients and the data-assimilative estimated coefficients show strong agreement, indicating that the differences between POES and Van Allen Probes observations remain within a factor of two. Additionally, the use of DA allows for improved statistics, as the possible comparisons are increased 10-fold. Data-assimilative intercalibration of satellite observations is an efficient approach that enables intercalibration of large data sets using short periods of data.

Description: Investigating past interglacial climatic and environmental changes can enhance our understanding of the natural rates and ranges of climate variability under interglacial boundary conditions. However, comparing past interglacial palaeoclimate records from different regions and archives is often complicated by differing and uncertain chronologies. For instance, the duration of the Last Interglacial in Europe is still controversial as southern European palaeoclimate records suggest a duration of ~16 500–18 000 years, while a length of only ~11 000 years in northern-central Europe was previously inferred from the analysis of partly annually laminated (varved) palaeolake sediments recovered at Bispingen, northern Germany. To resolve this discrepancy, we here present sediment microfacies, geochemistry and pollen data from a new sediment core from the Bispingen palaeolake sediment succession, covering the entire Last Interglacial (Eemian) and the earliest part of the Last Glacial (Weichselian). In particular, we provide evidence that the duration of the Last Interglacial at Bispingen must have been hitherto underestimated due to the investigation of an incomplete sediment core. Using microscopic varve counting and sedimentation rate estimates for non-varved sections on the new sediment core, we show that the Eemian in northern-central Europe probably lasted at least ~15 000 years, about 4000 years longer than previously thought. This new duration estimate is in much better agreement with results from southern European palaeoclimate records, clarifying the enigma of a steep trans-European vegetation gradient for several millennia at the end of the Last Interglacial.

Description: Recent studies increasingly recognize the importance of critical-zone weathering during mountain building for long-term CO2 drawdown and release. However, the focus on near-surface weathering reactions commonly does not account for CO2 emissions from the crust, which could outstrip CO2 drawdown where carbonates melt and decarbonize during subduction and metamorphism. We analyse water chemistry from streams in Italy’s central Apennines that cross a gradient in heat flow and crustal thickness with relatively constant climatic conditions. We quantify the balance of inorganic carbon fluxes from near-surface weathering processes, metamorphism and the melting of carbonates. We find that, at the regional scale, carbon emissions from crustal sources outpace near-surface fluxes by two orders of magnitude above a tear in the subducting slab characterized by heat flow greater than 150 mW m–2 and crustal thickness of less than 25 km. By contrast, weathering processes dominate the carbon budget where crustal thickness exceeds 40 km and heat flow is lower than 30 mW m–2. The observed variation in metamorphic fluxes is one to two orders of magnitude larger than that of weathering fluxes. We therefore suggest that geodynamic modulations of metamorphic melting and decarbonation reactions are an efficient process by which tectonics can regulate the inorganic carbon cycle.

Description: Metamorphosed banded iron formation (BIF) in granulite-amphibolite facies, tonalitic orthogneisses from a series of locations in the Kolli Massif of southern India are described and analysed with regard to their lithologies, whole rock chemistry, mineral reaction textures, and mineral chemistry. On the basis of their mineral reaction textures along magnetite-quartz grain boundaries these BIFs are grouped according to their predominant silicate mineralogy: 1) amphibole; 2) orthopyroxene; 3) orthopyroxene–clinopyroxene; 4) orthopyroxene-clinopyroxene-garnet; 5) clinopyroxene-garnet-plagioclase; and 6) Fe-Mg silicates are absent. Two-pyroxene and garnet-pyroxene Fe-Mg exchange thermometry, coupled with thermodynamic pseudo-section modelling of whole rock data from one of the magnetite-quartz-orthopyroxene-clinopyroxene-bearing lithologies, indicates that the magnetite-quartz-orthopyroxene-clinopyroxene-garnet assemblages formed at ~900 to 1200 MPa and 750 to 900 °C under relatively low H2O activities. Magnetite-quartz-orthopyroxene reaction textures were experimentally replicated at 800 and 900 °C and 1000 MPa in a synthetic BIF using isolated magnetite grains in a quartz matrix to which was added a hypersaline Mg- and Al-bearing fluid (approximately 1% by mass), which permeated along all the grain boundaries. The fact that Fe-Mg silicate reaction textures did not form in one of the BIF samples, which had experienced the same P-T conditions as the other BIF samples, suggests that, unless a BIF initially incorporated Mg, Al, and Ca during formation with or was infiltrated from the surrounding rocks by Mg-, Al-, and Ca-bearing saline fluids, these silicate minerals could not and would not have formed from the inherent magnetite and quartz during granulite-facies and amphibolite-facies metamorphism.

Description: Fluid injection into subsurface reservoirs may cause existing faults/fractures to slip seismically. To study the effect of temperature on injection-induced fault slip, at a constant confining pressure of 10 MPa, we performed a series of injection-induced shear slip experiments on critically stressed sandstone samples containing saw-cut fractures (laboratory-simulated faults) under varying fluid pressurization rates (0.1 and 0.5 MPa/min, respectively) and temperatures (25, 80, and 140 °C, respectively). At 25 °C, slow fault slip events with a peak slip velocity of about 0.13 μm/s were observed on a tested sample in response to a low fluid pressurization rate of 0.1 MPa/min. In contrast, fluid injection with a high pressurization rate of 0.5 MPa/min caused fault slip events with a peak slip rate up to about 0.38 μm/s. In response to a given fluid pressurization rate, several episodes of slip events with a higher slip velocity were induced at an elevated temperature of 140 °C, indicating an appreciable weakening effect at elevated temperatures. We also experimentally constrained the rate-and-state frictional (RSF) parameters at varying effective normal stresses and temperatures by performing velocity-stepping tests. The obtained RSF parameters demonstrate that for a relatively high normal stress, increasing temperature tends to destabilize fault slip. Post-mortem microstructural observations reveal that elevated temperatures promote the generation of abundant fine-grained gouge particles associated with injection-induced shear slip. Our experiments highlight that injection-induced fault slip is affected by temperature-related wear production over the fault surface.

Description: Earlier experiments have shown that cyclic hydraulic fracturing (CHF) systematically reduces the monotonic breakdown pressure (MBP). However, cyclic injection also causes a significantly longer injection time to failure as compared to the monotonic injection tests and complex fracture propagation that is hard to predict. In this study, a different injection scheme employing rock fatigue behavior, named creep injection, was tested on granite cylinders. The creep injection creates continuous pressurization under a constant borehole pressure (CBP) with a pre-defined maximum value below the MBP. Three different pressure ratios (CBP/MBP) of 0.85, 0.9 and 0.95 were tested. We found that both the CHF and hydraulic fracturing with creep injection can reduce the breakdown pressure by ca. 15 ~ 20% without confining pressure. Two mechanisms could explain the reduction: the influence of fluid infiltration within the theory of linear poroelasticity and stress corrosion within the subcritical crack growth theory. The lifetime of the granite cores subjected to creep injection is comparable with previous CHF experiments employing the same pressure ratio. In addition, the lifetime increases logarithmically when the ratio of CBP/MBP is decreased. This relationship has a high regression coefficient of R2 = 0.97, and the lifetime can be well predicted using a stress corrosion index of 70. On the contrary, CHF shows a significantly larger variance in the lifetime with a regression coefficient of R2 = 0.19 and, therefore, is hard to predict. Our results also point out that the injection scheme can modify hydraulic fracture patterns, in terms of fracture aperture, branching, and fracture propagation.

Description: Qongjiagang pegmatite-type Li deposit in Tibet is the first discovered pegmatite-type deposit with economic value in the Himalayan region, which confirms that the Himalayan region has the potential to become a strategic base of rare metal in China, and provide indications to find pegmatite-type Li deposit in the Himalayan region. In this study, we use SEM to identify the type, frequency and occurrence (relationship with cracks) of mineral inclusions in the three main accessory minerals, monazite, apatite and zircon from granite and pegmatite of Qongjiagang Li deposit, combining with the EPMA analysis of feldspar inclusions in apatite to comprehensively trace the property and evolution of the melts and fluids. Our study indicates that: (1) the main mineral inclusions in monazite, apatite and zircon from Qongjiagang Li deposit include silicate, oxide, phosphates and a small amount of sulfide, not only the REE-rich monazite and apatite filling or intersecting cracks are formed by hydrothermal alteration, but also the uraninite and thorianite isolated from cracks occur in the self-irradiation region of zircon are related to fluids; (2) the appearances of columbite and pyrochlore inclusions in the apatite from tourmaline-muscovite granite demonstrate that the initial melt is enriched in Nb and Ta, the amount and type of rare metal mineral inclusions can be used as an indicator for rare metal mineralization in highly evolved granite and pegmatite; (3) the plagioclase inclusions with high and a large range of An values in apatite from spodumene pegmatite represent the capture of less-differentiated melt and continuously fractional crystallization. Our results indicate that the types and compositions of mineral inclusions in accessory minerals can be good tracers for the characteristics and evolution of melts and fluids in the highly evolved granite-pegmatite system

Description: This publication provides the codes produced for the article "Temporally dynamic carbon dioxide and methane emission factors for rewetted peatlands. Nature Communications Earth and Environment" by Aram Kalhori, Christian Wille, Pia Gottschalk, Zhan Li, Josh Hashemi, Karl Kemper, and Torsten Sachs (https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01226-9). In the article, the authors estimate the cumulative GHG emissions of a rewetted peatland in Germany using the long-term ecosystem flux measurements. They observe a source-to-sink transition of annual carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes and decreasing trend of methane (CH4) emissions. This software is written in R and MATLAB. Running the codes ([R files and .m files](Code)) and loading the data files ([CSV files and .mat files](Data)) requires the pre-installation of [R and RStudio] (https://posit.co/downloads/) and ([MATLAB]. The RStudio 2022.07.2 Build 576 version has been used for the R scripts. The land cover classification work was performed in QGIS, v.3.16.11-Hannover. Data were analyzed in both MATLAB and R and plots created with R (R Core Development Team 2020) in RStudio®.

Description: Flood risk models provide important information for disaster planning through estimating flood damage to exposed assets, such as houses. At large scales, computational constraints or data coarseness leads to the common practice of aggregating asset data using a single statistic (e.g., the mean) prior to applying non-linear damage functions. While this simplification has been shown to bias model results in other fields, the influence of aggregation on flood risk models has received little attention. This study provides a first order approximation of such errors in 344 damage functions using synthetically generated depths. We show that errors can be as high as 40 % of the total asset value under the most extreme example considered, but this is highly sensitive to the level of aggregation and the variance of the depth values. These findings identify a potentially significant source of error in large-scale flood risk assessments introduced, not by data quality or model transfers, but by modelling approach.

Description: The data provided here is an exemplary dataset for the flux site Zarnekow from one year (2018). The complete dataset that is needed to run the codes for all the years can be obtained from the European Fluxes Database Cluster under site ID DE-Zrk (Sachs et al., 2016) or provided upon request. This repository is intended to provide the necessary MATLAB and R code to reproduce the results by Kalhori et al. (2024). The data are provided as zip folder containing (1) a csv file with associated definition of variables and units (file: 2023-004_Kalhori-et-al_README_2018_units.txt), (2) a shapefile (file: 2023-004_Kalhori-et-al_2018_LAiV_DOP.shp) and (3) a Geotiff (file: 2023-004_Kalhori-et-al_2018_LAiV_DOP.tiff).

Description: The West Siberian Seaway connected the Tethys to the Arctic Ocean in the Paleogene and played an important role for Eurasian-Arctic biogeography, ocean circulation, and climate. However, the paleogeography and geological mechanisms enabling the seaway are not well constrained, which complicates linking the seaway evolution to paleoenvironmental changes. Here, we investigate the paleogeography of the Peri-Tethys realms for the Cenozoic time (66–0 Ma), including the West Siberian Seaway, and quantify the influence of mantle convection and corresponding dynamic topography. We start by generating continuous digital elevation models for Eurasia, Arabia, and Northern Africa, by digitizing regional paleogeographic maps and additional geological information and incorporate them in a global paleogeography model with nominal million-year resolution. Then we compute time-dependent dynamic topography for the same time interval and find a clear correlation between changes in dynamic topography and the paleogeographic evolution of Central Eurasia and the West Siberian Seaway. Our results suggest that mantle convection played a greater role in Eurasian paleogeography than previously recognized. Mantle flow may have influenced oceanic connections between the Arctic and global ocean providing a link between deep mantle convection, surface evolution, and environmental changes. Our reconstructions also indicate that the Arctic Ocean may have been isolated from the global ocean in the Eocene, even if the West Siberian Seaway was open, as the Peri-Tethys – Tethys connection was limited, and the Greenland-Scotland Ridge was a landbridge.

Description: Volcanism in continental rifts is generally observed to shift over time from the inside of the basin to its flanks and vice versa, but the controls on these switches are still unclear. Here we use numerical simulations of dike propagation to test the hypothesis that the spatio-temporal evolution of rift volcanism is controlled by the crustal stresses produced during the development of the rift basin. We find that the progressive deepening of a rift rotates the direction of the principal stresses under the basin, deflecting ascending dikes. This causes an early shift of volcanism from the inside of the graben to its flanks. The intensification of this stress pattern, due to further deepening of the basin, promotes the formation of lower crustal sill-like intrusions that can stack under the rift, shallowing the depth at which dikes nucleate, eventually causing a late stage of in-rift axial volcanism. Given the agreement between our model results and observations, we conclude that the temporal shifts in the location of rift volcanism are controlled to first order by the elastic stresses developing in the crust as the rift matures. We thereby suggest that geodynamic models should account for elasticity and the redistribution of surface loads in order to effectively reproduce rift-related magmatism.

Description: Satellite altimetry has revolutionized river monitoring, particularly for hydrologists working on river flow monitoring in sparsely or ungauged areas. Despite this, there's a lack of a comprehensive evaluation of radar and lidar altimeters with varying sensor specifications for river water level retrieval, seasonal change characterization, and water surface slope (WSS) using gauged long-term water level and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data. This study addresses this gap by combined evaluation of radar (ENVISAT to Sentinel-3) and lidar (ICESat-1, ICESat-2) altimeters along the Ganga River, from Prayagraj to Varanasi. We found that, all the radar altimetry missions showed better accuracy for water level retrievals (R2 〉 = 0.8; RMSE 0.11 to 1.16 m) and water level change quantification (RMSE 0.59 m). However, Sentinel-3 with SAR acquisition mode outperformed (RMSE 0.11 to 0.14 m) all the radar missions having low resolution mode. Despite lidar missions' high vertical accuracy, they show relatively lower accuracy in water level time series generation due to non-repeating characteristics. In contrary, ICESat-2 demonstrates potential in capturing spatial and seasonal variability of WSS, enhancing the accuracy of SWOT discharge products when combined with SWOT River database (SWORD). This study provides a comprehensive baseline for end-users interested in utilizing radar and lidar missions for various hydrological applications, including river discharge estimation. Moreover, the studied river reach shares the SWOT calibration orbit, allowing the utilization of generated satellite and in-situ databases for the effective evaluation of SWOT measurements.

Description: Predicting Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP) is crucial for precise positioning and navigation both on the Earth’s surface and in space. In recent years, many approaches have been developed to forecast EOP, incorporating observed EOP as well as information on the effective angular momentum (EAM) derived from numerical models of the atmosphere, oceans, and land-surface dynamics. The Second Earth Orientation Parameters Prediction Comparison Campaign (2nd EOP PCC) aimed to comprehensively evaluate EOP forecasts from many international participants and identify the most promising prediction methodologies. This paper presents the validation results of predictions for universal time and length-of-day variations submitted during the 2nd EOP PCC, providing an assessment of their accuracy and reliability. We conduct a detailed evaluation of all valid forecasts using the IERS 14 C04 solution provided by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) as a reference and mean absolute error as the quality measure. Our analysis demonstrates that approaches based on machine learning or the combination of least squares and autoregression, with the use of EAM information as an additional input, provide the highest prediction accuracy for both investigated parameters. Utilizing precise EAM data and forecasts emerges as a pivotal factor in enhancing forecasting accuracy. Although several methods show some potential to outperform the IERS forecasts, the current standard predictions disseminated by IERS are highly reliable and can be fully recommended for operational purposes.

Description: Hydrothermal alteration is crucial in the formation of many ore deposits, with potassium (K) mobilization and cycling being prevalent. Potassic metasomatism of wall rocks generally forms K-bearing minerals, such as hydrothermal feldspar and mica. However, determining the source and redistribution of K (and other elements transported by the same fluid) in hydrothermal systems is challenging. K isotopes offer a potential solution to this problem. This study presents new K isotope data from two K-rich alteration assemblages — K-feldspar and sericite-quartz-pyrite — in the Jiaodong gold province of China. The data covers a compositional range from unaltered granites to syn-magmatic potassic alteration (formation of K-feldspar) and post-magmatic syn-mineralization phyllic alteration (formation of sericite). Potassic alteration in granite correlates with significant K addition, whereas phyllic alteration of earlier phases of magmatic and hydrothermal K-feldspar resulted in K loss. K-feldspar altered granites display similar δ41K values (–0.55 to –0.42 ‰ for whole-rocks and –0.56 to –0.48 ‰ for K-feldspar separates) as unaltered granite (–0.52 to –0.47 ‰). The narrow δ41K range suggests that magmatic fluid exsolution and magmatic-hydrothermal alteration have a minor effect on δ41K of the altered rock. Phyllic alteration of K-feldspar altered precursor rock leads to K loss and elevated δ41K values ranging from –0.36 to –0.19 ‰ for whole-rocks and –0.34 to –0.17 ‰ for sericite mineral separates. As sericite preferentially incorporates 41K, sericite will have higher δ41K values than the precursor K-feldspar, whereas the fluids will have lower δ41K values. Our study demonstrates that hydrothermal alteration may affect the K isotope composition of altered rocks in several ways, contingent on the nature of the involved phases, making K isotopes a promising tool for studying hydrothermal alteration and associated mineralization.

Description: Significant progress in permafrost carbon science made over the past decades include the identification of vast permafrost carbon stocks, the development of new pan-Arctic permafrost maps, an increase in terrestrial measurement sites for CO2 and methane fluxes, and important factors affecting carbon cycling, including vegetation changes, periods of soil freezing and thawing, wildfire, and other disturbance events. Process-based modeling studies now include key elements of permafrost carbon cycling and advances in statistical modeling and inverse modeling enhance understanding of permafrost region C budgets. By combining existing data syntheses and model outputs, the permafrost region is likely a wetland methane source and small terrestrial ecosystem CO2 sink with lower net CO2 uptake toward higher latitudes, excluding wildfire emissions. For 2002–2014, the strongest CO2 sink was located in western Canada (median: −52 g C m−2 y−1) and smallest sinks in Alaska, Canadian tundra, and Siberian tundra (medians: −5 to −9 g C m−2 y−1). Eurasian regions had the largest median wetland methane fluxes (16–18 g CH4 m−2 y−1). Quantifying the regional scale carbon balance remains challenging because of high spatial and temporal variability and relatively low density of observations. More accurate permafrost region carbon fluxes require: (a) the development of better maps characterizing wetlands and dynamics of vegetation and disturbances, including abrupt permafrost thaw; (b) the establishment of new year-round CO2 and methane flux sites in underrepresented areas; and (c) improved models that better represent important permafrost carbon cycle dynamics, including non-growing season emissions and disturbance effects.

Description: The Campi Flegrei (CF) caldera, in southern Italy, is the source of some of the most powerful Late Pleistocene eruptions of the European sub-continent (e.g., Campanian Ignimbrite, Neapolitan Yellow Tuff eruptions). Although the CF caldera has been continuously and intensively investigated for decades, relatively little is known regarding its earliest volcanic activity. In this work, integrating existing and new tephrostratigraphic data, we provide a comprehensive and updated framework for the CF volcanic activity which has occurred at ∼160 ka and between ∼110 ka and ∼90 ka. The new tephrostratigraphic, geochemical (EMPA + LA-ICP-MS), chronological (40Ar/39Ar dating) and grain-size distribution data relate to CF tephra deposits preserved in mid-proximal (Campanian Plain), distal (Tyrrhenian Sea) and ultra-distal (Lower Danube area) sedimentary archives. Our results allowed us to recognize the presence of at least 13 CF eruptions covering the investigated time frame, with 12 eruptions occurring between 110 and 90 ka. Our high-resolution stratigraphic and chronological investigation also allowed us to recognize that the Triflisco/C-22 tephra, previously considered as a single marker layer, can be actually separated into three different events, sourced from within the CF area in the short time interval of ∼93-90 ka, suggesting a more complex and intense volcanic history than previously thought. Moreover, a Bayesian age-depth model, constrained by previous and new high precision 40Ar/39Ar ages, has led to a reliable estimate of the ages of those undated CF eruptions. Overall, the updated framework on the stratigraphy, chronology, dispersion, and geochemistry of the CF tephra of ∼160 ka and between 110 ka and 90 ka consolidates the notion that the Middle-Late Pleistocene activity in theCF area represents a significant stage of its volcanic evolution, characterised by intense and frequent explosive eruptions.

Description: At the geothermal research platform Gross Schönebeck (NE German Basin), we analysed 3-D seismic reflection data to determine the degree and direction of azimuthal velocity anisotropy which is interpreted as the effect of sub-vertical fracturing. Above the Zechstein salt, the observed anisotropy roughly correlates to fault structures formed by an upwelling salt pillow. Below the salt, faults are not obvious and the direction of less pronounced anisotropy and interpreted fracturing follows the trend of the regional stress field. The fracturing in an extensional setting above salt pillows may cause higher permeability and better conditions for geothermal exploitation.

Description: Stratigraphy along the Brazilian Equatorial Margin is a crucial guide to the geodynamic history of rifting of Pangea and formation of the South Atlantic Ocean. Understanding the evolution of the Brazilian Equatorial Margin, which intersects the Saint Paul and Romanche Fracture Zones on the western margin of South Atlantic Ocean, is also key for reconstructing eustatic histories and natural resource exploration. In this study, we quantify the stratigraphic and subsidence histories of three sedimentary basins—Barreirinhas, Ceará, Potiguar—that sit within the margin. Stratigraphy was mapped using ca. 900-line-km of two-dimensional seismic data. Biostratigraphic and check-shot data from 23 wells drilled on the continental shelf, slope and in the distal parts of these basins were used to date and depth-convert stratigraphy. Check-shot data were also used to parameterise compaction. The mapped stratigraphy was backstripped to calculate subsidence histories for the basins. Subsidence curves were decompacted, water-loaded and corrected for palaeo-water depths using biostratigraphic data from well reports. The mapped stratigraphy of the Barreirinhas and Ceará Basins and theoretical subsidence curves indicate that stretching factors did not exceed 1.6. These values suggest that these basins can be regarded as failed rifts. In contrast, more distal stratigraphy mapped in the Potiguar Basin to the south indicates that it stretched by a factor of 5–6. Calculated subsidence histories indicate that this basin formed primarily because of Cretaceous rifting and Cretaceous to Recent post-rift thermal sag, with amplitudes governed by the amount of initial stretching.

Description: The Jinsha River basin in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in China is prone to strong geological activities, with numerous large-scale landslides along its banks that can potentially trigger a cascade of flood hazards. Recent seismic events such as the Wenchuan and Luding earthquakes have heightened the likelihood of landslide collapses along the slopes of the Jinsha River, thereby increasing the risk of a large-scale landslide-dam-break-flood hazard chain. Among these landslides, the ancient Woda landslide is currently in a state of slow deformation, and if reactivated, it can potentially obstruct the river and trigger catastrophic outburst floods. This study uses the integrated continuum method to simulate the dynamic processes associated with large-scale slope failures and the formation of landslide dams. Furthermore, the outburst flood resulting from the dam breach is modeled by combining the dammed lake flow model and the shallow water equation, allowing for the simulation of long-distance flood propagation. The findings indicate that the Woda landslide has the potential to create a dam of approximately 68.1 m in height, with a corresponding dammed-lake volume of about 7.10 × 108 m3. The peak flow rate of the resulting outburst flood can reach 4.4 × 104 m3/s, leading to an extensive impact zone reaching 140 km downstream. This flood inundates several downstream villages, towns, and even the Sichuan-Tibet Railway which is under construction. Moreover, the study reveals that the resistance coefficient of landslides significantly influences the entire hazard chain evolution process. Lowering the resistance coefficient of landslides leads to a considerable increase in the height of the landslide dam, amplification of the peak flow rate of the outburst flood, and an elevated risk for downstream elements situated at greater distances.

Description: Forecasting eruptions is a fundamental goal of volcanology. However, difficulties in identifying eruptive precursors, fragmented approaches and lack of resources make eruption forecasting difficult to achieve. In this Review, we explore the first-order scientific approaches that are essential to progress towards forecasting the time and location of magmatic eruptions. Forecasting in time uses different monitoring techniques, depending on the conduit-opening mode. Ascending magma can create a new conduit (closed-conduit eruptions), use a previously open conduit (open-conduit eruptions) or flow below a solidified magma plug (semi-open-conduit eruptions). Closed-conduit eruptions provide stronger monitoring signals often detected months in advance, but they commonly occur at volcanoes with poorly known pre-eruptive behaviour. Open-conduit eruptions, associated with low-viscosity magmas, provide more subtle signals often detected only minutes in advance, although their higher eruption frequency promotes more testable approaches. Semi-open-conduit eruptions show intermediate behaviours, potentially displaying clear pre-eruptive signals days in advance and often recurring repeatedly. However, any given volcano can experience multiple conduit-opening modes, sometimes simultaneously, requiring combinations of forecasting approaches. Forecasting the location of vent opening relies on determining the stresses controlling magma propagation, deformation and seismic monitoring. The use of physics-based models to assimilate monitoring data and observations will substantially improve forecasting, but requires a deeper understanding of pre-eruptive processes and more extensive monitoring data.

Description: Beryllium isotopes have emerged as a quantitative tracer of continental weathering, but accurate and precise determination of the cosmogenic 10Be and stable 9Be in seawater is challenging, because seawater contains high concentrations of matrix elements but extremely low concentrations of 9Be and 10Be. In this study, we develop a new, time-efficient procedure for the simultaneous preconcentration of 9Be and 10Be from (coastal) seawater based on the iron co-precipitation method. The concentrations of 9Be, 10Be, and the resulting 10Be/9Be ratio for Changjiang Estuary water derived from the new procedure agree well with those obtained from the conventional procedure requiring separate preconcentration for 9Be and 10Be determinations. By avoiding the separate preconcentration, our newly developed procedure contributes toward more time-efficient handling of samples, less sample cross-contamination, and a more reliable 10Be/9Be ratio. Prior to this, we validated the iron co-precipitation method using artificial seawater and natural water samples from the Amazon Estuary regarding: (1) the “matrix effect” for Be analysis, (2) its extraction efficiency for pg g−1 levels Be in the presence and absence of organic matter, and (3) the data comparability with another preconcentration method. We calculated that for the determination of 9Be and 10Be in most open ocean seawater with typical 10Be concentrations of 〉 500 atoms g−1, good precisions (〈 5%) can be achieved using less than 3 liters of seawater compared to more than 20 liters routinely used previously. Even for coastal seawater with extremely low 10Be concentration (e.g., 100 atoms g−1), we estimate a maximum amount of 10 liters to be adequate.

Description: Accurate age estimates are crucial for assessing the life-histories of fish and providing management advice, but validation studies are rare for many species. We corroborated age estimates with annual cycles of oxygen isotopes (δ18O) in otoliths of 86 northern pike (Esox lucius) from the southern Baltic Sea, compared results with visual age estimates from scales and otoliths, and assessed bias introduced by different age-estimation structures on von Bertalanffy growth models and age-structured population models. Age estimates from otoliths were accurate, while age estimates from scales significantly underestimated the age of pike older than 6 years compared to the corroborated reference age. Asymptotic length () was larger, and the growth coefficient was lower for scale ages than for corroborated age and otolith age estimates. Consequentially, scale-informed population models overestimated maximum sustainable yield (), biomass at (), relative frequency of trophy fish (), and optimal minimum length limit but underestimated fishing mortality at (). Using scale-based ages to inform management regulations for pike may therefore result in conservative management and lost yield. The overestimated asymptotic length may instill unrealistic expectations of trophy potential in recreational anglers targeting large pike, while the overestimation in MSY would cause unrealistic expectations of yield potential in commercial fishers.

Description: Monitoring urban heat island (UHI) effect is critical because it causes health problems and excessive energy consumption more energy when cooling buildings. In this study, we propose an approach for UHI monitoring by fusing data from ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS), space-based GNSS radio occultation (RO), and radiosonde. The idea of the approach is as follows: First, the first and second grid tops are defined based on historical RO and radiosonde observations. Next, the wet refractivities between the first and second grid tops are fitted to higher-order spherical harmonics and they are used as the inputs of GNSS tomography. Then, the temperature and water vapor partial pressure are estimated by using best search method based on the tomography-derived wet refractivity. In the end, the UHI intensity is evaluated by calculating the temperature difference between the urban regions and nearby rural regions. Feasibility of the UHI intensity monitoring approach was evaluated with GNSS RO and radiosonde data in 2010–2019, as well as ground-based GNSS data in 2020 in Hong Kong, China, by taking synoptic temperature data as reference. The result shows that the proposed approach achieved an accuracy of 1.2 K at a 95% confidence level.

Description: Situated within a 1.07 million-year-old meteorite crater, Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana stands as a pivotal location for comprehending climatic, ecological and environmental fluctuations within the sub-Saharan region of West Africa. The region's susceptibility to seasonal environmental shifts and climate oscillations is heightened by the annual movements of the tropical rain belt driven by atmospheric circulation. Yet, there is no satisfying age-depth model available for the entire sedimentary sequence strongly limiting our understanding of changes in this circulation pattern and associated (broad-scale) environmental responses during the last million years in the local to regional context of Lake Bosumtwi. To overcome this, we statistically examine the cyclicity in total natural gamma ray (NGR) data on a core from the lake's centre and create a cyclostratigraphic age-depth model. The calculated maximum age of 946 ka agrees well with the meteorite impact age (∼10 % offset). In order to refine this purely statistical approach, we also perform a correlative age-depth model using 33 tie points accounting for the complexity of climatic and environmental imprints to the NGR record that may exceed direct insolation related effects. Special attention is paid to the core's robustly dated (14C, OSL, U/Th) uppermost part covering the last 200 ka. Here, high NGR and co-varying K counts coincide with warm periods (except of the water-saturated and unconsolidated Holocene part) and the inverse for glacials and stadials. Based on this, we define tie points for correlating our NGR data to the age-depth model of a NE Atlantic SST record. Comparing our results to the correlation target, other global climate records and Sahara dust flux data reveals striking similarities and supports a proxy understanding with increased in wash of K-enriched terrigenous material from the crater rims in warm and moist periods (high NGR) and K-depleted dust input in stadials possibly contributing to low NGR values in addition to reduced input of K-enriched sediments from the crater rims. Our correlative age model results in precession amplitudes matching eccentricity well, providing further support especially because an over-tuning is unlikely with the used 33 tie points. Overall we provide crucial chronological context to numerous datasets along with environmental constrains that can be used to study the potential habitat availability of early anatomically modern humans in West Africa.

Description: The evolution of the local stress field of faults under tectonic stresses is crucial to predict earthquakes. In this study, we investigated the stress sensitivity of an analogue fault model with dimensions of 2 m × 1 m × 1 m, prepared from cement, gypsum, river sand, putty powder, and borax mixture. The angle between the fault strike and the maximum stress direction was varied, and the variation in the stress near the analogue fault (area 1200 × 400 mm; width 5 mm) was determined. The crack growth law of the analogue fault was found to be consistent with a simple Riedel shear model. A main strike-displacement zone was formed, and its direction was parallel to that of the analogue fault. Fault development was described by three stages based on stress–strain relationships: a nucleus stage, a stable growth, and an unstable growth stage. The deflection angle (the deflection angle of the local principal stresses) range of the local stress field was (− 45°, 45°), and it varied most significantly in the nucleus stage. The closer to the fault, the greater the variation range in the deflection angle. The variation range was greater in the fault compression quadrants than in the dilatation quadrants. The correlation between the deflection angle and the relative deformation velocity of the fault was stronger in the stable growth stage than in the other stages. In this stage, the angle–deformation–velocity correlation could be well fitted using a logistic trend model. These findings can be of importance to better understand the nucleation and mechanisms of fault slip-induced earthquakes under varying fault-strike-stress conditions.

Description: The yield and composition of tar depending on coal rank and pressure during underground coal gasification (UCG) were studied. Two coals were used in a series of ex-situ UCG experiments: a Welsh semi-anthracite (Six Feet) and a Polish bituminous coal (Wesoła). Four high-pressure gasification trials under two distinct pressure regimes (20 and 40 bar) were conducted. The tar samples were collected directly from the reactor outlet. The following groups of compounds were analysed by use of gas chromatography (GC-MS): light monoaromatic hydrocarbons (BTEX – benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and phenols. A series of gasification experiments revealed significant differences in tar yields and composition depending on the coal rank and gasification pressure. Significant decreases in tar contents were observed with the increase in gasification pressure from 20 to 40 bar for both coals. The total yields of the analysed tar components per kg of gasified coal were 2.58 g and 0.41 g for the experiments conducted on the Six Feet samples at 20 bar and 40 bar, respectively. The corresponding values for the Wesoła coal amounted to 5.48 g and 0.95 g. In all experiments, BTEX was a dominant group of tar components, constituting 69–86 % of the total tar yield within the tested range of compounds. The present study further proves that gasification pressure has a significant effect on the chemical composition of the produced UCG tars for both coal samples under study.

Description: Traditionally, the emplacement of the Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) is considered to have caused continental break-up. However, this does not always seem to be the case, as illustrated by, for example, the Siberian Traps, one of the most voluminous flood basalt events in Earth history, which was not followed by lithospheric rupture. Moreover, the classical model of purely active (plume-induced) rifting and continental break-up often fails to do justice to widely varying tectonic impacts of Phanerozoic LIPs. Here, we show that the role of the LIPs in rupture of the lithosphere ranges from initial dominance (e.g., Deccan LIP) to activation (e.g., Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, CAMP) or alignment (e.g., Afar LIP). A special case is the North Atlantic Igneous Province (NAIP), formed due to the “re-awakening” of the Iceland plume by the lateral propagation of the spreading ridge and the simultaneous approach of the plume conduit to adjacent segments of the thinner overlying lithosphere. The proposed new classification of LIPs may provide useful guidance for future research, particularly with respect to some inherent limitations of the common paradigm of purely passive continental break-up and the assumption of a direct link between internal mantle dynamics and the timing of near-surface magmatism.

Description: Probing source mechanisms of natural and induced earthquakes is a powerful tool to unveil associated rupture kinematics. The source processes of failure and slip instability driven by stress loading are affected by fault geometry, but the source ruptures of injection-induced seismicity in relation to fault structures and local stress states remain poorly understood. We have conducted a series of fault reactivation and slip experiments on sandstone samples containing faults with different surface roughness (smooth saw-cut fault and fractured rough fault). We impose progressive fluid injection to induce fault slip, and simultaneously monitor the associated acoustic emission (AE) activity. Using high-resolution AE recordings, we perform full moment tensor inversion of all located AE sources, and investigate the changes of AE source characteristics associated with induced fault slip and their relation to fault roughness. For the complex and rough fault, we observe significant non-double-couple components of AE sources and a high degree of focal mechanism heterogeneity. The temporal changes of AE mechanisms associated with injection-induced fault slip on the smooth fault reveal increasing proportions of double-couple components and decreasing variability of AE focal mechanisms when approaching the onset of slip events. The observed inconsistency between the nodal planes of AE sources and the macroscopic fault plane orientation is attributed to the development of secondary fracture networks surrounding the principal slip surface. We analyze changes in the magnitude-frequency characteristics and source mechanisms of AEs with fault-normal distance, showing that for the smooth (mature) fault, Gutenberg–Richter b-value of on-fault seismicity is lower and focal mechanisms are less heterogeneous, compared to off-fault seismicity. Our results emphasize the important role of roughness-related changes in local fault geometry and associated stress heterogeneity for source mechanisms and rupture kinematics of injection-induced seismicity.

Description: In this article, a high-resolution acoustic emission sensor, accelerometer, and broadband seismometer array data set is made available and described in detail from in situ experiments performed at Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in May and June 2015. The main goal of the hydraulic stimulation tests in a horizontal borehole at 410m depth in naturally fractured granitic rock mass is to demonstrate the technical feasibility of generating multi-stage heat exchangers in a controlled way superiorly to former massive stimulations applied in enhanced geothermal projects. A set of six, sub-parallel hydraulic fractures is propagated from an injection borehole drilled parallel to minimum horizontal in situ stress and is monitored by an extensive complementary sensor array implemented in three inclined monitoring boreholes and the nearby tunnel system. Three different fluid injection protocols are tested: constant water injection, progressive cyclic injection, and cyclic injection with a hydraulic hammer operating at 5 Hz frequency to stimulate a crystalline rock volume of size 30m30m30m at depth. We collected geological data from core and borehole logs, fracture inspection data from an impression packer, and acoustic emission hypocenter tracking and tilt data, as well as quantified the permeability enhancement process. The data and interpretation provided through this publication are important steps in both upscaling laboratory tests and downscaling field tests in granitic rock in the framework of enhanced geothermal system research. Data described in this paper can be accessed at GFZ Data Services under https://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.2.6.2023.004 (Zang et al., 2023).

Description: Inorganic geochemistry is a powerful tool in paleolimnology. It has become one of the most commonly used techniques to analyze lake sediments, particularly due to the development and increasing availability of XRF core scanners during the last two decades. It allows for the reconstruction of the continuous processes that occur in lakes and their watersheds, and it is ideally suited to identify event deposits. How earth surface processes and limnological conditions are recorded in the inorganic geochemical composition of lake sediments is, however, relatively complex. Here, we review the main techniques used for the inorganic geochemical analysis of lake sediments and we offer guidance on sample preparation and instrument selection. We then summarize the best practices to process and interpret bulk inorganic geochemical data. In particular, we emphasize that log-ratio transformation is critical for the rigorous statistical analysis of geochemical datasets, whether they are obtained by XRF core scanning or more traditional techniques. In addition, we show that accurately interpreting inorganic geochemical data requires a sound understanding of the main components of the sediment (organic matter, biogenic silica, carbonates, lithogenic particles) and mineral assemblages. Finally, we provide a series of examples illustrating the potential and limits of inorganic geochemistry in paleolimnology. Although the examples presented in this paper focus on lake and fjord sediments, the principles presented here also apply to other sedimentary environments.

Description: Interface problems exist widely in various engineering problems and their high-precision simulation is of great importance. A new computational approach for dealing with interface problems is proposed based on the recently developed integral-generalized finite difference (IGFD) scheme. In this method, the research domain is divided into several subdomains by interfaces, and discretization schemes are established independently in each subdomain. A new cross-subdomain integration scheme is introduced to connect these subdomains. Several two-dimensional elasticity models containing material interfaces are studied to test the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the recently proposed approach without the help of discontinuous functions or auxiliary equations that are commonly used in other numerical methods (e.g., extended finite element method and boundary element method) enables obtaining high accuracy and efficiency in interface problems. The proposed method has great potential in the application of material interface problems in solid mechanics and, furthermore, weak discontinuity problems in various fields.

Description: In space geodetic techniques, the mapping functions (MFs) provide the relationship between zenith and slant tropospheric delays. The MFs are determined under the assumption of spherically layered atmosphere. However, the atmosphere is not spherically layered, and the asymmetry should be considered. Therefore, tropospheric gradients are taken into account. Nevertheless, tropospheric gradients alone can not fully represent the deviation from a spherically layered atmosphere, and hence cm level errors arise especially for low elevation angles. In this study, we present new approaches to modify the wet MF to reduce mismodelling of tropospheric delays. The delays in the study were calculated using ray-tracing algorithm based on ECMWF’s ERA5 dataset. We first analyzed the performances of the new approaches. Then, two Precise Point Positioning (PPP) simulation studies and a real case study were carried out for two different regions namely Germany and Türkiye. According to the results, the proposed approaches reduce the modelling errors up to by a factor 6 for both regions. Besides, simulation studies show that the approaches improve the accuracies of the ZTDs and heights. In the practical application however, we could not find a clear improvement in the PPP analyze and this might be related to the ERA5 which can not be regarded error-free.

Description: Climate change poses a significant threat to the distribution and composition of forest tree species worldwide. European forest tree species’ range is expected to shift to cope with the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, pests and diseases caused by climate change. Despite numerous regional studies, a continental scale assessment of current changes in species distributions in Europe is missing due to the difficult task of modeling a species realized distribution and to quantify the influence of forest disturbances on each species. In this study we conducted a trend analysis on the realized distribution of 6 main European forest tree species (Abies alba Mill., Fagus sylvatica L., Picea abies L. H. Karst., Pinus nigra J. F. Arnold, Pinus sylvestris L. and Quercus robur L.) to capture and map the prevalent trends in probability of occurrence for the period 2000–2020. We also analyzed the impact of forest disturbances on each species’ range and identified the dominant disturbance drivers. Our results revealed an overall trend of stability in species’ distributions (85% of the pixels are considered stable by 2020 for all species) but we also identified some hot spots characterized by negative trends in probability of occurrence, mostly at the edges of each species’ latitudinal range. Additionally, we identified a steady increase in disturbance events in each species’ range by disturbance (affected range doubled by 2020, from 3.5% to 7% on average) and highlighted species-specific responses to forest disturbance drivers such as wind and fire. Overall, our study provides insights into distribution trends and disturbance patterns for the main European forest tree species. The identification of range shifts and the intensifying impacts of disturbances call for proactive conservation efforts and long-term planning to ensure the resilience and sustainability of European forests.

Description: The Altiplano-Puna Plateau of the Central Andes hosts numerous lakes, playa-lakes, and salars with a great diversity and abundance of carbonates forming under extreme climatic, hydrologic, and environmental conditions. To unravel the underlying processes controlling the formation of carbonates and their geochemical signatures in hypersaline systems, we investigated coupled brine-carbonate samples in a high-altitude Andean lake using a wide suite of petrographic (SEM, XRD) and geochemical tools (δ2H, δ18O, δ13C, δ11B, major and minor ion composition, aqueous modelling). Our findings show that the inflow of hydrothermal springs in combination with strong CO2 degassing and evaporation plays an important role in creating a spatial diversity of hydro-chemical sub-environments allowing different types of microbialites (microbial mounds and mats), travertines, and fine-grained calcite minerals to form. Carbonate precipitation occurs in hot springs triggered by a shift in carbonate equilibrium by hydrothermal CO2 degassing and microbially-driven elevation of local pH at crystallisation. In lakes, carbonate precipitation is induced by evaporative supersaturation, with contributions from CO2 degassing and microbiological processes. Lake carbonates largely record the evaporitic enrichment (hence salinity) of the parent water which can be traced by Na, Li, B, and δ18O, although other factors (such as e.g., high precipitation rates, mixing with thermal waters, groundwater, or precipitation) also affect their signatures. This study is of significance to those dealing with the fractionation of oxygen, carbon, and boron isotopes and partitioning of elements in natural brine-carbonate environments. Furthermore, these findings contribute to the advancement in proxy development for these depositional environments.

Description: The hazardous plasma environment surrounding Earth poses risks to satellites due to internal charging and surface charging effects. Accurate predictions of these risks are crucial for minimizing damage and preparing for system failures of satellites. To forecast the plasma environment, it is essential to know the current state of the system, as the accuracy of the forecast depends on the accuracy of the initial condition of the forecast. In this study, we use data assimilation techniques to combine observational data and model predictions, and present the first global validation of a data-assimilative electron ring current nowcast during a geomagnetic storm. By assimilating measurements from one satellite and validating the results against another satellite in a different magnetic local time sector, we assess the global response and effectiveness of the data assimilation technique for space weather applications. Using this method, we found that the simulation accuracy can be drastically improved at times when observations are available while eliminating almost all of the bias previously present in the model. These findings contribute to the construction of improved operational models in estimating surface charging risks and providing realistic ’source’ populations for radiation belt simulations.