EarthArXiv (pronounced "Earth archive") is both a preprint server and a volunteer community devoted to open scholarly communication.

COS was hosting (at the time) 20 domain specific preprint systems and was interested in expanding into the Earth sciences.

COS put Caron and Narock in touch with Jackson in spring-2017, and a concerted effort was made to get the newly named EarthArXiv off the ground.

On June 1, 2017 the ESIP support coalesced into a formal working group, the Earth Sciences Pre-Print Cluster.

A final decision was made to partner with COS and on October 23, 2017 – the first day of Open Access Week 2017 – EarthArXiv began accepting preprints.