Two orogenies in the Meatiq area of the Central Eastern Desert,Egypt

The Pan-African basement exposed in the Meatiq area west of Quseir, Egypt, consists of an infracrustal basement overthrusted by a supracrustal cover. The infracrustal rocks were developed as a result of an old orogeny referred to as the Meatiqian orogeny where granite—gneiss, migmatitic gneisses and migmatized amphibolites were formed. The granite—gneiss represents a deformed granite pluton emplaced at 626±2 Ma, whereas the migmatitic gneisses and amphibolites are of mixed igneous and sedimentary parentage. In view of the data so far available, the nature of the Meatiqian orogeny could not be deciphered. In spite of the young isotopic ages, it is suggested that at least the metasedimentary gneisses represent older rocks in the stratigraphic sequence of the infracrustal basement.The supracrustal cover represents a part of an extensive ophiolitic mélange obducted onto the infracrustal basement during the next orogeny (Abu Ziran orogeny) which culminated at 613±2 Ma. An active continental margin-type regime can adequately explain the evolution of such a supracrustal cover. During obduction, the ophiolitic mélange and the upper 2 km thick part of the infracrustal basement were intensely deformed and metamorphosed under PT conditions of the greenschist—epidote amphibolite facies. The deformed infracrustal basement was converted into mylonitic—blastomylonitic rocks and schists composing five thrust sheets, and subsequently intruded by synkinematic granitoid sheets. Later, both the infracrustal basement and the overlying supracrustal cover were isostatically uplifted, subjected to complex shallow folding giving rise to the major Meatiq domal structure, and were intruded by a postkinematic adamellite pluton at 579±6 Ma.     

Impacts of an uncontrolled phosphogypsum dumpsite on summer distribution of phytoplankton, copepods and ciliates in relation to abiotic variables along the near-shore of the southwestern Mediterranean coast

In connection with the Taparura Project, studies of spatial distribution of the crustacean zooplankton community, nutrients, phytoplankton and ciliates were conducted in July 2007 at 45 stations spread over fifteen transects along the coast north of Sfax. The results showed that the N/P ratio was lower than the Redfield ratio, suggesting potential N limitation. Phytoplankton was characterised by the proliferation of several diatoms, while ciliates were largely dominated by spirotrichs. Copepods were the most abundant zooplankton present during the entire study period, comprising 61% of the total zooplankton community. Twelve copepod families were identified at every station, with a high percentage of Oithonidae (77% of copepods) dominated by Oithona nana. The abundance of this species was correlated with that of diatoms, Cocoolithophorideae and ciliated Colpodea, suggesting that O. nana may feed on a wide range of prey. Despite human pressure and industrial activities, the coastal waters north of Sfax showed a wide diversity of phytoplankton, ciliates and zooplankton.     

Conditional simulation of remotely sensed rainfall data using a non-Gaussian v-transformed copula

Quantification of rainfall and its spatial and temporal variability is extremely important for reliable hydrological and meteorological modeling. While rain gauge measurements do not provide reasonable areal representation of rainfall, remotely sensed precipitation estimates offer much higher spatial resolution. However, uncertainties associated with remotely sensed rainfall estimates are not well quantified. This issue is important considering the fact that uncertainties in input rainfall are the main sources of error in hydrologic processes. Using an ensemble of rainfall estimates that resembles multiple realizations of possible true rainfall, one can assess uncertainties associated with remotely sensed rainfall data. In this paper, ensembles are generated by imposing rainfall error fields over remotely sensed rainfall estimates. A non-Gaussian copula-based model is introduced for simulation of rainfall error fields. The v-transformed copula is employed to describe the dependence structure of rainfall error estimates without the influence of the marginal distribution. Simulations using this model can be performed unconditionally or conditioned on ground reference measurements such that rain gauge data are honored at their locations. The presented model is implemented for simulation of rainfall ensembles across the Little Washita watershed, Oklahoma. The results indicate that the model generates rainfall fields with similar spatio-temporal characteristics and stochastic properties to those of observed rainfall data.     

Estimation of tail dependence coefficient in rainfall accumulation fields

Extreme rainfall events are of particular importance due to their severe impacts on the economy, the environment and the society. Characterization and quantification of extremes and their spatial dependence structure may lead to a better understanding of extreme events. An important concept in statistical modeling is the tail dependence coefficient (TDC) that describes the degree of association between concurrent rainfall extremes at different locations. Accurate knowledge of the spatial characteristics of the TDC can help improve on the existing models of the occurrence probability of extreme storms. In this study, efficient estimation of the TDC in rainfall is investigated using a dense network of rain gauges located in south Louisiana, USA. The inter-gauge distances in this network range from about 1 km to 9 km. Four different nonparametric TDC estimators are implemented on samples of the rain gauge data and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Three averaging time-scales are considered: 1 h, 2 h and 3 h. The results indicate that a significant tail dependency may exist that cannot be ignored for realistic modeling of multivariate rainfall fields. Presence of a strong dependence among extremes contradicts with the assumption of joint normality, commonly used in hydrologic applications.