Sources of groundwater salinity along the flow path,Disi–Dead Sea/Jordan

The groundwater along the eastern escarpment of the Dead Sea shows a variety of chemical compositions with EC values ranging between 500 and a few thousand μS/cm. In this article the different groundwaters were correlated to the aquifers from where they originate and the water–rock interactions were elaborated at. It was found that the start of intercalations of Permo-Triassic and Jurassic rocks in the area and the basaltic dykes and sills are the sources, which cause a drastic increase in the salinity of the water. These rocks contents of residual evaporites, contact metamorphism products, sills, dykes and secondary altered mineral assemblage of plagioclase-, pyroxenes- and Fe-, Mn- minerals cause also drastic changes in ionic ratios, saturation indices and groundwater types. Fresh groundwater flows entering the area become, gradually, after a few kilometres highly salinized and of earthalkali type with prevailing chloride and sulfate instead of being bicarbonate waters.     

HI observations ofHII-galaxies

High-resolution observations of the star forming dwarf galaxies Haro 21 and Markarian 314 are presented and are compared with a set of narrow band (H) CCD images. TheHi system related to Haro 21 measures about 12 kpc in diameter and is much more extended than the optical emission. The optical light follows that of an exponential disk and has a scale length of only 600 pc. TheHi distribution shows a lack of neutral gas near its centre where most of the H emission is found. The velocity field is regular and shows the characteristics of a disk in differential rotation. The rotation curve is rising out to the last measured point and the total mass is estimated to be about 1.5×10¹⁰ M . This implies that Haro 21 is a galaxy which is dominated by Dark Matter.Partly based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile.     

Dimensional analysis of yielding and pounding structures for records without distinct pulses

The seismic response of two fundamental mechanical configurations of earthquake engineering, the elastic–plastic system and the pounding oscillator, is revisited with the aid of dimensional analysis. Starting from the previous work of the authors which focused on pulse-type excitations, the paper offers an alternative, yet physically motivated, way to present the response of yielding and pounding structures under excitations with arbitrary time history. It is shown, that when the appropriate time and length scales are adopted, dimensional analysis can be implemented and remarkable order emerges in the response. Regardless of the acceleration level and frequency content of the excitation, all response spectra become self-similar and when expressed in dimensionless terms, resulting from dimensional analysis, follow a single master curve. The study proposes such scales together with the associated selection criteria among the available in literature strong ground motion parameters and shows that the proposed approach reduces drastically the scatter in the response.     

The 2014 seismic hazard model of the Middle East: overview and results

The Earthquake Model of Middle East (EMME) Project aimed to develop regional scale seismic hazard and risk models uniformly throughout a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean in the west to the Himalayas in the east and from the Gulf of Oman in the south to the Greater Caucasus in the North; a region which has been continuously devastated by large earthquakes throughout the history. The 2014 Seismic Hazard Model of Middle East (EMME-SHM14) was developed with the contribution of several institutions from ten countries. The present paper summarizes the efforts towards building a homogeneous seismic hazard model of the region and highlights some of the main results of this model. An important aim of the project was to transparently communicate the data and methods used and to obtain reproducible results. By doing so, the use of the model and results will be accessible by a wide community, further support the mitigation of seismic risks in the region and facilitate future improvements to the seismic hazard model. To this end all data, results and methods used are made available through the web-portal of the European Facilities for Earthquake Hazard and Risk (www.efehr.org).     

Trends in extreme rainfall in the state of New South Wales,Australia

The trends in annual maximum rainfall (AMR) intensity data in New South Wales, Australia, were examined. Data from 60 stations were used covering three study periods, 1955–2010, 1965–2010 and 1978–2010. Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman’s rho (SR) tests were applied to assess trends at local stations. Pre-whitening (PW), trend-free pre-whitening (TFPW) and the variance correction (VC) tests were used to assess the effects of serial correlation on trend results. For regional trend analysis, the regional MK test was employed. The impacts of climatic variability modes on the observed trends in AMR intensity and seasonal maximum rainfall data were investigated. It was found that positive trends were more frequent than the negative ones. The PW, TFPW and VC tests resulted in a slight reduction in the count of stations exhibiting significant positive trends. The number of stations exhibiting significant trends decreased when the impact of climate variability modes was considered.     

The environment of Upper Palaeolithic (Magdalenian and Azilian) hunters at Hauterive‐Champréveyres,Neuchâtel,Switzerland, interpreted from coleopteran remains

An excavation primarily intended to investigate the Bronze Age deposits at Hautrive‐Champréveyres, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, encountered beneath the Bronze Age levels a sequence of Late‐glacial sediments that were deposited between about 13000 yr BP and 11800 yr BP. Within these deposits Upper Palaeolithic hearths, bones and flint implements were found in a context that left no doubt that they accumulated on the actual living floors. Two separate cultures were involved; an earlier Magdalenian one overlain by a rather later Azilian assemblage. Coleoptera from the associated organic silts and sands provide detailed ecological and climatic information about the time when these people lived in the area. Radiocarbon dates indicate that the Magdalenians lived in the area at about 13000 yr BP. The Coleoptera show that the mean July temperature at this time was about 9°C and mean temperature of the coldest month was about −25°C. The landscape was bare of trees with an open patchy vegetation. Shortly after the area was abandoned by the Magdalenian hunters, the climate became suddenly warmer and mean July temperatures rose abruptly to at least 16°C and winter temperatures rose to levels not much different from those of the present day. There is evidence that at this time, intense slope instability and mud flows may have rendered the locality unsuitable for human occupation. About seven centuries after the episode of sudden climatic warming, namely at about 12300 yr BP, palaeolithic Azilian hunters occupied the area at a time when the climate was thoroughly temperate and the landscape was clothed in birch and willow woodland. This was gradually replaced by pine forest at the top of the sequence and Late‐glacial deposition ceased by about 11800 yr BP. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deducing the Lateral Growth of Anticlines using Drainage Analysis and Geomorphological Features

Geotectonics - The Low Folded Zone in Iraq is an active tectonic area witnessing different evidences for Neotectonic activities, among them are the lateral growth of Jambour, Pulkhana, and Qumar...     

A probabilistic approach for the classification of earthquakes as ��triggered�� or ��not triggered��

The occurrence time of earthquakes can be anticipated or delayed by external phenomena that induce strain energy changes on the faults. ??Anticipated?? earthquakes are generally called ??triggered??; however, it can be controversial to label a specific earthquake as such, mostly because of the stochastic nature of earthquake occurrence and of the large uncertainties usually associated to stress modelling. Here we introduce a combined statistical and physical approach to quantify the probability that a given earthquake was triggered by a given stress-inducing phenomenon. As an example, we consider an earthquake that was likely triggered by a natural event: the M?=?6.2 13 Jan 1976 Kópasker earthquake on the Grímsey lineament (Tj?rnes Fracture Zone, Iceland), which occurred about 3?weeks after a large dike injection in the nearby Krafla fissure swarm. By using Coulomb stress calculations and the rate-and-state earthquake nucleation theory, we calculate the likelihood of the earthquake in a scenario that contains only the tectonic background and excludes the dike and in a scenario that includes the dike but excludes the background. Applying the Bayes?? theorem, we obtain that the probability that the earthquake was indeed triggered by the dike, rather than purely due to the accumulation of tectonic strain, is about 60 to 90?%. This methodology allows us to assign quantitative probabilities to different scenarios and can help in classifying earthquakes as triggered or not triggered by natural or human-induced changes of stress in the crust.