Kimberlites distribution in Angola and prospective areas for new discoveries

Based on a comprehensive analysis of kimberlite pipes of Angola, including the near surface structural setting, deep lithospheric structure, pipe morphology and emplacement, mineralogical and petrographic features, diamond characteristics and locations of secondary deposits four geographical regions have been outlined within Angola representing four types of diamond bearing potential. These areas include high diamond bearing potential pipes, possible potential, no potential, and unclear potential areas. It was found that the depth of magmatism and diamond potential of kimberlites increases from the Atlantic coast in southwestern Angola into the continent in the north-easterly direction. Areas prospective for the discovery of new primary diamond deposits have been identified.

     

The upper Viséan–Serpukhovian in the type area for the Serpukhovian Stage (Moscow Basin,Russia): Part 1. Sequences,disconformities, and biostratigraphic summary

The upper Viséan–Serpukhovian strata in the type region for the Serpukhovian Stage is an epeiric‐sea succession ca. 90 m in thickness. The predominantly Viséan Oka Group (comprising the Aleksin, Mikhailov, and Venev formations) is dominated by photozoan packstones with fluvial siliciclastic wedges developed from the west. The Lower Serpukhovian Zaborie Group is composed of the Tarusa and Gurovo formations. The latter is a new name for the shale‐dominated unit of Steshevian Substage age in the studied area. The Zaborie Group is composed of limestones and marls in its lower (Tarusa and basal Gurovo) part and black smectitic to grey palygorskitic shales in the main part of the Gurovo Formation. The Gurovo Formation is capped by a thin limestone with oncoids and a palygorskitic–calcretic palaeosol. The Upper Serpukhovian is composed of a thin (3–12 m) Protva Limestone heavily karstified during a mid‐Carboniferous lowstand. The succession shows a number of unusual sedimentary features, such as a lack of high‐energy facies, shallow‐subtidal marine sediments penetrated by Stigmaria, the inferred atidal to microtidal regime, and palustrine beds composed of saponitic marls. The succession contains many subaerial disconformities characterized by profiles ranging from undercoal solution horizons to palaeokarsts. Incised fluvial channels are reported at two stratigraphic levels to the west of the study area. The deepest incisions developed from the Kholm Disconformity (top of the Mikhailov Formation). This disconformity also exhibits the deepest palaeokarst profile and represents the major hiatus in the Oka–Zaborie succession. The new sea‐level curve presented herein shows two major cycles separated by the Kholm Unconformity at the Mikhailov/Venev boundary. The Lower Serpukhovian transgression moved the base‐level away from falling below the seafloor so that the section becomes conformable above the Forino Disconformity (lower Tarusa). The maximum deepening is interpreted to occur in the lower dark‐shale part of the Gurovo Formation. The base of the Serpukhovian Stage is defined by FADs of the conodont Lochriea ziegleri and the foraminifer Janischewskina delicata in the middle of the sequence VN2. The Aleksinian–Mikhailovian interval is provisionally correlated with the Asbian (Lower–Middle Warnantian) in Western Europe. Based on FODs of Janischewskina typica and first representatives of Climacammina, the Venevian is correlated with the Brigantian in Western Europe. The Tarusian–Protvian interval contains diverse fusulinid and conodont assemblages, but few forms suitable for international correlation. FADs of the zonal conodont species Adetognathus unicornis and Gnathodus bollandensis at several metres above the Protvian base suggest correlation of the entire Zaborie Group and may be the basal Protvian to the Pendleian. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Exploration of Future Patterns of the Contributions to OpenStreetMap and Development of a Contribution Index

OpenStreetMap (OSM) represents one of the most well‐known examples of a collaborative mapping project. Major research efforts have so far dealt with data quality analysis but the modality of OSM's evolution across space and time has barely been noted. This study aims to analyze spatio‐temporal patterns of contributions in OSM by proposing a contribution index (CI) in order to investigate the dynamism of OSM. The CI is based on a per cell analysis of the node quantity, interactivity, semantics, and attractivity (the ability to attract contributors). Additionally this research explores whether OSM has been constantly attracting new users and contributions or if OSM has experienced a decline in its ability to attract continued contributions. Using the Stuttgart region of Germany as a case study the empirical findings of the CI over time confirm that since 2007, OSM has been constantly attracting new users, who create new features, edit the existing spatial objects, and enrich them with attributes. This rate has been dramatically growing since 2011. The utilization of a Cellular Automata‐Markov (CA‐Markov) model provides evidence that by the end of 2016 and 2020, the rise of CI will spread out over the study area and only a few cells without OSM features will remain.     

Land cover dynamics monitoring with Landsat data in Kunming,China: a cost-effective sampling and modelling scheme using Google Earth imagery and random forests

Changes in forest composition impact ecological services, and are considered important factors driving global climate change. A hybrid sampling method along with a modelling approach to map current and past land cover in Kunming, China is reported. MODIS land cover (2001–2011) data-sets were used to detect pixels with no apparent change. Around 3000 ‘no change points’ were systematically selected and sampled using Google Earth’s high-resolution imagery. Thirty-five per cent of these points were verified and used for training and validation. We used Random forests to classify multi-temporal Landsat imagery. Results show that forest cover has had a net decrease of 14385?ha (1.3% of forest area), which was primary converted to shrublands (11%), urban and barren land (2.7%) and agriculture (2.5%). Our validation indicates an overall accuracy (Kappa) of 82%. Our methodology can be used to consistently map the dynamics of land cover change in similar areas with minimum costs.     

Sedentary urchins influence benthic community composition below the macroalgal zone

Sea urchins are important ecosystem engineers in subtidal ecosystems worldwide, providing biogenic structure and altering nutrient dynamics through intensive grazing and drift algal capture. The current work evaluates red urchin (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) density on fixed transects through time, individual displacement, and urchin‐associated benthic community composition using a field‐based approach at multiple depths (in and outside of the macroalgal zone) and replicated across sites in the San Juan Archipelago, Washington. Urchins exhibited no large‐scale, temporal or directional changes in density among depths. Furthermore, 87% of individual urchins observed in repeated small‐scale surveys over 3 weeks exhibited no change in position. Individual displacement was negatively correlated to drift algal capture. Evidence of sedentary behavior from the displacement surveys was supported by the sessile and mobile community composition in areas directly under versus adjacent to (control) urchins. The benthos under urchins had a higher percentage of bare space, crustose coralline algae, and increased density of snails, crabs and shrimp relative to associated control plots. Abundance of mobile organisms associating with urchins increased relative to control plots at the deepest survey depth (30 m), indicating a greater strength of interaction with distance from macroalgal production. This work presents evidence of food availability‐related behavior in red urchins and indicates that even when sedentary, urchins have a strong influence on ecosystem structure through increasing availability of shelter and macroalgal detritus to the benthos.     

Routing through open spaces – A performance comparison of algorithms

Abstract

Finding the shortest path through open spaces is a well-known challenge for pedestrian routing engines. A common solution is routing on the open space boundary, which causes in most cases an unnecessarily long route. A possible alternative is to create a subgraph within the open space. This paper assesses this approach and investigates its implications for routing engines. A number of algorithms (Grid, Spider-Grid, Visibility, Delaunay, Voronoi, Skeleton) have been evaluated by four different criteria: (i) Number of additional created graph edges, (ii) additional graph creation time, (iii) route computation time, (iv) routing quality. We show that each algorithm has advantages and disadvantages depending on the use case. We identify the algorithms Visibility with a reduced number of edges in the subgraph and Spider-Grid with a large grid size to be a good compromise in many scenarios.     

Low-altitude geophysical magnetic prospecting based on multirotor UAV as a promising replacement for traditional ground survey

Abstract

The prospects for expanding the mineral resource base in many countries are linked with the exploration of stranded sites localized at unexplored areas with complex natural and landscape conditions that make any ground survey, including magnetic prospecting, difficult and expensive. The current level of geology requires high-precision and large-scale data at the first stages of geological exploration. Since 2012, technologies of aeromagnetic surveying with unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAV) enter the market, but most of them are based on big fixed-wing UAV and do not allow to substantially increase the level of survey granularity compared with traditional aerial methods. To increase the scale of survey, it is necessary to reduce the altitude and speed of flight, for which the authors develop the methodical and technical solutions described in this article. To obtain data at altitudes of 5 m above the terrain even in a rugged relief, we created heavy multirotor UAVs that are stable in flight and may be used in a wide range of environmental conditions (even a moderate snowfall), and develop a special software to generate flight missions on the basis of digital elevation models. A UAV has special design to reduce magnetic interference of the flight platform; the magnetic sensor is hung below the aircraft. This technology was conducted in a considerable amount of magnetic surveys in the mountainous regions of East Siberia between 2014 and 2016. The results of the comparison between airborne and ground surveys are presented, which show that the sensitivity of the developed system in conjunction with low-altitude measurements can cover any geologically significant anomalies of the magnetic field. An unmanned survey is cheaper and more productive; the multirotor-based technologies may largely replace traditional ground magnetic exploration in scales of 1:10,000?1:1000.     

OpenStreetMap data quality enrichment through awareness raising and collective action tools—experiences from a European project

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, several research projects show interest in employing volunteered geographic information (VGI) to improve their systems through using up-to-date and detailed data. The European project CAP4Access is one of the successful examples of such international-wide research projects that aims to improve the accessibility of people with restricted mobility using crowdsourced data. In this project, OpenStreetMap (OSM) is used to extend OpenRouteService, a well-known routing platform. However, a basic challenge that this project tackled was the incompleteness of OSM data with regards to certain information that is required for wheelchair accessibility (e.g. sidewalk information, kerb data, etc.). In this article, we present the results of initial assessment of sidewalk data in OSM at the beginning of the project as well as our approach in awareness raising and using tools for tagging accessibility data into OSM database for enriching the sidewalk data completeness. Several experiments have been carried out in different European cities, and discussion on the results of the experiments as well as the lessons learned are provided. The lessons learned provide recommendations that help in organizing better mapping party events in the future. We conclude by reporting on how and to what extent the OSM sidewalk data completeness in these study areas have benefited from the mapping parties by the end of the project.