CLustre: semi‐automated lineament clustering for palaeo‐glacial reconstruction

Datasets containing large numbers (>10 000) of glacial lineaments are increasingly being mapped from remotely sensed data in order to develop a palaeo‐glacial reconstruction or ‘inversion’. The palimpsest landscape presents a complex record of past ice flow and deconstructing this information into a logical history is an involved task. One stage in this process requires the identification of sets of genetically linked lineaments that can form the basis of a reconstruction. This paper presents a semi‐automated algorithm, CLustre, for lineament clustering that uses a locally adaptive, region growing, methodology. After outlining the algorithm, it is tested on synthetic datasets that simulate parallel and orthogonal cross‐cutting lineaments, encompassing 1500 separate classifications. Results show robust classification in most scenarios, although parallel overlap of lineaments can cause false positive classification unless there are differences in lineament length. Case studies for Dubawnt Lake and Victoria Island, Canada, are presented and compared with existing datasets. For Dubawnt Lake 9 out of 14 classifications directly match incorporating 89% of lineaments. For Victoria Island 57 out of 58 classifications directly match incorporating 95% of lineaments. Differences are related to small numbers of unclassified lineaments and parallel cross‐cutting lineaments that are of a similar length. CLustre enables the automated, repeatable, assignment of lineaments to flow sets using defined user criteria. This is important as qualitative visual interpretation may introduce bias, potentially weakening the testability of palaeo‐glacial reconstructions. In addition, once classified, summary statistics of lineament clusters can be calculated and subsequently used during the reconstruction process. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

从水井岩大型滑坡表面高温降解喷出物特征到汶川地震天然气体溢出爆炸模型

汶川大地震中XI级烈度区内水井岩滑坡现场等地爆炸声、特大型滑坡现场巨大环形坑和远距离抛射碎石等记录和现象,需给出科学解释。在地震发生后多次现场地质调查和走访、样品采集和多项分析测试及其结果比较等基础上,对主中央断裂F₂控制的下盘陈家坝水井岩大型滑坡体上环形坑周边不同距离范围内散落烧焦残留的硅酸盐和碳酸岩等采样后,开展了物质成分和微观结构分析。结果发现：与原生溶蚀灰岩、薄层煤岩结构和有机质成分不同,这些抛散在滑体表面的样品中富含经强烈高温作用的块石,一些成分以锰碳酸盐岩等为主的暗棕色样品中稠环芳烃是其经历过强烈热作用过程而使有机质发生环化芳构化反应的结果,即样品经过了强烈热降解作用,显示其形成时出现强烈热作用过程和高温裂解现象。结合本区地质构造特征和煤层气分布情况、地震后实施的汶川地震带深钻在穿越主中央断裂带F₂深度处监测到余震过程中甲烷含量异常增高、东河口地震遗址公园发现温泉及天然气溢出等资料和研究结果,讨论了地震诱发的富含甲烷的天然气爆炸,其加剧或伴生着地震次生地质灾害。由此推测：与碳质岩或煤系共存的喀斯特溶洞中封闭煤层气在地震过程中突溢和爆炸燃烧,叠加或放大了地震作用,结果在滑坡堆积体表面残留了多处环形爆炸坑,引发了一些岩块大规模长距离水平抛撒等。研究结果对监测和认识发震断层带在地震过程中天然气爆炸诱发和加剧滑坡灾害有重要意义。     

Colin Patterson (1933–1998): a major vertebrate palaeontologist of this century

Geologie en Mijnbouw -     

State regulation of agro-industries in developing countries. Governance systems in the vegetable oil industry of Malaysia and Zimbabwe

Some observers of agro-industrial development in the Third World recognize the nation state as an important locus for mediation of conflicts between different social forces but fail to analyze the regulatory mechanisms and their effect on the dynamics of particular agro-industries. This paper proposes an analytical model to study agro-industrial regulation in a national framework. The purpose is to investigate the dynamics between changing forms of state regulation and particular industry governance system in the vegetable oil industry in Malaysia and Zimbabwe. State regulation and industry governance systems differ in a number of ways between the two countries. However, in each country there is a correspondence between the dominant form of state regulation and the industrial governance system. The study confronts some of the basic assumptions within the food regime approach and stress the need to incorporate the properties of the crops in the analysis of (agro-)industry governance systems.     

Sediment supply from landslide-dominated catchments: implications for basin-margin fans

The sediment flux from a mountainous catchment can be expressed as a function of a landslide rate constant κ which accounts for the vigour of hillslope erosion. Since the incising drainage network flushes all or a portion of the products of hillslope erosion to a range front where fan deposition takes place, a conservation of solid sediment volume allows the fan area and progradation distance to be calculated. These parameters are related primarily to the discharge of sediment from the catchment and to local tectonic subsidence.
A survey of modern alluvial fans in a wide range of climatic and tectonic settings shows that the effects of climate and bedrock lithology cannot be discriminated in the scatter of data of catchment area vs. fan area. However, by focusing on over 100 fans in the arid and semiarid zone of SW USA, the impact of tectonic subsidence rate is unambiguous. Although further quantitative data on local tectonic subsidence rates are urgently required, our preliminary analysis suggests considerable potential for reconstructing palaeocatchments where basin tectonic subsidence rates can be estimated. The progradation distances of fans from the northern and southern margins of the Middle Devonian Hornelen Basin of Norway, and the western and north-eastern margins of the Mio-Pliocene Ridge Basin, California, allow catchment sizes and denudation rates to be approximated. Although unique solution sets are not possible, an iteration of parameter values allows plausible parameter combinations to be calculated which shed light on the tectonic and sedimentary history of the proximal basin and upland source regions. Model results suggest significant asymmetry in basin subsidence rates, catchment slopes and transport mechanics between the two margins.     

On farsidedness of palaeomagnetic poles: Magnetic refraction,sediment compaction and dipole off-set

Summary Three possible ways to explain the Caenozoically observed farsidedness of paleomagnetic poles (apart from lithospheric plate movements) are discussed: magnetic refraction, sediment compaction and dipole off-set. The dipole off-set, being a possible geomagnetic field property, will be of opposite sign on opposite hemispheres, and hence will not tend to smoothe out by sectorial averaging. Sediment compaction shallows the inclination on both hemispheres, and hence will tend to smoothe out by sectorial averaging, provided that sediment properties, site latitude coverage and number of investigations are equal (fairly unlikely).Magnetic refraction causes systematic directional distortions of the remanent magnetization in rocks of moderate to high magnetic intensity (or apparent susceptibility k_app=k(1+Q)) such as in many volcanics, some metamorphics, as well as in baked clays and slags, etc. A detailed discussion of this effect is given: If the k_app of the material is above 0.001 emu/cm ³ (×4 SI), this effect is likely to cause a significant palaeomagnetic refraction error of the NRM (typically a TRM or a CRM) of the rock. An apparent susceptibility of this order of magnitude is quite common in volcanic rocks; e.g. for oceanic floor basalts the average of k_app is about 0.02 emu/cm ³ corresponding to systematic errors (flattening) of some 3° to 6° in the inclination of a horizontal flow, depending on the latitude.To improve paleomagnetic results in general, a simple refraction correction is therefore suggested to be applied in the case of common two-dimensional (i.e. flat, elongated) geological bodies such as dykes, sills, lava flows and baked clays. Numerical solutions are given for the horizontal case, while a graphical solution is given for the general two-dimensional case.Being of systematic types, the refraction error together with the sediment compaction effect may be responsible for a major part of the observed farsidedness of the Caenozoic palaeomagnetic pole positions, the apparent farsidedness not yet beeing masked by the scatter of pole positions produced by older individual lithospheric plate movements.Presented at 2nd conference on New Trends in Geomagnetism, Castle of Bechyn, Czechoslovakia, September 24–29, 1990.     

Coupled rainfall and water vapour stable isotope time series reveal tropical atmospheric processes on multiple timescales

High-frequency stable isotope data are useful for validating atmospheric moisture circulation models and provide improved understanding of the mechanisms controlling isotopic compositions in tropical rainfall. Here, we present a near-continuous 6-month record of O- and H-isotope compositions in both water vapour and daily rainfall from Northeast Australia measured by laser spectroscopy. The data set spans both wet and dry seasons to help address a significant data and knowledge gap in the southern hemisphere tropics. We interpret the isotopic records for water vapour and rainfall in the context of contemporaneous meteorological observations. Surface air moisture provided near-continuous tracking of the links between isotopic variations and meteorological events on local to regional spatial scales. Power spectrum analysis of the isotopic variation showed a range of significant periodicities, from hourly to monthly scales, and cross-wavelet analysis identified significant regions of common power for hourly averaged water vapour isotopic composition and relative humidity, wind direction, and solar radiation. Relative humidity had the greatest subdiurnal influence on isotopic composition. On longer timescales (weeks to months), isotope variability was strongly correlated with both wind direction and relative humidity. The high-frequency records showed diurnal isotopic variations in O- and H-isotope compositions due to local dew formation and, for deuterium excess, as a result of evapotranspiration. Several significant negative isotope anomalies on a daily scale were associated with the activity of regional mesoscale convective systems and the occurrence of two tropical cyclones. Calculated air parcel back trajectories identified the predominant moisture transport paths from the Southwest Pacific Ocean, whereas moisture transport from northerly directions occurred mainly during the wet season monsoonal airflow. Water vapour isotope compositions reflected the same meteorological events as recorded in rainfall isotopes but provided much more detailed and continuous information on atmospheric moisture cycling than the intermittent isotopic record provided by rainfall. Improved global coverage of stable isotope data for atmospheric water vapour is likely to improve simulations of future changes to climate drivers of the hydrological cycle.     

Towards an integrated arid zone water management using simulation-based optimisation

For ensuring both optimal sustainable water resources management and long-term planning in a changing arid environment, we propose an integrated Assessment-, Prognoses-, Planning- and Management tool (APPM). The new APPM integrates the complex interactions of the strongly nonlinear meteorological, hydrological and agricultural phenomena, considering the socio-economic aspects. It aims at achieving best possible solutions for water allocation, groundwater storage and withdrawals including saline water management together with a substantial increase of the water use efficiency employing novel optimisation strategies for irrigation control and scheduling. To obtain a robust and fast operation of the water management system, it unites process modeling with artificial intelligence tools and evolutionary optimisation techniques for managing both water quality and quantity. We demonstrate some key components of our methodology by an exemplary application to the south Al-Batinah region in the Sultanate of Oman which is affected by saltwater intrusion into a coastal aquifer due to excessive groundwater withdrawal for irrigated agriculture. We show the effectiveness and functionality of a new simulation-based water management system for the optimisation and evaluation of different irrigation practices, crop pattern and resulting abstraction scenarios. The results of several optimisation runs indicate that due to contradicting objectives, such as profit-oriented agriculture versus aquifer sustainability only a multi-objective optimisation can provide sustainable solutions for the management of the water resources in respect of the environment as well as the socio-economic development.     

Geochemical controls on sediment reactivity and buffering processes in a heterogeneous aquifer

The injection and recovery of oxic water into deep anoxic aquifers may help to alleviate short- and long-term imbalance between freshwater supply and demand. The extent and structure of physical and geochemical heterogeneity of the aquifer will impact the water quality evolution during injection, storage and recovery. Water–sediment interactions within the most permeable parts of the aquifer, where the bulk of the injectant will penetrate, may dominate, however, water quality may also be impacted by interactions within the finer-grained, less permeable but potentially highly reactive media. In this study, the heterogeneity of the reductive capacity of an aquifer selected for water reuse projects was characterised, the amount, type and reactivity of the sedimentary reductants present determined, and the relationship between reductive capacity and sedimentary lithologies quantified. The average potential reductive capacities (PRC_TOT), based on total organic C and pyrite concentrations of the sediment, were quantified for sands (382 μmol O₂ g⁻¹), clays (1522 μmol O₂ g⁻¹), and silts (1957 μmol O₂ g⁻¹). Twenty-seven samples, spanning the three different lithologies, were then incubated for 50 days and the measured reductive capacities (MRC) determined for the sands (29.2 μmol O₂ g⁻¹), silts (136 μmol O₂ g⁻¹), and clays (143 μmol O₂ g⁻¹). On average, the MRC were 10% of the PRC_TOT. The main consumers of O₂ were pyrite (20–100%), sedimentary organic matter (SOM; 3–56%), siderite (3–28%) and Fe(II)-aluminosilicates (8–55%). The incubation data plus hydrogeochemical modelling, indicated that pH-buffering was controlled firstly by dissolution of trace level carbonates, followed by dissolution of feldspars. Zinc, Co, Ni, Cd and Pb were readily mobilized during incubation.     

Evaluating the salinity distribution of a shallow coastal aquifer by vertical multielectrode profiling (Denmark)

A monitoring system, including five groups of piezometers and five vertical multielectrode profiling probes (VMEP), has been installed in an aquifer beneath a coastal dune in Denmark. In order to assess the salinity distribution within the aquifer, geoelectrical data were gathered in March, June and September 2008, by measuring a dipole-dipole and gradient array using multielectrode profiling. Interpretation of the processed resistivity data was performed by regularized inversion using a one-dimensional, horizontally layered model of formation resistivity. The standard deviation on estimated layer log-resistivity was 0.01–0.03. By estimating two parameters of a power function, observed fluid conductivities derived from samples of porewater were related to corresponding estimated formation resistivities. The conductivity profiles correlate with a winter situation in March with high sea level, active recharge and significant wave activity, causing increased hydraulic heads, a thicker freshwater lens and salt water overlying freshwater close to the sea. In June, the thickness of the freshwater lens is reduced due to less recharge and prevailing offshore winds, imposing density-stable conditions and a sharper transition between fresh and brackish water. During the autumn, aquifer recharge is enhanced and hydraulic heads increase, resulting in a thicker freshwater lens.