Introduction of the mining royalty system in Hungary

The new mining act that becarne effective in Hungary in 1993 instituted the payment of royalties for the minerals produced and sold annually. To arrive at the amount of mineral production, the Hungarian Geological Survey (HGS) conducts the National Inventory, which is used by the Mining Bureau of Hungary (MBH) to verify the mining royalty payment obligations. This paper explains the major legal requirements for the mining royalties and how the values of the minerals are calculated. It also describes the first experience with the declaration and payment of the mining royalties and provides the declared and paid 1995 royalties. The Mining Bureau of Hungary reports on the introduction of the mining royalty system that became effective with the Mining Act in 1993. This article is sponsored by the U.S. Hungarian Science and Technology Joint Fund under Project Joint Fund Number 539.     

Heterogeneity analysis of reservoir porosity and permeability in the Late Ordovician glacio-fluvial Sarah Formation paleovalleys,central Saudi Arabia

The Late Ordovician glacio-fluvial Sarah Formation is an important tight gas reservoir target in Saudi Arabia. This study uses statistical methods to characterize the petrophysical heterogeneity of the paleovalleys of the Sarah Formation that crop out in central Saudi Arabia. Four paleovalleys were studied: Bukayriyah, Hanadir, Sarah, and Khanasir Sarah. Several lithofacies were identified in each that vary in texture, porosity, permeability, and facies abundance that reflect periods of ice advance and retreat. The heterogeneity analysis is based on three statistical measures, namely, the coefficient of variation, the Dykstra-Parsons coefficient, and the Lorenz coefficient. The coefficient of variation values is in the 0.62–1.94 range, indicating an extremely heterogeneous distribution. The Dykstra-Parsons coefficient values are in the 0.56–0.88 range, suggesting very high to extremely high heterogeneity in the reservoirs. The Lorenz coefficient correlates well with the Dykstra-Parsons coefficient for paleovalleys of the Sarah Formation. The heterogeneity parameters studied here indicate that the outcrops of Sarah Formation paleovalleys represent heterogeneous to very heterogeneous reservoirs, which may be attributed to complex depositional and diagenetic variations that have affected the porosity and permeability distribution.     

Clinoforms as paleogeographic tools: Development of the Danube catchment above the deep Paratethyan basins in Central and Southeast Europe

The Miocene marine basins of Central and Southeast Europe, once comprising the Paratethys Sea, were gradually filled with sediments during the Neogene and turned to be the catchment area of the proto-Danube and finally that of the modern Danube. Seismic data from various parts of the large Danube catchment area show that these several hundred meter deep basins were filled by lateral accretion of river-transported sediments, appearing as shelf edge scale clinoform sets in seismic profiles. The direction of shelf edge progradation is NW to SE (N to S, W to E) in each basin, except for the Dacian basin where NE to SW direction prevails. The age of the clinoform sets is generally younging downstream: 19–18 Ma in the North Alpine Foreland basin, 14–13 Ma in the Vienna basin, 10–9 Ma in the Danube (Kisalföld) basin, 8.6–4 Ma in the Central Pannonian basin (Alföld), ?9–5 Ma in the Dacian basin, and 6–0 Ma in the Euxinian (Black Sea) basin. In spite of this geographical and temporal pattern, only the Danube (Kisalföld) and the western and central part of the Central Pannonian basin were filled by the proto-Danube shelf accretion. Formation of the Danube, as a longitudinal river of the Alpine foreland that gradually elongated to the east and followed the retreating shoreline of the Paratethys, most probably took place at the beginning of the Late Miocene, ca. 11 Ma ago, thus the Early and Middle Miocene shelf advance in the North Alpine Foreland and Vienna basins, respectively, cannot be attributed to a „paleo-Danube”. The clinoform systems of the Dacian basin are coeval with those of the upstream Central Pannonian basin, indicating that by the time the Danube sedimentary system reached the Dacian basin, it was already a shallow basin. The vast clinoforms of the northwestern Euxinian shelf also significantly overlap in age with the Pannonian basin ones; only the <4 Ma part of the shelf accretion can be attributed to the Danube sensu stricto.     

Origin of X-ray emission from transient black hole candidates in quiescence

We report results from a systematic study of X-ray emission from black hole transients in quiescence. In this state, mass accretion is thought to follow the geometry of an outer optically thick, geometrically thin disc and an inner optically thin, geometrically thick radiatively inefficient accretion flow (RIAF). The inner flow is likely also coupled to the jets near the black hole that are often seen in such systems. The goal of the study is to see whether the X-ray emission in the quiescent state is mainly powered by the accretion flow or by the jets. Using data from deep XMM – Newton observations of selected black hole transients, we have found that the quiescent X-ray spectra are, to a high precision, of power-law shape in the cases of GRO J1655-40 and V404 Cyg. Such spectra deviate significantly from the expected X-ray spectrum of the RIAF at very low-accretion rates. On the other hand, they can naturally be explained by emission from the jets, if the emitting electrons follow a power-law spectral distribution (as is often assumed). The situation remains ambiguous in the case of XTE J1550-564, due to the relatively poorer quality of the data. We discuss the implication of the results.