Kinematics of the Inntal shear zone–sub-Tauern ramp fault system and the interpretation of the TRANSALP seismic section, Eastern Alps, Austria

A new interpretation of the Inntal–Tauern sector of the TRANSALP seismic section is presented. One of the most prominent contrasts in reflectivity in the TRANSALP seismic section is the contact between the Bajuvaric unit in the footwall and the overlying Tirolic unit and its basement across a moderately south-dipping interface. We trace this contact from the surface at the southern margin of the Inn valley to a depth of 5 km. There, the contact is deformed or cut by the Tauern Window northern margin. We define the contact between Bajuvaric and Tirolic units as Brixlegg thrust, which is older than Miocene Tauern window exhumation and has a Paleogene age. The sub-Tauern ramp connects with the Inntal fault system at the surface and roots below the Tauern window. Oblique thrust movements across this fault system in the Miocene caused exhumation of the hanging wall, where the fault has a ramp geometry, which is in the area of the TRANSALP cross section and west of it. East of the TRANSALP cross section, the fault system merges with Alpine basal thrust, which is a flat. No Miocene exhumation occurred above the flat.     

Distribution of Precambrian iron and gold deposits on the southwestern East European Platform reflected in underlying transcrustal structure and current river systems

The East European Platform is underlain by Archaean and Proterozoic complexes of the East European Craton. In the southwest these are locally exposed in the Ukrainian Shield and the Voronezh Massif on either side of the ca. 2000 km long ESE-striking late Palaeozoic Pripyat–Dniepr–Donets rift. Evaluation with Landsat imagery of 1 : 1,000,000 scale published maps of the Precambrian complexes [Zaritsky, A.I., Galetsky, L.S. (Eds.), 1992. Geology and Metallogeny of the Southwest of the East-European Platform Map Series, 1 : 1,000,000, Ukrainian State Committee on Geology and Utilization of Mineral Resources, Kiev.] is largely obstructed by a cover of post-Palaeozoic sediments and soils of variable thickness. This obstruction is aggravated by an almost continuous patchwork of farmlands. However, analysis of the current drainage patterns in the Dniepr River basin and surrounding regions reveals a spatial coincidence of numerous stream courses and watersheds with previously inferred steep, transcrustal discontinuities of most probably Precambrian age.Transcrustal dislocations constituted important pathways for heat and fluids as is indicated by the distribution of a large proportion of assumed Early Proterozoic hydrothermal iron and gold deposits along them. This distribution is underpinned by the spatial coincidence of mineralization and elongate areas of highly irregular magnetization attributed to uneven distribution of hydrothermal magnetite in banded iron formation. In view of the extent of these dislocations, both vertically and laterally, the generation of hydrothermal fluid flow, emplacement of mantle-sourced magma and associated mineral potential away from banded iron formation complexes is likely. A second group of gold deposits, of Archaean age, is known to occur in association with still recognizable volcanic edifices in greenstone complexes. It is not known if and to what extent such Archaean gold deposits are related to these major transcrustal discontinuities. The kinematics and dynamics of these dislocations and pathways appear largely unknown and deserve high-priority investigation. The geological longevity of the transcrustal dislocation framework till the present day inferred from the current drainage systems is corroborated, however, by repeated regional topographical levelling surveys.     

Temporary Migration and the Labour Market in Australia

Australia's labour market is most influenced by international migration among OECD nations, but Australian research on this issue focuses almost exclusively on permanent settlement migration. The present paper, however, demonstrates that non-permanent migration has an important impact on the Australian labour market, although such migrants are not included in standard data collections and research on migrants and the labour market. A number of data sources are utilised to estimate the labour-market impact of Working Holiday Makers, Temporary Business Entrants, Overseas Students, and New Zealand temporary migrants. It is shown that their impact is equivalent to more than 400?000 full-time jobs. However, the effect is magnified because it is concentrated in particular sectors of the economy and in particular communities within Australia. A number of issues relating to temporary migration are discussed, including the nature of its relationship with permanent migration, the effects on job training, and the implications for regional development.     

Rock-magnetic and paleomagnetic results from the Tepic-Zacoalco rift region (western Mexico)

A rock-magnetic and paleomagnetic investigation was carried out on eleven Pleistocene and Pliocene ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dated lava flows from the Tepic-Zacoalco rift region in the western sector of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB) with the aim of obtaining new paleomagnetic data from the study region and information about the Earth’s magnetic field recorded in these rocks. Rock-magnetic experiments including measurement of thermomagnetic curves, hysteresis parameters and isothermal remanence acquisition curves were carried out to find out the carriers of remanent magnetisation and to determine their domain structure. Although some samples were characterised by the presence of a single ferromagnetic phase (magnetite), in most cases more phases were observed. Analysis of hysteresis parameters showed a mixture of single domain and multidomain particles, the fraction of the latter varying between 40% and 80%. Paleomagnetic results were obtained in all sites, although in 7 sites characteristic remanence directions and remagnetisation circles had to be combined in order to calculate site means. The six Pliocene sites not showing intermediate polarity yielded a paleomagnetic pole (latitude ? = 81.1°, longitude λ = 94.3°) which roughly agrees with the expected one. Paleomagnetic directions do not indicate significant vertical-axis block rotations in the western TMVB area. Reversed polarities observed can be correlated to the Gilbert chron, normal polarities to the Gauss chron or the Brunhes chron and intermediate polarities to the Cochiti-Gilbert or the Gilbert-Gauss transition. The reversed or intermediate polarity magnetisation recorded in one of the sites (542 ± 24 ka) corresponds either to the West Eifel 4 or the West Eifel 5 excursion, while the reversed polarity observed in the other site (220 ± 36 ka) very likely provides new evidence for the Pringle Falls excursion or the event recorded in the Mamaku ignimbrite.     

Automatic optimized discovery, creation and processing of astronomical catalogs

We present the design of a novel way of handling astronomical catalogs in Astro-WISE in order to achieve the scalability required for the data produced by large scale surveys. A high level of automation and abstraction is achieved in order to facilitate interoperation with visualization software for interactive exploration. At the same time flexibility in processing is enhanced and data is shared implicitly between scientists. This is accomplished by using a data model that primarily stores how catalogs are derived; the contents of the catalogs are only created when necessary and stored only when beneficial for performance. Discovery of existing catalogs and creation of new catalogs is done through the same process by directly requesting the final set of sources (astronomical objects) and attributes (physical properties) that is required, for example from within visualization software. New catalogs are automatically created to provide attributes of sources for which no suitable existing catalogs can be found. These catalogs are defined to contain the new attributes on the largest set of sources the calculation of the attributes is applicable to, facilitating reuse for future data requests. Subsequently, only those parts of the catalogs that are required for the requested end product are actually processed, ensuring scalability. The presented mechanisms primarily determine which catalogs are created and what data has to be processed and stored: the actual processing and storage itself is left to existing functionality of the underlying information system.     

Semi-empirical prediction method for monthly precipitation prediction based on environmental factors and comparison with stochastic and machine learning models

ABSTRACT

Precipitation prediction is central in hydrology and water resources planning and management. This paper introduces a semi-empirical predictive model to predict monthly precipitation and compares its predictive skill with those of machine learning (ML) methods. The stochastic method presented herein estimates monthly precipitation with one-step-ahead prediction properties. The ML predictive skill of the algorithms is evaluated by predicting monthly precipitation relying on the statistical association between precipitation and environmental and topographic factors. The semi-empirical predictive model features non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) for investigating the influence of multiple predictor variables on precipitation. The semi-empirical predictive model’s parameters are optimized with the hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) and Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm (LM), or GALMA, yielding a validated model with high predictive skill. The methodologies are illustrated with data from Hubei Province, China, which comprise 27 meteorological station datasets from 1988–2017. The empirical results provide valuable insights for developing semi-empirical rainfall prediction models.     

Can climate variability information constrain a hydrological model for an ungauged Costa Rican catchment?

Long‐term hydrological data are key to understanding catchment behaviour and for decision making within water management and planning. Given the lack of observed data in many regions worldwide, such as Central America, hydrological models are an alternative for reproducing historical streamflow series. Additional types of information—to locally observed discharge—can be used to constrain model parameter uncertainty for ungauged catchments. Given the strong influence that climatic large‐scale processes exert on streamflow variability in the Central American region, we explored the use of climate variability knowledge as process constraints to constrain the simulated discharge uncertainty for a Costa Rican catchment, assumed to be ungauged. To reduce model uncertainty, we first rejected parameter relationships that disagreed with our understanding of the system. Then, based on this reduced parameter space, we applied the climate‐based process constraints at long‐term, inter‐annual, and intra‐annual timescales. In the first step, we reduced the initial number of parameters by 52%, and then, we further reduced the number of parameters by 3% with the climate constraints. Finally, we compared the climate‐based constraints with a constraint based on global maps of low‐flow statistics. This latter constraint proved to be more restrictive than those based on climate variability (further reducing the number of parameters by 66% compared with 3%). Even so, the climate‐based constraints rejected inconsistent model simulations that were not rejected by the low‐flow statistics constraint. When taken all together, the constraints produced constrained simulation uncertainty bands, and the median simulated discharge followed the observed time series to a similar level as an optimized model. All the constraints were found useful in constraining model uncertainty for an—assumed to be—ungauged basin. This shows that our method is promising for modelling long‐term flow data for ungauged catchments on the Pacific side of Central America and that similar methods can be developed for ungauged basins in other regions where climate variability exerts a strong control on streamflow variability.     

Transportation mode-based segmentation and classification of movement trajectories

The knowledge of the transportation mode used by humans (e.g. bicycle, on foot, car and train) is critical for travel behaviour research, transport planning and traffic management. Nowadays, new technologies such as the Global Positioning System have replaced traditional survey methods (paper diaries, telephone) because they are more accurate and problems such as under reporting are avoided. However, although the movement data collected (timestamped positions in digital form) have generally high accuracy, they do not contain the transportation mode. We present in this article a new method for segmenting movement data into single-mode segments and for classifying them according to the transportation mode used. Our fully automatic method differs from previous attempts for five reasons: (1) it relies on fuzzy concepts found in expert systems, that is membership functions and certainty factors; (2) it uses OpenStreetMap data to help the segmentation and classification process; (3) we can distinguish between 10 transportation modes (including between tram, bus and car) and propose a hierarchy; (4) it handles data with signal shortages and noise, and other real-life situations; (5) in our implementation, there is a separation between the reasoning and the knowledge, so that users can easily modify the parameters used and add new transportation modes. We have implemented the method and tested it with a 17-million point data set collected in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. The accuracy of the classification with the developed prototype, determined with the comparison of the classified results with the reference data derived from manual classification, is 91.6%.     

Trace-element heterogeneity in rutile linked to dislocation structures: Implications for Zr-in-rutile geothermometry

The trace-element composition of rutile is commonly used to constrain P–T–t conditions for a wide range of metamorphic systems. However, recent studies have demonstrated the redistribution of trace elements in rutile via high-diffusivity pathways and dislocation-impurity associations related to the formation and evolution of microstructures. Here, we investigate trace-element migration in low-angle boundaries formed by dislocation creep in rutile within an omphacite vein of the Lago di Cignana unit (Western Alps, Italy). Zr-in-rutile thermometry and inclusions of quartz in rutile and of coesite in omphacite constrain the conditions of rutile deformation to around the prograde boundary from high pressure to ultra-high pressure (~2.7 GPa) at temperatures of 500–565°C. Crystal-plastic deformation of a large rutile grain results in low-angle boundaries that generate a total misorientation of ~25°. Dislocations constituting one of these low-angle boundaries are enriched in common and uncommon trace elements, including Fe and Ca, providing evidence for the diffusion and trapping of trace elements along the dislocation cores. The role of dislocation microstructures as fast-diffusion pathways must be evaluated when applying high-resolution analytical procedures as compositional disturbances might lead to erroneous interpretations for Ca and Fe. In contrast, our results indicate a trapping mechanism for Zr.