Evaluation of the Residual Mass Fractionation in High-Precision Cr Isotopic Analysis with TIMS

The Cr isotope ratios of terrestrial and extra-terrestrial materials are emerging as one of the most important tracers in geosciences. Previous studies on Cr isotopic measurements using TIMS have found that there is residual Cr isotopic fractionation between the mass-fractionation-corrected ⁵³Cr/⁵²Cr and ⁵⁴Cr/⁵²Cr ratios, which may cause an offset of obtained ratios from the reference values. The residual fractionation was thought to be caused by the evaporation of Cr-oxide species during thermal ionisation, but the mechanism by which this residual fractionation could be reduced remained unclear. Here we revisit the issue of residual fractionation and propose that this problem can be alleviated by utilising W filaments instead of conventionally used Re filaments for Cr ionisation. Using W filaments, the formation of CrO⁺ was suppressed during heating as the filament temperature was ~ 100 °C lower than when Re filaments were used. In repeated measurement of a carbonaceous chondrite, the intermediate precisions of ⁵³Cr/⁵²Cr and ⁵⁴Cr/⁵²Cr ratios in the W filament runs were two to three times better than those of the Re filament runs. Therefore, the new finding of this study will be of key importance for future studies of Cr isotopes for terrestrial and extra-terrestrial materials.     

Effects of coarse-grained materials on properties of residual soil

Residual soils are generally characterised by a low coefficient of permeability and high shrinkage potential. Several soil improvement methods can be applied to overcome these problems, including mixing the residual soil with coarse-grained soils. In order to study the effects of varying coarse-grained materials on the hydraulic properties and shrinkage characteristics of residual soils, a local residual soil was mixed with different percentages of a gravelly sand and a medium sand. The hydraulic properties and shrinkage potential of the residual soil and the soil mixtures were investigated. The measurements showed that increasing the amount of coarse-grained materials increased the saturated permeability and reduced the shrinkage potential of the residual soil mixture. Increasing the amount of coarse-grained materials in the residual soil produced changes in several key parameters of soil-water characteristic curve (e.g., the slope, the air-entry value, the residual matric suction, and the residual volumetric water content), as well as the unsaturated permeabilities of the soil mixtures.     

花岗岩残积土填料路用工程特性室内试验研究

为了研究花岗岩残积土的路用工程特性,通过击实试验、承载比CBR试验、固结试验以及室内基床系数试验分析了该类材料压实性能及基本力学特性,对压实度为92%的最优含水率和饱和压实土样进行了循环加载试验,研究了动力荷载作用下土体的变形特性。结果表明,花岗岩残积土在K为91%～97%时压实功效率较高,提高压实度对于增强土体局部抗变形能力较为有效;采用室内三轴法得到的基床系数K30值为188.25 MPa/m;最优含水率下花岗岩残积土动力变形稳定性较好,但含水率增加会大幅度增加土体塑性变形,降低土的动弹性模量,不利于变形稳定。所以作为路堤填料,应考虑作为受气候与动荷载影响较小的下路堤备用填料,作为铁路路堤本体及公路上、下路路床填料,应在进行土性改良且满足要求的论证基础上取舍。研究成果可为花岗岩残积土填料的工程应用及土体改良提供技术参考。     

电感耦合等离子体质谱法测定砂岩型铀矿样品中分步提取的铀

本文研究地质样品中铀形态的分析方法及应用技术,以进一步说明铀形态分析在地球化学找矿中的重要作用。该方法参考Tessier流程,将样品中的铀分为可交换离子态、碳酸盐结合态、铁锰氧化物结合态、硫化物及有机物结合态和结晶态,分别提取,提取溶液用高分辨率电感耦合等离子体质谱仪进行测量。设计的形态提取配方具有良好的可选择性和可重复性,经过国家标准物质、国际形态标准物质和人工模拟样品验证,证明形态提取试剂配方适合所定义的形态分析。通过对实际样品(总量铀为635μg/g)验证表明,碳酸盐结合态铀提取结果的可重复性最好(RSD为2.6%),其次为硫化物及有机物结合态铀(RSD为4.0%)、结晶态铀(RSD为6.0%)和铁锰氧化物结合态铀(RSD为6.1%),可交换离子态铀提取结果的可重复性最差(RSD为26%)。碳酸盐结合态铀与结晶态铀之比,可以用于反映地下铀矿的存在概率。     

Applicability of the theory of hollow inclusions for overcoring stress measurements in rock

Summary Whenever solid or hollow inclusions are used as instrumented probes in overcoring techniques, residual stresses remain in the overcored rock sample and in the probes. When using such devices for computing the in-situ stress field components from measured strains or displacements, it is common practice to assume that the overcoring diameter is infinite and that there is a perfect bonding between the rock and the probes. The validity of these assumptions depends on the magnitude of the residual stresses at the rock-probe contact as compared to the tensile and shear strengths of the rock-probe bond material. It also depends on the distribution of residual stresses in the overcored sample.In comparison to previous work, new expressions are proposed in this paper for the residual stresses associated with solid or hollow inclusion type stress probes in anisotropic ground. These expressions are presented in dimensionless form and are used to show that the distribution and magnitude of residual stresses depend on the isotropic-anisotropic rock character, the degree and type of rock anisotropy, the orientation of the rock anisotropy with respect to the hole in which the probes are located and the relative deformability of the rock with respect to the deformability of the material comprising the probes. The conditions that are required for neglecting the overcored sample diameter are also discussed. This is shown for rocks that can be described as isotropic, transversely isotropic and orthotropic materials.     

Geochemical exploration challenges in the regolith dominated Igarapé Bahia gold deposit,Carajás,Brazil

The Igarapé Bahia, situated in the Carajás Mineral Province, is a world-class example of a lateritic gold deposit. It has developed under tropical weathering conditions since at least the Eocene and resulted in a regolith cover of at least 100 m thickness. The regolith is dominated by ~ 80 m thick ferruginous saprolite containing gossan bodies that constitute the main Au ore. Above saprolite the regolith stratigraphy has been established considering two distinct domains. One composed of residual materials and the other transported materials deposited over palaeochannels. In the residual domain the ferruginous saprolite grades upwards into a fragmental duricrust, interpreted as a collapsed zone, and then into different types of ferruginous duricrusts. Over palaeochannel the ferruginous saprolite is truncated by poorly sorted ferruginous sediment of variable composition that grades upwards into the ferruginous duricrusts formed over transported materials. Lateritization took place during a marked period that transformed the colluvium of the residual domain, and the transported materials accumulated in the channel depressions, into the ferruginous duricrust units. A later bauxitization event has overprinted all duricrust types but has mostly affected the duricrusts over the palaeochannel forming gibbsitic nodules. All duricrusts were finally covered by a transported layer of latosol which flattened the whole landscape in the Carajás region. Gold shows a depletion trend across the regolith but is enriched in the fragmental duricrust below the ferruginous duricrust from which gold is leached. Gold is also chemically dispersed laterally into the fragmental duricrust, but lateral Au dispersion in the ferruginous duricrusts of the residual domain is probably also influenced by colluvial transport. Metals associated with Au mineralization (Cu, U, Mo, Pb, Ag, LREE, Sn, W, Bi, Sb and P) are generally depleted in the saprolite but most of them are still anomalous. The fragmental and ferruginous duricrusts are more leached but the tests performed to estimate the dispersion potential of metals contained in the ferruginous duricrust show that some metals are still significantly anomalous especially Au, Ag and Cu. However, if ferruginous duricrusts are used as an exploration sample media their environment of formation must be considered. Metal depletion is generally more advanced in the ferruginous duricrusts developed in the vicinities of palaeochannels as oppose to those developed in residual domain. On the contrary, Au over palaeochannel areas is enriched in the upper bauxitized ferruginous duricrusts and in their gibbsitic nodules as a result of lateral chemical transport that is more widespread than in the colluvium over residual domain. The latosol is highly depleted in most metals due to its transported nature. However, the nodular fractions of the latosol show the greatest dispersion potential especially for Au, Ag, W, U, Bi and Sn. It can incorporate magnetic nodules that bring a rich suit of metals associated to the magnetic gossans, and non-magnetic nodules, classified as concretion and pisolites, which bring metals enriched or dispersed in the ferruginous duricrusts. This suggests that Lag constitutes a promising sample medium for geochemical exploration in the lateritic terrains of the Carajás region.     

Determination of soil–water characteristic curve variables

Soil–water characteristic curve (SWCC) contains the fundamental information needed for describing the mechanical behavior of unsaturated soil. Some parameters such as air-entry value, slope at the inflection point, residual water content and residual suction are commonly used to describe the SWCC and other associated properties such as shear strength and permeability. Currently these parameters are determined using the graphical method which can be subjective and time consuming. Equations for determining these parameters are proposed and the relationships between SWCC parameters and fitting parameters are discussed in this paper. These equations can be used for computational analyses to replace the conventional graphical method in providing consistent results.     

A hypoplastic constitutive model for debris materials

Debris flow is a very common and destructive natural hazard in mountainous regions. Pore water pressure is the major triggering factor in the initiation of debris flow. Excessive pore water pressure is also observed during the runout and deposition of debris flow. Debris materials are normally treated as solid particle–viscous fluid mixture in the constitutive modeling. A suitable constitutive model which can capture the solid-like and fluid-like behavior of solid–fluid mixture should have the capability to describe the developing of pore water pressure (or effective stresses) in the initiation stage and determine the residual effective stresses exactly. In this paper, a constitutive model of debris materials is developed based on a framework where a static portion for the frictional behavior and a dynamic portion for the viscous behavior are combined. The frictional behavior is described by a hypoplastic model with critical state for granular materials. The model performance is demonstrated by simulating undrained simple shear tests of saturated sand, which are particularly relevant for the initiation of debris flows. The partial and full liquefaction of saturated granular material under undrained condition is reproduced by the hypoplastic model. The viscous behavior is described by the tensor form of a modified Bagnold’s theory for solid–fluid suspension, in which the drag force of the interstitial fluid and the particle collisions are considered. The complete model by combining the static and dynamic parts is used to simulate two annular shear tests. The predicted residual strength in the quasi-static stage combined with the stresses in the flowing stage agrees well with the experimental data. The non-quadratic dependence between the stresses and the shear rate in the slow shear stage for the relatively dense specimens is captured.     

Fractional Determination of Gold in Twenty Six Geological Reference Materials by Sequential Extraction with Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

A method is described to estimate the chemical form of gold (Au) in a variety of geological reference samples, combining a sequential extraction scheme with graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry, after extraction of Au as iodide or chloride with methyl isobutyl ketone. The fractions dissolved by sequential extraction are empirically defined as the exchangeable, amorphous, metallic, aqua regia-soluble and residual fractions. The amounts of Au in the amorphous fraction have been derived mainly from oxide or amorphous phases, and the chemical forms of Au are considered to be mostly amorphous and partly metallic. The metallic fraction of Au is likely to exist as submicroscopic grains of native metal which are relatively free from the rock-forming minerals, whereas the aqua regia-soluble or residual fraction of Au may be bound more intimately perhaps as inclusions or solid solutions of either native metal or electrum in most cases. Satisfactory agreement was observed between the sum of the Au values from exchangeable to residual fractions and the reported total Au values, except for a few samples which contained a large amount of reducing materials. Analytical results of Au for twenty six geological reference materials are tabulated, and geochemical and mineralogical features are discussed.     

有机质在中国东北部森林沼泽区化探异常追踪和查证中的应用

在东北森林沼泽区的几个矿区(点)上,通过以泥炭、腐殖层土壤为采样介质的区域化探异常追踪查证方法技术试验研究,发现Au、Ag、Cu、Pb、Zn等主要成矿元素的测量结果与水系碎屑沉积物、残坡积物的基本一致,对矿体均有良好的反映.研究结果表明在这类景观区化探找矿工作中有机质是可以利用的.     

花岗岩残积土中微裂隙对基坑安全的影响

花岗岩残积土基坑支护工程实践及位移变形观测结果表明,残积土中的微裂隙对基坑安全及变形起着决定性作用.通过对花岗岩残积土中微裂隙和充填物性状及其破坏机理的研究,总结出预防花岗岩残积土基坑开挖中的塌方宜采取相应的超前支护措施;处理花岗岩残积土的基坑塌方,宜用砂袋回填并在纵横方向打入钢管或钢筋加固回填体.在计算花岗岩残积土基坑稳定性时,应结合具体情况,以软弱面为滑动面,采用相应的稳定性计算公式进行计算.     

Effectiveness of horizontal drains for slope stability

Horizontal drains have been commonly used in stabilising unsaturated residual soil slopes. This study examines the effectiveness of horizontal drains in stabilising residual soil slopes against rainfall-induced slope failures under a tropical climate. The study includes field instrumentation at two residual soil slopes complemented with a parametric study relating to drain position. Field monitoring results indicate that rainfall infiltration is limited to a certain depth below which infiltration becomes insignificant. This zone tends to be unsuitable for horizontal drains. Horizontal drains were found to be most effective when located at the base of a slope. The parametric study indicated conditions under which horizontal drains are effective or ineffective in improving the stability of a slope. It was also found that horizontal drains have little role in minimising infiltration in an unsaturated residual soil slope. Benefits of using horizontal drains can be obtained through the lowering of the water table.     

厦门花岗岩残积土物理力学指标关联性定量表征初探

厦门地区花岗岩残积土的颗分试验表明其粒度呈“两头多,中间少”的特征,级配较独特。孔隙比等物性指标与压缩模量等设计中常用指标定量关联性不强,离散性大且没有明显规律。结合厦门地铁工程地质勘察资料,通过粒间状态参量、级配控制模式确定所研究土体的关键物理状态参量,分析该参量与岩土工程设计中常用指标之间的相关关系。结果表明,引入Thevanayagam提出的粒间孔隙比作为参变量,压缩模量随粒间孔隙比的增大而减小,建立了估计残积砾质黏性土、残积砂质黏性土压缩模量的经验公式。级配控制模式下的特征粒径比可以作为估计花岗岩残积土抗剪强度指标的关键参变量,黏聚力随特征粒径比的增大而增大,内摩擦角随特征粒径比的增大而减小,且线性相关性较好。文中建立的预测花岗岩残积土压缩模量、抗剪强度指标经验公式,可供厦门地区工程设计时参考。     

Some numerical experiences on convergence criteria for iterative finite element solvers

Several popular convergence criteria which are frequently used in practical finite element computations are investigated for two kinds of systems: the symmetric positive definite linear system and the symmetric indefinite system involving two distinct variables (displacement and pore fluid pressure). For the first system, the relative residual norm and the relative improvement norm are satisfactory as long as boundary fixities are handled appropriately. For the second system, the relative improvement norm must be adopted with greater care. It was further shown numerically that decoupled relative residual norms can be attractive alternates to the current global stopping criterion.     

Strength of two structured soils in triaxial compression

Oil sands are dense granular materials with interlocked structure and clay shales are heavily overconsolidated clays. They are classified as structured soil or weak rock, exhibiting high peak strength with severe softening and dilation, particularly at low confining stress. The triaxial compression test results indicate that both materials yield linear Mohr–Coulomb envelopes with an apparent cohesion for peak and residual strengths. However, the strength components mobilized from these two materials are very different. This paper investigates if these strength parameters are intrinsic properties or responses derived in triaxial compression conditions. Computer tomography scanning technique is used to aid in examining the micro‐structural features of the sheared specimens such as shear banding pattern, shear band thickness, spatial porosity distributions inside and outside shear bands. These micro‐structural features are used to explain the macro‐deformation response observed in the triaxial compression tests. Mobilization of strength components derived from interlocked structure, cementation, dilation, rolling and critical state are analysed for pre‐, post‐peak softening and residual stages. It is found that the empirical correlation such as Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion based on triaxial compression test results does not necessarily reflect the intrinsic properties of the test materials. Testing conditions are embedded in the empirical correlation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intensity dependence of the asymmetry of fraunhofer line profiles

The integral, residual, and relative asymmetries of the profiles of 120 weak and medium-strength Fraunhofer lines in the spectrum of the central solar disk are determined. The digitized spectral materials used were obtained using rapid-scanning, high-dispersion double monochromators. The integral profile asymmetries grow appreciably with line equivalent width, while the residual and relative profile asymmetries do not show such a strong dependence.     

风化过程中硒背景值的定量表征

硒是人和动物必需的微量元素,基于58件标准物质的化学风化指标和硒的认定值,采用微量元素地球化学背景值的经验方程形式拟合得到表征全国范围内硒背景值的经验方程：lgc=0822×(12-WIG/100)-1061×lg(K2O/SiO2)-2704,式中c为Se的含量(单位为μg/g),风化指标WIG的变化范围为43~1116,风化指标K2O/SiO2变化范围为0020~0137。该方程所表征的是样品因风化程度不同所呈现出的硒地球化学背景值,风化程度强的样品总体上具有较高的Se地球化学背景值。将该经验方程式在广东河台和广东南昆山两个研究区进行应用,认为寻找富硒区应当优先将风化程度较强的地区视为备选区,依据全国区域化探扫面数据可以方便地确定风化程度较强的地区。在环境质量评价中可以利用Se实测值确定足硒和富硒区,利用实测值扣除背景值获得的元素含量剩余值可以有效确定残积层土壤下伏的足硒和富硒岩石,即依据全国多目标地球化学调查数据可以有效地确定足硒和富硒地质体(残积层土壤及其下伏岩石)的分布区。广东南昆山岩体中西部的岩石应属于足硒和富硒地质体。     

Residual-state creep of clastic soil in a reactivated slow-moving landslide in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region,China

We study the creep properties of clastic soil in residual state. The intact samples are taken from a reactivated slow-moving landslide in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region, China. Firstly, the patterns of the landslide movement are analysed based on recent monitoring data, which indicate that the soil within the shear zone is undergoing two deformation processes: a creep phase, characterised by different creep rates, and a dormant phase. We then study the creep behaviour of the soil samples through a series of ring shear creep tests under various shear stress conditions. The creep response depends strongly on the ratio of the shear stress to the residual strength, and the normal effective stress, whereas the creep rate decreases due to strength regain. The long-term strength of the clastic soil is close to the residual strength. Therefore, the residual strength obtained from conventional shear test, which is less time consuming than creep test, can be used in long-term stability analyses of creeping landslides.     

全风化花岗岩改良土路基的长期稳定性试验研究

全风化花岗岩用于高速公路填料已有成功的案例,但由于高速铁路路基变形控制更为严格,能否用于高速铁路路基填料还没有得到实体工程的验证。基于全风化花岗岩及其改良土的工程力学性质和变形特性,使用PMS-500型循环加载设备对全风化花岗岩改良土路基实体工程进行了现场循环加载试验研究,模拟分析了不同轴重列车荷载长期循环作用下浸水前后全风化花岗岩改良土路基的动态特性及沉降规律和其下雨前后路基性状变化。试验结果表明,全风化花岗岩改良土路基经过500万次列车模拟动荷载作用后,即使经历了如雨水长期浸饱路基的最为恶劣工况,最终沉降量不超过7.0 mm,证实了全风化花岗岩经过改良后能满足高速铁路变形控制的设计要求,可用于高速铁路的基床底层及路堤本体填料