Evolutionary properties of stochastic models of earthquake accelerograms: Their dependence on magnitude and distance

An approach to generate artificial earthquakeaccelerograms on hard soil sites is presented. Eachtime-history of accelerations is considered as arealization of a non-stationary gaussian stochasticprocess, with statistical parameters depending onmagnitude and source-to-site distance. In order tolink the values of these parameters for each groundmotion record with the corresponding magnitude andsource-to-site distance, semi-empirical functionalrelations called generalized attenuationfunctions are determined. The set of realground-motion time histories used to obtain thesefunctions correspond to shocks generated at differentsources and recorded at different sites in thevicinity of the southern coast of Mexico. The resultsshow significant dispersion in the parameters of themodel adopted, which reflect that associated with thereal earthquakes included in the sample employed.The problem of conditional simulation of artificialacceleration time histories for prescribed intensitiesis briefly presented, but its detailed study is leftfor a companion paper. The criteria and modelsproposed are applied to generate two families ofartificial acceleration records for recurrenceintervals of 100 and 200 years at a specific sitelocated in the region under study. The results shownin this article correspond to acceleration timehistories recorded on firm ground for earthquakesgenerated at the subduction zone that runs along thesouthern coast of Mexico, and cannot be generalized tocases of earthquakes generated at other sources orrecorded at other types of local conditions. Thismeans that the methods and functional forms presentedhere are applicable to these other cases, but thevalues of the parameters that characterize thosefunctions may differ from those presented here.     

Evidence for polychlorinated biphenyls dechlorination in the sediments of Sado Estuary, Portugal

Sediment gravity cores and grab samples were collected in the Sado Estuary and in its coastal area. The cores were sliced on board and the percentage of weight loss on ignition was determined in the laboratory, and analysed for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners. PCB contents were higher in samples from the North Channel of the estuary, nearby the industrial zone (max. 114 ng g-1 dry weight), while levels in the coastal area were lower than 4.9 ng g-1. The concentrations of the quantified congeners varied irregularly with sediment depth in the estuary, but showed two opposite distribution patterns in cores from the coastal area: the proportions of lower chlorinated congeners increased with depth, while congeners with higher number of chlorines decreased. This suggests a dechlorination of the most chlorinated congeners into less toxic compounds, under reductive conditions of the sediment. Though measurements were done in natural environment it appears that dechlorination was not entirely dependent on chlorine position in the phenyl rings.     

Generation of Hydrogen Gas as a Result of Drilling Within the Saturated Zone

Hydrogen gas was discovered within the steel casing above standing water in a percussion-drilled borehole on the Hanlord Site in south-central Washington state. In situ measurements of the borehole fluids indicated anoxic, low-Eh (<-400 mV) conditions. Ground water sampled from adjacent wells in the same formation indicated that the ground water was oxygenated. H₂ was generated during percussion drilling, due to the decomposition of borehole waters as a result of aqueous reactions with drilled sediment and steel from the drilling tools or casing. The generation of H₂ within percussion-drilled boreholes that extend below the water table may be more common than previously realized. The ambient concentration of H₂ produced during drilling was limited by microbial activity within the casing-resident fluids. H₂ was generated abiotically in the laboratory, whereby sterilized borehole slurry samples produced 100 times more H₂ than unsterilizcd samples. It appears that H₂ is metabolized by microorganisms and concentrations might be significantly greater if not for microbial metabolism.     

Dynamic response of 2D and 3D block foundations on a halfspace with inclusions

The present study aims to demonstrate how the dynamic behaviour of structures is affected by local inhomogeneities inside the soil. Particularly, the influence of block-shaped elastic inclusions directly beneath a vertically vibrating block foundation is considered. Comparisons between a 2D and a 3D modelling of the soil—structure system are made. It can be observed that, depending on the stiffness of the inclusion and especially on the excitation frequency, the dynamic response of the foundation may either increase or decrease.     

The Response of the Equatorial Ionosphere over Nigeria to a Geomagnetic Storm Event

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - The total electron content (TEC) data obtained from the ground-based GPS receiver stations of the Nigerian GNSS network of stations (NIGNET) have been used in this study...     

Geochemical and petrological relations in some deccan basalts, Western Maharashtra, India

Petrographic and geochemical data are given for some basaltic rocks from the Koynaghat, Ambaghat and Panvel sections of the western Deccan volcanic province. This study confirms geochemical features established earlier for the Deccan basalts but brings out minor additional characters. Mineralogical and major-element compositions of the basaltic flows from the Koyna and Panvel sections indicate tholeiitic affinity; the Ambaghat flows exhibit a slight affinity towards alkali basalt. Rare earth element (REE) distribution patterns and trace-element abundances suggest minor fractionation of olivine and plagioclase during the evolution of the flows. The general similarity of chemical and mineralogical features over a wide area and the lack of conspicuous inter-element relationships suggest that the flows reflect the combined effects of partial melting, minor mineral fractionation and selective crustal contamination.     

A reduced-rank prediction model of stream-channel size response to traditional agricultural land-use practices in southwestern Nigeria

Stream-channel morphologic responses are found to be related to different parameters measuring traditional agricultural land-use patterns and practices in 50 small headwater basins in southwest Nigeria. The problem of intercorrelations among these parameters made it initially difficult to establish their precise channel enlargement effects and to calibrate an impact prediction model. Through factor analysis of the 22 land-use and morphometric parameters, six factors identified as measures of traditional land-use practice, farm size, planting activities, shortened fallow, relief and overland flow, were found to account for 86% of the variance in the data. The factor-defining variables are length of cropping period, areas in short fallow, farm-plot size, length of farm preparation, relief ratio and overland flow. In a multiple regression analysis, only the first three variables were found to be statistically significant in explaining stream-channel morphologic responses. Thus, areas in short fallows, average farm size and length of cropping period adequately described those aspects of the traditional farming practices that affect basin hydrologic and channel responses. Since these variables were orthogonally derived, they formed the basis for the evaluation of the channel impact status of traditional land-use activities. The duplication of information and effects in the original 22-variable full-rank model were removed while utilizing the three-factor reduced model.     

Multi-directional wave spectra from marine X-band radar

The signal measured by heave–pitch–roll directional wave buoys yields the first four coefficients of a Fourier series. Data adaptive methods must be employed to estimate a directional wave spectrum. Marine X-band radars (MRs) have the advantage over buoys that they can measure “model-free” two-dimensional (2D) wave spectra. This study presents the first comprehensive validation of MR-derived multi-directional wave characteristics. It is based on wave data from the 2010 Impact of Typhoons on the Ocean in the Pacific (ITOP) experiment in the Philippine Sea, namely MR measurements from R/V Roger Revelle, Extreme Air–Sea Interaction (EASI) buoy measurements, as well as WAVEWATCH-III (WW3) modeling results. Buoy measurements of mean direction and spreading as function of frequency, which do not require data adaptive methods, are used to validate the WW3 wave spectra. An advanced MR wave retrieval technique is introduced that addresses various shortcomings of existing methods. Spectral partitioning techniques, applied to MR and WW3 results, reveal that multimodal seas are frequently present. Both data sets are in excellent agreement, tracking the evolution of up to 4 simultaneous wave systems over extended time periods. This study demonstrates MR’s and WW3’s strength at measuring and predicting 2D wave spectra in swell-dominated seas.     

Reactive Rayleigh–Taylor turbulent mixing: a one-dimensional-turbulence study

We study the problem of reactive Rayleigh–Taylor turbulence in the Boussinesq framework using one-dimensional-turbulence (ODT) simulations. In this problem a reaction zone between overlying heavy/cold reactants and underlying light/hot products moves against gravity. First, we show that ODT results for global quantities in non-reactive Rayleigh–Taylor turbulence are within those from direct numerical simulations (DNS). This comparison give us confidence in using ODT to study unexplored flow regimes in the reactive case. Then, we show how ODT predicts an early stage of reactive Rayleigh–Taylor turbulence that behaves similarly to the non-reactive case, as observed in previous DNS. More importantly, ODT indicates a later stage where the growth of the reaction zone reduces considerably. The present work can be seen as a step towards the study of supernova flames with ODT.