Pre‐Alpine discordant granitic dikes in the metamorphic core of the Betic Cordillera: tectonic implications

Pegmatite dikes bearing andalusite crosscut foliation S₂ in Alpujarride gneisses and schists. Post‐S₂ andalusite is transposed by a foliation S₃, defined by fibrolite, which affects the dikes. The dikes represent highly differentiated granitic magmas with low REE and Zr contents and a positive Eu anomaly. U‐Pb SHRIMP dating of magmatic zircons provided Pan‐African ages (cores) and late Variscan ages (rims). However, U‐rich rims also provided metamorphic Alpine ages, supporting a polyorogenic tectonometamorphic history for pre‐Mesozoic Alpujarride rocks.     

Impact of soil and water conservation measures on catchment hydrological response—a case in north Ethiopia

Impact studies of catchment management in the developing world rarely include detailed hydrological components. Here, changes in the hydrological response of a 200‐ha catchment in north Ethiopia are investigated. The management included various soil and water conservation measures such as the construction of dry masonry stone bunds and check dams, the abandonment of post‐harvest grazing, and the establishment of woody vegetation. Measurements at the catchment outlet indicated a runoff depth of 5 mm or a runoff coefficient (RC) of 1·6% in the rainy season of 2006. Combined with runoff measurements at plot scale, this allowed calculating the runoff curve number (CN) for various land uses and land management techniques. The pre‐implementation runoff depth was then predicted using the CN values and a ponding adjustment factor, representing the abstraction of runoff induced by the 242 check dams in gullies. Using the 2006 rainfall depths, the runoff depth for the 2000 land management situation was predicted to be 26·5 mm (RC = 8%), in line with current RCs of nearby catchments. Monitoring of the ground water level indicated a rise after catchment management. The yearly rise in water table after the onset of the rains (ΔT) relative to the water surplus (WS) over the same period increased between 2002–2003 (ΔT/WS = 3·4) and 2006 (ΔT/WS >11·1). Emerging wells and irrigation are other indicators for improved water supply in the managed catchment. Cropped fields in the gullies indicate that farmers are less frightened for the destructive effects of flash floods. Due to increased soil water content, the crop growing period is prolonged. It can be concluded that this catchment management has resulted in a higher infiltration rate and a reduction of direct runoff volume by 81% which has had a positive influence on the catchment water balance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changes in the onset and length of seasons from an ensemble of regional climate models over Spain for future climate conditions

This study analyses the length and onset of the four seasons based on the annual climatic cycle of maximum and minimum temperatures. Previous studies focused over climatically homogeneous mid-high latitude areas, employing fixed temperature thresholds (related to climatic features such as freezing point) that can be inadequate when different climate conditions are present. We propose a method related to the daily minimum and maximum temperature 25th and 75th point-dependent climatic percentiles. It is applied to an ensemble of regional climate models (RCMs) of 25-km horizontal resolution over the peninsular Spain and Balearic Islands, where a large variety of climatic regimes, from alpine to semi-desertic conditions, are present. First, baseline climate (1961–2000) ERA40-forced RCM simulations are successfully compared with the Spain02 daily observational database, following astronomical season length (around 90 days). This result confirms the validity of the proposed method and capability of the RCMs to describe the seasonal features. Future climate global climate model-forced RCMs (2071–2100) compared with present climate (1961–1990) simulations indicate the disappearance of winter season, a summer enlargement (onset and end) and a slight spring and autumn increase.     

Hydration shell structures in a LiI solution at elevated temperature and pressure: a molecular dynamics study

Molecular dynamics simulations of a 0.55 molal aqueous LiI solution have been performed at 508 K and 308 K and a density of 1.05 g/cm³. The structural changes resulting from increased temperature and pressure are discussed.     

Earthquake hazard of the northern parts of the Bohemian Massif and Western Carpathians

The new procedure of earthquake hazard evaluation developed by Kijko and Sellevoll is tested and applied for the border region of Czechoslovakia and Poland. The new method differs from the conventional approach. It incorporates the uncertainty of earthquake magnitudes, and accepts mixed data containing only large historical events and recent, complete catalogues. Seismic hazard has been calculated for nine regions determined in the border area. In the investigated area, data of historical catalogues are uncertain or, in many cases, the epicentral intensities are unknown. Thus, a number of assumptions have to be adopted in data preparation of catalogues since the year 1200. The calculated values of parameters b in the Gutenberg-Richter frequency-intensity relation as well as the return periods, seem to be reasonable and are generally confirmed by the results obtained from catalogues for the last 80–130 years.     

European floods during the winter 1783/1784: scenarios of an extreme event during the ‘Little Ice Age’

The Lakagígar eruption in Iceland during 1783 was followed by the severe winter of 1783/1784, which was characterised by low temperatures, frozen soils, ice-bound watercourses and high rates of snow accumulation across much of Europe. Sudden warming coupled with rainfall led to rapid snowmelt, resulting in a series of flooding phases across much of Europe. The first phase of flooding occurred in late December 1783–early January 1784 in England, France, the Low Countries and historical Hungary. The second phase at the turn of February–March 1784 was of greater extent, generated by the melting of an unusually large accumulation of snow and river ice, affecting catchments across France and Central Europe (where it is still considered as one of the most disastrous known floods), throughout the Danube catchment and in southeast Central Europe. The third and final phase of flooding occurred mainly in historical Hungary during late March and early April 1784. The different impacts and consequences of the above floods on both local and regional scales were reflected in the economic and societal responses, material damage and human losses. The winter of 1783/1784 can be considered as typical, if severe, for the Little Ice Age period across much of Europe.     

Micromechanical approach to effective viscoelastic properties of micro‐fractured geomaterials

The aim of this paper is to formulate a micromechanics‐based approach to non‐aging viscoelastic behavior of materials with randomly distributed micro‐fractures. Unlike cracks, fractures are discontinuities that are able to transfer stresses and can therefore be regarded from a mechanical viewpoint as interfaces endowed with a specific behavior under normal and shear loading. Making use of the elastic‐viscoelastic correspondence principle together with a Mori‐Tanka homogenization scheme, the effective viscoelastic behavior is assessed from properties of the material constituents and damage parameters related to density and size of fractures. It is notably shown that the homogenized behavior thus formulated can be described in most cases by means of a generalized Maxwell rheological model. For practical implementation in structural analyses, an approximate model for the isotropic homogenized fractured medium is formulated within the class of Burger models. Although the approximation is basically developed for short‐term and long‐term behaviors, numerical applications indicate that the approximate Burger model accurately reproduce the homogenized viscoelastic behavior also in the transient conditions.     

A Practical Procedure for the Measurement of Fragmentation by Blasting by Image Analysis

Summary. The operation of a digital image analysis system in a limestone quarry is described. The calibration of the system, required in order to obtain moderately reliable fragmentation values, is done from muckpile sieving data by tuning the image analysis software settings so that the fragmentation curve obtained matches as close as possible the sieving. The sieving data have also been used to extend the fragment size distribution curves measured to sizes below the system’s optical resolution and to process the results in terms of fragmented rock, discounting the material coming from a loose overburden (natural fines) that is cast together with the fragmented rock. Automatic and manual operation modes of the image analysis are compared. The total fragmentation of a blast is obtained from the analysis of twenty photographs; a criterion for the elimination of outlier photographs has been adopted using a robust statistic. The limitations of the measurement system due to sampling, image processing and fines corrections are discussed and the errors estimated whenever possible. An analysis of consistency of the results based on the known amount of natural fines is made. Blasts with large differences in the amount of fines require a differentiated treatment, as the fine sizes tend to be the more underestimated in the image analysis as they become more abundant; this has been accomplished by means of a variable fines adjustment factor. Despite of the unavoidable errors and the large dispersion always associated with large-scale rock blasting data, the system is sensitive to relative changes in fragmentation.