Interpretation of seismic and potential field data from western New York State and Lake Ontario

Lithoprobe and industry seismic profiles have furnished evidence of major zones of easterly dipping Grenville deformed crust extending southwest from exposed Grenville rocks north of Lake Ontario. Additional constraints on subsurface structure limited to the postulated Clarendon–Linden fault system south of Lake Ontario are provided by five east–west reflection lines recorded in 1976. Spatial correlations between seismic structure and magnetic anomalies are described from both Lake Ontario and the newly reprocessed New York lines.In the Paleozoic to Precambrian upper crust, the New York seismic sections show: (1) An easterly thickening wedge of subhorizontal Paleozoic strata unconformably overlying a Precambrian basement whose surface has an apparent regional easterly dip of 1–2°. Minor apparent normal offsets, possibly on the order of tens of meters, occur within the Paleozoic section. The generally poorly reflective unconformity may be locally characterized by topographic relief on the order of 100 m; (2) Apparent local displacement on the order of 90 m at the level of the Black River Group diminishes upward to little or no apparent offset of Queenston Shale; (3) Within the limited seismic sections, there appears to be no evidence that the complete upper crustal section is vertically or subvertically offset; (4) Dipping structure in the Paleozoic strata (15° to 35°) resembles some underlying Precambrian basement elements; (5) The surface continuity of inferred faults constituting the Clarendon–Linden system is not strongly supported by the seismic data.Beneath the Paleozoic strata, the seismic sections show both linear and arcuate reflector geometry with easterly apparent dips of 15° to 35° similar to the deep structures imaged on seismic lines from nearby Lake Ontario and on Lithoprobe lines to the north. The similarity supports an extension of easterly dipping Central Metasedimentary Belt structures of the Grenville orogen from southern Ontario to beneath western New York State.From a comparison of the magnetic and gravity fields with the New York seismic sections, we suggest: (1) The largely nonmagnetic Paleozoic strata appear to contribute negligibly to magnetic anomalies. Seismically imaged fractures in the New York Paleozoic strata appear to lie mainly west of a positive gravity anomaly. The relationship between magnetic and gravity anomalies and the changes in the geometry of interpreted Precambrian structures remains enigmatic; (2) North to northeast trending curvilinear magnetic and gravity anomalies parallel, but are not restricted to the principal trend of the postulated Clarendon–Linden fault system. Paleozoic fractures of the Clarendon–Linden system may partly overlie a southward extension of the Composite Arc Belt boundary zone.     

Seismic vulnerability assessment in the new urban area of Diriyah Governorate,Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Nine seismic refraction profiles were conducted and processed to study the near-surface sediments in the new urban area of Diriyah. The 2D geoseismic models illustrate two layers: a surface layer of soft sediments and weathered to hard limestone bedrock. Moreover, microtremor measurements were performed at 38 sites for 40 min using three-component seismographs and processed to assess the peak spectral amplitude and the corresponding fundamental resonance frequency. The seismic vulnerability index at each measurement site was estimated. These results correlate well with the geotechnical borehole data. The north-western zone is highly vulnerable due to the great thickness of the soft sediments.     

GIS and multi-criteria analysis to select potential sites of agro-industrial complex

The selection of the potential sites to the creation of an agro-industrial complex requires a large amount of spatial information. Geographical information systems are capable of managing this information, providing the ability to integrate multiple layers of information and deriving new ones. This study incorporates environmental, social, economic, geological and infrastructural data. A multi-criteria analysis is performed to select the potential sites to the creation of an agro-industrial complex in the city of Sfax (the southern coast of Tunisia). The comparison by pair method adopted in this paper, based on a linear combination pondered after having assigned to every factor of decision a coefficient of level-headedness, creates many scenarios among which we selected the sustainable development one. This scenario assigned the highest weight to the economical, environmental and social factors (0.3 for each factor), which shows the presence of nine suitable sectors for the creation of an agro-industrial complex. The ELECTRE method enabled us to make a site ordering for the identification of the most three appropriate sites.     

Planktonic protist communities in semi-enclosed mariculture waters: temporal dynamics of functional groups and their responses to environmental conditions

The functional groups of planktonic protist communities and their responses to the changes of environmental conditions were investigated in a semi-enclosed shrimp-farming pond in Qingdao,Shandong Province,China,during a six-month study period (a complete shrimp-culture cycle) from May to October 2002.The results reveal that: (1) the protist communities represented five trophic and functional groups of the species identified,about 60% were photoautotrophs,20% algivores,12% bacterivores,5% raptors and about 3% non-selectives;(2) the photoautotrophs,algivores and bacterivores were the primary contributors to the changes in the protist communities in short temporal scales,the succession of dominance typically being bacterivores→photoautotrophs→algivores,with the raptors dominating the protist communities in a single sample (early June);(3) the photoautotrophs and non-selectives were the primary contributors to the peak of protist abundance in early October whereas the photoautotrophs,bacterivores,raptors and non-selectives mainly gave rise to two bimodal peaks of biomass in July and October respectively;(4) five functional groups of protist communities represented significant correlations with water nutrients (i.e.,NH 3-N,NO 3-N,and PO 4 ),either alone or in combination with temperature,of which algivores and raptors were strongly correlated with phosphate and the concentration of Chl a,while bacterivores were strongly related to nitrogen and the concentration of bacteria.These findings confirm that planktonic protists are potentially useful bioindicators of water quality in the semi-enclosed mariculture system.     

Use of ground-penetrating radar for assessment of potential sinkhole conditions: an example from Ghor al Haditha area,Jordan

. Sinkholes are near-surface indicators of active karst features at depth, such as cavities, conduits and solutionally enlarged fractures. This study tests the usefulness of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to identify and locate buried sinkholes as a means of interpreting the existence of these subsurface hydraulically-active karst features. GPR survey was made at the Ghor al Haditha area west of the Jordan-DSTF in the Jordan Valley Escarpment at the eastern Dead Sea shoreline. GPR profiles (100 MHz) made along the eastern Dead Sea shoreline showed a trough-like pattern of radar reflections outlining a series of possible filled sinkholes. This feature is about 38 m wide and about 12 m deep. Its width is consistent with the width of the feature obtained from the topographic map of the area. The GPR survey suggests that this feature has been filled with relatively dense and resistive materials. This structure lies almost directly above a major water bearing zone.     

On dust ion acoustic solitary waves in collisional dusty plasmas with ionization effect

The propagation of solitary waves in an unmagnetized collisional dusty plasma consisting of a negatively charged dust fluid, positively charged ions, isothermal electrons, and background neutral particles is studied. The ionization, ion loss, ion–neutral, ion–dust, and dust–neutral collisions are considered. Applying a reductive perturbation theory, a damped Korteweg–de Vries (DKdV) equation is derived. On the other hand, at a critical phase velocity, the dynamics of solitary waves is governed by a damped modified Korteweg–de Vries (DMKdV) equation. The nonlinear properties of solitary waves in the two cases are discussed.     

Découverte de niveaux phosphatés associés à des restes de vertébrés dans les dépôts carbonatés du Coniacien–Santonien du Jabal Abtar : épisode précoce de la phosphatogenèse sénonienne des Palmyrides (Syrie centrale)

Sedimentologic study of carbonated sediments of the Rmah-I member (Coniacian–Santonian) of Jabal Abtar, central southern Palmyrides (Central Syria), uncovers phosphatic levels, associated with marine vertebrate remains, that give evidence of an early episode of the Senonian phosphatogenesis in the Palmyrides. Sedimentary sequence analysis reveals a gradual marine transgression during the Senonian. Phosphatic sedimentation occurred in a shallow neritic marine environment almost connected with the open sea. Condensed sedimentation could have contributed to the phosphatogenesis. To cite this article: A.K. Al Maleh, N. Bardet, C. R. Geoscience 335 (2003).     

模糊证据权方法在镇沅(老王寨)地区金矿资源评价中的应用

采用模糊证据权方法和GeoDASGIS技术开展了镇沅(老王寨)及其邻区的金矿资源潜力评价.分别采用GeoDASGIS软件提供的局部奇异性分析技术、S-A异常分解技术、主成分分析技术、证据权、模糊证据权等技术对相关地球化学元素进行了系统的处理和分析.应用主成分分析方法确定了可能的2种不同成矿类型,并采用主成分得分确定了组合异常点,在此基础上分别采用普通证据权和模糊证据权方法编制了成矿后验概率图,圈定了有利成矿地段.对比普通证据权方法与模糊证据权方法所得结果表明,模糊证据权方法可减小图层离散化造成的有用信息损失,提高预测结果精度.     

Simulation of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> hydrate formation in cold aquifers: nonequilibrium approach

In this paper, we focus on the geological storage of CO₂ in reservoirs with zones that are cold enough to facilitate CO₂ hydrate formation at local pressures. A 2D hydro-chemical mechanical model which has five layers (three layers with aquifers and two layers with cap rock in which we introduced two fractures) is created. We apply a reactive transport reservoir simulator, RetrasoCodeBright (RCB), in which hydrate is treated as a pseudo mineral. Following the recent modifications to account for hydrate dynamics in the code through a kinetic approach (Kvamme et al., Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH 2011), 2011b), we have further improved the simulator to implement the nonequilibrium thermodynamic calculations. In the present study, we spot the light on the hydrate formation effects on porosity in different regions, as well as on the flow pattern. These simulations are based on classical relationships between porosity and permeability, but the outline of ongoing modifications is presented as well. A critical question in such systems is whether hydrate formation can contribute to stabilizing the storage, given that hydrates are pore filling and cannot be stable toward mineral surfaces. The implications of hydrate formation on the geo-mechanical properties of the model reservoir are other aspects addressed in this study.