Combined influence of PDO and ENSO on northern Andean glaciers: a case study on the Cotopaxi ice-covered volcano,Ecuador

This paper describes the application of remote sensing in monitoring the fluctuations in one of the mountain glaciers in the Ecuadorean Andes during the past few decades using ASTER, EO-1 ALI, Landsat MSS, TM and ETM + images. Satellite images were used to calculate the snow line altitudes (SLAs) during the period 1979–2013. Cotopaxi ice covered volcano was studied as representative of Ecuadorian glaciers in the eastern cordillera. Precipitation and air temperature data from various gauging stations within the range of 30 km from the study site and monthly discharge and water level data from a gauging station were also utilized in this study. Anomalies in precipitation and temperature were found to be slightly different in the Cotopaxi region compared to nearby Antizana in the same cordillera and Chimborazo region in the western cordillera. An attempt to correlate the El Niño—southern oscillation phenomenon with the glacier fluctuations in Ecuadorian Andes was done successfully. Cold and warm regimes of Pacific Decadal Oscillation is also considered. The calculated glacier fluctuations obtained were similar to that performed on the nearby Antizana 15 in the eastern cordillera during 1995–2002. Precipitation and temperature anomalies were similar with Antizana 15. It is evident from the research that SLAs were highly fluctuated between the period of occurrence of El Niño and La Niña events. It is also seen that the glacier fluctuations show a negative mass balance trend in during the warm regime of Pacific Decadal Oscillation during the past three decades. Glaciated areas were advanced during the La Nina events in the cold regime of PDO during 1998–2002.     

中国南方二叠纪层序地层时空格架及充填特征

据华南二叠纪不同沉积盆地层序地层区域分布、纵向演化及其充填特征分析研究,初步建立了上扬子克拉通-右江盆地-钦防盆地、中扬子克拉通及全区的层序地层时空格架模型;提出层序充填可分为两个阶段:早二叠世碳酸盐缓坡-台地层序充填阶段,晚二叠世陆源碎屑为主与火山碎屑相混层序充填阶段;认为全区二叠纪四个Ⅰ型层序受控于构造隆升事件,晚二叠世层序TST普遍发育火山碎屑沉积,古陆边缘HST或少量SMT/LST大多由三角洲沉积体系进积叠加而成,上扬子克拉通及右江地区的生物礁以海侵和高位型为特色。     

Statistical characteristics of flow as indicators of channeling in heterogeneous porous and fractured media

We introduce two new channeling indicators D_ic and D_cc based on the Lagrangian distribution of flow rates. On the basis of the participation ratio, these indicators characterize the extremes of both the flow-tube width distribution and the flow rate variation along flow lines. The participation ratio is an indicator biased toward the larger values of a distribution and is equal to the normalized ratio of the square of the first-order moment to the second-order moment. Compared with other existing indicators, they advantageously provide additional information on the flow channel geometry, are consistently applicable to both porous and fractured media, and are generally less variable for media generated using the same parameters than other indicators. Based on their computation for a broad range of porous and fracture permeability fields, we show that they consistently characterize two different geometric properties of channels. D_ic gives a characteristic scale of low-flow zones in porous media and a characteristic distance between effectively flowing structures in fractured cases. D_cc gives a characteristic scale of the extension of high-flow zones in porous media and a characteristic channel length in fractured media. D_ic is mostly determined by channel density and permeability variability. D_cc is, however, more affected by the nature of the correlation structure like the presence of permeability channels or fractures in porous media and the length distribution in fracture networks.     

Assessing the Vibrational Frequencies of the Holweide Hospital in the City of Cologne (Germany) by Means of Ambient Seismic Noise Analysis and FE modelling

Ambient seismic noise measurements were conducted inside the Holweide Hospital (Cologne) for checking whether its frequencies of vibration fall into the range where soil amplification is expected. If this is the case, damage might increase in case of an earthquake due to an amplified structural response of the building. Two different techniques were used: the ratio between the horizontal and vertical components of the spectra recorded at stations located inside the building and the ratio between the corresponding components of the spectra recorded simultaneously inside the building and at a reference station placed outside. While the former method might be preferred because of less equipment involved, the latter has the advantage of producing more stable results and deleting automatically the influence of the sedimentary cover, which might obscure some eigenfrequencies of vibration of the building. An independently performed finite-element analysis of the hospital showed a good correlation between measured and calculated eigenmodes.     

Regional gravity investigation of Honduras, Central America

A regional gravity study of Honduras was performed as part of a major study of the geothermal resource potential of Honduras. This study was conducted by Los Alamos National Laboratory, in cooperation with the Honduras government. Regional offshore free-air and onshore Bouguer gravity maps, and residual/isostatic gravity maps of Honduras and surrounding regions were produced. From these data several regional crustal and upper mantle models were produced. These models pass through two local geothermal sites, Platanares and San Ignacio. The regional geologic and tectonic implications of the models and their relevance to the geothermal potential of Honduras and to six well known geothermal sites in particular are examined. No obvious regional structures observed in the gravity data can explain the thermal enhancement in general or the specific geothermal sites. More local tectonic or structural conditions must control the distribution of the thermally enhanced areas.     

Irregular Satellites of Jupiter: a study of the capture direction

The irregular satellites of Jupiter are believed to be captured asteroids or planetesimals. In the present work is studied the direction of capture of these objects as a function of their orbital inclination. We performed numerical simulations of the restricted three-body problem, Sun-Jupiter-particle, taking into account the growth of Jupiter. The integration was made backward in time. Initially, the particles have orbits as satellites of Jupiter, which has its present mass. Then, the system evolved with Jupiter losing mass and the satellites escaping from the planet. The reverse of the escape direction corresponds to the capture direction. The results show that the Lagrangian points L1 and L2 mainly guide the direction of capture. Prograde satellites are captured through these two gates with very narrow amplitude angles. In the case of retrograde satellites, these two gates are wider. The capture region increases as the orbital inclination increases. In the case of planar retrograde satellites the directions of capture cover the whole 360° around Jupiter. We also verified that prograde satellites are captured earlier in actual time than retrograde ones. This paper was presented at the Asteriods, Comets and Meteors meeting held at Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August 2005 and could not be included in the special issue related to that conference.     

Inversion of time-dependent nuclear well-logging data using neural networks

The purpose of this work was to investigate a new and fast inversion methodology for the prediction of subsurface formation properties such as porosity, salinity and oil saturation, using time‐dependent nuclear well logging data. Although the ultimate aim is to apply the technique to real‐field data, an initial investigation as described in this paper, was first required; this has been carried out using simulation results from the time‐dependent radiation transport problem within a borehole. Simulated neutron and γ‐ray fluxes at two sodium iodide (NaI) detectors, one near and one far from a pulsed neutron source emitting at ～14 MeV, were used for the investigation. A total of 67 energy groups from the BUGLE96 cross section library together with 567 property combinations were employed for the original flux response generation, achieved by solving numerically the time‐dependent Boltzmann radiation transport equation in its even parity form. Material property combinations (scenarios) and their correspondent teaching outputs (flux response at detectors) are used to train the Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and test data is used to assess the accuracy of the ANNs. The trained networks are then used to produce a surrogate model of the expensive, in terms of computational time and resources, forward model with which a simple inversion method is applied to calculate material properties from the time evolution of flux responses at the two detectors. The inversion technique uses a fast surrogate model comprising 8026 artificial neural networks, which consist of an input layer with three input units (neurons) for porosity, salinity and oil saturation; and two hidden layers and one output neuron representing the scalar photon or neutron flux prediction at the detector. This is the first time this technique has been applied to invert pulsed neutron logging tool information and the results produced are very promising. The next step in the procedure is to apply the methodology to real data.     

Numerical simulation of the diurnal cycle of rainfall in SW Amazon basin during the 1999 rainy season: the role of convective trigger function

In continental areas, the maximum rainfall simulated with the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (BRAMS) occurs around 4?h earlier than the one observed with rain gauges. This work presents the successful implementation of a new convective trigger function (CTF) in the convective parameterization scheme used in BRAMS that corrects this misfit between model and observations. The importance of the CTF formulation on the diurnal cycle of rainfall over the Amazon Basin is reflected by the following numbers: Over Rondonia (SW Amazonia), the original version of BRAMS simulates the maximum rainfall at 1400 UTC (1000 LST), with the new CTF maximum shifting to 1800?UTC (1400?LST), while the S-band radar rainfall maximum is at 1900?UTC (1500?LST). This is attributed to two factors: (1) the new CTF is now coupled to the sensible and latent heat fluxes at surface; (2) during the early morning, the convective available potential energy is reduced.     

地幔热柱及其成矿作用研究

成矿作用研究表明,在地球的演化历史中,成矿数量有从少到多,聚矿能力有由弱到强的演化趋势.中生代为全球规模的成矿大爆发阶段,究其原因可能与地球的发展演化密切相关.地球形成的早期,由于地球物质尚未充分分异,成矿强度不大.当然,有部分在地球演化早期形成的矿床,在后来的多次构造改造过程中被改造迁移,甚至消失.中生代地球进入了一个强烈的地幔热柱活动时期,聚集于D"层及外核的成矿物质可通过地幔热柱多级演化向上迁移,并在幔枝构造的有利构造扩容带中成矿,幔枝构造则成为中生代主要的成矿控矿构造类型.     

The chemistry of orthophosphate uptake from seawater on to calcite and aragonite

The chemistry of orthophosphate uptake from synthetic seawater onto the surfaces of synthetic calcite, aragonite and low-magnesium biogenic calcite has been studied, in order to elucidate the kinetics of the process (generally believed to be the major control of dissolved reactive phosphate in carbonate-rich marine sediments). Our results differ from those obtained by others, who have studied orthophosphate uptake in low ionic strength solutions and at much higher supersaturations relative to apatite.In both ‘free drift’ and chemostat experiments, Mg and F have only a minor effect on the reaction rate. Even at constant solution composition the rate of orthophosphate uptake was found to decrease by 10⁶ over a two week period. The data from the ‘free drift’ experiments can be fitted to the Elovich equation. This indicates that the kinetics observed for this reaction can be explained by an exponential decrease in available surface reaction sites and/or a linear increase in the activation energy associated with chemisorption as the reaction proceeds.