Platinum-group elements (Ir,Pd, Pt and Rh) in road-deposited sediments in two urban watersheds,Hawaii

This study represents the first detailed investigation of platinum-group elements (PGEs) in road-deposited sediment (RDS) in Hawaii, USA. Thirty-three sample locations, in two urban watersheds in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii were sampled. The <63 μm fraction of RDS was digested with aqua regia, followed by matrix separation with Dowex AG50-X8 cation exchange resin. PGEs were analyzed with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) equipped with a desolvating nebulizer. Concentrations of Rh, Pd and Pt in residential streets reached 64, 105 and 506 ng/g, respectively. Maximum enrichment ratios, computed as RDS concentrations relative to baseline values, exceeded 400, indicating a significant anthropogenic signal with the sequence Rh > Pt > Pd. Iridium concentrations were uniformly low <1 ng/g, and enrichment ratios support a geogenic source. Significant interelement PGE correlations (Pd–Pt–Rh), combined with the magnitude of PGE pair-wise ratios (Pt/Pd, Pt/Rh and Pd/Rh), and relative percentages comparable to European RDS and roadside soil in Indiana, USA all suggest an automobile source. Attrition of PGE-loaded automobile catalytic converters and subsequent loss to the environment by exhaust emissions explains the significant environmental signal of PGEs in road environments of Hawaii. Further PGE work is required to quantify urban transport paths as PGEs are known to bioaccumulate, cause cellular damage and may have detrimental human health effects.     

Improved decentralized multi-sensor navigation system for airborne applications

The integration of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) technologies is a very useful navigation option for high-accuracy positioning in many applications. However, its performance is still limited by GNSS satellite availability and satellite geometry. To address such limitations, a non-GNSS-based positioning technology known as “Locata” is used to augment a standard GNSS/INS system. The conventional methods for multi-sensor integration can be classified as being either in the form of centralized Kalman filtering (CKF), or decentralized Kalman filtering. However, these two filtering architectures are not always ideal for real-world applications. To satisfy both accuracy and reliability requirements, these three integration algorithms—CKF, federated Kalman filtering (FKF) and an improved decentralized filtering, known as global optimal filtering (GOF)—are investigated. In principle, the GOF is derived from more information resources than the CKF and FKF algorithms. These three algorithms are implemented in a GPS/Locata/INS integrated navigation system and evaluated using data obtained from a flight test. The experimental results show that the position, velocity and attitude solution derived from the GOF-based system indicate improvements of 30, 18.4 and 20.8% over the CKF- and FKF-based systems, respectively.     

Modelling tropical cyclone risks for present and future climate change scenarios using geospatial techniques

Tropical cyclones and their devastating impacts are of great concern to coastal communities globally. An appropriate approach integrating climate change scenarios at local scales is essential for producing detailed risk models to support cyclone mitigation measures. This study developed a simple cyclone risk-modelling approach under present and future climate change scenarios using geospatial techniques at local scales, and tested using a case study in Sarankhola Upazila from coastal Bangladesh. Linear storm-surge models were developed up to 100-year return periods. A local sea level rise scenario of 0.34?m for the year 2050 was integrated with surge models to assess the climate change impact. The resultant storm-surge models were used in the risk-modelling procedures. The developed risk models successfully identified the spatial extent and levels of risk that match with actual extent and levels within an acceptable limit of deviation. The result showed that cyclone risk areas increased with the increase of return period. The study also revealed that climate change scenario intensified the cyclone risk area by 5–10% in every return period. The findings indicate this approach has the potential to model cyclone risk in other similar coastal environments for developing mitigation plans and strategies.     

Large area forest inventory using Landsat ETM+: A geostatistical approach

Large area forest inventory is important for understanding and managing forest resources and ecosystems. Remote sensing, the Global Positioning System (GPS), and geographic information systems (GIS) provide new opportunities for forest inventory. This paper develops a new systematic geostatistical approach for predicting forest parameters, using integrated Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images, GPS, and GIS. Forest parameters, such as basal area, height, health conditions, biomass, or carbon, can be incorporated as a response variable, and the geostatistical approach can be used to predict parameter values for uninventoried points. Using basal area as the response and Landsat ETM+ images of pine stands in Georgia as auxiliary data, this approach includes univariate kriging (ordinary kriging and universal kriging) and multivariable kriging (co-kriging and regression kriging). The combination of bands 4, 3, and 2, as well as the combination of bands 5, 4, and 3, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and principal components (PCs) were used in this study with co-kriging and regression kriging. Validation based on 200 randomly sampling points withheld field inventory was computed to evaluate the kriging performance and demonstrated that band combination 543 performed better than band combination 432, NDVI, and PCs. Regression kriging resulted in the smallest errors and the highest R-squared indicating the best geostatistical method for spatial predictions of pine basal area.     

Verification and mitigation of the power-induced measurement errors for airport pseudolites in LAAS

Certain GPS receivers exhibit a power-induced measurement error when the input signal power exceeds a certain threshold that is a function of the receiver architecture. The characterization of this error is important in the case of airport pseudolites (APLs) due to receiver saturation at ranges close to the transmission antenna. This paper details an effort using laboratory test to characterize the power-induced measurement error in NovAtel Millennium and Beeline receivers that are widely used for APL development. The results from the laboratory tests show that this effect can lead to errors as large as 3 m on pseudorange measurement for the dynamic range typical for APLs. The carrier-phase error however is seen to be limited to 5 cm. On the verification and characterization of the error, a cost-effective mitigation technique for LAAS is proposed. A solution for the ground subsystem is sought by employing power-control measures to limit the amount of APL power that LGF GPS/APL receivers are exposed to. In order to keep the integration cost low, the solution for the airborne subsystem does not involve hardware modifications or additions, but rather relies on the transition to a differential carrier-phase positioning algorithm prior to the onset of the power-induced error along the approach path. The proposed architecture was flight-tested to verify successful mitigation of the power-induced error on both the ground and air, and the results from these tests are presented in the paper.     

The Creation of a National Agricultural Land Use Dataset: Combining Pycnophylactic Interpolation with Dasymetric Mapping Techniques

Agricultural Census data is summarised over spatially coarse reporting units for reasons of farm confidentiality. This is problematic for research at a local level. This article describes an approach combining dasymetric and volume preserving techniques to create a national land use dataset at 1 km² resolution. The results for an English county are compared with contemporaneous aggregated habitat data. The results show that the accurate estimates of local agricultural land use (Arable and Grass) patterns can be estimated when individual 1 km squares are combined into blocks of > 9 squares, thereby providing local estimates of agricultural land use. This in turn allows more detailed modelling of land uses related to specific livestock and cropping activities. The dataset created by this work has been subject to extensive external validation through its incorporation into a number of other national models: nitrate leaching (e.g. MAGPIE, NEAP‐N), waste, and pathogen modelling related to agricultural activity.     

Post-peak,fluid-mediated modification of granulite facies zircon and monazite in the Trivandrum Block,southern India

The quarry at Kottavattom in the Trivandrum Block of southern India contains spectacular examples of fluid-assisted alteration of high-grade metamorphic rocks. Garnet-biotite gneiss has undergone a change in mineral assemblage to form submetre scale orthopyroxene-bearing patches, later retrogressed to form an amphibole-bearing lithology. These patches, often referred to as arrested or incipient charnockite, crosscut the original metamorphic foliation and are typically attributed to passage of a low aH₂O fluid through the rock. Whilst this conversion is recognised as a late stage process, little detailed chronological work exists to link it temporally to metamorphism in the region. Zircon and monazite analysed from Kottavattom not only record metamorphism in the Trivandrum Block but also show internal, lobate textures crosscutting the original zoning, consistent with fluid-aided coupled dissolution-reprecipitation during formation of the orthopyroxene-bearing patches. High-grade metamorphism at the quarry occurred between the formation of metamorphic monazite at ~585 Ma and the growth of metamorphic zircon at ~523 Ma. The fluid-assisted alteration of the garnet-biotite gneiss is poorly recorded by altered zircon with only minimal resetting of the U–Pb system, whereas monazite has in some cases undergone complete U–Pb resetting and records an age for fluid infiltration at ~495 Ma. The fluid event therefore places the formation of the altered patches at least 25 Myr after the zircon crystallisation in the garnet-biotite gneiss. The most likely fluid composition causing the modification and U–Pb resetting of zircon and monazite is locally derived hypersaline brine.     

An extreme wave event in eastern Yucatán,Mexico: Evidence of a palaeotsunami event during the Mayan times

The Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, has typically been considered a tectonically stable region with little significant seismic activity. The region though, is one that is regularly affected by hurricanes. A detailed survey of ca 100 km of the eastern Yucatán and Cozumel coast identified the presence of ridges containing individual boulders measuring >1 m in length. The boulder ridges reach 5 m in height and their origin is associated with extreme wave event activity. Previously modelled tsunami waves from known seismically active zones in the region (Muertos Thrust Belt and South Caribbean Deformed Belt) are not of sufficient scale in the area of the Yucatán Peninsula to have produced the boulder ridges recorded in this study. The occurrence of hurricanes in this region is more common, but two of the most destructive (Hurricane Gilbert 1988 and Hurricane Wilma 2005) produced coastal waves too small to have created the ridges recorded here. In this paper, a new tsunami model with a source area located on the Motagua/Swan Island Fault System has been generated that indicates a tsunami event may have caused the extreme wave events that resulted in the deposition of the boulder ridges.     

面理弯切轴测量技术在造山带研究中的应用——以美国阿肯色河地区为例

基于变形分解理论提出的面理弯切轴测量技术,通过对变斑晶中多期面理的测定分析,为厘定造山运动中的变形过程提供了新的精确定量研究手段。面理弯切轴数据已经被用于解决地质领域多种问题,例如:研究造山运动过程中变形变质历史以及在区域和造山带尺度对比多期变质作用;论证变斑晶生长过程是否发生旋转;变斑晶成核生长与区域变形过程之间的关系;重建板块运动历史过程;约束不同地质事件的发生时限;划分复杂变形分解类型以及岩浆侵位机制及时限研究。本文主要介绍面理弯切轴测量方法的原理、具体测定方法、研究意义及应用范围,并以美国阿肯色地区为例,详细介绍了面理弯切轴测量技术在造山运动过程区域变形历史重建中的应用。