Ccte d'Ivoire-Ghana margin: seismic imaging of passive rifted crust adjacent to a transform continental margin

During May 1990 and January-February 1991, an extensive geophysical data set was collected over the Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana continental margin, located along the equatorial coast of West Africa. The Ghana margin is a transform continental margin running subparallel to the Romanche Fracture Zone and its associated marginal ridge—the Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana Ridge. From this data set, an explosive refraction line running ∼ 150 km, ENE-WSW between 3°55'N, 3°21'W and 4°23'N, 2°4'W, has been modelled together with wide-angle airgun profiles, and seismic reflection and gravity data. This study is centred on the Côte d'Ivoire Basin located just to the north of the Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana Ridge, where bathymetric data suggest that a component of normal rifting occurred, rather than the transform motion observed along the majority of the equatorial West African margin.
Traveltime and amplitude modelling of the ocean-bottom seismometer data shows that the continental Moho beneath the margin rises in an oceanward direction, from ∼ 24 km below sea level to ∼ 17 km. In the centre of the line where the crust thins most rapidly, there exists a region of anomalously high velocity at the base of the crust, reaching some 8 km in thickness. This higher-velocity region is thought to represent an area of localized underplating related to rifting. Modelling of marine gravity data, collected coincident with the seismic line, has been used to test the best-fitting seismic model. This modelling has shown that the observed free-air anomaly is dominated by the effects of crustal thickness, and that a region of higher density is required at the base of the crust to fit the observed data. This higher-density region is consistent in size and location with the high velocities required to fit the seismic data.     

Yucatán karst features and the size of Chicxulub crater

The buried Chicxulub impact structure is marked by a dramatic ring of sinkholes (called cenotes if containing water), and adjacent less prominent partial rings, which have been shown to coincide with maxima in horizontal gravity gradients and a topographic depression. These observations, along with the discreteness and spacing of the features, suggest a formation mechanism involving faulting in the outer slump zone of the crater, which would thus have a diameter of approximately 180 km.
An opposing view, based primarily on the interpretation of gravity data, is that (he crater is much larger than the cenote ring implies. Given the association of the known cenote ring with faults, we here examine northern Yucatan for similar rings in gravity, surface features and elevation, which we might expect to be associated with outer concentric faults in the case of a larger, possibly multiring, structure.
No such outer rings have been found, although definite patterns are seen in the distribution of karst features outside the crater rim. We explain these patterns as resulting mainly from deformation related to the block fault zone that parallels tbe shelf edge of eastern Yucatan.     

甘肃窑街寺湾沟－炭洞沟红层孢粉组合、地质时代与生态环境

对窑街寺湾沟－炭洞沟红层孢粉和地层层序及时代进行了系统分析与对比研究。在该剖面中划分出２个孢粉组合：①双束松粉属－无口器粉属－杉粉属－栎粉属－瘤面海金砂孢属组合，时代为早渐新世；②双束松粉属－拟桦粉属－栎粉属－藜粉属－瘤面海金沙孢属组合，属中渐新世。研究表明：窑街寺湾沟－炭洞沟红层剖面的层位位于朱儿庄剖面之上，整个窑街地区的红层剖面属始新统－中渐新统；窑街地区始新世孢粉组合与中国东、西部地区孢粉组合相似，均发育以亚热带和暖温带植物为主的亚热带型落叶阔叶林，气候炎热；始新世晚期至早渐新世则演变为以暖温带落叶阔叶树种为主的针阔叶混交林植被，气候温暖湿润；中渐新世为暖温带落叶阔叶林，气候较温暖湿润。区域对比分析表明，从渐新世早期中国东、西部植被开始出现差异并逐渐加大，该时期也许是中国新构造运动的一个重要时期。     

Geostatistical regionalization of glacial aquitard thickness in northwestern Germany, based on fuzzy kriging

In many instances hydrogeological parameters obtained by conventional methods for selected localities within an aquifer or an aquitard are not sufficient for adequate regionalization at the scale of the entire layer. Here, we demonstrate an application of the fuzzy kriging method in regionalization of hydrogeological data, in which the set of conventional, crisp values is supplemented by imprecise information subjectively estimated by an expert. It is believed that such an approach eventually may reflect the real-world conditions more closely than a traditional crisp-value approach, because the former does not impose exactness artificially on phenomena which are diffuse by their nature. Spatial interpolation was done for the thickness of one of the major aquitards (till and glaciolacustrine clay) in northwestern Germany. The dataset consists of 329 crisp values from boreholes supplemented by 172 imprecise values defined as fuzzy numbers. It is demonstrated that the reliability of regionalization was higher, compared to regionalization performed with the crisp dataset only. Fuzzy kriging was performed with FUZZEKS (Fuzzy Evaluation and Kriging System) developed at the Ecosystem Research Center at the University of Kiel.