Diatoms,spatial distribution and physicochemical characteristics of the Wular lake sediments,Kashmir valley,Jammu and Kashmir

Lakes and wetlands are dynamic geomorphic units of a landscape that hold geochemical signatures of sediment provenance and paleo-environmental shifts and are major sinks for organic matter accumulation. The source of organic matter is diverse in lake sediments and varies widely with the type and size of the lake and hence it is important to understand the source of organic carbon (terrestrial or in situ) in lake systems in order to monitor the health of the lake. Wular lake, located in north Kashmir, is one of the largest fresh water lake in India, situated at an average elevation of 1580m ASL. The lake is fed by a number of watersheds that bring a diverse type of sediments and organic matter and thus deposit them into the Wular lake basin. In order to understand sediment distribution pattern, content and source of organic matter, sediment provenance and the persisting environment in the Wular lake, 32 lake floor sediment samples covering the entire lake were collected and analyzed for organic element analysis, CaCO3, organic matter, sediment texture and diatom analysis. The results indicated that sediments in the lake are dominated by silt and silty clay. The organic carbon in the lake ranged from 0.83%-4.52% and nitrogen varied from 0.06%-0.5%. The Carbon to Nitrogen (C/N) ratios (9.04 to 22.03) indicate a mixed source of organic carbon but dominated by in situ lake sources from the vascular and lake biota accumulation. The diatom analysis revealed the occurrence of a diverse type of species along the sampling sites present within the lake. The wide distribution of the diatom species such as Cymbella, Cyclotella and Tabularia etc. in the lake indicate high organic pollution and alkaline fresh water environment prevailing in the lake.     

Diagenetic features of Jurassic Fort Member sandstone,Jaisalmer formation,western Rajasthan

Jaisalmer Formation consists of 360m thick succession of medium to coarse grained sandstones with interbeds of shale, claystone and occasional lignite that rest over Lathi Formation, is the basal part of the Jaisalmer basin. The rocks are exposed amidst desert, low mounds and shallow stone quarries. Sandstones were deposited in shallow marine to deltaic environments. The studied sandstones consist of abundant quartz followed by feldspar, mica, chert, rock fragments and heavy minerals. The study mainly deals with identification of various diagenetic features such as compaction, cementation and porosity evolution. During mechanical compaction rearrangement of grains took place and point, long and suture contacts were formed. The sandstones are cemented by iron oxide, silica overgrowth, carbonate and clay. Porosity has developed due to dissolution of iron, carbonate cement and feldspar grains. Dissolution and alteration of feldspar, lithic fragments and pressure solution were the main source of quartz cements. The sandstones show good amount of existing optical porosity with an average of 7.19%. Porosity reduction is mainly due to early stage of mechanical compaction and subsequent pervasive calcite and iron oxide cementation. Further, porosity reduced due to deposition of clay cement.     

Disaster risk management in agriculture: tragedies of the smallholders

Agriculture sector is exposed to a variety of risks and uncertainties which can lead to sizeable losses in crop yields and alter farm incomes. Risk management is, therefore, an essential element of the overall farm management process. Farmers have number of options in managing farm risks; however, smallholders, due to their small operations and limited financial capabilities, find it difficult to adopt sophisticated risk management strategies to overcome yield and income instabilities at farm level. This study is, therefore, designed to investigate the enabling environment for small farmers to manage climatic risks at farm level. A total of 330 sampled respondents from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan are randomly selected for the study using multistage sampling technique. Analysis of variance technique is employed to compare the risk management adoption decision of small, medium and large farmers. A post hoc analysis is also performed to highlight the difference in means and the magnitude of differences. The results indicate that smallholders have significantly lower access to credit (both formal and informal), formal information sources along with significantly higher perceptions of pest and diseases. Smallholders are also at the tail end in the adoption of precautionary savings and agricultural credit to manage climatic risk at farm level. The study urges for risk management policies particularly in favor of the small farmers and intervention in the existing information and credit provision programs to facilitate smallholders in managing farm risks.     

Assessment of Durability and Weathering State of Some Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks Using Micropetrographic Index and Rock Durability Indicators: A Case Study

Weathering and durability are the key factors of the rock in the suitability and usefulness of different construction materials, building materials and engineering structures. A single test never predicts the entire factor for suitability of rock stone and aggregate in different uses. Thus, variety of physical, mechanical and chemical tests and indices of rocks are widely used to estimate and evaluate the rocks for the suitability of the required purpose. In all the cases, knowledge of durability and weathering properties are the most important along with the strength of the rock. Micropetrographic index and rock durability indicators (dynamic and static) are the one of the best methods to evaluate the rock for weathering and durability. To estimate these indices, variety of tests are performed such as petrographic examination test, point load index, sulfate soundness test, water absorption test, modified aggregate impact value test and test for specific gravity. Slake durability index and impact strength index tests were also performed for correlation with static and dynamic rock durability indicators due to its application and usefulness in the durability and strength of the rock materials. Micropetrographic index was obtained by petrographic examination test and correlated with all the physical and mechanical properties used for find out the durability indicators. The present study is to express the usefulness of these three indices in the classification of weathering and durability classes and estimation of durability indices by slake durability index, impact strength index and micropetrographic index.     

Dynamic stress analysis of a class of geomechanics problems by the boundary element method

This paper presents the application of an advanced BEM for periodic and transient dynamic stress analyses of a class of geomechanics problems. For transient dynamic analysis, the problem is first solved in the Laplace transform space, which happens to be similar to the periodic dynamic analysis, and then the time domain solution is obtained by numerical inversion of transform domain solutions. The numerical implementation of the BEM used to present the results in this paper is complete and most general available to date. It is capable of treating very large, multi-layered problems by substructuring and satisfying the equilibrium and compatibilities at the interfaces. With the help of this substructuring, capability problems related to layered media and soil–structure interaction have been analysed. A number of examples are presented and through comparisons with available analytical and numerical results, the applicability and usefulness of the present analysis to real geomechanical problems are established.     

Varietals differences in agronomic performance of six wheat varieties grown under saline field environment

Six wheat varieties (SARC-1, SARC-2, SARC-3, SARC-4, LU26S and Punjab-85) were planted in the field to evaluate their comparative performance under saline conditions. LU26S appeared the most salt-tolerant variety and gave the highest grain weight due to its low Na⁺ uptake, high K⁺/Na⁺ ratio, higher dry weight of shoots and spikes and better grain development. Better exclusion of Na⁺ and other ions from the leaves of salt-tolerant variety LU2 6S could also be a reason for its ability to maintain a higher grain weight in the saline soil. Punjab-85 appeared the most saltsensitive variety as its dry weight of main shoots and spikes were also found to be the lowest. High Na⁺ uptake, lower K⁺/Na⁺ ratio, lower dry weight of main shoots and spikes and lower 100 grain weight were the main reasons for saltsensitivity in Punjab-85. Dry weight of shoots, spikes and grain weight of SARC-3 under saline soil conditions was almost similar to the salt-sensitive variety Punjab-85 and could be classified as salt-sensitive. Flag leaf area decreased drastically due to salt stress in all the varieties and this could be a major cause for low yield. There was however, a very low linear correlation between the flag leaf area and the grain weight in pooled data for all the six wheat varieties.     

Depositional Environments and Diagenesis of the Kuldhar and Keera Dome Carbonates (Late Bathonian–Early Callovian) of Western India

This paper describes 11 microfacies types in late Bathonian–Early Callovian carbonates of the Kuldhar Member of the Jaisalmer Formation (Rajasthan) and the Keera Golden Oolite Member of the Chari Formation (Kachchh Mainland) western India. The different microfacies associations reported in this study reflect an ideal shallowing upward sequence, representing a system of bioclastic bars developed on the lower ramp, evolving into an oolitic bar-to-bank system separating restricted lagoonal—from lower ramp environment. Four main types of cements, i.e. bladed, fibrous, syntaxial overgrowth and blocky cement (characterized in a few cases by ferroan calcite and anhydrite II) occur in these carbonates. The study also reveals that chemical compaction followed the two phases of early mechanical compaction that largely governed porosity of these limestones. However, micritization and neomorphism also contributed significantly in this respect. Diagenetic signatures in these carbonates suggest that marine phreatic and fresh water phreatic environments dominated, but deep burial diagenesis also played its role in shaping these rocks. The early and late diagenetic changes have been controlled by the depositional facies evolving in a basin riddled with rifting in an extensional tectonic regime forcing regional-scale sea level fluctuations.     

Pedodiversity and pedogenesis in Zayandeh-rud Valley, Central Iran

A geomorphic hierarchical downscaling method was used to decompose the forms and processes forming the landscapes and their subdivisions in the main region of Zayandeh-rud Valley. The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of soil heterogeneity and to check if K-entropy would be a good measure of soil evolution. Soil diversity analyses were performed considering soil families as individuals of soil entities in each geomorphic or taxonomic category level. Pedodiversity indices were used to follow the trend of soil and landscape evolution. The relationships between K-entropy (Shannon diversity index) and pedo-richness versus increasing area were analyzed to find out the effects of soil–landscape evolution on complexity of soil patterns in different geomorphic surfaces. Entropy–age relationship was studied to check the pedogenetic pathways responsible for soil landscape evolution. The soil diversity increases as geomorphic and taxonomic hierarchy levels decrease. The diversity indices were high when the sequence of soil horizons in a homogeneous family was also investigated. An increase in K-entropy of soil and landscape during time confirms the hypothesis of soil divergence evolution, whereby differences in initial conditions or local perturbations, and dynamic instability appear to have produced more variable soils and landscapes in the study area.     

Artificial neural network application to estimate kinematic soil pile interaction response parameters

Six artificial neural network (ANN) models are developed to predict various response parameters of kinematic soil pile interaction. These responses include (1) kinematic response factors for free and fixed head piles in homogenous soil layer to derive foundation input motion (2) normalized bending moment at fixed head of pile in homogenous soil layer (3) normalized kinematic pile moment at the interface of two soil layers of sharply different soil stiffnesses. These ANN models represent simple solutions that can be implemented in a simple calculator capable of matrix operation and bypass the site response analysis and the complex wave diffraction analysis. The data required for ANN training is generated using beam on dynamic Winkler formulation (BDWF). Fifty percent of the data is used to train the ANN models while remaining 50% is used to test the ANN models. The trained ANN models show good agreement with BDWF results.     

Effects of Drying on the Low-Frequency Electrical Properties of Tournemire Argillites

Nearly water-saturated argillite samples (initial water content near 3.4 wt%) were cored from an undisturbed area of an underground facility of the French Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), located at Tournemire (Aveyron, France). These samples were subjected to the following desiccation path: (a) A desaturation phase during which the samples were dried at ambient temperature conditions, relative humidity equal to 43% in average and (b) a heating phase during which the same samples were heated at four temperature levels from 70°C up to 105°C. During both phases, the low-frequency complex resistivity (0.18Hz–12 kHz) was recorded by a four-electrode device. The amplitude of the complex resistivity was extremely sensitive to water content change. At the end of the isotherm desaturation phase, it was multiplied by a factor of 3 to 5. During the heating phase, the resistivity increased by more than two orders of magnitude compared to the initial state. The percentage of Frequency Effect shows a low sensitivity to water content changes during the desaturation stage while it increased by two orders of magnitude during the heating phase. This result confirms that low-frequency spectral signature is extremely sensitive to textural changes (i.e., thermal-induced microcracking in this case) that occurred during heating. Moreover, the complex resistivity of the samples shows a strong anisotropy (a ratio of 10 between both amplitudes measured in the perpendicular directions). The classical Cole-Cole model cannot be used to fit the experimental data obtained in the heating phase. A generalized formulation of this model is required and was successfully applied to represent the complex resistivity data.