Syn‐extension leucogranite deformation during convergence in the Eastern Central Alps: example of the Novate intrusion

The Novate intrusion is a Late Alpine leucogranite that intruded the structures related to dextral back‐thrusting along the Periadriatic Fault System in the Eastern Central Alps. The Novate granite was heterogeneously deformed from amphibolite to greenschist facies conditions during cooling of the intrusion. The deformation inside the granite is characterized by strongly localized and anastomosed ductile shear zones surrounding lenses of weakly deformed granite and by late faults formed at the brittle–ductile transition. The fault kinematic analysis of conjugated shear zones suggests that the Novate leucogranite was emplaced at 25 Ma in an extensional regime along the southern tip of the Forcola Fault. A model of extensional jog opening by vertical shearing along the Forcola Fault provided the space for magma accommodation. The Novate granite is the first evidence for orogen‐parallel syn‐extensional leucogranite emplacement during the Oligocene collision in the Alps.     

A Synthetic Interdisciplinary “Chronological Frieze”: an Attempt

This chapter introduces the chronological and interdisciplinary “frieze” which presents the main events relevant (in our opinion) to the problem of the emergence of life on Earth. This selection of events is directly connected to the previous chapters of this book.The frieze may be found in print as an insert at the back of the print publication. This supplementary material is also available in the online version of this article at and is accesssible for authorized users.     

Sheathed prokaryotic filaments,major components of Mid-Cretaceous French amber microcoenoses

Prokaryotes were the first organisms to colonize Earth, but little evidence of their existence has been found in the fossil record. Recent studies of amber, a fossil resin from gymnosperms or angiosperms, have revealed a number of rarely fossilized microorganisms. Several amber-bearing localities of Mid-Cretaceous age in southwestern France (Charentes and Aude regions) led to the discovery of a rich and diverse biota of resin-preserved microorganisms. These amber microcoenoses are dominated by sheathed prokaryotic filaments similar to those of the cyanobacterium Palaeocolteronema cenomanensis Breton and Tostain (2005) and to those of the bacterium Leptotrichites resinatus Schmidt 2005. These sheathed filaments appear as peripheral cortexes around some pieces of amber from the Charentes outcrops and as peripheral dark areas on amber from the Aude locality. Macroscopic and microscopic features, as well as measurements of phycocyanin concentrations from the filaments, made it possible to identify two different taxa. The sheathed filaments from Charentes correspond to P. cenomanensis. They were growing in freshwater ponds when amber trapped them. Those of the Aude outcrop represent L. resinatus. The latter were probably trapped in less humid environments than were P. cenomanensis filaments.     

Drivers of afforestation in Northern Vietnam: Assessing local variations using geographically weighted regression

This article identifies drivers of forest transition in a province of Northern Vietnam between 1993 and 2000 by applying geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis to remotely sensed and statistical data. The regression model highlighted the spatial variation of the relationship between the percentage of land afforested and its proximate causes. Factors identified as having a major impact on afforestation are: the presence or proximity of a wood-processing industry, the distance to highways, and land allocation to households. Whereas the two former variables are in most areas of the province positively correlated with afforestation, an unexpected negative correlation was observed for the latter. The analysis of these results, supported by an in-depth knowledge of the area and of the political context, leads to the conclusion that, during the time period considered, afforestation was largely driven by state organisations on protected state-owned land, and forestry was not a significant component of household economic activities.     

Multiobjective fuzzy optimization for sustainable groundwater management using particle swarm optimization and analytic element method

Groundwater management involves conflicting objectives as maximization of discharge contradicts the criteria of minimum pumping cost and minimum piping cost. In addition, available data contains uncertainties such as market fluctuations, variations in water levels of wells and variations of ground water policies. A fuzzy model is to be evolved to tackle the uncertainties, and a multiobjective optimization is to be conducted to simultaneously satisfy the contradicting objectives. Towards this end, a multiobjective fuzzy optimization model is evolved. To get at the upper and lower bounds of the individual objectives, particle Swarm optimization (PSO) is adopted. The analytic element method (AEM) is employed to obtain the operating potentio metric head. In this study, a multiobjective fuzzy optimization model considering three conflicting objectives is developed using PSO and AEM methods for obtaining a sustainable groundwater management policy. The developed model is applied to a case study, and it is demonstrated that the compromise solution satisfies all the objectives with adequate levels of satisfaction. Sensitivity analysis is carried out by varying the parameters, and it is shown that the effect of any such variation is quite significant. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of Artificial Neural Network Model for the Prediction of Suspended Sediment Load in the Large River

Water Resources - Predicting the Suspended Sediment Load (SSL) of the river is a very significant and challenging task. Being a non-linearity in the SSL data, it requires a non-linear method to get...