A micro-XAS/XRF and thermodynamic study of Ce speciation after long-term aqueous alteration of simulated nuclear waste glass: Relevance for predicting Pu behavior?

In the present study, the dissolution and mobilization of Ce introduced in a simulated nuclear waste glass (MW) as a surrogate of Pu was investigated after leaching in pure water over 12 a at 90 °C and pH ∼ 9.6. The microscopic distribution and oxidation state of Ce in the altered glass were studied using micro-X-ray fluorescence (micro-XRF) mapping techniques and micro-X-ray near-edge absorption spectroscopy (micro-XANES). Distribution maps of Ce^III and Ce^IV were obtained by recording the L_α fluorescence emission at two different incident X-ray energies, coinciding with the maximum contrast between Ce^III and Ce^IV fluorescence intensities. The micro-XRF maps revealed that Ce was dominantly present as oxidized species (Ce^IV) in the original glass. After dissolution from the glass matrix, Ce^IV was partly reduced and re-immobilized as Ce^III at grain boundaries or in the interstitial spaces between the glass particles. The concentration of Ce^III was found to correlate with the spatial distribution of secondary Mg-clay formed during the aqueous corrosion as the main glass alteration product. Micro-XANES spectra collected at locations representative of both altered and non-altered glass domains confirmed the findings obtained by the redox mapping. Because redox-sensitive elements in the pristine MW glass (Fe, Cr, Se) occur almost exclusively as oxidized species, reduction of Ce^IV was probably mediated by an external source of reductants, such as Fe(0) from the steel reaction vessel.     

On the interpretation of slow ground deformation precursory to the 1976 Friuli earthquake

During three years preceding the 1976 Friuli earthquake, a continuous southward ground tilt was recorded by a tiltmeter placed near Tolmezzo, 15 km north-west of the epicentre of the impending earthquake. The cumulative ground tilt amounted to as much as 3 minutes of arc. Since the tiltmeter was placed in the proximity of an active fault, such a tilt can be explained if the fault slipped aseismically on its shallower section during the same three year period. Aseismic slip on the fault might have been caused by the same mechanism which concentrated stress in the region and eventually produced the 1976 earthquake.     

Numerical simulation of Holocene depositional wedge in the southern Po Plain-northern Adriatic Sea (Italy)

In the last 10 kyr BP, a coastal depositional wedge formed along the southern Po Plain margin. Shoreline regression accelerated abruptly in the Iron Age, and especially in the last 2 kyr, due to the increased woodland removal on the Apennines. The deposition of the Holocene sedimentary wedge is simulated here, along four coast-tranversal transects, using a finite-element two-dimension mathematical model. The model was constrained using the present topographic surface, the maximum flooding line of the Holocene transgression, architecture and texture of depositional wedge, the location of coastlines, aeolian dunes and ancient offshore delta-sand. The sediment volume required to calibrate the simulations along the sections ranges from about 165,000–870,000 m³ m⁻¹; the maximum tectonic subsidence varies from 0.1 to 0.7 mm yr⁻¹. The minimum sand amount required by the model to stop the accelerated erosion of the Cervia beach is about five times the one employed in recent (April 2002) recovery works.     

Laboratory measurements of super-resolving Toraldo pupils for radio astronomical applications

The concept of super-resolution refers to various methods for improving the angular resolution of an optical imaging system beyond the classical diffraction limit. Although several techniques to narrow the central lobe of the illumination Point Spread Function have been developed in optical microscopy, most of these methods cannot be implemented on astronomical telescopes. A possible exception is represented by the variable transmittance filters, also known as “Toraldo Pupils” (TPs) since they were introduced for the first time by G. Toraldo di Francia in 1952 (Toraldo di Francia, Il Nuovo Cimento (Suppl.) 9, 426, 1952). In the microwave range, the first successful laboratory test of TPs was performed in 2003 (Mugnai et al. Phys. Lett. A 311, 77–81, 2003). These first results suggested that TPs could represent a viable approach to achieve super-resolution in Radio Astronomy. We have therefore started a project devoted to a more exhaustive analysis of TPs, in order to assess their potential usefulness to achieve super-resolution on a radio telescope, as well as to determine their drawbacks. In the present work we report on the results of extensive microwave measurements, using TPs with different geometrical shapes, which confirm the correctness of the first experiments in 2003. We have also extended the original investigation to carry out full-wave electromagnetic numerical simulations and also to perform planar scanning of the near-field and transform the results into the far-field.     

Magma convection and mixing dynamics as a source of Ultra-Long-Period oscillations

Many volcanic eruptions are shortly preceded by injection of new magma into a pre-existing, shallow (<10 km) magma chamber, causing convection and mixing between the incoming and resident magmas. These processes may trigger dyke propagation and further magma rise, inducing long-term (days to months) volcano deformation, seismic swarms, gravity anomalies, and changes in the composition of volcanic plumes and fumaroles, eventually culminating in an eruption. Although new magma injection into shallow magma chambers can lead to hazardous event, such injection is still not systematically detected and recognized. Here, we present the results of numerical simulations of magma convection and mixing in geometrically complex magmatic systems, and describe the multiparametric dynamics associated with buoyant magma injection. Our results reveal unexpected pressure trends and pressure oscillations in the Ultra-Long-Period (ULP) range of minutes, related to the generation of discrete plumes of rising magma. Very long pressure oscillation wavelengths translate into comparably ULP ground displacements with amplitudes of order 10⁻⁴–10⁻² m. Thus, new magma injection into magma chambers beneath volcanoes can be revealed by ULP ground displacement measured at the surface.     

Applying the relative hypocentre location approach: where was the 1980 November 23 Irpinia earthquake?

The purpose of this work is to evaluate under what conditions it is feasible and with what accuracy it is possible to locate the nucleation point of a large earthquake, given the availability of aftershocks located with high precision by the deployment of a local network. We experiment with several approaches and apply them lo the location of the epicentre of the 1980 November 23 Irpinia earthquake ( M ^w= 6.9).
First we use local P ^g phases selected to optimize the azimuthal coverage, obtaining a well-constrained location with a small statistical error, which typically underestimates the true hypocentre uncertainty.
We then exploit the relative location technique, obtaining stable, almost coincident solutions under three conditions: (1) using multiple independent master events to derive an average epicentre; (2) fitting simultaneously the larger data set for all available master events, using a forward approach; (3) conducting an a priori evaluation of the statistics of station and master events to separate model uncertainties and improve the statistical accuracy of the relative locations. Moreover, only by introducing station statistics can we achieve the desired accuracy of ≅ 1 km in constraining the rupture nucleation point of this large earthquake, and we show that the application of the relative location technique to uncleaned, unweighted data for a single master event provides only a crude epicentre with a confidence ellipse deceivingly smaller than the true hypocentre uncertainty.
The revised epicentre for the 1980 November 23 Irpinia earthquake (48.803 °N-15.302°E) validates the class of multidisciplinary reconstructions of the source process such as the model of Valensise et al. (1989), based on the hypocentre of Westaway & Jackson (1987), and is shifted by almost 13 km to the NW of the epicentre recently proposed by Westaway (1992).     

Downslope flow models of a Bingham liquid: Implications for lava flows

It is widely recognized that lavas behave as Bingham liquids, which are characterized by a yield stress σ and a plastic viscosity η. We consider two models describing downslope flows of a Bingham liquid with different aspect ratios A (= flow height/flow width): model 1 with A 1 and model 2 with A ≈ 1. Sufficiently uphill with respect to the front, such flows can be considered as laminar and locally isothermal. For both models, we obtain analytically the steady-state solution of the Navier-Stokes equations and the constitutive equation for a Bingham liquid. We study the flow height and velocity as functions of flow rate, rheological parameters and ground slope. It is found that such flows remain in the Newtonian regime at low yield stresses (σ 10³dyne/cm²), but the transition to the Bingham regime also depends on flow rate and occurs at higher values of σ for higher flow rates: for instance, a high aspect ratio flow (model 2) is still very close to the Newtonian regime at σ = 10⁴ dyne/cm², if the flow rate is greater than 10⁵ g/s. In the Bingham regime, flow heights are generally greater and flow velocities are smaller than in the Newtonian regime; moreover, flow heights are independent of flow rate, so that a change in flow rate results exclusively in a velocity change. After assuming a specific temperature dependence of σ and η between the solidus and the liquidus temperatures of an ideal Bingham liquid (1000°C and 1200 °C respectively), flow heights and velocities are examined as functions of temperature along the flow. Several effects observed in lava flows are predicted by these models and allow a more quantitative insight into the behaviour of lava flows.     

Gradual Fault Weakening with Seismic Slip: Inferences from the Seismic Sequences of L’Aquila, 2009, and Northridge, 1994

We estimate seismological fracture energies from two subsets of events selected from the seismic sequences of L’Aquila (2009), and Northridge (1994): 57 and 16 selected events, respectively, including the main shocks. Following Abercrombie and Rice (Geophys J Int 162: 406–424, 2005), we postulate that fracture energy (G) represents the post-failure integral of the dynamic weakening curve, which is described by the evolution of shear traction as a function of slip. Following a direct-wave approach, we compute mainshock-/aftershock-source spectral ratios, and analyze them using the approach proposed by Malagnini et al. (Pure Appl. Geophys., this issue, 2014) to infer corner frequencies and seismic moment. Our estimates of source parameters (including fracture energies) are based on best-fit grid-searches performed over empirical source spectral ratios. We quantify the source scaling of spectra from small and large earthquakes by using the MDAC formulation of Walter and Taylor (A revised Magnitude and Distance Amplitude Correction (MDAC2) procedure for regional seismic discriminants, 2001). The source parameters presented in this paper must be considered as point-source estimates representing averages calculated over specific ruptured portions of the fault area. In order to constrain the scaling of fracture energy with coseismic slip, we investigate two different slip-weakening functions to model the shear traction as a function of slip: (i) a power law, as suggested by Abercrombie and Rice (Geophys J Int 162: 406–424, 2005), and (ii) an exponential decay. Our results show that the exponential decay of stress on the fault allows a good fit between measured and predicted fracture energies, both for the main events and for their aftershocks, regardless of the significant differences in the energy budgets between the large (main) and small earthquakes (aftershocks). Using the power-law slip-weakening function would lead us to a very different situation: in our two investigated sequences, if the aftershock scaling is extrapolated to events with large slips, a power law (a la Abercrombie and Rice) would predict unrealistically large stress drops for large, main earthquakes. We conclude that the exponential stress evolution law has the advantage of avoiding unrealistic stress drops and unbounded fracture energies at large slip values, while still describing the abrupt shear-stress degradation observed in high-velocity laboratory experiments (e.g., Di Toro et al., Fault lubrication during earthquakes, Nature 2011).