Large-scale ripple marks on the shelf margin of the Northern Okinawa Trough

Trains of large-scale ripple marks (megaripples and sand waves) were found on the Amakusa and East China Sea shelves bordering the northern Okinawa Trough. Side-scan sonar surveys were carried out in 1974 and 1976 to investigate sea-floor features lying along a proposed submarine cable line. Megaripples were found on the outer margin of the Amakusa shelf between depths of 140 and 200 m. The megaripples were especially well developed at a depth of 167 m. They were typically straight-transverse crested with asymmetrical profiles, and measured 7 to 15 m in wavelength and 0.4 to 1.4 m in waveheight. Formation of the megaripples on the Amakusa shelf is probably controlled by relatively complex oceanographic conditions. A secondary circulation associated with the Gotô-nada clock-wise Current may be responsible for formation of the ripple marks. Local vorticities generated in the coastal boundary layer as a result of curvature of the Gotô-nada Current are known to cause the complex flow pattern at the Gotô and Amakusa shelf margins. The main semidiurnal (M₂) tidal current may also interact with these fluid processes.On the East China Sea shelf, megaripples and sand waves were found between depths of 140 and 220 m. Sand waves (200 m in wavelength) were observed in seismic reflection profiles. Large-scale lunate megaripples were observed at a depth of 154 m by the side-scan sonar. They had wavelengths of 10 to 30 m and waveheights of 1 to as high as 3 m. It appears from the types and nature of distribution of the megaripples that they are responding to the present-day flow regime, and it is partly ascertained from our observations over an interval of two years that the megaripples appear to be short-term response elements compared wit hteh sand waves. We conclude that the megaripples on the East China Sea shelf are current-formed during peak typhoon flow in August to November. From their distribution, the long term path of the main flow of the Tsushima Current is inferred at the edge of the East China Sea shelf. An area of low sediment mud content (less than 20 per cent) coincides with this path giving further support to our interpretation.     

Relaxation method for pounding action between adjacent buildings at expansion joint

Earthquake‐induced structural pounding frequently causes serious damage to buildings, particularly at the expansion joint (hereafter, EXPJ) between adjacent buildings. Because the EXPJ width in existing reinforced concrete buildings is usually very small, typically about 5 cm for school buildings in Japan, collision avoidance cannot be achieved by seismic retrofitting. This paper presents an experimental investigation into an effective method for reducing severe structural damage due to pounding at the EXPJ between narrowly separated buildings. The method involves inserting a shock‐absorbing material such as rubber into the EXPJ gap. The efficiency of the proposed method is evaluated by laboratory shaking tests using two model buildings. Furthermore, a lumped mass model is used to carry out a collision analysis in order to numerically investigate the influence of such a shock‐absorbing material. Both the numerical and experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The validity of the proposed method is also demonstrated by numerical simulation of adjacent 10‐story steel buildings with an EXPJ width of 5 cm. The force, acceleration and velocity produced by earthquake‐induced structural pounding are found to be remarkably mitigated by inserting a soft shock‐absorbing material into the EXPJ gap. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing impervious area ratios of grid-based land-use classifications on the example of an urban watershed

ABSTRACT

When applying a distributed hydrological model in urban watersheds, grid-based land-use classification data with 10 m resolution are typically used in Japan. For urban hydrological models, the estimation of the impervious area ratio (IAR) of each land-use classification is a crucial factor for accurate runoff analysis. In order to assess the IAR accurately, we created a set of vector-based “urban landscape GIS delineation” data for a typical urban watershed in Tokyo. By superimposing the vector-based delineation map on the grid-based map, the IAR of each grid-based land-use classification was estimated, after calculating the IARs of all grid cells in the entire urban watershed. As a result, we were able to calculate the frequency distribution of IAR for each land-use classification, as well as the spatial distribution of IARs for the urban watershed. It is evident from the results that the reference values of IAR for the land-use classifications were estimated very roughly and inherited errors of between about 7% and 70%, which corresponds to more than 100 mm increase of direct runoff for the 1500 mm annual average precipitation.

Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Guest editor E. Volpi     

Response of a summertime anticyclonic eddy to wind forcing in Funka Bay,Hokkaido, Japan

Flow fluctuations inside an anticyclonic eddy in summertime Funka Bay were examined using three moorings and hydrographic data. The flow pattern above a sharp pycnocline with a concave isopycnal structure during the mooring period was characterized by high mean kinetic energy and relatively low eddy kinetic energy. The ratios of eddy to mean kinetic energy were equal to or less than one, and the mean flow field and isopycnal structure indicated the existence of a stable anticyclonic eddy above the sharp pycnocline under approximate geostrophic balance. Larger flow fluctuations with periods longer than 7 days were dominant inside the eddy. The low-frequency flow fluctuations are accompanied by north to northeastward movement of the eddy with deepening of the pycnocline and spin-up of the anticyclonic circulation. The wind field over Funka Bay is characterized by bay-scale wind fluctuations. The bay-scale winds are greatly influenced by the land topography around Funka Bay, resulting in non-uniform structure with significant wind stress curl. The bay-scale wind fluctuations are termed “locally modified wind” in the present study. The locally modified wind has a negative (positive) wind stress curl in the central–northeastern (southwestern) region of Funka Bay. The north to northeastward movement of the eddy is caused by horizontal non-uniform supply of vorticity from the locally modified wind forcing by the Ekman pumping process. Through this process, the anticyclonic circulation is enhanced (weakened) in the central–northeastern (southwestern) part of the eddy, resulting in the eddy moving north to northeastward with the pycnocline deepening and spin-up of the anticyclonic circulation. The locally modified wind forcing induces low-frequency flow fluctuations through the movement of the eddy in summertime Funka Bay.     

An overview of decadal climate predictability in a multi-model ensemble by climate model MIROC

Decadal climate predictability is examined in hindcast experiments by a multi-model ensemble using three versions of the coupled atmosphere-ocean model MIROC. In these hindcast experiments, initial conditions are obtained from an anomaly assimilation procedure using the observed oceanic temperature and salinity with prescribed natural and anthropogenic forcings on the basis of the historical data and future emission scenarios in the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. Results of the multi-model ensemble in our hindcast experiments show that predictability of surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies on decadal timescales mostly originates from externally forced variability. Although the predictable component of internally generated variability has considerably smaller SAT variance than that of externally forced variability, ocean subsurface temperature variability has predictive skills over almost a decade, particularly in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic where dominant signals associated with Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) are observed. Initialization enhances the predictive skills of AMO and PDO indices and slightly improves those of global mean temperature anomalies. Improvement of these predictive skills in the multi-model ensemble is higher than that in a single-model ensemble.     

Geneses of Two Types of Mafic Rocks to Carry Placer‐Magnetite Ores in the Sanin Granitic Belt,SW Japan

Two types of mafic rocks from the central Sanin district, and their mafic minerals, were studied chemically and microscopically. They are classified into pyroxene‐containing gabbroid and hornblende–biotite quartz diorite. The gabbroid had higher color index but lower magnetite content; while the quartz diorite had lower color index, but higher magnetite content. The magnetite contents are also related to the amounts of hydrous mafic silicates. The gabbroic magma having pyroxene–amphibole assemblage, originated in the upper mantle, was considered essentially anhydrous, but became partly hydrous on the way to the site of solidification in the continental crust, and crystallized some magnetites with hypersthene and amphibole. The quartz dioritic magma was formed by partial melting of possibly subducting ocean‐floor basalts, once exposed to the sea‐floor then altered; thus the magmas became hydrous and oxidized originally, and precipitated abundant magnetite and hydrous mafic silicates from the early crystallization stage onward. Their weathered parts provided the most placer magnetite ores in the history.     

Simple two-dimensional model of propagation of magma-filled cracks

The direction of propagation of magma-filled cracks was theoretically examined for a two-dimensional model. The analytical result indicates that magma-filled cracks, which have magmatic pressures larger than a critical value, propagate in parallel with the maximum principal direction of far-field stress. This may give one of theoretical grounds to the dike method by which the regional stress field is estimated.     

The S pole distribution on magnetic grains in pyroxenite determined by magnetotactic bacteria

North-seeking bacteria (NSB) with 1 μm diameters migrate to the S pole only. They were applied to identify the S pole determination on a polished surface of magnetite-rich pyroxenite whose natural remanent magnetization (NRM) intensity was 5.64 × 10⁻³ Am² kg⁻¹. The microscopic observations were performed under dark-field illumination in a controlled magnetic field to 10 μT. The NSB formed clusters on limited areas of magnetite grains and scattered over the whole magnetite grains.

The NRM decreased to 1.02 × 10⁻⁵ Am² kg⁻¹ by alternating field (AF) demagnetization to 60 mT but no clusters appeared, while small populations of the NSB scattered on each grain. These scattered bacteria may gather toward the S pole resulting from magnetic domain walls.

When the sample acquired saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM) to 1 T, the NSB formed dense clusters at the opposite side to the applied field direction on the many grains as expected. This evidence indicated that the NSB can be useful micro-organisms for the determination of fine magnetic structures. Some grains also had NSB clusters at the edge of the grains toward the field direction or did not exhibit any clusters. The complicated distribution of the clusters (the S poles) may be explained by shape anisotropy of the magnetic grains.     

Interactions between topographic irregularities and seismic ground motion investigated using a hybrid FD-FE method

A hybrid method combining finite element and 4th-order finite difference techniques is developed to model SH and P-SV seismic wave propagation in a 2D elastic medium with irregular surface topography. Both the classic staggered grid finite difference scheme and the partially staggered grid scheme are tested. The accuracy of the hybrid method is studied by comparison with a semi-analytical and another numerical method. Subsequently, to study the amplification, numerical simulations of seismic wave propagation in a series of hills are carried out and compared with the single-hill case. Depending on the position of the source in relation to the topography, the ratio between the heights and lengths of the hills or the ratio between the lengths of the hills and the wavelength, the presence of several hills as opposed to a single one can increase the amplification effect due to topography. This study highlights the fact that, when evaluating topographic site effects, surrounding topography must be taken into account in addition to local topography.