Bedload tracing in a high‐sediment‐load mountain stream

This paper reports a radiofrequency identification (RFID) tracing experiment implemented in a high‐sediment‐load mountain stream typical of alpine gravel‐bed torrents. The study site is the Bouinenc Torrent, a tributary to the Bléone River in southeast France that drains a 38·9‐km² degraded catchment. In spring 2008, we deployed 451 tracers with b‐axis ranging from 23 to 520 mm. Tracers were seeded along eight cross‐sections located in the upstream part of the lowest 2·3 km of the stream. Three tracer inventories were implemented in July 2008, 2009 and 2010. Recovery rates calculated for mobile tracers declined from 78% in 2008 to 45% in 2009 and 25% in 2010. Observations of tracer displacement revealed very high sediment dispersion, with frontrunners having travelled more than 2 km only three months after their deployment. The declining recovery rate over time was interpreted as resulting from rapid dispersion rather than deep burial. We evaluated that 64% of the tracers deployed in the active channel were exported from the 2·3‐km study reach three years after the onset of the tracing experiment. Travel distances were characterized by right‐skewed and heavy‐tailed distributions, correctly fitted by a power‐law function. This supports the idea that in gravel‐bed rivers with abundant sediment supply relative to transport capacity, bedload transport can be viewed as a superdiffusive sediment dispersion process. It is also shown that tracers initially deployed in the low‐flow channel were characterized by a 15‐ to 30‐fold increase of mobility compared to tracers deployed in gravel bars. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A New Tool for Inundation Modeling: Community Modeling Interface for Tsunamis (ComMIT)

Almost 5 years after the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tragedy, the 10 August 2009 Andaman tsunami demonstrated that accurate forecasting is possible using the tsunami community modeling tool Community Model Interface for Tsunamis (ComMIT). ComMIT is designed for ease of use, and allows dissemination of results to the community while addressing concerns associated with proprietary issues of bathymetry and topography. It uses initial conditions from a precomputed propagation database, has an easy-to-interpret graphical interface, and requires only portable hardware. ComMIT was initially developed for Indian Ocean countries with support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). To date, more than 60 scientists from 17 countries in the Indian Ocean have been trained and are using it in operational inundation mapping.     

Use of Tunisian raw clay to remove dye from aqueous solution

This paper presents the first attempt to investigate the potential of Tunisian palygorskite-rich clay (Pal-clay) on the effectiveness of a textile dye “Direct orange 34” (DO34) removal. Important parameters which affect adsorption, such as initial solution pH, contact time, adsorbent mass, initial dye concentration, and temperature, were investigated. The raw Pal-clay was characterized using X-ray diffractometer (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), cation exchange capacity (CEC), specific surface area (SSA) analysis, and point of zero charge (PZC) determination. The results showed that the Pal-clay has a high selectivity for DO34 and had maximum removal efficiency reaching up to about 91 %. The highest adsorption capacity was obtained at 25 °C and pH of 2. The dye uptake process fitted well to the pseudo-second-order kinetic expression and was best described by the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. Intra-particle diffusion studies showed that the adsorption mechanism was not exclusively controlled by the diffusion step and was more likely to be governed by external mass transfer. Thermodynamic parameters such as change in free energy (ΔG°), enthalpy (ΔH°), and entropy (ΔS°) were also calculated. The parameters revealed that the adsorption of dye by the raw clay is spontaneous and exothermic. The results indicate that the Pal-clay has a moderate adsorption capacity towards anionic dye.     

Studies on the contribution of some geological factors to seismic hazard

The present study is primarily meant to make a separation of the amplification effects in the intensity distribution within the macroseismic field function of their different causes, i.e. the activation of some regional tectonic lines during the seismic motion and local seismogeological conditions.With this end in view, the methodology used consists of filtering the direct macroseismic observations by means of the weighted mean-values method and outlining the regional and local field anomalies.The regional anomaly map of the macroseismic field of the 4 March 1977 Vrancea earthquake, including the southern and south-eastern part of the Outer Carpathian Zone, has been analyzed. Some dislocations, located in the platform basement, which functioned as seismic energy amplifiers during the event, have been identified.The results obtained can be used in seismotectonic and microzoning studies.Paper presented at the 21st General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission, Sofia, 1988.     

fsr: An R package for fuzzy spatial data handling

Spatial libraries are core components in many geographic information systems, spatial database systems, and spatial data science projects. These libraries provide the implementation of spatial type systems that include spatial data types and a large diversity of geometric operations. Their focus relies on handling crisp spatial objects, which are characterized by an exact location and a precisely defined extent, shape, and boundary in space. However, there is an increasing interest in analyzing spatial phenomena characterized by fuzzy spatial objects, which have inexact locations, vague boundaries, and/or blurred interiors. Unfortunately, available spatial libraries do not provide support for fuzzy spatial objects. In this article, we describe the R package named fsr, which is based on the Spatial Plateau Algebra and is publicly available at https://cran.r-project.org/package=fsr . Our tool provides methods for building fuzzy spatial objects as spatial plateau objects and conducting exploratory spatial data analysis by using fuzzy spatial operations.     

Garnet pyroxenite and eclogite in the Bohemian Massif: geochemical evidence for Variscan recycling of subducted lithosphere

High-temperature, high-pressure eclogite and garnet pyroxenite occur as lenses in garnet peridotite bodies of the Gföhl nappe in the Bohemian Massif. The high-pressure assemblages formed in the mantle and are important for allowing investigations of mantle compositions and processes. Eclogite is distinguished from garnet pyroxenite on the basis of elemental composition, with mg number <80, Na₂O > 0.75 wt.%, Cr₂O₃ < 0.15 wt.% and Ni < 400 ppm. Considerable scatter in two-element variation diagrams and the common modal layering of some eclogite bodies indicate the importance of crystal accumulation in eclogite and garnet pyroxenite petrogenesis. A wide range in isotopic composition of clinopyroxene separates [_Nd, +5.4 to –6.0; (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr)_i, 0.70314–0.71445; ¹⁸O_SMOW, 3.8–5.8%o] requires that subducted oceanic crust is a component in some melts from which eclogite and garnet pyroxenite crystallized. Variscan Sm-Nd ages were obtained for garnet-clinopyroxene pairs from Dobeovice eclogite (338 Ma), Úhrov eclogite (344 Ma) and Nové Dvory garnet pyroxenite (343 Ma). Gföhl eclogite and garnet pyroxenite formed by high-pressure crystal accumulation (±trapped melt) from transient melts in the lithosphere, and the source of such melts was subducted, hydrothermally altered oceanic crust, including subducted sediments. Much of the chemical variation in the eclogites can be explained by simple fractional crystallization, whereas variation in the pyroxenites indicates fractional crystallization accompanied by some assimilation of the peridotite host.     

Synthesis of cordierite using industrial waste fly ash

Fly ash is a product arising from coal combustion in thermal power plants. It represents a major source of environmental pollution. It is well known by its chemical composition rich of SiO₂ and Al₂O₃. With the aim of preserving the environment against this contamination, fly ash was used along with the starting materials for producing glass cordierite (2MgO, 2Al₂O₃, 5SiO₂). Four formulations were developed by mixing the silica gel, magnesium chloride (MgCl₂.6H₂O) and fly ash in the percentages enclosing the stoichiometry of cordierite (2MgO, 2Al₂O₃, 5SiO₂). Different experimental techniques (DTA/TGA, X-ray diffraction, FTIR and SEM) were used to characterise the prepared formulations. The results shown that for all formulations, a cordierite phase was obtained at 1200 °C along with several secondary phases such as mullite, cristobalite, silicon oxide, enstatite and spinel. At 1300 °C, pure indialite (α-cordierite) was obtained along with a small amount of spinel. The four formulations sintered at 1200 °C exhibit a homogenous morphology and high porosity. The acicular-shaped indialite grains were observed in both formulations with excess of alumina and excess of magnesia.     

Alteration kinetics of natural stones due to sodium sulfate crystallization: can reality match experimental simulations?

Salt decay is a very destructive mechanism that affects frequently the porous building materials of our architectural heritage. Sodium sulfate is one of the salts found in this context. It usually demonstrates high destructive power in salt crystallization tests because it can crystallize not only during evaporative processes but also when the temperature drops or when the salt solution comes into contact with pre-existing crystals. However, the use of extreme temperatures or successive wet/dry cycles also makes these tests unrepresentative of reality. To verify whether sodium sulfate can also be so destructive in field conditions, we have performed crystallization tests consisting of a single isothermal drying event. Three natural stones, relevant for the architectural heritage, were used for the purpose: Bentheimer sandstone, Ançã limestone, and a current Portuguese limestone of low porosity. The stones gave rise to distinct salt decay patterns: efflorescence, multilayer delamination and unilayer delamination, respectively. These morphological alterations were characterized at the micrometer scale by a new method based on what we have called the alteration kinetics curve. Such curve is calculated from topographic profiles obtained by a non-contact optical technique. The multilayer and unilayer delamination decay were also monitored by time-lapse photography. The work led us to conclude that sodium sulfate can indeed be also very destructive in field-representative conditions. Moreover, it showed that the optical method can be a valuable aid in the development of more realistic salt crystallization tests.     

Dip‐adaptive singular‐value decomposition filtering for seismic reflection enhancement

We present a singular value decomposition (SVD) filtering method for the enhancement of coherent reflections and for attenuation of noise. The method is applied in two steps. First normal move‐out (NMO) correction is applied to shot or CMP records, with the purpose of flattening the reflections. We use a spatial SVD filter with a short sliding window to enhance coherent horizontal events. Then the data are sorted in common‐offset panels and the local dip is estimated for each panel. The next SVD filtering is performed on a small number of traces and a small number of time samples centred around the output sample position. Data in a local window are corrected for linear moveout corresponding to the dips before SVD. At the central time sample position, we sum over the dominant eigenimages of a few traces, corresponding to SVD dip filtering. We illustrate the method using land seismic data from the Tacutu basin, located in the north‐east of Brazil. The results show that the proposed method is effective and is able to reveal reflections masked by ground‐roll and other types of noise.     

Physical evidence of the effect of vertical cyclic loading on soil improvement by rigid piles: a small-scale laboratory experiment using Digital Image Correlation

This paper presents an experimental study focusing on the mechanisms taking place in a granular platform supported by piles in soft soil under vertical cyclic loading. An original three-dimensional laboratory model was developed, with a scale factor of 1/10 on the length. The model contains 20 rigid piles, and the compressible soil is explicitly simulated by a soft material. The case of a thin granular load transfer platform overlaid by a rigid slab is studied. Tests were performed under monotonic or cyclic loading applied on the surface using a pressurized membrane. The analysis is based on a force and displacement sensor instrumentation and application of a Digital Image Correlation technique. The evaluation of the load transfer onto the piles and the settlements in the platform are some of the main points under the scope of this study. The effect of the cyclic loading and the sequence of loading on the structure’s response are examined by a comparative study between the series of cyclic and monotonic tests. Settlement accumulation and increase in the load transmitted to the piles were observed during the cycles. The image analysis gives access to the displacement field within the granular platform, and its evolution during the cycles could be analysed.