The geochemistry of uranium occurrences and speciation in groundwater of Chinnar sub basin,South India

An attempt has been made in Chinnar sub basin of Dharmapuri district, South India to isolate the geochemistry of uranium occurrences in groundwater. The geology of the area is mainly of charnockite and granite gneiss. Groundwater samples were collected for two different seasons post and pre monsoon in two different litho units (granite gneiss and charnockite) and analysed for major, minor and uranium concentrations. Higher uranium (18.45 μg L^?1) has been recorded during pre monsoon season in granite gneiss with increasing pH. The saturation index calculation for the groundwater isolated minerals like uaraninite, coffinite, haiweeite and soddyite to be precipitating and uranium oxides like UO_2.25, UO_2.25beta, UO_2.33beta as oversaturated. The Eh-pH diagram attempted represents solubility of uraninite within the pH range of 6.0 to 8.0. The study isolate uranium in groundwater of the study area is controlled by the presence of (U₄O₉) uranium oxide.     

A Spatially-Analytical Scheme for Surface Temperatures and Conductive Heat Fluxes in Urban Canopy Models

In the urban environment, surface temperatures and conductive heat fluxes through solid media (roofs, walls, roads and vegetated surfaces) are of paramount importance for the comfort of residents (indoors) and for microclimatic conditions (outdoors). Fully discrete numerical methods are currently used to model heat transfer in these solid media in parametrisations of built surfaces commonly used in weather prediction models. These discrete methods usually use finite difference schemes in both space and time. We propose a spatially-analytical scheme where the temperature field and conductive heat fluxes are solved analytically in space. Spurious numerical oscillations due to temperature discontinuities at the sublayer interfaces can be avoided since the method does not involve spatial discretisation. The proposed method is compared to the fully discrete method for a test case of one-dimensional heat conduction with sinusoidal forcing. Subsequently, the analytical scheme is incorporated into the offline version of the current urban canopy model (UCM) used in the Weather Research and Forecasting model and the new UCM is validated against field measurements using a wireless sensor network and other supporting measurements over a suburban area under real-world conditions. Results of the comparison clearly show the advantage of the proposed scheme over the fully discrete model, particularly for more complicated cases.     

Hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico: Does the science support the Plan to Reduce,Mitigate, and Control Hypoxia?

We update and reevaluate the scientific information on the distribution, history, and causes of continental shelf hypoxia that supports the 2001 Action Plan for Reducing, Mitigating, and Controlling Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico (Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force 2001), incorporating data, publications, and research results produced since the 1999 integrated assessment. The metric of mid-summer hypoxic area on the LouisianaTexas shelf is an adequate and suitable measure for continued efforts to reduce nutrients loads from the Mississippi River and hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico as outlined in the Action Plan. More frequent measurements of simple metrics (e.g., area and volume) from late spring through late summer would ensure that the metric is representative of the system in any given year and useful in a public discourse of conditions and causes. The long-term data on hypoxia, sources of nutrients, associated biological parameters, and paleoindicators continue to verify and strengthen the relationship between the nitratenitrogen load of the Mississippi River, the extent of hypoxia, and changes in the coastal ecosystem (eutrophication and worsening hypoxia). Multiple lines of evidence, some of them representing independent data sources, are consistent with the big picture pattern of increased eutrophication as a result of long-term nutrient increases that result in excess carbon production and accumulation and, ultimately, bottom water hypoxia. The additional findings arising since 1999 strengthen the science supporting the Action Plan that focuses on reducing nutrient loads, primarily nitrogen, through multiple actions to reduce the size of the hypoxic zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico.     

Sr-isotope stratigraphy of the Upper Jurassic of central Portugal (Lusitanian Basin) based on oyster shells

Strontium isotope stratigraphy was performed on oyster shells from the Late Jurassic of the Lusitanian Basin (central Portugal). This represents the first approach to obtain numerical ages for these strata. The new chronostratigraphic data provide a more precise age determination of several units. After a basin-wide hiatus sedimentation in the Late Jurassic is proven in the Cabo Mondego and Cabaços formations to resume as early as the Middle Oxfordian. The Alcobaça formation can be placed in the latest Late Oxfordian to Late Kimmeridgian, while data from the upper part of the Abadia Formation indicate an Early to Late Kimmeridgian age. The Farta Pao formation ranges from the latest Kimmeridgian to the latest Tithonian. The largely synchronous Sobral, Arranhó I, and Arranhó II members are overlain by the late Early to Late Tithonian Freixial Member. The brief, local carbonate incursion of the Arranhó I member marks the Kimmeridgian–Tithonian boundary. Oysters are shown once more to be suitable for strontium isotope studies. Their calcitic shells are often unaffected by diagenesis. In particular for marginal marine Jurassic and Cretaceous strata, where belemnites are usually absent, oysters may serve as a valuable tool for isotope stratigraphy.     

New-type urbanization in China: Predicted trends and investment demand for 2015–2030

The future development of new-type urbanization has drawn great attention from both the government and public alike. In this context, the present study had three related research aims. Firstly, it sought to predict the urbanization and population dynamics in China at both national and provincial levels for the period of 2015 to 2030. Secondly, on this basis, it sought to examine the spatial variation of urbanization given the predicted national urbanization rate of 70.12%. Thirdly, it sought to estimate and evaluate the national and provincial demands of investment in the development of new-type urbanization. The main conclusions from this study were as follows: (1) The population size and urbanization rate will reach 1.445 billion and 70.12%, respectively, from 2015 to 2030. (2) The demographic dividend will vanish when the population pressure reaches its maximum. During this period, there will be 70.16 million urban population born. The suburban population that becomes urbanized will be 316.7 million, and thus the net increase in urban population will reach 386 million. (3) Although the urbanization rate of every Chinese province will increase during 2015–2030, it will do so unequally, while differences in urbanization quality among provinces will also be substantial. In some provinces, moreover, the urbanization quality is not compatible with their eco-social development. (4) A total of 4,105,380 billion yuan is required to fund new-type urbanization and the investment demand for each province varies greatly; for example, Guangdong province requires the most funding, amounting to approximately 148 times that required by Tibet, the province in least need of funding. In the final part of this study, policy suggestions concerning the investment of the new-type urbanization are put forward and discussed.     

Statistical properties of aftershock rate decay: Implications for the assessment of continuing activity

Aftershock rates seem to follow a power law decay, but the assessment of the aftershock frequency immediately after an earthquake, as well as during the evolution of a seismic excitation remains a demand for the imminent seismic hazard. The purpose of this work is to study the temporal distribution of triggered earthquakes in short time scales following a strong event, and thus a multiple seismic sequence was chosen for this purpose. Statistical models are applied to the 1981 Corinth Gulf sequence, comprising three strong (M = 6.7, M = 6.5, and M = 6.3) events between 24 February and 4 March. The non-homogeneous Poisson process outperforms the simple Poisson process in order to model the aftershock sequence, whereas the Weibull process is more appropriate to capture the features of the short-term behavior, but not the most proper for describing the seismicity in long term. The aftershock data defines a smooth curve of the declining rate and a long-tail theoretical model is more appropriate to fit the data than a rapidly declining exponential function, as supported by the quantitative results derived from the survival function. An autoregressive model is also applied to the seismic sequence, shedding more light on the stationarity of the time series.     

Numerical analysis for random temperature fields of embankment in cold regions

The stochastic finite element equations for random temperature are obtained using the first-order per-turbation technique taking into account the random thermal properties and boundary condition, based on heat transfer variational principle. The local average method for 2-D is used to discretize random fields. Then, the random temperature fields of embankment in cold regions are investigated on condi-tion that the thermal properties and boundary condition are taken as random fields, respectively, by using the program, which is written by the methods. The expected value of temperature field and the standard deviation of the temperature field of embankment in cold regions are obtained and analyzed.     

Power law relating 10.7 cm flux to sunspot number

To investigate the relation between observations of the 10.7 cm flux and the international sunspot number so that a physical unit may be ascribed to historical records, both polynomial and power law models are developed giving the radio flux as a function of sunspot number and vice versa. Bayesian data analysis is used to estimate the model parameters and to discriminate between the models. The effect on the parameter uncertainty and on the relative evidence of normalizing the measure of fit is investigated. The power law giving flux as a function of sunspot number is found to be the most plausible model and may be used to estimate the radio flux from historical sunspot observations.     

Comparison of two creep degradation modeling approaches for soft structured soils

The creep degradation is a common phenomenon for soft structured clays. In this paper, the creep degradation behavior for soft structured clays is first studied by combining intrinsic creep behavior and the structure indicator. A creep-implicit model and a creep-explicit model corresponding to a stress-based and a creep-based structure indicators are developed, respectively, under one-dimensional condition. Parameters determination for both models is straightforward from oedometer tests. Coupled with consolidation theory, both models are used to simulate oedometer tests with different structural levels and load durations on three clays. The predictive ability of the two models on creep behavior, creep degradation behavior and evolution of structure indicator is analyzed. The relationship between the two structure indicators is discussed based on experimental results. The comparison between experimental and numerical results demonstrates that both models can accurately describe the creep degradation behavior of soft structured clay under one-dimensional loading.     

Using low-density discrete Airborne Laser Scanning data to assess the potential carbon dioxide emission in case of a fire event in a Mediterranean pine forest

The aim of study is to map the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission of the aboveground tree biomass (AGB) in case of a fire event. The suitability of low point density, discrete, multiple-return, Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data and the influence of several characteristics of these data and the study area on the results obtained have been evaluated. A sample of 45 circular plots representative of Pinus halepensis Miller stands were used to fit and validate the model of AGB. The ALS point clouds were processed to obtain the independent variables and a multivariate linear regression analysis between field data and ALS-derived variables allowed estimation of AGB. Then, the influence of several characteristics on the residuals of the model was analyzed. Finally, conversion factors were applied to obtain the CO₂ values. The AGB model presented a R² value of 0.84 with a relative root-mean-square error of 27.35%. This model included ALS variables related to vegetation height variability and to canopy density. Terrain slope, aspect, canopy cover, scan angle and the number of laser returns did not influence AGB estimations at plot level.