Soil treatment with organic non-traditional additives for the improvement of earthworks

The aim of this study was to characterise the technical and environmental implications of non-traditional treatments of a low-plasticity compacted silt (PI = 14) and to investigate their actions both at the micro- and macro-structural scales. Three non-traditional additives derived from industrial vegetal by-products were studied. These additives are classified as an acid solution, an enzymatic solution (ES) and calcium lignosulfonate (LS). The first step was to characterise the effects of these treatments on Proctor compaction, bearing capacity, unconfined compressive strength and stiffness. The index properties of the treated samples were also measured to assess changes in the interaction between soil minerals and the additives. These experimental results showed that the 0.002 % ES and 2.0 % LS treatments were the most effective at improving the soil dry density and allowing the soil to reach optimum density using 3 % less water or 25 % less compaction energy. In a second step, the mechanisms involved in the treatment were investigated. A microscopic study was conducted including scanning electron microscopy and mercury injection porosity tests; measurements of the surface tension of non-traditional additives mixed with water completed the study and demonstrated that the ES treatment has the same surfactant properties as sodium dodecyl sulphate, a common surfactant. Compaction tests confirmed that the behaviours of the soil after ES and sodium dodecyl sulphate treatments were similar.     

Identifying influence areas with connectivity analysis – application to the local perturbation of heterogeneity distribution for history matching

Numerical representations of a target reservoir can help to assess the potential of different development plans. To be as predictive as possible, these representations or models must reproduce the data (static, dynamic) collected on the field. However, constraining reservoir models to dynamic data – the history-matching process – can be very time consuming. Many uncertain parameters need to be taken into account, such as the spatial distribution of petrophysical properties. This distribution is mostly unknown and usually represented by millions of values populating the reservoir grid. Dedicated parameterization techniques make it possible to investigate many spatial distributions from a small number of parameters. The efficiency of the matching process can be improved from the perturbation of specific regions of the reservoir. Distinct approaches can be considered to define such regions. For instance, one can refer to streamlines. The leading idea is to identify areas that influence the production behavior where the data are poorly reproduced. Here, we propose alternative methods based on connectivity analysis to easily provide approximate influence areas for any fluid-flow simulation. The reservoir is viewed as a set of nodes connected by weighted links that characterize the distance between two nodes. The path between nodes (or grid blocks) with the lowest cumulative weight yields an approximate flow path used to define influence areas. The potential of the approach is demonstrated on the basis of 2D synthetic cases for the joint integration of production and 4D saturation data, considering several formulations for the weights attributed to the links.     

Isotope geochemistry of Paleoproterozoic metacarbonates from Itatuba,Borborema Province,Northeastern Brazil: Evidence of marble melting within a collisional suture

Strongly-deformed marbles may be easily confused with linear and elongated carbonatite intrusions. Both rocks may present similar texture and foliation to the host rock, or even cross cutting field relationships, which could be interpreted either as igneous or high-grade metamorphosed marble. Diagnostic criteria are even more complex when there is evidence of melting of the metasedimentary carbonate rock, such as has been described in the Himalayas and in the Eastern Ghats, India.In the Alto Moxotó Terrane, a high-grade gneissic domain of the Borborema Province, Northeastern Brazil, there are metacarbonates associated with banded gneisses and different metaplutonic rocks. Field evidence indicates the absence of other metasedimentary rocks associated with these marbles, thus suggesting that these carbonates were separated from other siliciclastic metasedimentary rocks. The presence of marble also suggests that it may represent the initial stage of a crustal carbon recycling into the mantle. These marbles present many field similarities to carbonatites (e.g., fluid-flow structure) and, together with metagranites and metamafic intrusions, may represent a major collisional tectonic suture.A detailed study of the carbon, oxygen and strontium isotopic composition of these marbles is presented. This study aims to identify the origin of the different isotopic components. It is argued that these rocks were subjected to temperature and pressure conditions that were sufficiently high to have melted them. The isotopic data presented here support this interpretation and indicate the mixing of two components: (i) one characterized by radiogenic Sr isotopes and mantle-like carbon isotopes, which is associated with the gneissic and mafic rocks, and (ii) another characterized by low ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios and highly positive δ¹³C values. Available geochemical data for the upper Paleoproterozoic indicate that the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of ocean water, varying between 0.7050 (2.25 ± 0.25 Ga) and 0.7047 (1.91 Ga), falls within the lower range of the samples from Itatuba and thus reinforces the interpretation that these marbles are sedimentary-derived and were partially contaminated by interaction with the host gneissic and mafic rocks.     

Zur Entwicklung der luftelektrischen Grundanschauungen

Zusammenfassung Die luftelektrischen Grundanschauungen haben im Laufe der Entwicklung mehrfach erhebliche Wandlungen durchgemacht. Auf die Entwicklungsperiode, in der man die auffallenden Parallelen im Verhalten luftelektrischer und meteorologischer Größen aufzuklären sich bestrebte — sie findet etwa mitF. Exner ihr Ende—, folgt eine Phase bewußter Emanzipation der luftelektrischen Forschung, während der man in den meteorologischen Einflüssen nur Störungen sieht. Etwa in den zwanziger Jahren beginnt dann eine Reaktion gegen dieses Isolationsbestreben und mit der früher lange vergeblich versuchten Aufklärung des luftelektrischen Grund- und Existenzproblems leitet sich eine neue Entwicklungsphase ein, die man sinngemäß als korrelative Phase bezeichnen möchte. Nach einer eingehenden und nach den inneren gründen dieser mehrmaligen Schwenkung suchenden Darstellung wird im zweiten Teil der vorliegenden Arbeit das Problem der luftelektrischen Tagesgänge behandelt und als Beweis für die komplexe elektro-meteorologische Arbeits- und Betrachtungsweise in seinen neuesten Entwicklungen kurz dargestellt. Die enge Verbindung zwischen dem luftelektrischen Geschehen und dem vertikalen atmosphärischen Massenaustausch legt die Benutzung luftelektrischer Untersuchungen in der Austausch-und Luftkörperforschung nahe.

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Summary In the course of the development the fundamental notions about atmospheric electricity have experienced considerable changes. In a first period expiring about withF. Exner, one tried to explain the striking parallels of electrical and meteorological phenomena; then follows a period with a distinct emancipation of atmospheric electricity, where meteorological influences were admitted but as perturbations. In the twenties begins a reaction to this isolationist views and a new evolution starts which might be called correlative phase. The author analyses and explains these repeated changes, and in a second part he discusses the problem of the diurnal variation of atmospheric electricity and shows the complexity of electro-meteorological relations. The close connexion between the phenomena of atmospheric electricity and the turbulent vertical exchange urges to employ investigations of atmospheric electricity for investigations in exchange and air-mass research.

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Résumé En matière d'électricité atmosphérique les points de vue ont souvent varié considérablement. Dans une première période allant jusqu'àF. Exner environ, on a essayé d'expliquer le parallélisme évident entre les phénomènes électriques et météorologiques; puis on a envisagé les premiers pour eux-mêmes, indépendamment des influences météorologiques considérées alors comme des «perturbations». Autour des années 1920, une réaction se dessine contre cette discrimination, et une nouvelle phase commence que l'on pourrait appeler corrélative. Après une analyse approfondie de ces fluctuations de la théorie, l'auteur aborde dans la deuxième partie de son étude le problème des variations diurnes des phénomènes électriques et montre la complexité des relations les unissant à ceux de l'atmosphère ellemême. La liaison étroite entre les phénomènes de l'électricité atmosphérique et les échanges turbulents de masse dans la verticale prouve l'utilité des recherches électriques pour l'étude de cet échange et pour celle des masses d'air de l'atmosphère.

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Mit 14 Textabbildungen.

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Herrn Prof. Dr.H. Benndorf zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmet.     

Chronostratigraphy and paleoclimatic meaning of cryogenic deformations in the Central European loess

Cryoturbations in loess reflect cold and wet environments but not necessarily permafrost. Only flat bottomed cryoturbations are indicative of it. Outside the permafrost zone they occur during the wet period of the last glaciation: during the early Weichselian, the lower pleniglacial, the end of the middle pleniglacial and the late glacial. Their morphology ist related to the frost susceptibility of the superimposed layers, expressed in form of differential frost heaving, ruled by the drainage quality and the frost susceptibility gradient. Their diagenesis is discussed.     

High-dimensional geostatistical history matching

Hydrocarbon reservoir modelling and characterisation is a challenging subject within the oil and gas industry due to the lack of well data and the natural heterogeneities of the Earth’s subsurface. Integrating historical production data into the geo-modelling workflow, commonly designated by history matching, allows better reservoir characterisation and the possibility of predicting the reservoir behaviour. We present herein a geostatistical-based multi-objective history matching methodology. It starts with the generation of an initial ensemble of the subsurface petrophysical property of interest through stochastic sequential simulation. Each model is then ranked according the match between its dynamic response, after fluid flow simulation, and the observed available historical production data. This enables building regionalised Pareto fronts and the definition of a large ensemble of optimal subsurface Earth models that fit all the observed production data without compromising the exploration of the uncertainty space. The proposed geostatistical multi-objective history matching technique is successfully implemented in a benchmark synthetic reservoir dataset, the PUNQ-S3, where 12 objectives are targeted.     

U-Pb dating of an early paleozoic bimodal magmatism in the french Massif Central and of its further metamorphic evolution

In the Marvejols area (Southern french Massif Central), the gneissic Marvejols supergroup is overthrust on the metasedimentary “Série du Lot”, deposited in part prior to 540 Ma. The allochtonous terranes are characterized by the occurrence of a leptyno-amphibolitic group, a complex association of mafic and felsic rocks of igneous and sedimentary derivation. A 480±10 Ma age has been obtained by U-Pb dating of zircons, for the crystallization of both mafic and felsic meta-igneous rocks. These rocks were emplaced during an important extensional tectonics. Relics of eclogites, pyrigarnites, coronite gabbros and HP-trondhjemites are clear evidence for a further HP-HT event dated at 415±6 Ma on zircons from a HP trondhjemite. Subsequently, the Marvejols supergroup underwent an amphibolite facies metamorphism with incipient mobilization dated at 345±10 Ma. Rifting and thinning of the continental crust in Cambro-Ordovician times appears to be a major geodynamic feature which could account for the thermal events often referred to the “Caledonian” orogeny. The Silurian (415 Ma) age of the HP episode is clearly older than the main Variscan tectonometamorphic event; it is in agreement with Rb-Sr dating of the Moldanubian granulites and with some radiometric data from Southern Brittany (France). These results point to a compressive phase, probably in a subduction context, in view of the high pressures reached (15–20 Kb), after the Cambro-Ordovician distensive phase. The main final tectono-metamorphic paroxysm (blocking of subduction process and continental collison ?) is not prior to the end of Devonian (340–350 Ma) and is related to the Variscan orogeny s.s     

Nickel, Copper, Zinc and Cadmium Cycling with Manganese in Lake Vanda (Wright Valley, Antarctica)

Lake Vanda is a closed-basin, permanently ice-covered lake located in the Wright Valley of Antarctica. The lakes more important geochemical features include the fact that it is fed by a single glacial melt water stream for only 6–8weeks out of the year; that it has remained stratified for more than a millennium; and that, like other lakes in the region, it is remote from anthropogenic influence. These, together with the fact that it is among the least biologically productive lakes in the world, make it an ideal system for examining the transport, cycling and fate of trace metals in the aquatic environment. Like others before us, we view this lake as a natural geochemical laboratory, a flask in the desert. This paper presents the first set of closely spaced, vertical, profiles for dissolved and particulate Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn and Cd in the water column. Despite the absence of an outflow, metals in the fresh upper waters of the lake have extremely low concentrations, in the pico-molar to nano-molar range, and are partitioned largely into dissolved rather than particulate phases. Efficient metal scavenging by particles from these oxygen-rich waters is indicated. Significant increases in metal concentrations begin to appear at depth, between 57 and 60m, and these increases coincide with the onset of manganese oxide dissolution in oxic, but lower pH waters. Vertical profiles suggest that the entire suite of trace metals (Ni, Cu, Zn, and Cd) is being released from manganese oxide carrier phases. Thermodynamic analysis indicates that Mn3O4 (i.e., the mineral hausmannite) may be important in metal sequestration and recycling in the deeper waters of Lake Vanda. Manganese-reducing organisms reported by Bratina etal. (1998) are active in the zone of metal release and these could also contribute to the observed cycling.