High-frequency signal and noise estimates of CSR GRACE RL04

A sliding window technique is used to create daily-sampled Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) solutions with the same background processing as the official CSR RL04 monthly series. By estimating over shorter time spans, more frequent solutions are made using uncorrelated data, allowing for higher frequency resolution in addition to daily sampling. Using these data sets, high-frequency GRACE errors are computed using two different techniques: assuming the GRACE high-frequency signal in a quiet area of the ocean is the true error, and computing the variance of differences between multiple high-frequency GRACE series from different centers. While the signal-to-noise ratios prove to be sufficiently high for confidence at annual and lower frequencies, at frequencies above 3 cycles/year the signal-to-noise ratios in the large hydrological basins looked at here are near 1.0. Comparisons with the GLDAS hydrological model and high frequency GRACE series developed at other centers confirm CSR GRACE RL04’s poor ability to accurately and reliably measure hydrological signal above 3–9 cycles/year, due to the low power of the large-scale hydrological signal typical at those frequencies compared to the GRACE errors.     

Operational mesoscale atmospheric dispersion prediction using a parallel computing cluster

An operational atmospheric dispersion prediction system is implemented on a cluster supercomputer for Online Emergency Response at the Kalpakkam nuclear site. This numerical system constitutes a parallel version of a nested grid meso-scale meteorological model MM5 coupled to a random walk particle dispersion model FLEXPART. The system provides 48-hour forecast of the local weather and radioactive plume dispersion due to hypothetical airborne releases in a range of 100 km around the site. The parallel code was implemented on different cluster configurations like distributed and shared memory systems. A 16-node dual Xeon distributed memory gigabit ethernet cluster has been found sufficient for operational applications. The runtime of a triple nested domain MM5 is about 4 h for a 24 h forecast. The system had been operated continuously for a few months and results were ported on the IMSc home page. Initial and periodic boundary condition data for MM5 are provided by NCMRWF, New Delhi. An alternative source is found to be NCEP, USA. These two sources provide the input data to the operational models at different spatial and temporal resolutions using different assimilation methods. A comparative study on the results of forecast is presented using these two data sources for present operational use. Improvement is noticed in rainfall forecasts that used NCEP data, probably because of its high spatial and temporal resolution     

Delineation of structures favourable to groundwater occurrence employing seismic refraction method—A case study from Tiruvuru,Krishna district,Andhra Pradesh

The contacts associated with an outlier in biotite gneiss and sandstones near Tiruvuru, Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh which are generally favourable for groundwater occurrence were investigated employing refraction seismic method. Results were examined by correlating the signals with local geology, bore well data and other available information in order to improve the reliability of interpretation     

Geomorphological analysis for inventory of degraded lands in a river basin of basaltic terrain using remote sensing and GIS

In recent years, the use of remotely sensed data and Geographic Information System (GIS) applications has been found increasing in a wide range of resources inventory, mapping, analysis, monitoring and environmental management. Remote sensing data provides an opportunity for better observation and systematic analysis of terrain conditions following the synoptic and multi-spectral coverage. In the present study, the geomorphological analysis reveals that various denudational and depositional landforms have been analysed and mapped. The soil depth ranges from extremely shallow in isolated mounds to very deep in the pediplains. Based on the slope gradient, morphometry, soil depth, vegetation cover and image characteristics of standard FCC imagery of IRS-1D LISS-III data, four categories of eroded lands i.e., very severe, severe, moderate and nil to slight have been identified and mapped. The integrated analysis of slope, geomorphology and degraded lands layers in GIS revealed that the pediplains, rolling plains and subdued plateau are associated with very severe land degradation and accounts for 6.05%, 3.85% and 3.47% of total area respectively. The analysis of percentage of degraded lands at geomorphic sub unit level indicates that severe land degradation process is dominant in the dissected ridges, isolated mounds, escarpments and plateau spurs. The remote sensing data and GIS based detailed geomorphological and degraded lands analysis ensure better understanding of landform-eroded lands relationship and distribution to assess the status of land degradation at micro geomorphic unit for reclamation, geo-environmental planning and management. Similar study also helps in the areas of natural resource management, environmental planning and management, watershed management and hazards monitoring and mitigation.     

Second-order state transition for relative motion near perturbed,elliptic orbits

This paper develops a tensor and its inverse, for the analytical propagation of the position and velocity of a satellite, with respect to another, in an eccentric orbit. The tensor is useful for relative motion analysis where the separation distance between the two satellites is large. The use of nonsingular elements in the formulation ensures uniform validity even when the reference orbit is circular. Furthermore, when coupled with state transition matrices from existing works that account for perturbations due to Earth oblateness effects, its use can very accurately propagate relative states when oblateness effects and second-order nonlinearities from the differential gravitational field are of the same order of magnitude. The effectiveness of the tensor is illustrated with various examples.     

A real spectral analysis of the deformation of a homogenous electric field over a thin bed – A Hartley transform approach

Spectral analysis of the deformation of a homogenous electric field caused by a long, thin inclined bed, which is of considerable importance in the exploration of ground water and minerals, is presented using the Hartley transform. The Hartley transform is an alternative and real replacement for the well‐known complex Fourier transform in the field of spectral analysis. The thickness of the bed and the inclination are given as functions of frequency by simple expressions. A theoretical example illustrates the method while the applicability is demonstrated by the field examples from the fractured crystalline basement complex in Burkina Faso, Africa and the Precambrian limestones of the Cuddapah basin, Andhra Pradesh, India. The results obtained by this method agree well with those of the drilling.     

Spectral Analysis of Magnetic data in the Ajmer-Sambar Sector,North-Central Rajasthan

Ajmer-Sambar sector of Delhi fold belt, North-Central Rajasthan has got importance due to its litho characters, structure, metamorphism, magmatism, migmatisation, metallogeny and rich potential of base metal mineralization. This sector is comprised of Delhi sequence of rocks hosted by the Banded Gneisses Complex (BGC). In view of the significance of this region, ground magnetic survey was conducted along six regional profiles to understand the structural features, magnetic nature of the basement and depth to the basement. Analysis of the magnetic data has clearly identified two magnetic lineaments (a) L1 in WNW-ESE direction that appears to represent litho-contact between Kalyanpura sequences in the south to Anasagar migmatite in the north and (b) L2 in NNW to SSE direction south of Parvatsar which is inferred to be a structural control about which the quartzite rocks of Taragarh Formation culminate. An average depth to basement of 3.7 km is estimated through spectral analysis of magnetic data. The maximum depth of the basin 4.5 km is estimated in central part of the study area. The obtained depth results are in good agreement with the Cummulative Total Intensity Magnetic Anomaly field (CTIMAF) and Deep seismic stuides.     

Geoelectrical inversion and evaluation of lithology based on optimized Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS)

Soft computing tools play a vital role in fixing certain non-linear problems related to the earth. More specifically, digging out the mysteries of subsurface of the earth, the nonlinearity can be converging to assemble an approximate solution which resembles the real characteristics of the earth. Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) tool is one of the best soft computing tools to estimate the complex data analysis. ANFIS was applied to estimate the subsurface parameters of earth using the Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) data. Classifying the lithology based on the resistivity values by ANFIS is employed here in this paper. As the resistivity of each formation varies in range of values, ANFIS tool thus approximates the subsurface features based on effective training. In this study, ANFIS performance was checked with training data, and successively it has been tested with the field data. Optimized ANFIS algorithm provides the necessary tool for predicting the non-linear subsurface features. The best training performance of this soft computing tool efficiently predicts the subsurface lithology. Also the interpreted results show the true resistivity and thickness of the subsurface layers of the earth. The proposed technique was represented in Graphical User Interface (GUI), and the lithological variables are predicted in texture format and linguistic variables.