Reflectance spectrophotometry extended to u.v. for terrestrial,lunar and meteoritic samples

Extension of remote sensing of planetary bodies to the ultraviolet is now feasiable up to 2000 Å from earth-orbiting telescopes and spacecraft. The benefits of this extension is analysed on the basis of laboratory spectra taken on a large variety of terrestrial, lunar and meteoritic samples. Knowledge of the albedo for two wavelengths at 2300 and 6500 Å permits classification of a surface into one of the following types: lunar, carbonaceous chondrites, ordinary chondrites, achondrites or acidic rocks, basaltic rocks, irons. For lunar-type surfaces, a simple albedo measurement at 6500 Å can be converted into quantitative abundance determinations of silicate, aluminium oxide and iron; a large amount of telescopic lunar photometry data is available for mapping these abundances. Extension of the photometry to 2300 Å permits quantitative measurement of TiO₂ abundances. For asteroids and non-icy satellites, rock-type classification and constraints in chemical abundances of Si, Al, Fe and Ti can be derived from photometry at 2300 and 6500 Å. The IUE telescope already orbiting the earth, the Space Telescope to come, the lunar polar orbiter and other spacecraft under prospect are potentially available to provide the photometric observations at 6500 and 2300 Å required.     

Non‐local damage modelling of concrete: a procedure for the determination of model parameters

This paper presents a procedure for the determination of parameters of non‐local damage models. This is to assure a consistent response of a non‐local damage model, as choice of the internal length and other parameters of the model are varied. Correlations between the internal length and other parameters governing the local constitutive behaviour of the model are addressed and exploited. Focus is put on the relationship between the internal length of the non‐local model and the width of the fracture process zone. Numerical examples are used to demonstrate the rigour of the proposed method. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The sediment load and deposition by river discharge and their relation to organochlorine pesticides pollutants in the sediment bottom of Nha Trang Bay,Vietnam

Ocean Science Journal - Based on previous results from the “River reef impact studies project that was carried out as a co-operation programme between ZMT (Germany) and NIO (Vietnam) from...     

Mobilization of arsenic and iron from Red River floodplain sediments, Vietnam

Sediments from the Red River and from an adjacent floodplain aquifer were investigated with respect to the speciation of Fe and As in the solid phase, to trace the diagenetic changes in the river sediment upon burial into young aquifers, and the related mechanisms of arsenic release to the groundwater. Goethite with subordinate amounts of hematite were, using Mössbauer spectroscopy, identified as the iron oxide minerals present in both types of sediment. The release kinetics of Fe, As, Mn and PO₄ from the sediment were investigated in leaching experiments with HCl and 10 mM ascorbic acid, both at pH 3. From the river sediments, most of the Fe and As was mobilized by reductive dissolution with ascorbic acid while HCl released very little Fe and As. This suggests As to be associated with an Fe-oxide phase. For oxidized aquifer sediment most Fe was mobilized by ascorbic acid but here not much As was released. However, the reduced aquifer sediments contained a large pool of Fe(II) and As that is readily leached by HCl, probably derived from an unidentified authigenic Fe(II)-containing mineral which incorporates As as well. Extraction with ascorbic acid indicates that the river sediments contain both As(V) and As(III), while the reduced aquifer sediment almost exclusively releases As(III). The difference in the amount of Fe(II) leached from river and oxidized aquifer sediments by ascorbic acid and HCl, was attributed to reductive dissolution of Fe(III). The reactivity of this pool of Fe(III) was quantified by a rate law and compared to that of synthetic iron oxides. In the river mud, Fe(III) had a reactivity close to that of ferrihydrite, while the river sand and oxidized aquifer sediment exhibited a reactivity ranging from lepidocrocite or poorly crystalline goethite to hematite. Mineralogy by itself appears to be a poor predictor of the iron oxide reactivity in natural samples using the reactivity of synthetic Fe-oxides as a reference. Sediments were incubated, both unamended and with acetate added, and monitored for up to 2 months. The river mud showed the fastest release of both Fe and As, while the effect of acetate addition was minor. This suggests that the presence of reactive organic carbon is not rate limiting. In the case of the river and aquifer sediments, the release of Fe and As was always stimulated by acetate addition and here reactive organic carbon was clearly the rate limiting factor. The reduced aquifer sediment apparently can sustain slower but prolonged microbially-driven release of As. The highly reactive pools of Fe(III) and As in the river mud could be due to reoxidation of As and Fe contained in the reducing groundwater from the floodplain aquifers that are discharging into the river. Deposition of the suspended mud on the floodplain during high river stages is proposed to be a major flux of As onto the floodplain and into the underlying aquifers.     

A roadmap for a dedicated Earth Science Grid platform

Due to its intensive data processing and highly distributed organization, the multidisciplinary Earth Science applications community is uniquely positioned for the uptake and exploitation of Grid technologies. Currently Enabling Grids for E-sciencE, and other large Grid infrastructures are already deployed and capable of operational services. So far however, the adoption and exploitation of Grid technology throughout the Earth Science community has been slower than expected. The Dissemination and Exploitation of GRids in Earth sciencE project, proposed by the European Commission to assist and accelerate this process in a number of different ways, had between its main goals the creation of a roadmap towards Earth Science Grid platform. This paper presents the resulting roadmap.     

New Methodology to Characterize Shear Behavior of Joints by Combination of Direct Shear Box Testing and Numerical Simulations

A new procedure is presented, which combines big shear box tests on rocks and corresponding numerical simulations with explicit consideration of joint roughness to get deeper insight into the shear behavior of rock joints. The procedure consists of three parts: (1) constant normal load- or CNS-shear box tests with registration of shear- and normal-components of stress and displacements and deduction of basis rock mechanical parameters; (2) high resolution 3D-scanning of joint surface to deduce joint topography; and (3) set-up, run and evaluation of 3-dimensional numerical model with explicit duplication of joint roughness as back-analysis of shear box tests. The numerical back-analysis provides deeper insight into the joint behavior at the micro-scale. Several parameters can be deduced, like micro-slope angle distribution, aperture size distribution, local normal stress distribution and detailed analysis of dilation in relation to shear direction. The potential of the new procedure is illustrated exemplary by shear box tests on slate.     

Statistical data fusion of multi-sensor AOD over the Continental United States

This article illustrates two techniques for merging daily aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements from satellite and ground-based data sources to achieve optimal data quality and spatial coverage. The first technique is a traditional Universal Kriging (UK) approach employed to predict AOD from multi-sensor aerosol products that are aggregated on a reference grid with AERONET as ground truth. The second technique is spatial statistical data fusion (SSDF); a method designed for massive satellite data interpolation. Traditional kriging has computational complexity O(N³), making it impractical for large datasets. Our version of UK accommodates massive data inputs by performing kriging locally, while SSDF accommodates massive data inputs by modelling their covariance structure with a low-rank linear model. In this study, we use aerosol data products from two satellite instruments: the moderate resolution imaging spectrometer and the geostationary operational environmental satellite, covering the Continental United States.     

Floodplain hydrology of the Mekong Delta,Vietnam

The Mekong Delta is one of the largest and most intensively used estuaries in the world. Each year it witnesses widespread flooding which is both the basis of the livelihood for more than 17 million people but also the major hazard. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the hydrologic and hydraulic features is urgently required for various planning purposes. While the general causes and characteristics of the annual floods are understood, the inundation dynamics in the floodplains in Vietnam which are highly controlled by dikes and other control structures have not been investigated in depth. Especially, quantitative analyses are lacking, mainly due to scarce data about the inundation processes in the floodplains. Therefore, a comprehensive monitoring scheme for channel and floodplain inundation was established in a study area in the Plain of Reeds in the northeastern part of the Vietnamese Delta. This in situ data collection was complemented by a series of high‐resolution inundation maps derived from the TerraSAR‐X satellite for the flood seasons 2008 and 2009. Hence, the inundation dynamics in the channels and floodplains, and the interaction between channels and floodplains, could be quantified for the first time. The study identifies the strong human interference which is governed by flood protection levels, cropping patterns and communal water management. In addition, we examine the tidal influence on the inundation in various parts of the Delta, since it is expected that climate change‐induced sea level rise will increase the tidal contribution to floodplain inundation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ensemble rainfall forecasting with numerical weather prediction and radar‐based nowcasting models

The overall objective of this study is to improve the forecasting accuracy of the precipitation in the Singapore region by means of both rainfall forecasting and nowcasting. Numerical Weather Predication (NWP) and radar‐based rainfall nowcasting are two important sources for quantitative precipitation forecast. In this paper, an attempt to combine rainfall prediction from a high‐resolution mesoscale weather model and a radar‐based rainfall model was performed. Two rainfall forecasting methods were selected and examined: (i) the weather research and forecasting model (WRF); and (ii) a translation model (TM). The WRF model, at a high spatial resolution, was run over the domain of interest using the Global Forecast System data as initializing fields. Some heavy rainfall events were selected from data record and used to test the forecast capability of WRF and TM. Results obtained from TM and WRF were then combined together to form an ensemble rainfall forecasting model, by assigning weights of 0.7 and 0.3 weights to TM and WRF, respectively. This paper presented results from WRF and TM, and the resulting ensemble rainfall forecasting; comparisons with station data were conducted as well. It was shown that results from WRF are very useful as advisory of anticipated heavy rainfall events, whereas those from TM, which used information of rain cells already appearing on the radar screen, were more accurate for rainfall nowcasting as expected. The ensemble rainfall forecasting compares reasonably well with the station observation data. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

越南西北部Phan Si Pan地区Ngoi Chi岩组的锆石U-Pb年龄和Hf同位素组成

本文对越南西北部Phan Si Pan地区变质地体中的一个Ngoi Chi片麻岩进行了锆石CL内部结构分析、LA-(MC)-ICP-MS锆石U-Pb定年和Hf同位素分析。CL图象和Th/U比值特征显示该片麻岩样品中的锆石主要为岩浆锆石,有少量窄的变质边。岩浆锆石的年龄为~2.9 Ga,表明该样品是越南西北部Phan Si Pan地区的基底岩石。它们的εHf(t)值为–4.70±0.92,二阶段Hf模式年龄为~3.5 Ga,表明其为更古老的(3.5 Ga)冥太古代地壳物质部分熔融作用形成。变质边部锆石给出了~1.8 Ga的年龄,表明变质作用发生在古元古代早期,Phan Si Pan地区在这一时期可能经历了一次重要的构造热事件。