Characteristics of the Seismic Waves from a New Active Source Based on Methane Gaseous Detonation

Active seismic sources are critical for obtaining high resolution images of the subsurface. For active imaging in urban areas, environment friendly and green seismic sources are required. In present work, we introduce a new type of green active source based on the gaseous detonation of methane and oxygen. When fired in a closed container, the chemical reaction, i.e. gaseous detonation, will produce high pressure air over 150MPa. Seismic waves are produced when high pressure air is quickly released to impact the surroundings. The first field experiment of this active source was carried out in December, 2017 in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, where a series of active sources were excited to explore their potential in mine exploration. In current work, we analyzed the seismic waves recorded by near-field accelerators and a dense short-period seismic array and compared them with those from a mobile airgun source, another kind of active source by releasing high pressure air into water. The results demonstrate that it can be used for high resolution near surface imaging. Firstly, the gaseous detonation productions are harmless CO₂ and water, making it a green explosive source. Secondly, the dominant seismic frequencies are 10-80Hz and a single shot can be recorded up to 15km, making it suitable for local structure investigations. Thirdly, it can be excited in vertical wells, similar to traditional powder explosive sources. It can also act as an additional on-land active source to airgun sources, which requires a suitable water body as intermediate media to generate repeating signals. Moreover, the short duration and high frequency signature of the source signals make it safe with no damage to nearby buildings. These make it convenient to excite in urban areas. As a new explosive source, the excitation equipment and conditions, such as gas ratio, sink depth and air-releasing directions, need further investigation to improve seismic wave generation efficiency.     

Variation in the vertical zonality of erodibility and critical shear stress of rill erosion in China's Hengduan Mountains

Soil erodibility is an essential parameter used in soil erosion prediction. This study selected the Liangshan town watershed to quantify variation in the vertical zonality of rill erodibility (k_r) in China's ecologically fragile Hengduan Mountains. Soil types comprised of yellow–brown (soil A), purple (soil B), and dry-red (soil C) in a descending order of occurrence from the summit to the valley, which roughly corresponds to the vertical climate zone (i.e. cool-high mountain, warm-low mountain, and dry-hot valley sections) of the study area. With elevation, vertical soil zonality varied in both soil organic matter (SOM) content and soil particle-size fractions. A series of rill erosion-based scour experiments were conducted, using water discharge rates of 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 mL min^-1. Additionally, detachment rates (Dr) were measured under three hydrological conditions (the drainage, saturation, and seepage treatments). Results show that both Dr and flow shear stress (Ʈ) values increased as discharge increased. As elevation increased, the k_r values decreased, while the vertical zonality of critical shear stress (Ʈ_c) values showed no obvious variation. The highest k_r values were observed during the seepage treatment, followed by the saturation treatment then drainage treatment, indicating that variation in vertical hydraulic gradients could significantly alter k_r values. This study also found that land-use types could also alter k_r and Ʈ_c values. Further research, however, is necessary to better quantify the effects of subsurface hydrological conditions and land-use types on k_r under different soil zonalities in China's Hengduan Mountains. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

乌加河地震台地电阻率干扰形态识别

选取乌加河地震台2015-2018年地电阻率观测资料,分析数据异常变化,结合观测环境及实地调查,发现存在降雨、雷电、金属管线、农田灌溉、设备漏电等影响因素,对比分析并总结各类干扰曲线形态、变化幅度、影响时间、干扰频次等特征,以便正确认识并排除地电阻率干扰,为地震异常信息识别提供帮助。     

Characteristics of Vegetation Carbon,Nitrogen, and C/N Ratio in a Tamarix chinensis Coastal Wetland of China

Variations in carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) of the vegetation in a Tamarix chinensis coastal wetland located in Laizhou Bay, China, are analyzed. It is found that T. chinensis accumulates more C and N than the surrounding herbs, and it allocates more C and N in the aboveground parts but less in the roots. Branches store more C, whereas leaves and flowers accumulate more N than other tissues. The C and N contents in the aboveground parts of T. chinensis are mainly influenced by pH, electrical conductivity (EC), water content, and clay content in the top 100 cm of soil as well as the distance from the sea. For the herbs, their C contents vary little in the supratidal zone, but they are higher than those in the intertidal zone. However, N contents in the herbs are higher in the aboveground parts and varied among different communities. The contents of C and N in the herbs are affected by EC, water content as well as the contents of organic C and total nitrogen (TN) in the top 10 cm of soil. The findings confirm that increasing the biomass of T. chinensis is an effective way to increase C sequestration in temperate coastal wetland.     

山西地区远震P波到时残差分布

收集2008—2016年山西地震台网记录的震中距30°—90°范围内1 253个远震事件波形,拾取7 600余条高质量P波初至到时,使用IASP91模型计算相对到时残差,分析残差水平分布特征,结果显示:①以山西地区中部的山西断裂带为界,西部地震台站记录的P波初至主要表现为早到时,东部位于大同火山区的地震台站记录则主要表现为晚到时;②位于山西断裂带内部的地震台站记录的P波初至主要表现为早到时,残差水平显著低于西部地震台站;③研究区P波到时整体呈现自西向东逐渐由早到晚的分布特征。推测山西断裂带西部地区下方可能存在高速异常结构,山西断裂带内部及大同火山区下方可能存在低速异常结构。     

Effective elastic thickness of the lithosphere from joint inversion in western China and its implications*

The western China lies in the convergence zone between Eurasian and Indian plates. It is an ideal place to study the lithosphere dynamics and tectonic evolutions on the continental Earth. The lithospheric strength is a key factor in controlling the lithosphere dynamics and deformations. The effective elastic thickness (T_e) of the lithosphere can be used to address the lithospheric strength. Previous researchers only used one of the admittance or coherence methods to investigate the T_e in the western China. Moreover, most of them ignored the internal loads of the lithosphere during the T_e calculation, which can produce large biases in the T_e estimations. To provide more reliable T_e estimations, we used a new joint inversion method that integrated both admittance and coherence techniques to compute the T_e in this study, with the WGM2012 gravity data, the ETOPO1 topographic data, and the Moho depths from the CRUST1.0 model. The internal loads are considered and investigated using the load ratio (F). Our results show that the joint inversion method can yield reliable T_e and F values. Based on the analysis of T_e and F distributions, we suggest (1) the northern Tibetan Plateau could be the front edge of the plate collision of Eurasian and Indian plates; (2) the southern and part of central Tibetan Plateau have a strong lithospheric mantle related to the rigid underthrusting Indian plate; (3) the southeastern Tibetan Plateau may be experiencing the delamination of lithosphere and upwelling of asthenosphere.     

Evaluation of multidecadal and longer-term temperature changes since 850 CE based on Northern Hemisphere proxy-based reconstructions and model simulations

The temperature variability over multidecadal and longer timescales(e.g., the cold epochs in the late 15 th, 17 th, and early 19 th centuries) is significant and dominant in the millennium-long, large-scale reconstructions and model simulations;however, their temporal patterns in the reconstructed and simulated temperature series are not well understood and require a detailed assessment and comparison. Here, we compare the reconstructed and simulated temperature series for the Northern Hemisphere(NH) at multidecadal and longer-term timescales(30 years) by evaluating their covariance, climate sensitivity and amplitude of temperature changes. We found that covariances between different reconstructions or between reconstructions and simulations are generally high for the whole period of 850–1999 CE, due to their similar long-term temporal patterns. However,covariances between different reconstructions or between reconstructions and simulations steadily decline as time series extends further back in time, becoming particularly small during Medieval times. This is related to the large uncetainties in the reconstructions caused by the decreased number of proxy records and sample duplication during the pre-instrumental periods.Reconstructions based solely on tree-ring data show higher skill than multiproxy reconstructions in capturing the amplitude of volcanic cooling simulated by models. Meanwhile, climate models have a shorter recovery(i.e., lag) in response to the cooling caused by volcanic eruptions and solar activity minima, implying the lack of some important feedback mechanisms between external forcing and internal climate processes in climate models. Amplitudes of temperature variations in the latest published tree-ring reconstructions are comparable to those of the multiproxy reconstructions. We found that the temperature difference between the Medieval Climate Anomaly(950–1250 CE) and the Little Ice Age(1450–1850 CE) is generally larger in proxybased reconstructions than in model simulations, but the reason is unclear.     

Bench development along the regulated,lower River Dee,UK

Channel change to regulated flows along large lowland rivers with cohesive bank materials has been investigated on the lower Welsh Dee, including the tidally influenced reach. Reduction of channel width has involved the formation of a 5–40m wide discontinuous bench, often linking ‘point’ and ‘concave’ locations. Map evidence shows that wide benches occur where historically the channel had migrated laterally; narrow benches were found at stable channel locations. Auger cores of the bench deposits clearly differentiated the two contrasting depositional environments within meandering rivers: ‘point bench’ and ‘concave bench’. Around an individual bend a morphologically continuous bench showed a gradient in sediment characteristics from coarser sediments (point locations) to finer organic deposits (concave locations); it also showed a topographic gradient, gaining 0.5m in elevation around the bend suggesting that bench accretion at concave locations is faster than at point locations in fluvially dominated reaches. Such patterns are suggested to have important implications for riparian ecosystems. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于细观试验和离散元法的盐岩力学特性

当前盐岩的宏观力学模型通常是唯象模型,不能很好地解释盐岩受力变形破坏的真正物理基础。盐岩是由于化学沉积而形成的矿物集合体,是一种主要由NaCl和少量杂质组成的多晶体,其变形机制主要由晶粒与晶界的力学特性控制。通过扫描电镜（SEM）,获得盐岩晶粒的微细观结构特征,采用分子动力学方法和纳米压痕技术,确定盐岩晶粒和晶界的微细观力学参数;将盐岩晶粒作为块体,基于Voronoi多边形技术,建立盐岩的微细观数值模型;利用离散元方法,对盐岩试件在单轴压缩和直剪条件下的宏观力学行为进行了数值模拟。数值模拟结果与宏观力学试验结果吻合度高,表明基于盐岩微细观晶粒结构特征并结合离散元数值模拟的方法能够较好地研究盐岩的宏观力学性能及其材料物理基础。     

川西北地区中三叠统顶部溶蚀型喀斯特特征及地质意义*

中三叠统顶部溶蚀型喀斯特在什邡金河剖面及四川盆地大部分地区已有报道。在近期的野外工作中,在川西北地区绵竹汉旺观音崖、江油黄莲桥和江油马鞍塘剖面天井山组近顶部、顶部也识别出这一古特提斯面,其形成与强烈的构造活动或全球海平面下降造成的岩层长时间的暴露有关。其表现形式主要为: (1)暴露溶蚀间断沉积面;(2)溶沟、溶缝及其内的碳酸盐、陆源碎屑充填物;(3)暴露期黏土层;(4)喀斯特角砾。其中暴露溶蚀间断沉积面上的沉积构造以鸟眼、层状孔洞构造最为典型,在绵竹汉旺观音崖剖面最为发育,孔、洞充填物主要为亮晶方解石和白云石;溶沟、溶缝及其内的碳酸盐、陆源碎屑充填物在江油马鞍塘、汉旺观音崖、什邡金河等剖面均有发育,这些溶缝、溶沟一般近于竖直发育,宽度及深度不一,被碳酸盐角砾、亮晶方解石、白云石或陆源黏土等所充填;暴露期黏土层主要见于江油黄莲桥剖面,共发育2套,厚5~20 cm,与铁质矿物共生,其上下发育深灰色潟湖沉积;喀斯特角砾主要见于汉旺观音崖剖面,喀斯特角砾最大可达15×20 cm大小,呈棱角状充填于富含泥质和有机质的暗色碳酸盐基质中。天井山组近顶部溶蚀型喀斯特的发现可为区域地层等时对比提供依据,与其有关的古岩溶作用可在天井山组(或雷口坡组)顶部碳酸盐岩中形成以溶蚀孔、洞、缝为主要储集空间的古岩溶型储集层。