Numerical analysis of the groundwater regime in the western Dead Sea escarpment, Israel + West Bank

Water is scarce in the semi-arid to arid regions around the Dead Sea, where water supply mostly relies on restricted groundwater resources. Due to increasing population in this region, the regional aquifer system is exposed to additional stress. This results in the continuous decrease in water level of the adjacent Dead Sea. The interaction of an increasing demand for water due to population growth and the decrease of groundwater resources will intensify in the near future. Thus, the water supply situation could worsen significantly unless sustainable water resource management is conducted. In this study, we develop a regional groundwater flow model of the eastern and southern Judea Group Aquifer to investigate the groundwater regime in the western Dead Sea drainage basin of Israel and the West Bank. An extensive geological database was developed and consequently a high-resolution structural model was derived. This structural model was the basis for various groundwater flow scenarios. The objective was to capture the spatial heterogeneity of the aquifer system and to apply these results to the southern part of the study area, which has not been studied in detail until now. As a result we analyzed quantitatively the flow regime, the groundwater mass balance and the hydraulic characteristics (hydraulic conductivity and hydraulic head) of the cretaceous aquifer system and calibrated them with PEST. The calibrated groundwater flow model can be used for integrated groundwater water management purposes in the Dead Sea area, especially within the framework of the SUMAR-Project.     

The alternative of CubeSat-based advanced infrared and microwave sounders for high impact weather forecasting

近年来,小卫星技术的发展给传统气象卫星提供了经济有效的替补方案。本文针对可能出现的传统气象卫星的缺失情形,借助快速的区域观测系统模拟试验,探索了利用小卫星填补空缺的可能性。研究表明,单个小卫星,无论是近红外高光谱还是微波探测仪,都能够对局地强风暴天气的预报有所改进。然而,为了填补传统卫星缺失带来的影响,需要发射三颗甚至更多的小卫星来增加观测的覆盖面,以弥补小卫星精度略低、通道略少的缺陷。     

Frictional contact of laminated elastic half‐spaces allowing interface cavities. Part 1: Analytical treatment

The paper deals with the plane problem on frictional contact of stratified elastic half‐spaces provided discontinuity of their direct touch. Imperfectness of contact of the bodies is assumed to be caused by surface unevenness of their surface layers. The problem is formulated within the framework of the homogenized model with microlocal parameters. Using the method of complex potentials in combination with the method of interface gaps the problem is reduced to a singular integral equation on the function of interface gap height. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Iron deficiency in pyrrhotite of suevites from the Chesapeake Bay impact crater,USA—A consequence of shock metamorphism?

Abstract– Pyrrhotite from suevite of the 35 Ma Chesapeake Bay impact structure (CBIS) shows a shock metamorphism and we report on several mineralogical and magnetic features. Pyrrhotite shows strong brittle deformation with a high density of stacking faults, twinning parallel to the hexagonal (001) planes and average fault distances in the order of 10 nm. Although the determination of a superstructure was not possible due to the lattice defects, the reflections of the NiAs subcell, which is typical of all pyrrhotite modifications, were clearly detected. This phase is ferrimagnetic with a Curie temperature (T_C) between 350 and 365 °C, and suevite with this phase does not show the 34 K transition. The most peculiar feature is the low metal/sulfur ratio of 0.81, which indicates a distinctly higher vacancy concentration than for 4C pyrrhotite and a composition close to smythite (Fe₉S₁₁). This phase carries a stable natural remanent magnetization and is relatively hard magnetic. Steep inclinations of the natural remanent magnetization vector, however, suggest that this phase has been remagnetized by the drilling process. A possible explanation is the magnetic domain size of faultless areas of about 10 nm in diameter, which is at the lower limit of the single domain size near the threshold, below which superparamagnetic behavior occurs. The low thermal stability of this phase excludes postshock heating above 300 °C for the suevite of the CBIS. Our results imply that the iron‐deficient pyrrhotite is produced by shock metamorphism, although an iron loss due to shock has never been reported before for pyrrhotite.