The role of climate and vegetation in weathering and clay mineral formation in late Quaternary soils of the Swiss and Italian Alps

Interactions between climate and soil remain ambiguous, particularly when silicate weathering and clay mineral formation and transformation rates are considered in relation to global climate changes. Recent studies suggest that climate affects weathering rates much less than previously thought. Here we show that the climate in the central European Alps has a significant, but indirect, influence on the weathering of soils through vegetation. The pattern of element leaching and mineral transformations is not only due to precipitation and temperature. Element leaching was greatest in subalpine forests near the timberline; weathering is lessened at higher and lower altitudes. Vegetation, therefore, contributes significantly to weathering processes. The highest accumulation of organic matter was found in climatically cooler sites (subalpine range) where the production of organic ligands, which enhance weathering, is greatest. Patterns of smectite formation and distribution had strong similarities to that of the elemental losses of Fe and Al (R = 0.69; P < 0.01) or base cations (R = 0.58; P < 0.05). Higher precipitation rates and the production of organic chelating compounds in the soil promoted the appearance of smectites. The relationship between climate, element leaching (Fe, Al, Ca, Mg, K, Na), and smectite formation is strongly nonlinear and driven by the podzolisation process, which is more pronounced near the timberline because of the bioclimatic constellation. Climate warming will probably, in the future, lead to a decrease in SOM stocks in the subalpine to alpine range because of more favourable conditions for biodegradation that would also affect weathering processes.     

Slope stability analysis in 3D using numerical limit analysis (NLA) and elasto-plastic analysis (EPA)

The present paper addresses the problem of factor of safety (FS) determination in 3D slope stability analysis. For that purpose, use is made of two numerical methods/techniques in three benchmark problems: numerical limit analysis (NLA) and elasto-plastic analysis (EPA). Finite elements are used in both techniques. The primary objective of the study is, by comparing the two techniques, to establish the feasibility of using NLA in the evaluation of 3D slope stability problems and to establish its practical applicability and competitiveness in relation to EPA. Because of their geometry or their boundary conditions, the problems cannot be analysed as plane strain state problems or using the 2D limit equilibrium technique. In both methods, an FS is determined for the slopes by reducing the strength parameters of the geological materials using a scalar factor, known as the strength reduction factor. From the comparison of the FSs and of the computational efforts required for the two numerical techniques, it was possible to establish NLA’s competiveness and viability for the analysis of real 3D slope stability problems when implemented in an efficient manner.     

Some observations on the prediction of the dynamic parameters of debris flows in pyroclastic deposits in the Campania region of Italy

Over the last 20 years, many tools have been developed for the prediction of the post-failure behaviour of rapid landslides. However, as pointed out by several researchers, knowledge may be improved by the performance of back-analyses using different models and the evaluation of their reliability. This paper reports the back-analysis, conducted using numerical models, of 57 rapid landslides that have occurred in the Campania region. The back-analysis has been performed using the 2-D DAN_W code (version 2003) with two different rheological models: the Voellmy and the frictional models. The latter has been immediately discarded because it did not match the observed data. Instead, using the Voellmy model, the best-fit values of the parameters (friction μ and turbulence ξ) for different types of flow (channelled, un-channelled and mixed flows) have been researched. With these values a parametric study has been carried out on four representative slope profiles of the Campania region, enabling the prediction of runout, velocity and depth of flow (dynamic parameters) of potential debris flows.

Tidal sediment transport versus freshwater flood events in the Konkouré Estuary, Republic of Guinea

In comparison to their temperate counterparts, sediment processes in tropical estuaries are poorly known and especially in African ones. The hydrodynamics of such environments is controlled by a combination of multiple processes including morphology, salinity, mangrove vegetation, tidal processes, river discharge, settling and erosion of mud and by physico-chemical processes as well as sediment dynamics.The aim of this study is to understand the sediment processes in this transitional stage of the estuary when the balance between river discharges and marine processes is reversing. Studying the hydrodynamics and sediment dynamics of the Konkouré Estuary has recently been made possible thanks to new data on bathymetry, sedimentary cover, salinity, water elevations, and current velocities. The Lower Konkouré is a shallow, funnel shaped, mesotidal mangrove-fringed, tide-dominated estuary, well mixed during low river discharge and stratified during high river discharge. The Konkouré Estuary is turbid despite the small amount of terrestrial input and its residual velocity at the mouth during low river discharges, landwards for two of the three branches, suggests a landward migration by tidal pumping of the suspended particulate matter. A Turbidity Maximum Zone (TMZ) is identified for typical states of the estuary with regard to fluvial and tidal components. Suspended sediment transport during a transitional stage between the rainy and dry seasons is known thanks to current velocity and Suspended Sediment Concentration (SSC) measurements taken in November 2003. The Richardson layered number calculation assesses that turbulence is the major mixing process in the water column, at least during the flood and ebb stages, whereas stratification occurs during the slack water periods. Tidal currents generate bottom erosion, and turbulence mixes the suspended sediment throughout the water column. As a result, a net sediment input is calculated from the western Konkouré outlet for two consecutive tidal cycles. Despite the net water export, almost 300 tons per tide reach the estuary through this outlet, for a moderate river flow.     

Iterative tomographic analysis based on automatic refined picking

The ever-growing size of data sets for active and passive seismic imaging makes the availability of automatic procedures for rapid analysis more and more valuable. Such procedures are especially important for time-critical applications like emergency decisions or re-orienting of ongoing seismic surveys. In this paper a new, iterative scheme for 3D traveltime tomography is presented. The technique, based on a tool originally developed for earthquake data, uses cross-correlation to examine waveform similarity and to adjust arrival times on seismic sections. A preliminary set of reference arrival times is first corrected by the cross-correlation lag and then used to build an initial 3D tomographic velocity model through a standard inversion code; traveltimes calculated from this model are then taken as new reference arrivals and the process of pick adjustment is repeated. The result is a tomographic image, upgraded and refined at each iteration of the procedure. The test performed on the waveform data set recorded during the 2001 SERAPIS active seismic survey in the gulfs of Naples and Pozzuoli (Southern Italy) shows that the 3D iterative tomography scheme produces a velocity image of the structure of the Campi Flegrei caldera which is consistent with the results from previous studies, employing just a fraction of the time needed by a human analyst to identify first breaks. We believe that this technique can be effectively employed for rapid analysis of large data-sets within time-critical or time-dependent tasks and for automatic 4D tomographic investigations.     

Numerical integration for the real time production of fundamental ephemerides over a wide time span

A simplified model of the solar system has been developed along with an integration method, enabling to compute planetary and lunar ephemerides to an accuracy better than 1 and 2 milliarcsecs, respectively. On current personal computers, the integration procedure (SOLEX) is fast enough that by using a relatively small ( 20 Kbytes/Cy) database of starting conditions, any epoch in the time interval (up to ±100 Cy) covered by the database can be reached by the integrator in a few seconds. This makes the algorithm convenient for the direct computation of high precision ephemerides over a time span of several millennia.     

Time dependent photon transport in a three dimensional interstellar cloud with stochastic clumps

We consider time dependent photon transport in a three dimensional interstellar cloud which occupies a three dimensional regionV. One or more clumps of given shapes are present withinV and their positions are determined by a suitable set of stochastic variables. Iff is the photon number density in the cloud or in the clumps, then our mathematical model leads to two coupled initial value problems for the average photon density over the stochastic variables f and forf ^* =f -f. By using the theory of semigroups, we prove existence and uniqueness of a strongly continuous solution and examine the small fluctuation approximation of such a solution.     

Variable sequence of events during the past seven terminations in two deep-sea cores from the Southern Ocean

The relationships among internally consistent records of summer sea-surface temperature (SSST), winter sea ice (WSI), and diatomaceous stable isotopes were studied across seven terminations over the last 660 ka in sedimentary cores from ODP sites 1093 and 1094. The sequence of events at both sites indicates that SSST and WSI changes led the carbon and nitrogen isotopic changes in three Terminations (TI, TII and TVI) and followed them in the other four Terminations (TIII, TIV, TV and TVII). In both TIII and TIV, the leads and lags between the proxies were related to weak glacial mode, while in TV and TVII they were due to the influence of the mid-Pleistocene transition. We show that the sequence of events is not unique and does not follow the same pattern across terminations, implying that the processes that initiated climate change in the Southern Ocean has varied through time.