Palynofacies and hydrocarbon generation potential of the upper Triassic Kurrachine Formation and lower part of the Baluti Formation, Mosul Block, Northwestern Iraq

Three exploration wells were selected near Mosul city (Az-29, Bm-15, and Kd-1) to study the palynozones and hydrocarbon generation potential of the Upper Triassic Baluti and Kurrachine Formations. This study was completed in two phases: The first was a study of palynofacies and their paleoenvironmental indications, degree of preservation, diversity of palynomorphs, and organic maturity of the rocks according to palynomorphs’ color using a refracted light microscope. More than 80 slides of organic matter were used for this study. Four palynofacies were tentatively recognized. (1) The first palynofacies is diagnostic of the Baluti Formation in the Az-29 and Kd-1 wells; (2) The second palynofacies appeared at different depths in the Kurrachine Formation in three wells. (3) The third was only found between the depths of 4,534 to 4,685 m in the well Az-29. (4) The fourth was only found between 3,500- and 3590-m depth in the well Bm-15. A distal coastal marine environment is suggested for the Baluti Formation and restricted lagoonal environment for the Kurrachine Formation. The second phase used organic geochemical analyses to confirm the suggested paleoenvironmental and hydrocarbon generation material. Three techniques were used, namely total organic carbon, pyrolysis, and pyrolysis gas chromatography, on more than 35 samples from different depths in three wells. The analyses proved that a sufficient quantity of organic matter occurs that and has suitable maturity for hydrocarbon generation potential of oil and gas.     

Water balance estimation under the challenge of data scarcity in a hyperarid to Mediterranean region

Water budget analyses are important for the evaluation of the water resources in semiarid and arid regions. The lack of observed data is the major obstacle for hydrological modelling in arid regions. The aim of this study is the analysis and calculation of the natural water resources of the Western Dead Sea subsurface catchment, one which is highly sensitive to rainfall resulting in highly variable temporal and spatial groundwater recharge. We focus on the subsurface catchment and subsequently apply the findings to a large‐scale groundwater flow model to estimate the groundwater discharge to the Dead Sea. We apply a semidistributed hydrological model (J2000g), originally developed for the Mediterranean, to the hyperarid region of the Western Dead Sea catchment, where runoff data and meteorological records are sparsely available. The challenge is to simulate the water budget, where the localized nature of extreme rainstorms together with sparse runoff data results in few observed runoff and recharge events. To overcome the scarcity of climate input data, we enhance the database with mean monthly rainfall data. The rainfall data of 2 satellites are shown to be unsuitable to fill the missing rainfall data due to underrepresentation of the steep hydrological gradient and temporal resolution. Hydrological models need to be calibrated against measured values; hence, the absence of adequate data can be problematic. Therefore, our calibration approach is based on a nested strategy of diverse observations. We calculate a direct surface runoff of the Western Dead Sea surface area (1,801 km²) of 3.4 mm/a and an average recharge (36.7 mm/a) for the 3,816 km² subsurface drainage basin of the Cretaceous aquifer system.     

Cement-Stabilization of Sabkha Soils from Al-Auzayba,Sultanate of Oman

Sabkha soils are salt-bearing formations that are formed in arid regions. In their in situ states the sabkha soils have high compressibility and low shear strength. These soils are also heterogeneous and their properties depend on the type and amount of salt present. Thus, these soils are not suitable for support of infrastructures without the risk of high settlement and/or bearing capacity failure. This paper investigates the possibility of using cement to improve the shear strength of sabkha soils for possible use as a foundation-bearing soil. The sabkha soil used in this study is a sandy sabkha obtained from the coastal plains at Al-Auzayba, Sultanate of Oman. Cement was added in percentages of 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10%, by dry weight of soil. The soil-stabilizer mixers were allowed to cure for 7, 14 and 28 days. Laboratory tests such as compaction, unconfined compression, consolidated undrained triaxial and durability tests were performed to measure the engineering characteristics of the stabilized material. The results showed substantial improvements in the shear strength of the sabkha–cement mixtures and the mixtures are also durable with small weight loss after 12 wetting/drying cycles. Thus, cement can be used to improve the shear strength of sabkha soils. Furthermore, the effective stress path and the tress-strain relation of the sabkha–cement mixtures follow trends similar to those of cemented calcareous soils.     

The influence of natural and anthropogenic factors on mangrove dynamics over 60 years: The Somone Estuary, Senegal

Although such ecosystems are fragile, this study shows that the anthropogenic damages inflicted on the mangrove forests of West Africa can be reversed over a relatively short time period if environmental conditions are favorable. The mangrove ecosystem of the microtidal Somone Estuary, Senegal, has undergone extreme changes during the last century. The area occupied by mangrove forest was estimated with a diachronic study by GIS for the period 1946-2006. Between 1946 and 1978, 85% of the area was progressively replaced by unvegetated mudflats in the intertidal zones and by barren area in the supratidal zones. Until 1990, this was mainly a result of traditional wood harvesting. The impact was exacerbated by the closing off of the estuary to the sea (1967-1969 and 1987) and by an extended drought (1970 onwards), which resulted in a lack of renewal of water, hypersalinization and acidification. The main factors controlling mangrove evolution in the Somone ecosystem, however, are anthropogenic. Until 1990, traditional wood cutting (for wood and oyster harvesting) was practiced by the local population. Between 1978 and 1989, a small area occupied by the mangroves was stabilized. Since 1992, a modification of mangrove logging and a new reforestation policy resulted in an exponential increase of mangrove area progressively replacing intertidal mudflats. Such success in the restoration of the ecosystem reforestation is supported by favorable environmental conditions: tidal flooding, groundwater influence, rainfall during the wet season, low net accretion rate of about 0.2-0.3 cm year⁻¹, and a ban on the cutting of mangrove wood. The rate of mangrove loss from 1946 to 1978 was 44,000 m² year⁻¹, but this has been offset by restoration efforts resulting in an increase in mangrove area from 1992 to 2006 of 63,000 m² year⁻¹.     

The effects of surcharge on liquefaction resistance of silty sand

In the recent earthquakes, numerous cases of liquefaction occurred in sands containing both plastic and nonplastic fines that resulted in significant damage. Most previous research efforts have focused on clean sands regardless whether the sand contain fines or not made evident by widespread shallow foundation failures, numerous cases of settlement, and lateral displacement. Still, despite the amount of related research, results seem somewhat contradictory. This study directly demonstrates the beneficial or detrimental effect of uncertainty surcharges on seismic responses. Models were subjected to two destructive realistic events with similar PGA with various frequency contents and duration. In this paper, the dynamic analyses were conducted as fully non-linear elasto-plastic coupled stress-flow analyses with coupled liquefaction triggering which reasonably captured the actual behavior. The silty sand deposits underlying the surcharge are capable of liquefying and developing large shear deformations that can cause serious damage. Therefore, excess pore water pressure ratio cannot be enough by itself to evaluate liquefaction potential, so the deformations should be examined. Numerical results provide an estimate of the seismic performance liquefiable deposits underlying the surcharge; these results can be useful for a realistic practical engineering.     

Oil and gas play and prospect assessments of Babel,Diwania and Karbala Governorates (Middle Euphrates Region), Iraq

This study was based on the results of geochemical analysis of 332 core and 10 cutting rock samples from Triassic Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Triassic age, in addition to seismic sections, logs, initial drilling results, final reports of oil wells, and previous studies. Constructing models from these data are to assess new oil reservoirs, evaluation, and development of the existing oil reservoirs and hydrocarbon potential, and suggesting petroleum systems in order to reduce exploration risk and develop simple risk assessment of oil fields in the studied area. In general, Abu-Jir fault zone divides the studied area into two petroleum provinces: Mesopotamian Foredeep Basin and Widyan Basin–Interior Platform. The Mesopotamian Fordeep basin are thick stratigraphic sequences with no exploration for oil or gas source rock intervals within the Paleozoic sequence. while the Mesozoic sequence offers the best potential. The transitional sequence of the Triassic period is expected to contain occasional fair to good quantity of oil source rock intervals. The Widyan Basin–Interior Platform is an area with possible deployment of low to moderate risk of Paleozoic play and Lower Mesozoic plays with fair Triassic and Mesozoic objectives. Oil has generated and expelled into traps in the studied area during two phases; the first is during Early Palaeogene that accumulated in traps of the Cretaceous structural deformation, while the second is during Late Neogene.     

Adaptive state estimation of groundwater contaminant boundary input flux in a 2-dimensional aquifer

In many circumstances involving heat and mass transfer issues, it is considered impractical to measure the input flux and the resulting state distribution in the domain. Therefore, the need to develop techniques to provide solutions for such problems and estimate the inverse mass flux becomes imperative. Adaptive state estimator (ASE) is increasingly becoming a popular inverse estimation technique which resolves inverse problems by incorporating the semi-Markovian concept into a Bayesian estimation technique, thereby developing an inverse input and state estimator consisting of a bank of parallel adaptively weighted Kalman filters. The ASE is particularly designed for a system that encompasses independent unknowns and /or random switching of input and measurement biases. The present study describes the scheme to estimate the groundwater input contaminant flux and its transient distribution in a conjectural two-dimensional aquifer by means of ASE, which in particular is because of its unique ability to efficiently handle the process noise giving an estimation of keeping the relative error range within 10% in 2-dimensional problems. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed estimator presents decent estimation performance for both smoothly and abruptly varying input flux scenarios. Results also show that ASE enjoys a better estimation performance than its competitor, Recursive Least Square Estimator (RLSE) due to its larger error tolerance in greater process noise regimes. ASE’s inherent deficiency of being slower than the RLSE, resulting from the complexity of algorithm, was also noticed. The chosen input scenarios are tested to calculate the effect of input area and both estimators show improved results with an increase in input flux area especially as sensors are moved closer to the assumed input location.     

Spaxel analysis: probing the physics of star formation in ultraluminous infrared galaxies

This paper presents a detailed spectral pixel (spaxel) analysis of the ten Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs) previously observed with the Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS), an integral field spectrograph mounted on the ANU 2.3 m telescope, and for which an abundance gradient analysis has already been presented by Rich et al. (Astrophys. J., 753:5, 2012). Here we use the strong emission line analysis techniques developed by Dopita et al. (Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., accepted, 2013) to measure the ionisation parameter and the oxygen abundance in each spaxel. In addition, we use the observed Hα flux to determine the surface rate of star formation ( $\mathrm {M}_{\odot }{\rm yr}^{-1}$ kpc^?2) and use the [S II] λλ6717/6731 ratio to estimate the local pressure in the ionised plasma. We discuss the correlations discovered between these physical quantities, and use them to infer aspects of the physics of star formation in these extreme star forming environments. In particular, we find a correlation between the star formation rate and the inferred ionisation parameter. We examine the possible reasons for this correlation, and determine that the most likely explanation is that the more active star forming regions have a different distribution of molecular gas which favour higher ionisation parameters in the ionised plasma.     

Earthquake risk assessment for the building inventory of Muscat,Sultanate of Oman

Little Andaman, the fourth largest island in the Andaman group of islands of India, was severely affected by the December 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami generated by massive earthquake of moment magnitude 9.3 Mw which devastated the Andaman and Nicobar group of islands causing heavy damage to life and property. Due to hostile terrain conditions not much information was available on the extent of inundation and run-up along the island except for Hut Bay region. In order to study the vulnerability of the island to tsunami hazard, the inundation in the island due to the 2004 tsunami was studied using TUNAMI N2 numerical model and ENVISAT ASAR datasets. The extent of inundation derived from the SAR imagery was compared using the RTK-GPS field survey points collected in the Hut Bay regions immediately after the 2004 tsunami. The extent of inundation obtained from SAR images for the entire island was compared with inundation obtained from model. It was observed that the inundation obtained from the model matched well with inundation extent from SAR imagery for nearshore regions, while for low-lying areas and creeks large deviations were observed. In the absence of field datasets, the inundation derived from SAR imagery would be effective in providing ground data to validate the numerical models which can then be run for multiple scenarios for disaster mitigation and planning operation in areas that have hostile terrain conditions.     

Sequence stratigraphic evolution of the syn-rift Early Cretaceous sediments,West Beni Suef Basin,the Western Desert of Egypt with remarks on its hydrocarbon accumulations

The Beni Suef Basin is a petroliferous rift basin straddling the River Nile containing a thick Mesozoic–Paleogene succession. The Kharita Formation is formed in the syn-rift phase of the basin formation and is subdivided into the Lower and Upper Kharita members. These two members are regarded as two third-order depositional sequences (DSQ-1 and DSQ-2). The lowstand systems tract (LST-1) of the DSQ-1 is represented by thick amalgamated sandstone bodies deposited by active braided channels. Mid-Albian tectonic subsidence led to a short-lived marine invasion which produced coastal marine and inner-shelf facies belts during an ensuing transgressive systems tract (TST-1). At the end of the mid-Albian, a phase of tectonic uplift gradually rose the continent creating a fall in relative sea level, resulting in deposition of shallow marine and estuarine facies belts during a highstand systems tract (HST-1). During the Late Albian, a new phase of land-rejuvenation commenced, with a prolonged phase of fluvial depositional. Fluvial deposits consisted of belts of amalgamated, vertically aggraded sandstones interpreted as braided and moderately sinuous channels, in the lower part of the Upper Kharita Member lowstand stage (LST-2). The continuous basin filling, coupled with significant lowering in the surrounding highlands changed the drainage regime into a wide belt of meandering river depositing the transgressive stage (TST-2). The history of the Kharita Formation finalized with a Cenomanian marine transgressive phase. Economically, the TST-1 and HST-1 play a significant role as source rocks for hydrocarbon accumulations, whereas LST-2 act as good reservoir rocks in the Early Cretaceous in the Basin.