Three-dimensional finite difference model for transport of conservative pollutants

A three-dimensional finite difference transport model appropriate for the coastal environment is developed for the solution of the three-dimensional convection-diffusion equation. A higher order upwind scheme is used for the convective terms of the convection-diffusion equation, to minimise the numerical diffusion. The validity of the numerical model is verified through five test problems, whose exact solutions are known.     

A massif‐type (~1.86 Ga) anorthosite complex in the Yeongnam Massif,Korea: late‐orogenic emplacement associated with the mantle delamination in the North China Craton

To unravel the petrogenesis of a massif‐type anorthosite in terms of the crust‐mantle geodynamics, we dated zircons separated from six samples from the Sancheong‐Hadong (SH) complex, Korea, using a sensitive high‐resolution ion microprobe. The weighted mean ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁶Pb age of two anorthosites is 1862 ± 2 Ma, whereas the ages of the hornblende gabbro and granitic gneiss are 1873 ± 4 Ma and 1875 ± 5 Ma respectively. Zircon rims from mafic granulite and migmatitic gneiss yielded ages of 1860 ± 5 Ma and 1858 ± 4 Ma, respectively, implying that the granulite facies metamorphism and anatexis are associated with anorthosite emplacement. Our results, together with available Re–Os data, are compatible with the ~1.9–1.86 Ga collisional orogeny prevalent in the North China Craton and the Korean Peninsula, and suggest that orogenesis was accompanied by mantle delamination beneath the craton. It is thus likely that the SH anorthositic rocks are a product of late‐orogenic magmatism during the post‐collisional extension‐dominated phase of orogeny.     

Evaluating the impact of visualization of risk upon emergency route-planning

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a controlled experiment evaluating how different cartographic representations of risk affect participants’ performance on a complex spatial decision task: route planning. The specific experimental scenario used is oriented towards emergency route-planning during flood response. The experiment compared six common abstract and metaphorical graphical symbolizations of risk. The results indicate a pattern of less-preferred graphical symbolizations associated with slower responses and lower-risk route choices. One mechanism that might explain these observed relationships would be that more complex and effortful maps promote closer attention paid by participants and lower levels of risk taking. Such user considerations have important implications for the design of maps and mapping interfaces for emergency planning and response. The data also highlights the importance of the ‘right decision, wrong outcome problem’ inherent in decision-making under uncertainty: in individual instances, more risky decisions do not always lead to worse outcomes.     

Improving hydrodynamic modeling of an estuary in a mixed tidal regime by grid refining and aligning

Water levels and flows in the Singapore coastal waters are driven by the complex interactions of the Indian and Pacific Ocean tides, seasonal monsoon-driven contributions and also forced by local winds. The Singapore Regional Model was developed to simulate hydrodynamics in the Strait of Singapore which produces representative sea level variation in this region. However, resolution and alignment of the grid system of the model with respect to depth contours in some of its subregions, i.e., the Johor Estuary area require further improvement. For this, the grid system of the model was modified and compared the simulated results with field measurements. The computed flow velocities agreed better with field observations when the grid resolution was increased. However, improving the alignment of the grid with the channel boundary (with a much lower increase in grid resolution) provided a substantially larger improvement of the model performance. The grid modification greatly influenced the computed salinity in the estuary, while water levels are slightly affected. Further analysis of model results showed a pronounced ebb tidal asymmetry generated by the O1–K1–M2 tidal constituents in the estuary.     

Enabling maps/location searches on mobile devices: constructing a POI database via focused crawling and information extraction

With the popularity of mobile devices and smartphones, we have witnessed rapid growth in mobile applications and services, especially in location-based services (LBS). According to a mobile marketing survey, maps/location searches are among the most utilized services on smartphones. Points of interest (POIs), such as stores, shops, gas stations, parking lots, and bus stops, are particularly important for maps/location searches. Existing map services such as Google Maps and Wikimapia are constructed manually either professionally or with crowd sourcing. However, manual annotation is costly and limited in current POI search services. With the abundance of information on the Web, many store POIs can be extracted from the Web. In this paper, we focus on automatically constructing a POI database to enable store POI map searches. We propose techniques that are required to construct a POI database, including focused crawling, information extraction, and information retrieval techniques. We first crawl Yellow Page web sites to obtain vocabularies of store names. These vocabularies are then investigated with search engines to obtain sentences containing these store names from search snippets in order to train a store name recognition model. To extract POIs scattered across the Web, we propose a query-based crawler to find address-bearing pages that might be used to extract addresses and store names. We crawled 1.25 million distinct POI pairs scattered across the Web and implemented a POI search service via Apache Lucent’s search platform, called Solr. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed geographical information retrieval model outperforms Wikimapia and a commercial app called ‘What’s the Number?’     

Zircon U–Pb geochronology and Hf isotope geochemistry of magmatic and metamorphic rocks from the Hida Belt,southwest Japan

Zircon U–Pb and Hf isotope data integrated in this study for magmatic and metamorphic rocks from the Hida Belt,southwest Japan,lead to a new understanding of the evolution of the Cordilleran arc system along the ancestral margins of present-day Northeast Asia.Ion microprobe data for magmatic zircon domains from eight mafic to intermediate orthogneisses in the Tateyama and Tsunogawa areas yielded weighted mean ~(206)Pb/~(238)U ages spanning the entire Permian period(302–254 Ma).Under cathodoluminescence,primary magmatic growth zones in the zircon crystals were observed to be partially or completely replaced by inward-penetrating,irregularly curved featureless or weakly zoned secondary domains that mostly yielded U–Pb ages of 250–240 Ma and relatively high Th/U ratios( 0.2).These secondary domains are considered to have been formed by solid-state recrystallization during thermal overprints associated with intrusions of Hida granitoids.Available whole-rock geochemical and Sr–Nd isotope data as well as zircon age spectra corroborate that the Hida Belt comprises the Paleozoic–Mesozoic Cordilleran arc system built upon the margin of the North China Craton,together with the Yeongnam Massif in southern Korea.The arc magmatism along this system was commenced in the Carboniferous and culminated in the Permian–Triassic transition period.Highly positive εHf(t) values( +12) of late Carboniferous to early Permian detrital zircons in the Hida paragneisses indicate that there was significant input from the depleted asthenospheric mantle and/or its crustal derivatives in the early stage of arc magmatism.On the other hand,near-chondritic εHf(t) values(+5 to-2) of magmatic zircons from late Permian Hida orthogneisses suggest a lithospheric mantle origin.Hf isotopic differences between magmatic zircon cores and the secondary rims observed in some orthogneiss samples clearly indicate that the zircons were chemically open to fluids or melts during thermal overprints.Resumed highly positive zircon εHf(t) values(+9) shared by Early Jurassic granitoids in the Hida Belt and Yeongnam Massif may reflect reworking of the Paleozoic arc crust.     

Rock Magnetic Approaches Used on Deep-sea Sediments in the Northeastern Equatorial Pacific

Rock magnetic properties of unconsolidated sediments from the Korea Deep Ocean Study area of the northeastern equatorial Pacific were analyzed to trace the time-dependent variations of sedimentary environments. For upper Pleistocene sediments, light-brown sediments predominate, whereas the lower sediments deposited in the late Pliocene are dark brown. Rock magnetic properties also clearly differ among the two distinct color environments. Values of anhysteretic remanent magnetization and low-field magnetic susceptibility are highly responsive to changes in the color of the sediment. For example, comparatively low values denote a dominance of coarse-grained magnetic minerals as observed in the lower dark-brown layers. With respect to the content of magnetic minerals, coarse magnetic grains are highly concentrated in the darker-colored sediment layers. However, both the magnetic mineral dependent parameter (S ratio) and results of the scanning electron microscope observation indicate that magnetic mineral changes did not occur along the core depth, which means that there was no apparent source change. Without distinctive source changes, the variations in the rock magnetic properties likely reflect a process by which the magnetic grains were primarily transported by enhanced wind and bottom currents and affected by diagenetic dissolution as a function of both the time from burial and the extremely low sedimentation rates after deposition.