Dune Mining and the Nhlabane Estuary, South Africa: the Effect of a Dredger Crossing on the Zoobenthic Community

The Nhlabane Estuary, located on the north-east coast of South Africa, is situated in a titanium dune mining lease area. During 1993, a mining dredger and concentrator crossed the middle reaches of the estuary. For this purpose, two berm walls were constructed across the estuary. Two impacts stemmed from the crossing. A series of fine sediment intrusions into the estuary from the berm wall area occurred during late 1993 and early 1994 and caused a rapid decline in benthic densities and number of taxa. Recovery of the affected area was slow and characterized by initial proliferation of opportunistic colonizers. The berm walls, which divided the estuary in half, were kept in place for nearly three years and caused changes in water quality and the benthic community of the upper and lower halves of the estuary. Artificial breaching of the estuary in August 1995 and removal of the berm walls in May 1996 initiated recovery of the estuary. The success of a second dredger crossing, scheduled for January 1999, depends on addressing the mistakes made during the first crossing and on the speed with which the carefully planned crossing operation, berm wall removal and estuary rehabilitation proceed.     

A fully coupled element‐free Galerkin model for hydro‐mechanical analysis of advancement of fluid‐driven fractures in porous media

Hydraulic fracturing (HF) of underground formations has widely been used in different fields of engineering. Despite the technological advances in techniques of in situ HF, the industry uses semi‐analytical tools to design HF treatment. This is due to the complex interaction among various mechanisms involved in this process, so that for thorough simulations of HF operations a fully coupled numerical model is required. In this study, using element‐free Galerkin (EFG) mesh‐less method, a new formulation for numerical modeling of hydraulic fracture propagation in porous media is developed. This numerical approach, which is based on the simultaneous solution of equilibrium and continuity equations, considers the hydro‐mechanical coupling between the crack and its surrounding porous medium. Therefore, the developed EFG model is capable of simulating fluid leak‐off and fluid lag phenomena. To create the discrete equation system, the Galerkin technique is applied, and the essential boundary conditions are imposed via penalty method. Then, the resultant constrained integral equations are discretized in space using EFG shape functions. For temporal discretization, a fully implicit scheme is employed. The final set of algebraic equations that forms a non‐linear equation system is solved using the direct iterative procedure. Modeling of cracks is performed on the basis of linear elastic fracture mechanics, and for this purpose, the so‐called diffraction method is employed. For verification of the model, a number of problems are solved. According to the obtained results, the developed EFG computer program can successfully be applied for simulating the complex process of hydraulic fracture propagation in porous media. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of the susceptibility of interdependent infrastructures using fuzzy input–output inoperability model: the case of flood hazards in Tehran

Natural Hazards - Advancement in technology has contributed to increment in complexity of systems and infrastructures. Furthermore, it has complicated the management of systems to deal with natural...     

Macrobenthic invertebrate responses to prolonged drought in South Africa's largest estuarine lake complex

St Lucia, the largest estuarine lake complex of its type in Africa, is characterised by natural physico-chemical spatial and temporal fluctuations. This estuary functions as an important nursery area making use of a number of different habitat types and associated environmental conditions. The system has been subject to a number of natural episodic events such as cyclonic flooding and cyclical droughts, the most current has persisted since 2001, resulting in almost permanent mouth closure. Furthermore, high levels of evaporation have reduced lake levels and resulted in compartmentalisation of the system for up to several years at a time. St Lucia is sensitive to evaporation and therefore to vast salinity fluctuations and hypersaline conditions. The upper reaches in North Lake are particularly sensitive to drying out and extended hypersaline events. The macrobenthos has been well studied, but no studies have concentrated on the entire system for such an extent of time. Macrobenthic samples were initially collected in 2004, again in 2005 and biannually from 2006 to 2008. This study was part of a larger multidisciplinary programme aimed at determining the effects of long term drought conditions on the ecology of the St Lucia system, and increasing current understanding of the system response to future catastrophic climatic events. Three areas were sampled (North and South Lake and Estuary) at five sites per area, over five years. Data were analysed by representing communities through time series depictions and discriminating sites and sampling periods to test multidimensional relationships. Linkages between biological distribution and selected environmental forcing variables were investigated. The system was found to be highly variable and supporting a large number of different habitats and co-occurring environmental conditions. This variability makes it difficult to discern spatial or temporal patterns in environmental conditions and macrobenthic ecology. However, some level of resilience to wide ranging environmental changes associated with drought is maintained. This study was able to determine that there exists a core of taxa able to persist even under shallow depth conditions and prolonged hypersalinity. These taxa clearly have a self recruiting strategy and are therefore not reliant on mouth opening to re-establish local populations. This finding alone has important bearing for future studies and management of the system under similar adverse conditions.     

A Reservoir–Geomechanical Model to Study the Likelihood of Tensile and Shear Failure in the Caprock of Weyburn CCS Project with Regard to Interpretation of Microseismic Data

According to poroelastic theory and also field observations, an increase in reservoir pore pressures can result in a decrease in horizontal stresses in the seal layers. This reduction is in favor of hydrofracture initiation and reactivation of weak planes and has to be studied in caprock integrity analyses. In this paper, a field scale reservoir–geomechanical (GEM-FLAC3D) model is developed for the Phase IB area of the Weyburn (Canada) CCS project that is located in Williston sedimentary basin. A one-way coupling has been conducted between the two codes for the period of CO₂ injection in Phase IB area from 2000 to 2010. Therefore, the reservoir pore pressures at selected timesteps are unidirectionally fed to the FLAC3D. In order to study the likelihood of tensile and shear failure in the seal layer on top as a result of stress transfer due to poroelastic effects, two margin ratios are defined for tensile and shear failure and their variations are studied above the reservoir upon changes in pore pressures within the reservoir. The results show that overall; the likelihood of shear failure has been about 25% greater than that of tensile failure in Weyburn. However, between 2008 and 2009, the pressures were high enough to trigger both tensile and shear mechanisms above the reservoir. A discussion is also presented on relevance of this study for interpretation of microseismic data with regard to failure margin ratios, magnitudes and distribution of events recorded in each year.     

Environmental impact assessment of open pit mining in Iran

Mining is widely regarded as having adverse effects on environment of both magnitude and diversity. Some of these effects include erosion, formation of sinkhole, biodiversity loss and contamination of groundwater by chemical from the mining process in general and open-pit mining in particular. As such, a repeatable process to evaluate these effects primarily aims to diminish them. This paper applies Folchi method to evaluate the impact of open-pit mining in four Iranian mines that lacked previous geo-environmental assessment. Having key geologic resources, these mines are: Mouteh gold mine, Gol-e-Gohar and Chogart iron mines, and Sarcheshmeh copper mine. The environmental components can be defined as public health and safety, social relationships, air and water quality, flora and fauna hence, various impacting factors from the mining activities were estimated for each environmental component. For this purpose, each impacting factor was first given a magnitude, based solely on the range of possible scenarios. Thereafter, a matrix of weighted factors was derived to systematically quantify and normalize the effects of each impacting factor. The overall impact upon each individual environmental component was then calculated by summing the weighted rates. Here, Folchi method was applied to evaluate those environmental conditions. Based on the acquired results, the present paper finally concludes that amongst four case histories in Iran, Sarcheshmeh copper mine significantly affects the environment, with critical level of air pollution there.     

Habitat utilization by small flatfishes in a North Carolina estuary

Distribution and abundance of flatfish species (<150 mm standard length) were related to habitat characteristics in the Newport River and Back Sound estuaries in North Carolina. Salinity, turbidity, depth, distance from marsh edge, benthic composition, and grain size were used to describe the different shallow water habitats from April through October 1994. One Scophthalmidae, seven Paralichthyidae, one Achiridae, and one Cynoglossidae species were collected during the study including juvenileParalichthys albigutta (gulf flounder),P. dentatus (summer flounder), andP. lethostigma (southern flounder) along with multiple age classes ofCitharichthys spilopterus (bay whiff),Etropus crossotus (fringed flounder),Symphurus plagiusa (blackcheek tonguefish), andTrinetes maculatus (hogchoker). Incidental catches ofAncylopsetta quadrocellata (ocellated flounder),C. macrops (spotted whiff), andScopthalmus aquosus (windowpane) were also made. Flatfish distributions among habitats varied by species, size within species, and season. Regardless of season, the highest densities of flatfishes were found in the upper estuary. All habitats were used by one or more species and most species occurred at several habitats. Some species were significantly more abundant at specific habitat types. Ontogenetic shifts in habitat utilization were found for several species. High densities of smallP. lethostigma, C. spilopterus, S. plagiusa, andT. maculatus occurred in the upper estuary on muddy substrates. LargeP. dentatus, C. spilopterus, S. plagiusa, andT. maculatus utilized sand flats and channels in the lower estuary.     

Discrete Element Modeling of Stick-Slip Instability and Induced Microseismicity

Using Particle Flow Code, a discrete element model is presented in this paper that allows direct modeling of stick-slip behavior in pre-existing weak planes such as joints, beddings, and faults. The model is used to simulate a biaxial sliding experiment from literature on a saw-cut specimen of Sierra granite with a single fault. The fault is represented by the smooth-joint contact model. Also, an algorithm is developed to record the stick-slip induced microseismic events along the fault. Once the results compared well with laboratory data, a parametric study was conducted to investigate the evolution of the model’s behavior due to varying factors such as resolution of the model, particle elasticity, fault coefficient of friction, fault stiffness, and normal stress. The results show a decrease in shear strength of the fault in the models with smaller particles, smaller coefficient of friction of the fault, harder fault surroundings, softer faults, and smaller normal stress on the fault. Also, a higher rate of displacement was observed for conditions resulting in smaller shear strength. An increase in b-values was observed by increasing the resolution or decreasing the normal stress on the fault, while b-values were not sensitive to changes in elasticity of the fault or its surrounding region. A larger number of recorded events were observed for the models with finer particles, smaller coefficient of friction of the fault, harder fault surroundings, harder fault, and smaller normal stress on the fault. The results suggest that it is possible for the two ends of a fault to be still while there are patches along the fault undergoing stick-slips. Such local stick-slips seem to provide a softer surrounding for their neighbor patches facilitating their subsequent stick-slips.     

Trace metal pollution and its influence on the community structure of soft bottom molluscs in intertidal areas of the Dar es Salaam coast, Tanzania

The influence of trace metal pollution on the community structure of soft bottom molluscs was investigated in intertidal areas of the Dar es Salaam coast. Significant enrichment of As, Mn, Mo, Sb, and Zn in sediments was recorded. Redundancy analysis indicated that trace metal pollution contributed 68% of the variation in community structure. Monte Carlo permutation test showed that As and Sb contributed significantly to variation in species composition. T-value biplots and van Dobben circles showed that the gastropods Acteon fortis, Assiminea ovata, and Littoraria aberrans, were negatively affected by As and Sb, while the bivalve Semele radiata and the gastropod Conus litteratus were only negatively affected by As. Bioaccumulation of As, Cd, Cu, Mo and Zn occurred in the bivalve Mactra ovalina and the gastropod Polinices mammilla. This calls for regular monitoring and management measures.