Habitat analysis for sambar in corbett national park using remote sensing and gis

Habitat analysis for sambar in terms of food, cover, water, space and extent of edge in Corbett National Park using remote sensing and GIS has been attempted. Other physical parameters include climate, topography, fire history, disturbance regimes, weeds etc. IRS-IB LISS II data (FCC, hardcopy) on 1:50.000 scale was interpreted to generate vegetation cover and density map. Other maps showing drainage, water bodies, roads, human habitations and contours were prepared using Survey of India topographical maps. During evaluation of sambar habitat information regarding habitat parameters and their tolerance was collected from existing literature as well as during field observations. Twenty-two transects of one km. length were laid down in all the strata randomly to collect information regarding the structure and composition of the forest and also habitat use (direct and indirect evidences) by sambar. This was then integrated using condition-based equations in the GIS domain to generate suitability maps. Actual sightings on the ground to a large extent supported the results.     

Age and tectonostratigraphic significance of the Upper Carboniferous series in the basement of the Andean Frontal Cordillera: Geodynamic implications

The age and tectonosedimentary environment of the Palaeozoic sediments on the Frontal Cordillera is not well known and earlier studies have been unable to satisfactorily explain the geological history of the basement of the Andes.In the vicinity of the old Castaño Viejo mine crop out various levels of partially metamorphosed microbialite limestones, which alternate with thin marly–lutitic interstrata. These levels contain abundant palynomorph remains, which allow the series to be dated as Silurian–Devonian. These data, together with the presence of warm climate fossils, lend support to the hypothesis of a major allochtony of the Chilenia Terrane (of which the Frontal Cordillera formed part), relative to the Cuyania Terrane (which included the Precordillera), prior to their amalgamation.Upper Carboniferous palynomorphs found during this study occur in association with resedimented palynomorphs and chitinozoa, of possible Devonian age. This demonstrates the equivalence of both fossiliferous series and their location within the upper part of the Upper Carboniferous Agua Negra Fm. The Silurian–Devonian elements, deformed during a phase prior to the Gondwanic orogeny, were eroded and transported to the foreland basin during the Upper Carboniferous.The palynomorph associations found in all samples correspond to the Ancistrospora palynological zone and to the Raistrickia densa–Convolutispora muriornata Biozone, which are indicative of Upper Carboniferous times. Characteristic forms such as Ancistrospora verrucosa and C. muriornata, both indicative of an Upper Carboniferous age, were found in samples from the Castaño Viejo area.Earlier interpretations of the Frontal Cordillera attributing the sedimentation to a palaeo-latitude at some distance from Gondwana, were based on the presence of Silurian–Devonian hot water stromatolithic limestones. Our results suggest that Cuyania and Chilenia were not necessarily separated by a great distance before their amalgamation. This in turn means that a large ocean was not necessarily consumed in the process.     

Nitrogen uptake and denitrification in restored and unrestored streams in urban Maryland, USA

There is growing interest in rates of nitrate uptake and denitrification in restored streams to better understand the effects of restoration on nitrogen processing. This study quantified nitrate uptake in two restored and two unrestored streams in Baltimore, Maryland, USA using nitrate additions, denitrification enzyme assays, and a ¹⁵N isotope tracer addition in one of the urban restored streams, Minebank Run. Restoration included either incorporation of stormwater ponds below a storm drain and catch basins to attenuate flow or hydrologic “reconnection” of a stream channel to its floodplain. Stream restoration was conducted for restoring aging sanitary and bridge infrastructure and introducing some stormwater management in watersheds developed prior to current regulations. Denitrification potential in sediments was variable across streams, whereas nitrate uptake length appeared to be significantly correlated to surface water velocity, which was low in the restored streams during summer baseflow conditions. Uptake length of NO₃ ⁻–N in Minebank Run estimated by ¹⁵N tracer addition was 556 m. Whole stream denitrification rates in Minebank Run were 153 mg NO₃ ⁻–N m⁻² day⁻¹, and approximately 40% of the daily load of nitrate was estimated to be removed via denitrification over a distance of 220.5 m in a stream reach designed to be hydrologically “connected” to its floodplain. Increased hydrologic residence time in Minebank Run during baseflow likely influenced rates of whole stream denitrification, suggesting that hydrologic residence time may be a key factor influencing N uptake and denitrification. Restoration approaches that increase hydrologic “connectivity” with hyporheic sediments and increase hydrologic residence time may be useful for stimulating denitrification. More work is necessary, however, to examine changes in denitrification rates in restored streams across different seasons, variable N loads, and in response to the “flashy” hydrologic flow conditions during storms common in urban streams.     

The Lilloise Intrusion, East Greenland: Fractionation of a Hydrous Alkali Picritic Magma

The Lilloise is an 8 km4 km layered mafic intrusion which cutsthe plateau basalts of the East Greenland Tertiary province.Lilloise was intruded at 50 Ma, 4–5 Ma after cessationof the voluminous tholeiitic magmatism which accompanied riftingof the East Greenland continental margin. Lilloise is unusualamong layered intrusions in the province because it had a hydrousalkali picrite parent magma and generated a late-stage effluxof magmatic water from the intrusion into the aureole rocks.The three major subdivisions of the layered rocks are: olivine-clinopyroxene,olivine-clinopyroxene-plagioclase and plagioclase-amphibolecumulates. Massive subsidence of the intrusion before completesolidification resulted in deformation of the internal layeringand downturn of the bedding in the surrounding basalts. A strikingfeature of the intrusion is the injection of the layered rocksby a plexus of magmatic sheets which formed at the time of subsidence.The composition of these sheets is representative of the fractionationtrend of the intrusion and ranges from hawaiite to mildly saturatedquartz trachyte. The fractionation trend is successfully explainedby extraction of cumulus minerals of the layered rocks froma parent magma represented by alkali picrite dykes of a contemporaneousregional dyke swarm. Saturated to mildly over-saturated syenitesare a major component of the East Greenland province and theLilloise intrusion is illustrative of an important magmatictrend towards such compositions at this stage in the openingof the North Atlantic. KEY WORDS: Lilloise intrusion; East Greenland; alkali picrite magma; layered intrusion; magmatic differentiation ^*Corraponding author     

Simplified seismic performance assessment and implications for seismic design

The last decade or so has seen the development of refined performance-based earthquake engineering(PBEE) approaches that now provide a framework for estimation of a range of important decision variables,such as repair costs,repair time and number of casualties. This paper reviews current tools for PBEE,including the PACT software,and examines the possibility of extending the innovative displacement-based assessment approach as a simplified structural analysis option for performance assessment. Details of the displacement-based s+eismic assessment method are reviewed and a simple means of quickly assessing multiple hazard levels is proposed. Furthermore,proposals for a simple definition of collapse fragility and relations between equivalent single-degree-of-freedom characteristics and multi-degree-of-freedom story drift and floor acceleration demands are discussed,highlighting needs for future research. To illustrate the potential of the methodology,performance measures obtained from the simplified method are compared with those computed using the results of incremental dynamic analyses within the PEER performance-based earthquake engineering framework,applied to a benchmark building. The comparison illustrates that the simplified method could be a very effective conceptual seismic design tool. The advantages and disadvantages of the simplified approach are discussed and potential implications of advanced seismic performance assessments for conceptual seismic design are highlighted through examination of different case study scenarios including different structural configurations.     

Harmonic analysis of cosmic microwave background data – I. Ring reductions and point-source catalogue

We present a harmonic model for the data analysis of an all-sky cosmic microwave background survey, such as Planck , where the survey is obtained through ring-scans of the sky. In this model, resampling and pixelization of the data are avoided. The spherical transforms of the sky at each frequency, in total intensity and polarization, as well as the bright-point-source catalogue, are derived directly from the data reduced on to the rings. Formal errors and the most significant correlation coefficients for the spherical transforms of the frequency maps are preserved. A clean and transparent path from the original samplings in the time domain to the final scientific products is thus obtained. The data analysis is largely based on Fourier analysis of rings; the positional stability of the instrument's spin axis during these scans is a requirement for the data model and is investigated here for the Planck satellite. Brighter point sources are recognized and extracted as part of the ring reductions and, on the basis of accumulated data, used to build the bright-point-source catalogue. The analysis of the rings is performed in an iterative loop, involving a range of geometric and detector response calibrations. The geometric calibrations are used to reconstruct the paths of the detectors over the sky during a scan and the phase offsets between scans of different detectors; the response calibrations eliminate short- and long-term variations in detector response. Point-source information may allow the reconstruction of the beam profile. The reconstructed spherical transforms of the sky in each frequency channel form the input to the subsequent analysis stages. Although the methods in this paper were developed with the data processing for the Planck satellite in mind, there are many aspects which have wider implementation possibilities, including the construction of real-space pixelized maps.