Spatial and temporal analyses of air pollutants and meteorological driving forces in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region,China

Due to its negative impact on the living environment of human beings, ambient air pollution has become a global challenge to human health. In this study, surface observations of six criteria air pollutants, including PM_2.5, PM₁₀, SO₂, NO₂, CO and O₃, were collected to investigate the spatial and temporal variation in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) region during 2013–2016 and to explore the relationships between atmospheric pollutants and meteorological variables using quantile regression model (QRM) and multiple linear regression model (MLRM). The results show that BTH region has experienced significant air pollution, and the southern part generally has more severe conditions. The annual average indicates clear decreasing trends of the particulate matters, SO₂ and CO concentrations over the last 4 years and slight increasing trends of NO₂ and O₃ in several cities. The seasonal and monthly characteristics indicate that the concentrations of five species reach their maxima in the winter and their minima in the summer, whereas O₃ has the opposite behaviour. Finally, the pseudo R² values show that the QRMs have the best performance in the winter, followed by spring, fall, and summer. Specifically, all the meteorological factors have significant impacts on air pollution but change with pollutants and seasons. The MLRM results are generally consistent with the QRM results in all seasons, and the inconsistencies are more common in the fall and winter. The results of this research provide foundational knowledge for predicting the response of air quality to climate change in the BTH region.     

Geochemistry of organic matter and elements of black shale during weathering in Northern Guizhou,Southwestern China: Their mobilization and inter-connection

Different from previous studies on effect of weathering upon geochemical variation along a single weathered profile, this paper provides a new methodology validated by comparing a weathered outcrop samples and their stratigraphic counterpart un-weathered core samples in a nearby shallow borehole. This outcrop and borehole penetrated the Ordovician-Silurian Wufeng–Longmaxi shales, located in the same anticline structure in the northern part of Guizhou Province, Southern China. The mineral composition, major, trace and rare earth elements (REEs) composition and Rock-Eval parameters of outcrop and core samples were analyzed and compared. Organic matter (OM) was observed in the microscope and extracted for elements analysis. The results show that short-term weathering still has significant influence on OM, mineral and elemental composition of black shales. The elements composition shows the outcrop profile was moderately weathered. The REEs compositions do not alter much during weathering process and the REEs composition and their relative ratios still are valid for rock origin determination. The OM, mainly composed by graptolite and bitumen, even entering the highly-over thermal maturity, is still sensitive to the weathering with a systematic loss 30–50% of TOC along the outcrop profile, which suggests that the OM consumption is predominantly controlled by weathering duration and the distance from the weathering surface. In turn, OM has significant influence on the trace elements transportation behavior during weathering. Some trace elements associated with the OM such as V, Cr, Th, U, Ni and Co, change significantly in their absolute concentration during weathering, but their relative ratios do not necessarily change too much and might be still reliable proxies for paleo-environmental determination. The mobility of shale minerals during weathering is in the following order: plagioclase?>?potassium feldspar and dolomite >pyrite and OM. Short-term weathering can also result in considerable transportation of elements and significant variation of minerals content in black shale, which may pose potentially high environmental and engineering risk in the regions rich in black shale.     

Prediction of open stope hangingwall stability using random forests

Natural Hazards - The prediction of open stope hangingwall (HW) stability is a crucial task for underground mines. In this paper, a relatively novel technique, the random forest (RF) algorithm, is...     

Evaluating climate change adaptation efforts on the US 50 states’ hazard mitigation plans

Climate change brings uncertain risks of climate-related natural hazards. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA in Climate change: long-term trends and their implications for emergency management, 2011. https://www.fema.gov/pdf/about/programs/oppa/climate_change_paper.pdf) has issued a policy directive to integrate climate change adaptation actions into hazard mitigation programs, policies, and plans. However, to date there has been no comprehensive empirical study to examine the extent to which climate change issues are integrated into state hazard mitigation plans (SHMPs). This study develops 18 indicators to examine the extent of climate change considerations in the 50 SHMPs. The results demonstrate that these SHMPs treat climate change issues in an uneven fashion, with large variations present among the 50 states. The overall plan quality for climate change considerations was sustained at an intermediate level with regard to climate change-related awareness, analysis, and actions. The findings confirm that climate change concepts and historic extreme events have been well recognized by the majority of SHMPs. Even though they are not specific to climate change, mitigation and adaptation strategies that can help reduce climate change risks have been adopted in these plans. However, the plans still lack a detailed assessment of climate change and more incentives for collaboration strategies beyond working with emergency management agencies.     

Comparison of two types of persistent heavy rainfall events during sixteen warm seasons in the Sichuan Basin

本文筛选出四川盆地西部(盆西型)和盆地东部(盆东型)持续性暴雨个例,深入对比两类持续性暴雨的大气环流特征和直接造成持续性暴雨的西南低涡维持的机理.四川盆地的短波槽和西太平洋副热带高压的配置有利于持续性暴雨的维持,盆东型的降水强度较盆西型个例强,高空急流位置偏南,南亚高压的强度更强,高层辐散更强,对流层中层副热带高压偏东偏南.盆西型的水汽输送主要来自南海,而盆东型的水汽输送主要来自南海和孟加拉湾.合成涡度收支的结果表明散度项是两类持续暴雨中西南涡维持的主要原因,但盆西型中,垂直平流的作用更强.     

Network-based triple-frequency carrier phase ambiguity resolution between reference stations using BDS data for long baselines

Network-based ambiguity resolution (AR) between reference stations is the prerequisite to realize a precise real-time kinematic positioning service. With the help of BDS triple-frequency signals, we can efficiently deal with the ionospheric delay and tropospheric delay, and achieve rapid and reliable AR. To overcome the inaccurate ionospheric delay estimated by the geometry-free three carrier ambiguity resolution (GF TCAR) technique, which leads to failure in the original ambiguity resolution, we propose an ionospheric-free (IF) TCAR method to resolve the ambiguity between the reference stations over long baselines. Taking full advantage of the known positions of the reference stations, the easily resolved extra-wide-lane (EWL) ambiguity, and the IF phase combinations, we can reliably fix the wide-lane (WL) ambiguity. A Kalman filter is applied to estimate precise IF ambiguities and the original ambiguity is resolved with the fixed WL ambiguity. A numerical analysis with triple-frequency BDS data from three long baselines of a CORS network is provided to compare the AR performance of GF TCAR with that of IF TCAR. The results show that both methods can reliably resolve the WL ambiguity with a remarkable correctly-fixed rate of higher than 99%, and the reliably-fixed rates of the IF TCAR slightly increase from 92.19, 94.67 and 94.61–98.26, 99.54 and 97.51% for the three baselines. Herein “correctly-fixed” and “reliably-fixed” mean the difference between the float ambiguity and the true one are less than ± 0.5 and ± 0.25 cycles, respectively. On the other hand, the AR performance of the original signals with the IF TCAR method is much better than that with the GF TCAR method attaining a 100% correctly-fixed rate, while the GF TCAR method can hardly fix the original ambiguity with the largest bias being as much as 4 cycles because of the amplified systematic bias.     

An improved ionosphere interpolation algorithm for network RTK in low-latitude regions

A traditional interpolation algorithm with the linear interpolation method (LIM) using a fixed number of reference stations is widely used in network RTK to obtain the ionospheric delays for the users. In low-latitude regions, where the ionosphere is relatively active, however, large interpolation errors exist, especially for satellites at low elevation angles. Considering the characteristics of “coinciding ionospheric pierce points (CIPPs)” with a similar nature of ionospheric delays, an improved interpolation algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, all stations with CIPPs are used to establish the interpolation model; thus, more precise interpolation model is achieved. To validate the performance of the proposed algorithm, data from some reference stations in Guangdong Province of China were used, and the results are compared with those with the traditional interpolation algorithm. Numerical analysis shows that the interpolation accuracy of the proposed algorithm increases by 10–30% compared with the traditional one. Since the number of reference stations is flexible, the proposed algorithm can also balance the model accuracy with the computation burdens. In addition, the proposed algorithm is less affected by the selection of master reference station. In terms of network RTK on-the-fly positioning, the time-to-first-fix is reduced when replacing the traditional interpolation algorithm with the proposed one.     

万象盆地不同成钾区的水不溶矿物对比及其指示意义

老挝万象盆地属于沙空那空盆地的次级盆地,沉积了厚层的钾石盐矿,而钾石盐中还存在着部分水不溶物,通过研究不同成钾区域的钻孔发现:水不溶物主要包括硬石膏、方硼石、白云母、石英、水氯硼钙石、碳酸盐矿物以及零散的黄铁矿,通过水不溶矿物在钻孔中的分布及组合特征发现,钾盐从析出到结束,水不溶物出现规律性特征:钾石盐含量越多方硼石含量也越多,而硬石膏且越少,并在钾石盐高峰期出现鲕粒方硼石,鲕粒方硼石分布表明成钾晚期沉积环境为动荡的浅水环境.水不溶矿物组合、形貌特征及硼同位素分析研究显示,在万象盆地成钾阶段,钾盐沉积不是一成不变的而是具有明显的阶段性,其过程可以分为石盐沉积晚期,钾盐沉积早期,钾盐沉积中期和钾盐沉积晚期等4个不同阶段,其中钾盐阶段中期为钾盐沉积高峰期.因此,水不溶物研究能够很好地反演钾盐沉积环境,可作为古蒸发岩沉积研究的重要指标.     

Failure and Acoustic Emission Characteristics of Jointed Rock Masses with Different Joint Inclination Angles and Combination Mode

Geotechnical and Geological Engineering - In order to analyze the characteristics of the mechanical property, failure mode and acoustic emission of the columnar jointed rock masses,...     

桂中都安-马山煌斑岩成因及其构造意义

为精确厘定桂中地区都安-马山带煌斑岩的形成时代并探讨其源区属性、构造环境及其动力学背景,对其进行了LA-ICP-MS锆石U-Pb定年、40Ar-39Ar金云母定年、Hf同位素分析测试和全岩地球化学研究.结果表明,锆石U-Pb定年未能成功限定煌斑岩的成岩年龄,但煌斑岩中发育大量2 578~1 650 Ma的捕获锆石,指示其存在太古宙-古元古代变质基底.金云母40Ar-39Ar定年结果限定了煌斑岩的侵位年龄为100.4±0.99 Ma.Hf同位素研究表明,ε_Hf（t）有正有负,且正值多于负值,表明岩浆源区主要以新生地壳为主,存在部分古老地壳的再循环.全岩地球化学分析显示,煌斑岩具有较低的SiO₂含量（47.66%~50.93%）及高的K₂O含量（4.98%~6.77%）、富集LILE和LREE而亏损HFSE（如Nb、Ta和Ti）,表现出富集地幔和俯冲流体交代作用的特征.桂中煌斑岩形成过程中,地壳混染作用十分有限,主要形成过程为:流体交代的富集地幔,在燕山晚期岩石圈的拉张-伸展背景下,部分熔融形成煌斑岩岩浆,同时NNW向的南丹-昆仑关大断裂为岩浆的侵位提供了通道.研究区煌斑岩形成于太平洋和印度板块向欧亚板块俯冲碰撞的动力学背景下.