Age and isotopic studies of some Pan-African granites from North-Central Nigeria

Twenty-nine Rb-Sr whole-rock isotopic analyses and three U-Pb zircon analyses on foliated granites and largely unfoliated charnockitic rocks indicate that the central part of the Pan-African belt in west Africa was characterised by intense orogenic plutonism. These data and Rb-Sr analyses on muscovite books from late cross-cutting pegmatites indicate that the peak of magmatic activity occurred 610 ± 10 m.y. ago.Initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios for the granitic and charnockitic rocks are in the range 0.7065–0.7125, and indicate a significantly older crustal component in the magmas.     

Efficient collection of training data for sub-pixel land cover classification using neural networks

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a popular class of techniques for performing soft classifications of satellite images. They have successfully been applied for estimating crop areas through sub-pixel classification of medium to low resolution images. Before a network can be used for classification and estimation, however, it has to be trained. The collection of the reference area fractions needed to train an ANN is often both time-consuming and expensive. This study focuses on strategies for decreasing the efforts needed to collect the necessary reference data, without compromising the accuracy of the resulting area estimates. Two aspects were studied: the spatial sampling scheme (i) and the possibility for reusing trained networks in multiple consecutive seasons (ii). Belgium was chosen as the study area because of the vast amount of reference data available. Time series of monthly NDVI composites for both SPOT-VGT and MODIS were used as the network inputs. The results showed that accurate regional crop area estimation (R² > 80%) is possible using only 1% of the entire area for network training, provided that the training samples used are representative for the land use variability present in the study area. Limiting the training samples to a specific subset of the population, either geographically or thematically, significantly decreased the accuracy of the estimates. The results also indicate that the use of ANNs trained with data from one season to estimate area fractions in another season is not to be recommended. The interannual variability observed in the endmembers’ spectral signatures underlines the importance of using up-to-date training samples. It can thus be concluded that the representativeness of the training samples, both regarding the spatial and the temporal aspects, is an important issue in crop area estimation using ANNs that should not easily be ignored.     

Trace Metals in Selected Benthic Invertebrates from Belgian Coastal Waters (1981–1996)

Mercury, cadmium, lead, copper, zinc and chromium were assessed in brown shrimp (Crangon crangon), swimming crab (Liocarcinus holsatus), hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus), starfish (Asterias rubens) and cut trough shell (Spisula subtruncata) from ten sampling stations off the Belgian coast, including three dredge spoils disposal sites. Calculations of time trends indicated that on the whole concentrations of trace metals had significantly decreased since 1981, also on dredged material dumping sites. Starfish and hermit crab were found to be the most promising benthic indicator species for metal contamination. Globally, the location of the sites, including the dredge spoils disposal zones, showed to be of little influence on the concentrations of trace metals.     

Magnitude scale structure from filtered broadbandP-wave records

A series of Hokkaido events, recorded by the FBV Broadband Seismograph System at the KHC Seismic Station, is used to study the structure of the earthquake magnitude scale on the basis of maximum velocity amplitudesA _vmax of teleseismicPwaves in different period bands. Amplitude-periodband (APB) diagrams are constructed for each event. According to the shape of the APB diagrams the events investigated can be divided into three types: (a) events with largestA _vmax values in the intermediate period range (periods ofA _vmax from 2.2 to 23 sec), (b) events with largestA _vmax values in the short-period range (periods ofA _vmax from 1 to 2 sec), (c) events exhibiting anomalous APB diagrams. Type (a) events seem to represent the process of wave generation that prevails for shallow earthquakes. Type (b) events approach to explosive-like generation of seismic waves. The nature of the exceptionally occurring type (c) events must be clarified in further investigations. The influence of the type of earthquake on the magnitude values estimated on the basis of standard class A and B (short-period and intermediate-band) seismograms is demonstrated. It appears that for estimating correct values of earthquake magnitudes complementary information on the process of seismic wave generation in the focus is necessary. At teleseismic distances this information can be obtained from either APB diagrams or amplitude spectra ofP waves recorded, e.g., by broadband velocity sensing instruments.     

Earthquake distribution and volcanism in Kamchatka,Kurile Islands,and Hokkaido Part 3: Southern Kuriles and Hokkaido

Summary The morphology of the Wadati-Benioff zone in the region of Southern Kuriles and Hokkaido, based on the distribution of 4015 earthquake foci, verified the existence of an intermediate depth aseismic gap and its relation to active andesitic volcanism. A paleosubduction zone activated by an intermediate depth collision with the active subduction zone was found and described.

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Volume diffusion of Ytterbium in YAG: thin-film experiments and combined TEM–RBS analysis

In this study, we address volume diffusion of ytterbium in yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) using thin-film single crystal diffusion couples. We employ analytical transmission electron microscopy (ATEM) as a tool for combined microstructural and microchemical analysis and compare the results to Rutherford backscattering (RBS) analysis. Given the high spatial resolution of the method, we focus on microstructural changes of the thin-film diffusant source during the diffusion anneal. We evaluate the potential influence of the associated changes in its transport properties on the evolution of concentration profiles in the single crystal substrate. This approach allows us to test the reliability of determination of volume diffusion coefficients from thin-film diffusion experiments. We found that for the chosen experimental setting, the influence of thin-film re-crystallization is small when compared with the experimental uncertainty and good estimates for the volume diffusion coefficients of Yb in YAG can be obtained using standard assumptions. Both Yb-concentration profiles analyzed with ATEM and with RBS give similar results. At 1,450°C and 1 bar, we infer log D _Yb (m²/s) values of −19.37 ± 0.07 (TEM) and −19.84 ± 0.02 (RBS). Although the change in thin-film transport properties associated with successive crystallization during the diffusion anneal does not play a major role for our experimental setup, this effect cannot generally be ignored.