泰国湾表层沉积物陆源碎屑的粒度特征及其展现的沉积动力环境

海洋碎屑沉积物的粒度特征是海底沉积动力环境的直接体现,是用来研究海洋动力环境变化的重要手段,尤其是陆架海底表层沉积物的粒度分布,对于研究沿岸和水柱底边界层现今海洋动力环境可起到重要作用。该项研究通过调查遍布泰国湾至湄公河口海底表层沉积物陆源碎屑的粒度分布特征,以期获得影响现今特定海域沉积作用的海洋动力环境过程。粒度分析的结果显示,泰国湾表层沉积物的陆源碎屑以细砂-细粉砂为主,分选总体较差,频率分布以正偏为主。其中,细砂-极细砂组分主要分布在曼谷湾和柬埔寨沿岸。湄公河岸外沉积物为细砂,且分选比泰国湾区域的沉积物要好。这些表层沉积物的粒度特征具有良好的环境变化指示作用。湄公河岸外分选较好、近于正态分布的中砂沉积物指示了波浪作用下的沉积环境。曼谷湾和柬埔寨沿岸分选较差的中砂-细砂粗粒沉积物反映了潮汐和波浪的共同作用;泰国湾东西沿岸区域分选中等、呈正偏态的极细砂-中粉砂沉积物体现了潮汐的控制作用;而泰国湾中部分选较差的沉积物则指示了表层洋流作用。研究表明,泰国湾和湄公河岸外表层沉积物陆源碎屑的粒度分布特征可用于区分不同海洋动力因素的控制作用,揭示出泰国湾的沉积动力环境主要受潮汐、波浪和洋流的共同影响,湄公河岸外的沉积动力环境主要受波浪的影响。     

Winter severity in Europe: The fourteenth century

The fourteenth century is known to include a period of winter cooling in Central and Western Europe, but its timing and magnitude are not clearly established. An attempt to obtain a coherent picture from verified documentary evidence yielded 2133 records from a region covering Central Europe and Northern Italy, mostly originating from the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Temperatures were assessed using semi-quantitative indices on the basis of proxy information on snow-cover, ice and untimely activity of vegetation. Results: A run of cold winters from 1303 to 1328 was followed by a run of average winters up to 1354. Then winter temperatures were extremely variable up to 1375. For the rest of the century they fluctuated somewhat below the average of the twentieth century. The pattern in the first five decades is compared to that in the Late Maunder Minimum (1675–1715). The possible role of forcing factors (variations in solar output, North Atlantic Deep Water formation) is briefly discussed.     

Distribution of nutrient salts in the southern North Sea during early 1974

Nutrient salt surveys in the southern North Sea have shown that the level of phosphate and nitrate off the continental coast during January, 1974 was two to three times higher than during the same period in 1962. The level of phosphate has also increased in the Thames Estuary but to a lesser degree. It is suggested that these increases are related to the discharge of waste material from terrestrial sources and that such changes must be considered in the context of eutrophication in the southern North Sea.     

The fractal geometry of flow paths in natural fractures in rock and the approach to percolation

The distributions of contact areas in single, natural fractures in quartz monzonite (Stripa granite) are found to have fractal dimensions which decrease fromD=2.00 to values nearD=1.96 as stress normal to the fractures is increased from 3 MPa up to 85 MPa. The effect of stress on fluid flow is studied in the same samples. Fluid transport through a fracture depends on two properties of the fracture void space geometry. the void aperture; and the tortuosity of the flow paths, determined through the distribution of contact area. Each of these quantities change under stress and contribute to changes observed in the flow rate. A general flow law is presented which separates these different effects. The effects of tortuosity on flow are largely governed by the proximity of the flow path distribution to a percolation threshold. A fractal model of correlated continuum percolation is presented which quantitatively reproduces the flow path geometries. The fractal dimension in this model is fit to the measured fractal dimensions of the flow systems to determine how far the flow systems are above the percolation threshold.     

Influence of compound bedforms on hydraulic roughness in a tidal environment

The effect exerted by the seabed morphology on the flow is commonly expressed by the hydraulic roughness, a fundamental parameter in the understanding and simulation of hydro- and sediment dynamics in coastal areas. This study quantifies the hydraulic roughness of large compound bedforms throughout a tidal cycle and investigates its relationship to averaged bedform dimensions. Consecutive measurements with an acoustic Doppler current profiler and a multibeam echosounder were carried out in the Jade tidal channel (North Sea, Germany) along large compound bedforms comprising ebb-oriented primary bedforms with superimposed smaller secondary bedforms. Spatially averaged velocity profiles produced log-linear relationships which were used to calculate roughness lengths. During the flood phase, the velocity profiles were best described by a single log-linear fit related to the roughness created by the secondary bedforms. During the ebb phase, the velocity profiles were segmented, showing the existence of at least two boundary layers: a lower one scaling with the superimposed secondary bedforms and an upper one scaling with the ebb-oriented primary bedforms. The drag induced by the primary bedform during the ebb phase is suggested to be related to flow expansion, separation, and recirculation on the downstream side of the bedform. Three existing formulas were tested to predict roughness lengths from the local bedform dimensions. All three predicted the right order of magnitude for the average roughness length but failed to predict its variation over the tidal cycle.     

Hydrochemical and isotopical tracers in the lacustrine aquifer of the Cerro Prieto area, Baja California, México

A series of patterns in the chemical and isotopic composition of the groundwater of the Cerro Prieto area have been recognized. These patterns were used to define four hydrochemical and isotopical zones in the area. One of these areas located at the east side was found to be the source of recharge, while another in the central part is where an older aquifer exist in lacustrine deposits. The low permeability of the area causes the aquifer to act as an aquitard, which at least is partly surrounded by an interface zone where mixing of waters occurs. Tritium and radiocarbon method revealed that the aquitard is an isolate system whose residence time is of 32 ka.     

A poincaré model for the earth's fluid core

Abstract

The superconducting-gravimeter data of Melchior and Ducarme (1986) has been interpreted as internal motion in the Earth's core by Aldridge and Lumb (1987) using a Poincaré model. Several low-order modes with periods of 13–16 hours have been tentatively identified in the core which is taken to be an incompressible, homogeneous fluid within a rigid, rotating container. The identification is based on asymptotic values of the frequencies which change slowly with time while the modes decay with an e-folding time of about 280 days. The slow change in frequency with time implies a small temporal variation in the rotation rate of the core. This mean flow is a nonlinear effect often observed in laboratory experiments designed to excite Poincaré modes. Interaction among modes during free ringdown is also observed in those experiments and apparently in the data of Melchior et al. (1988) as well. Laboratory work thus provides the link to extend the Poincaré model to include viscous and nonlinear effects in order to interpret the gravimetric observations as core modes.     

State-of-the art and future of earthquake early warning in the European region

European researchers and seismic networks are active in developing new approaches to earthquake early warning (EEW), implementing and operating test EEW systems, and in some cases, offering operational EEW to end users. We present the key recent developments in EEW research in Europe, describe the networks and regions where EEW is currently in testing or development, and highlight the two systems in Turkey and Romania that currently provide operational systems to a limited set of end users.     

Acid volcanism on the south Arabian coast

Along the south coast of Arabia, between Aden and the southern entrance to the Red Sea, there are six central vent volcanoes of probable Pliocene age. All are characterised by the interstratification of basic and acidic extrusives, the formation of large central calderas at a late stage in the volcanic cycle and the subsequent infilling of these calderas with horizontal acidic ignimbrites and basic lavas. Lying 60 miles to the west of Aden and of particular interest is Jebel Khariz, the largest and best preserved of the six volcanic centres, covering a roughly circular area of about 100 square miles and rising to a height of 2,766 feet. The volcanic sequence of Jebel Khariz is broadly divisible into two suites: a) alkali-rich rhyolites and trachytes which occur as flows and pyroclastic horizons and form about 80 per cent of the volume of the cone, and b) effusives of basaltic composition that occur in the caldera, locally on the south-east and south-west flanks and in a small parasitic cone on the northern flank. The alkali-rich acidic suite includes lavas, ash-flow and ash-fall rocks as well as vent and flow breccias, Generally, all rocks of this suite have phenocrysts of anorthoclase, and may contain phenocrysts of fayalitic olivine, aegirine-augite, magnetite and/or quartz. The fine grained matrix is composed of the same minerals with skeletal riebeckite and, in some cases, cossyrite. The basaltic suite is characteristically porphyritic, the phenocrysts being of calcic plagioclase, clinopyroxene, olivine and magnetite in a fine-grained mesostasis of plagioclase, olivine, clinopyroxene and ore. The plagioclase, on initial investigation, appears to lie in the labradorite-bytownite range, the olivine is commonly replaced by iddingsite and the clinopyroxene is most commonly a pale mauve titanaugite. Near the centre of the volcanic pile, as exposed in the caldera wall, masses of rhyolitic composition can be seen to form over half of the volcanic sequence. These masses are markedly lenzoid in cross-section normal to the flow direction and display intricate flow folding; they are considered to have been extruded as viscous lava. Further from the volcanic centre, these acidic extrusives become less markedly lenzoid until in the distal areas of individual units, some 5 miles from the caldera, they have spread out to form sheet-like masses covering as much as 10 square miles to a uniform thickness rarely exceeding 25 feet. The presence of agglomeratic bases, hard compact central sections and less compact upper divisions, together with the ubiquitous presence of columnar jointing and occasional shard textures suggest that these distal parts of each extrusive unit have been formed by an ash-flow/ash-fall mechanism. It is postulated that the majority of the Jebel Khariz volcanic pile was formed by emission of acidic material, effusive in the central area, but deposited mainly by an ash-flow mechanism around the flanks of the cone. This could be due to either the synchronous eruption of viscous lava from the central vent with ash flow eruptions on the flanks; or, more probably, to the progression of an individual volcanic episode through an initial ash-flow phase followed by the effusion of viscous lava, all emanating from the central vent.     

Variation of mineral composition,fabric and oxygen fugacity from massive to foliated eclogites during exhumation of subducted ocean crust in the North Qilian suture zone,NW China

Eclogites from the North Qilian suture zone are high‐pressure low‐temperature metamorphic rocks of ocean crust protolith, and occur in both massive and foliated varieties as individual blocks of tens to hundreds of metres in size. The massive type is weakly deformed and shows granoblastic texture characterized by a coarse‐grained peak mineral assemblage of Grt¹ + Omp¹ + Ph + Rt ± Lws (or retrograde Cz). In contrast, the foliated type is strongly deformed and shows a fine‐grained retrograde mineral assemblage of Grt² + Omp² + Cz + Gln + Ph. Both total FeO and aegirine contents in omphacite, as well as X_Fe[=Fe³⁺/(Fe³⁺ + Al^VI)] in clinozoisite/epidote, increase significantly from massive to foliated eclogites. Lattice preferred orientation (LPO) of omphacite, determined by electron back‐scatter diffraction analysis, is characterized by weak and strong SL‐type fabrics for massive and foliated eclogites, respectively. Clinozoisite/epidote also developed SL‐type fabric, but different from the LPOs of omphacite in <010> and <001> axes, owing to their opposite crystallographic long and short axis definitions. The transition of deformation mechanism from dislocation creep to diffusive mass transfer (DMT) creep in omphacite and the concomitant retrograde metamorphism both are efficiently facilitated when the original coarse‐grained Omp¹ + Grt¹ + Lws assemblage is dynamically recrystallized and retrogressed into the fine‐grained Fe³⁺‐rich assemblage of Omp² + Grt² + Cz + Gln. The DMT process with concomitant anisotropic growth assisted by fluids is considered to be an important deformation mechanism for most minerals in the foliated eclogite. P–T estimates yielded 2.3–2.6 GPa and 485?510 °C for the massive eclogite and 1.8–2.2 GPa and 450?480 °C for the foliated eclogite. The significant increase in total Fe and Fe³⁺ contents in omphacite and clinozoisite/epidote from massive to foliated eclogite suggests changes in mineral compositions accompanied by an increase in oxygen fugacity during ductile deformation associated with exhumation. The LPO transition of omphacite, clinozoisite and rutile from weak SL‐type in massive eclogites to strong SL‐type in foliated eclogites is interpreted to represent the increment of shear strain during exhumation along the ‘subduction channel’.