Paleoproterozoic accretion in the Northeast Siberian craton: Isotopic dating of the Anabar collision system

Geochronological database considered in the work and characterizing the Anabar collision system in the Northeast Siberian craton includes coordinated results of Sm-Nd and Rb-Sr dating of samples from crustal xenoliths in kimberlites, deep drill holes, and bedrock outcrops. As is inferred, collision developed in three stages dated at 2200–2100, 1940–1760, and 1710–1630 Ma. The age of 2000–1960 Ma is established for substratum of mafic rocks, which probably originated during the lower crust interaction with asthenosphere due to the local collapse of the collision prism. Comparison of Sm-Nd and Rb-Sr isochron dates shows that the system cooling from ≈700 to ≈300°C lasted approximately 300 m.y. with a substantial lag relative to collision metamorphism and granite formation. It is assumed that accretion of the Siberian craton resulted in formation of a giant collision mountainous structure of the Himalayan type that was eroded by 1.65 Ga ago, when accumulation of gently dipping Meso-to Neoproterozoic (Riphean) platform cover commenced.     

Mercury speciation and mobilization in contaminated soils of the Valle del Azogue Hg mine (SE,Spain)

Hg mobilization from contaminated soils and mine wastes was the source of environmental contamination in the Valle del Azogue mining area. We researched solid-phase speciation and aqueous mobility of Hg through Scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and electron probe microanalysis analysis, solid-phase-Hg-thermo-desorption (SPTD) and laboratory column experiments. We found that in contaminated soils and mine wastes, the predominant Hg species was cinnabar (HgS), mainly formed from the weathering of Hg-rich pyrite, and metallic Hg (0) in the matrix, whereas in calcines and tailings the dominant species was metallic Hg (0). The mobilization of Hg in the aqueous phase seems to have originated from the dissolution of elemental Hg (0) present in soils and wastes, reaching concentrations of up to 67 μg l⁻¹, and showing a higher long-term environmental potential risk, in addition to atmospheric emissions.     

Spatial assessment and redesign of a groundwater quality monitoring network using entropy theory, Gaza Strip, Palestine

Using entropy theory, a methodology was developed for the evaluation and redesign of groundwater quality monitoring wells in the Gaza Strip in Palestine. Essential to the methodology is the development of a Transinformation Model (TM) which yields the amount of information transfer and the dependency between the wells as a function of distance. The TM parameters, such as the minimum transinformation and the range, were employed for evaluating the network which revealed that most of the distances between wells were less than the range. It also indicated that a high percentage of redundant information existed in the network. Therefore, the network was reduced by superimposing a square pattern over the monitored area and selecting one well per square block in a stratified pattern. The methodology was tested using the chloride data collected from 1972–2000 from 417 groundwater quality monitoring wells in the Gaza Strip. The number of the groundwater quality monitoring wells in the Gaza Strip was reduced by 53%, while there was 26% redundant information based on the minimum existing distance between wells. This methodology is meant to help monitor the groundwater quality (salinity) in the Gaza Strip.     

Ammonium regeneration in intertidal sediments of the Yangtze estuary during air-exposure

The influences of exposure to the atmosphere on ammonium cycle in the intertidal surface sediments were in situ studied with a geochemical approach at a typical station in the Yangtze Estuary during three tidal cycles in September 2003. During an about 8-h emersion period of each diurnal tide, six high-resolution vertical profiles of adsorbed and dissolved ammonium were measured. It was observed that both adsorbed and dissolved ammonium generally had an increasing trend in sediment cores during the exposure. The rate of ammonium regeneration in sediments was estimated using the accumulation amount of ammonium including adsorbed and soluble fractions during the daytime emersion. The calculation result showed that there was relatively high ammonification rate (˜500 nmol N cm⁻³ day⁻¹), which reflected that organic nitrogen in sediments was quickly decomposed with a residence time of ˜52.7 days. Due to the dramatic temperature difference observed in sediment profiles, free convection was considered an important mechanism of regulating the efflux of produced ammonium into overlying waters. The total estimated amount of regenerated ammonium was ˜1.35×10⁵ t N year⁻¹ in the intertidal flat of the Yangtze Estuary, which occupied 7.6% of the total inorganic nitrogen annually transported to the estuarine ecosystem.     

Effect of sampling and linkage on fault length and length–displacement relationship

The power-law exponent (n) in the equation: D=cL ⁿ , with D = maximum displacement and L = fault length, would be affected by deviations of fault trace length. (1) Assuming n=1, numerical simulations on the effect of sampling and linkage on fault length and length–displacement relationship are done in this paper. The results show that: (a) uniform relative deviations, which means all faults within a dataset have the same relative deviation, do not affect the value of n; (b) deviations of the fault length due to unresolved fault tip decrease the values of n and the deviations of n increase with the increasing length deviations; (c) fault linkage and observed dimensions either increase or decrease the value of n depending on the distribution of deviations within a dataset; (d) mixed deviations of the fault lengths are either negative or positive and cause the values of n to either decrease or increase; (e) a dataset combined from two or more datasets with different values of c and orders of magnitude also cause the values of n to deviate. (2) Data including 19 datasets and spanning more than eight orders of fault length magnitudes (10⁻²–10⁵ m) collected from the published literature indicate that the values of n range from 0.55 to 1.5, the average value being 1.0813, and the peak value of n _d (double regression) is 1.0–1.1. Based on above results from the simulations and published data, we propose that the relationship between the maximum displacement and fault length in a single tectonic environment with uniform mechanical properties is linear, and the value of n deviated from 1 is mainly caused by the sampling and linkage effects.     

Characterization and quantification of data voids in the shuttle Radar topography mission data

The goal of this study was to characterize and quantify the occurrence of data voids in data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) for the conterminous United States. For this purpose, SRTM data and corresponding data from the national elevation data were downloaded in 21 samples spatially organized to cover the main topography of the U.S. Void locations in SRTM data were compared to terrain attributes and subsequently the area of individual data voids to the same attributes. It was found that data voids amounted to 0.3% of the total dataset. Data voids were found in all topographic settings but more often in slopes steeper than approximately 20/spl deg/ that face south (170/spl deg/), and also in flat areas such as lakes and rivers. It was also found that more than 50% of all data voids were composed of connected pixels in groups less than six pixels. The largest data voids could be attributed to water bodies, while the rest could be explained by terrain-radar interaction characteristics.     

The negative alpha filter: a new Processing technique for polarimetric SAR interferometry

In this letter we develop a new concept, the negative alpha filter, which we suggest has application for quantitative estimation of surface parameters beneath vegetation using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (POLInSAR). We first derive the filter and then validate it using simulations of L-band coherent forest scattering. We then show initial results of applying the filter to airborne data from the German Aerospace Center's E-SAR L-band sensor.