Direct Trace Element Determination in Oil and Gas Produced Waters with Inductively Coupled Plasma‐Optical Emission Spectrometry: Advantages of High‐Salinity Tolerance

Waters co‐produced during petroleum extraction are the largest waste streams from oil and gas development. Reuse or disposal of these waters is difficult due to their high salinities and the sheer volumes generated. Produced waters (PWs) may also contain valuable mineral commodities. While an understanding of produced water trace element composition is required for evaluating the associated resource and waste potential of these materials, measuring trace elements in brines is challenging due to the dilution requirements of typical methods. Alternatively, inductively coupled plasma‐optical emission spectrometry (ICP‐OES) has shown promise as being capable of direct measurements of trace elements within PWs with minimal dilution. Here, we evaluate direct ICP‐OES trace element quantification in PWs for seventeen trace elements (As, Al, Ba, Be, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Hg, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sb, U, V and Zn) within fifteen PWs from five U.S. continuous reservoirs. The total analytical uncertainties associated with the trace element levels determined using ICP‐OES were estimated to be better than ± 30% (2s) except for Rb, which could not be determined due to ionisation interferences. The ICP‐OES results are compared with trace element levels determined using inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry from the same samples. Our results demonstrate the potential for direct analysis of high‐salinity waters using ICP‐OES with minimal dilution and provide trace element concentrations in waters from several important U.S. petroleum‐generating reservoirs where available data are sparse.     

Century-scale records of land-based activities recorded in Mesoamerican coral cores

The Mesoamerican Reef, the second-largest barrier reef in the world, is located in the western Caribbean Sea off the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. Particularly in the south, the surrounding watersheds are steep and the climate is extremely wet. With development and agricultural expansion, the potential for negative impacts to the reef from land-based runoff becomes high. We constructed annually resolved century-scale records of metal/calcium ratios in coral skeletons collected from four sites experiencing a gradient of land-based runoff. Our proxy data indicate that runoff onto the reef has increased relatively steadily over time at all sites, consistent with land use trends from historical records. Sediment supply to the reef is greater in the south, and these more exposed reefs will probably benefit most immediately from management that targets runoff reduction. However, because runoff at all sites is steadily increasing, even distal sites will benefit from watershed management.     

Experimental verification of effective anisotropic crack theories in variable crack aspect ratio medium

Physical modelling of cracked/fractured media using downscaled laboratory experiments has been used with great success as a useful alternative for understanding the effect of anisotropy in the hydrocarbon reservoir characterization and in the crustal and mantle seismology. The main goal of this work was to experimentally verify the predictions of effective elastic parameters in anisotropic cracked media by Hudson and Eshelby–Cheng's effective medium models. For this purpose, we carried out ultrasonic measurements on synthetic anisotropic samples with low crack densities and different aspect ratios. Twelve samples were prepared with two different crack densities, 5% and 8%. Three samples for each crack density presented cracks with only one crack aspect ratio, whereas other three samples for each crack density presented cracks with three different aspect ratios in their composition. It results in samples with aspect ratio values varying from 0.13 to 0.26. All the cracked samples were simulated by penny‐shaped rubber inclusions in a homogeneous isotropic matrix made with epoxy resin. Moreover, an isotropic sample for reference was constructed with epoxy resin only. Regarding velocity predictions performed by the theoretical models, Eshelby–Cheng shows a better fit when compared with the experimental results for samples with single and mix crack aspect ratio (for both crack densities). From velocity values, our comparisons were also performed in terms of the ε, γ, and δ parameters (Thomsen parameters). The results show that Eshelby–Cheng effective medium model fits better with the measurements of ε and γ parameters for crack samples with only one type of crack aspect ratio.     

L-moments for automatic threshold selection in extreme value analysis

In extreme value analysis, sensitivity of inference to the definition of extreme event is a paramount issue. Under the peaks-over-threshold approach, this translates directly into the need of fitting a Generalized Pareto distribution to observations above a suitable level that balances bias versus variance of estimates. Selection methodologies established in the literature face recurrent challenges such as an inherent subjectivity or high computational intensity. We suggest a truly automated method for threshold detection, aiming at time efficiency and elimination of subjective judgment. Based on the well-established theory of L-moments, this versatile data-driven technique can handle batch processing of large collections of extremes data, while also presenting good performance on small samples. The technique’s performance is evaluated in a large simulation study and illustrated with significant wave height data sets from the literature. We find that it compares favorably to other state-of-the-art methods regarding the choice of threshold, associated parameter estimation and the ultimate goal of computationally efficient return level estimation.     

An epidemiologic approach to environmental monitoring: cyanobacteria in Australia’s Murray–Darling basin

Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment - Risk based management of aquatic resources for ecosystem and public health requires water managers and health professionals to work together....     

Mechanisms and Model Diversity of Trade-Wind Shallow Cumulus Cloud Feedbacks: A Review

Shallow cumulus clouds in the trade-wind regions are at the heart of the long standing uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates. In current climate models, cloud feedbacks are strongly influenced by cloud-base cloud amount in the trades. Therefore, understanding the key factors controlling cloudiness near cloud-base in shallow convective regimes has emerged as an important topic of investigation. We review physical understanding of these key controlling factors and discuss the value of the different approaches that have been developed so far, based on global and high-resolution model experimentations and process-oriented analyses across a range of models and for observations. The trade-wind cloud feedbacks appear to depend on two important aspects: (1) how cloudiness near cloud-base is controlled by the local interplay between turbulent, convective and radiative processes; (2) how these processes interact with their surrounding environment and are influenced by mesoscale organization. Our synthesis of studies that have explored these aspects suggests that the large diversity of model responses is related to fundamental differences in how the processes controlling trade cumulus operate in models, notably, whether they are parameterized or resolved. In models with parameterized convection, cloudiness near cloud-base is very sensitive to the vigor of convective mixing in response to changes in environmental conditions. This is in contrast with results from high-resolution models, which suggest that cloudiness near cloud-base is nearly invariant with warming and independent of large-scale environmental changes. Uncertainties are difficult to narrow using current observations, as the trade cumulus variability and its relation to large-scale environmental factors strongly depend on the time and/or spatial scales at which the mechanisms are evaluated. New opportunities for testing physical understanding of the factors controlling shallow cumulus cloud responses using observations and high-resolution modeling on large domains are discussed.     

Heating experiments of the Tagish Lake meteorite: Investigation of the effects of short‐term heating on chondritic organics

We present in this study the effects of short‐term heating on organics in the Tagish Lake meteorite and how the difference in the heating conditions can modify the organic matter (OM) in a way that complicates the interpretation of a parent body's heating extent with common cosmothermometers. The kinetics of short‐term heating and its influence on the organic structure are not well understood, and any study of OM is further complicated by the complex alteration processes of the thermally metamorphosed carbonaceous chondrites—potential analogues of the target asteroid Ryugu of the Hayabusa2 mission—which had experienced posthydration, short‐duration local heating. In an attempt to understand the effects of short‐term heating on chondritic OM, we investigated the change in the OM contents of the experimentally heated Tagish Lake meteorite samples using Raman spectroscopy, scanning transmission X‐ray microscopy utilizing X‐ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy, and ultraperformance liquid chromatography fluorescence detection and quadrupole time of flight hybrid mass spectrometry. Our experiment suggests that graphitization of OM did not take place despite the samples being heated to 900 °C for 96 h, as the OM maturity trend was influenced by the heating conditions, kinetics, and the nature of the OM precursor, such as the presence of abundant oxygenated moieties. Although both the intensity of the 1s?σ* exciton cannot be used to accurately interpret the peak metamorphic temperature of the experimentally heated Tagish Lake sample, the Raman graphite band widths of the heated products significantly differ from that of chondritic OM modified by long‐term internal heating.     

Morphology and geology of the ILD in Capri/Eos Chasma (Mars) from visible and infrared data

Layered deposits have been observed in different locations at the surface of Mars, as crater floors and canyons systems. Their high interest relies in the fact they imply dynamical conditions in their deposition medium. Indeed, in opposition to most of the rocks of the martian surface, which have a volcanic origin, bright layered deposits seems to be sedimentary outcrops.Capri Chasma, a canyon located at the outlet of Valles Marineris, exhibits such deposits called Interior Layered Deposits (ILD). A large array of visible and infrared spacecraft data were used to build a Geographic Information System (GIS). We added HiRiSE images, from the recent MRO mission, which offer a spatial resolution of 25 cm per pixel. It allowed the mapping and the analysis of morphologies in the canyon. We highlighted that the ILD are several kilometers thick and flat-top stratified deposits. They overlap the chaotic floor. They are surrounded and cut by several flow features that imply that liquid water was still acting after the formation of these stratified deposits. The density of crater on the floor of Capri Chasma was quantified. The current topography was aged to 3 Gyr. All these morphological information allow us to suggest a plausible geological history for Capri Chasma. We propose that the Interior Layered Deposits have formed during the Hesperian, during or after the opening of the canyon. Some observations argue that water discharges have happened at several times before and just after the formation of the ILD. Liquid water must have played a major role in the formation of these deposits after 3.5 Gyr, implying that it was present in surface at least locally and temporarily. If this can be applied to ILD in others canyons of Valles Marineris, it would imply that liquid water was stable in surface or sub-surface during the Hesperian. Or in the actual conditions, with a cold and dry martian surface, long-term standing water bodies are not possible. Thus we suggest that either the climate at the Hesperian was cold, but wetter, or as warm as the Noachian climate, what is less likely. Nevertheless, the global climate change which has occurred at the beginning of Mars history may have been later than announced.