Industrial minerals and rocks, aggregates and natural stones in the Nordic countries

The Nordic countries, including Greenland, have a long tradition in mining. The industrial minerals sector is expanding in most Nordic countries and extensive development has taken place during the last few years. The main commodities mined are carbonate rocks, quartz, feldspar, apatite, olivine and talc.
A number of diferent types of dimension stones are quarried in all countries. Rock aggregates are increasingly important, replacing sand and gravel aggregate as construction materials in some countries due to the need to protect ground water supplies.     

Graph theory for analyzing pair-wise data: application to geophysical model parameters estimated from interferometric synthetic aperture radar data at Okmok volcano,Alaska

Graph theory is useful for analyzing time-dependent model parameters estimated from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data in the temporal domain. Plotting acquisition dates (epochs) as vertices and pair-wise interferometric combinations as edges defines an incidence graph. The edge-vertex incidence matrix and the normalized edge Laplacian matrix are factors in the covariance matrix for the pair-wise data. Using empirical measures of residual scatter in the pair-wise observations, we estimate the relative variance at each epoch by inverting the covariance of the pair-wise data. We evaluate the rank deficiency of the corresponding least-squares problem via the edge-vertex incidence matrix. We implement our method in a MATLAB software package called GraphTreeTA available on GitHub (https://github.com/feigl/gipht). We apply temporal adjustment to the data set described in Lu et al. (Geophys Res Solid Earth 110, 2005) at Okmok volcano, Alaska, which erupted most recently in 1997 and 2008. The data set contains 44 differential volumetric changes and uncertainties estimated from interferograms between 1997 and 2004. Estimates show that approximately half of the magma volume lost during the 1997 eruption was recovered by the summer of 2003. Between June 2002 and September 2003, the estimated rate of volumetric increase is \((6.2 \, \pm \, 0.6) \times 10^6~\mathrm{m}^3/\mathrm{year} \). Our preferred model provides a reasonable fit that is compatible with viscoelastic relaxation in the five years following the 1997 eruption. Although we demonstrate the approach using volumetric rates of change, our formulation in terms of incidence graphs applies to any quantity derived from pair-wise differences, such as range change, range gradient, or atmospheric delay.     

Fluid-induced mineral composition adjustments during exhumation: the case of Alpine stilbite

Stilbite is locally present as a very late mineral on fractures and fissures of granitic basement in the Central Swiss Alps. Stilbite samples from the Gotthard rail base tunnel provide evidence that they originally formed as a K-absent variety at depth. However, all stilbite samples from surface outcrops above the tunnel display significant potassium concentrations. Interestingly, water from fractures in the tunnel (at 50 °C) is oversaturated with respect to stilbite and essentially potassium-free whereas waters from high-Alpine brooks above the tunnel (and at other high-Alpine areas) have unusually high K/Na ratios. The data suggest that stilbite that may actively form on fissures at tunnel level as a K-absent variety by precipitation from water. Older stilbite that originally formed as coatings on fracture walls was gradually exhumed and uplifted and finally reached the today’s erosion surface about 2,000 m above the tunnel. However, the stilbite reaches the erosion surface as a K-rich variety as a result of interaction of the original low-K stilbite with surface water and near-surface groundwater. This leads to the conclusion that minerals once formed at depth may significantly change their composition once they reach the ground water zone on their way to the erosion surface. In the case of the stilbite, if surface outcrops would have been the only source of samples and data, the K-rich composition could have been mistaken for the composition of the mineral when it formed, which is not the case. Late-stage compositional readjustments may be difficult to discern in samples from surface outcrops. The provided data show that original mineral compositions may be adjusted by late-stage water–rock interaction in a highly selective way.     

Computation of 5-day temperature normals in western Europe and the Mediterranean area

Summary UsingCraddock's method of representing the annual temperature variation by a two-term harmonic form fitted to monthly means, the harmonic coefficients of 63 stations in western Europe and around the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the 5-day normals for 24 Mediterranean stations, were computed and tabulated. In addition, some of the harmonic coefficients were charted and isoplethed, showing very distinctly the influence of continentality and topography. These charts, together withCraddock's charts for northern and northwestern Europe, provide fairly complete coverage of Europe and the Mediterranean area.This paper was prepared in the offices of the Technical Support Division of the 2d Weather Wing, United States Air Force, as a matter of routine business. The information contained herein was presented at the 5th Meeting of the Italian Society of Geophysics and Meteorology by Dr.Ingrid Weiss (Genoa: 23–25 April 1957). Since the paper is of general interest to all meteorologists of the Mediterranean area, it is published here with the permission of the originating agency as «Mémoire No. 3 du Centre International de Recherches sur la Météorologie de la Méditerranée (CIRMM)».     

Pseudosection modelling for a selected eclogite body from the Koralpe (Hohl), Eastern Alps

In the Kor-, Saualpe and Pohorje regions of the Eastern Alps eclogite bodies occur within metapelitic gneisses. The bodies are between 1 meter and several hundreds of meters in size and some of them were defined by Haüy (1822) as the type locality for the rock type “eclogite”. A growing body of petrological work has documented the metamorphic evolution of the metapelites surrounding the eclogites. However, few phase diagrams have been constructed for the eclogite bodies themselves. Here we use recently available activity models for amphiboles to present new thermodynamic pseudosections for the Hohl locality of the Koralpe eclogites. We show that this eclogite reached peak conditions in a narrow PT field obliquely oriented in PT space between 16.5 and 20.5 kbar and 620°C to 720°C and that its metamorphic evolution was likely to have occurred under water saturated conditions. We conclude that eclogite and the surrounding metapelites have certainly undergone the same metamorphic peak in Eo-alpine time. Comparison of our results with different PT estimates on the eclogite from Pohorje, suggest that a PT gradient from Koralpe to Pohorje is likely.     

Anthropogenic influence of trace metals in sediments of the Al-Qilt catchment,West Bank,Palestine: 1. Contamination factor and bonding forms

Al-Qilt catchment, located east of both the Ramallah and Jerusalem districts is strongly influenced by waste waters discharged from Israeli settlements and Palestinian urban centers. In this research, our aim was to verify the chemical status of the surface sediments from the Al-Qilt catchment during 2008/2009. For this purpose, 36 surface sediment samples were collected and analyzed with ICP/MS within the fraction of below 63 μm. The extent of contamination of trace metals from Al-Qilt sediments sites were measured by evaluating the contamination factors (CF) from digestion by aqua regia and additionally by sequential extraction steps using the BCR-method. On the basis of the calculated CF, sediments appear particularly contaminated with Zn, Cu, Ag, Sn, Cd, Hg, Bi, and B. Three regions, Wadi Sweanit, Ras Al-Qilt, and Qalandiah have been identified as critical points of contamination. Trace metal inputs to the Al-Qilt catchment need to be kept under strict control in the future since Ras Al-Qilt is considered as one of the important springs in the area and is used for domestic purposes. Moreover, it will be susceptible to pollution if no action is taken to decrease the pollution at the upstream of Al-Qilt.     

The mass and moment of inertia of the Earth

Recent revisions of geodetic and astronomical constants by the International Association of Geodesy and the International Astronomical Union lead to improved values for the earth's mass and moment of inertia. Corrections to be applied to these values before they are used as constraints in the inversion of seismic data are discussed.     

Enhancement of Seismic Data Processing and Interpretation of Fracture Zones on the Upper Part of Granitic Basement in Cuu Long Basin,Vietnam

The fractured granite basement is the primary oil and gas reservoir in the Cuu Long Basin, Vietnam. Due to the complexity of this nonlayered unconventional target, combined with complicated fault and fracture systems, the seismic data quality near and within the basement section is very low. For this reason, it is important to apply improved seismic data processing workflows, filtering and migration techniques, as wells as attribute processing methods to enhance the imaging quality.Our studies show that applying different types of filters, including the f-k, Radon transform and Tau-P, improves signal to noise ratio, removing multiples, revealing basement’s top and its related fractured and fault zones. In addition, the application of multi-arrival-solution migration algorithms, such as Kirchhoff Migration and Controlled Beam Migration, provides improved imaging for identifying basement top and faults and fractures within the basement. Furthermore, the application of seismic attributes such as curvature, apparent dip, or energy gradient, is important in locating faults and fractures, whereas mapping of intensity and orientation of such structures assists the delineation of “sweet spots” and assists the planning of exploration.