Tectonic observations in the northern Saih Hatat,Sultanate of Oman

The Saih Hatat region, in northeastern Oman, is characterized by a large tectonic window, tectonically overlain during the upper Cretaceous by nappes composed of sedimentary rocks from the Mesozoic Hawasina ocean and the Samail ophiolite. In this window, the autochthonous sedimentary cover of the eastern Arabian Platform from the Late Neoproterozoic to the Cenomanian is well exposed. The oldest of these strata, the Hatat schists, were deformed into a NE-facing fold nappe during the upper Cretaceous. Within the overturned and thrusted lower limb of that fold nappe, we identified three small windows exposing stratigraphically younger Hiyam carbonates and Ordovician sandstone. The structural inventory of the windows and the surrounding area indicates three major tectonic phases. The first deformation led to NNE-SSW trending fold structures which probably formed simultaneously with the major fold nappe of the Hatat schists, followed by the extreme attenuation and thrusting of the lower limb of the fold nappe. The second phase was a gentle folding of the thrust with N-S oriented fold axes and third deformation phase that formed WNW-ESE oriented open folds. The windows are situated in the intersection of anticline axes of these two superposed fold generations and represent a mini basin-and-dome structure with an extension of just 1 km?×?1 km.     

Integrative stochastic model standardization with genetic algorithm for rainfall pattern forecasting in tropical and semi-arid environments

ABSTRACT

Climate patterns, including rainfall prediction, is one of the most complex problems for hydrologist. It is inherited by its natural and stochastic phenomena. In this study, a new approach for rainfall time series forecasting is introduced based on the integration of three stochastic modelling methods, including the seasonal differencing, seasonal standardization and spectral analysis, associated with the genetic algorithm (GA). This approach is specially tailored to eradicate the periodic pattern effects notable on the rainfall time series stationarity behaviour. Two different climates are selected to evaluate the proposed methodology, in tropical and semi-arid regions (Malaysia and Iraq). The results show that the predictive model registered an acceptable result for the forecasting of rainfall for both the investigated regions. The attained determination coefficient (R²) for the investigated stations was approx. 0.91, 0.90 and 0.089 for Mosul, Baghdad and Basrah (Iraq), and 0.80, 0.87 and 0.94 for Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Johor (Malaysia).     

Faulting in Deccan Traps in the vicinity of Koyna-Warna Seismic Zone

Studies of sustained activity in the Koyna — Warna Seismic Zone have yielded several models of faults in the basement of the Deccan Traps inferred from geophysical and seismic signatures. There is however, a dearth of unambiguous surface manifestations of such faults, apart from the surface ruptures from the epicentral zone of the December, 1967 earthquake. We report for the first time, an exposed NW-SE trending reverse fault in the Deccan Trap basalts from this region.