Development of a diatom-based specific conductivity model for the glacio-isostatic lakes of Truelove Lowland: implications for paleoconductivity and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in Devon Island lakes, N.W.T., Canada

Diatoms are identified and enumerated from the surface sediments of 100 lakes of Truelove Lowland, Devon Island, N.W.T., Canada. These lakes range from large oligotrophic lakes, to small tundra ponds, to coastal marine lagoons which are diverse in terms of ionic concentration and composition. The relationship between diatoms and 15 limnological variables is examined using Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA). Specific conductivity is identified as the most important variable influencing the distribution of diatoms in the Truelove lakes. A Weighted Averaging (WA) calibration model is developed to predict diatom-inferred specific conductivity. The reliability of the model is tested by evaluating the correlation between observed and diatom-inferred values and determining the error of prediction by bootstrapping. The applicability of the predictive conductivity equation is demonstrated by reconstructing the paleoconductivity history of Fish Lake.     

孔隙水压力对岩石裂纹扩展影响的数值模拟

应用岩石破坏过程渗流-应力-损伤(FSD)耦合分析软件F-RFPA2D,通过对孔隙水压作用下岩石试件加载破坏过程的数值模拟,对孔隙水压力大小和梯度对岩石试样中裂纹的萌生和扩展进行了数值模拟研究。模拟结果再现了孔隙水压力作用下裂纹萌生扩展的全过程,表明孔隙水压力大小和梯度对岩石中裂纹的萌生和扩展模式都有很大的影响。     

The 1786 earthquake-triggered landslide dam and subsequent dam-break flood on the Dadu River, southwestern China

Chinese historic documents recorded that on June 1, 1786, a strong M=7.75 earthquake occurred in the Kangding-Luding area, Sichuan, southwestern China, resulting in a large landslide that fell into the Dadu River. As a result, a landslide dam blocked the river. Ten days later, the sudden breaching of the dam resulted in catastrophic downstream flooding. Historic records document over 100,000 deaths by the flood. This may be the most disastrous event ever caused by landslide dam failures in the world. Although a lot of work has been carried out to determine the location, magnitude and intensity of the 1786 earthquake, relatively little is known about the occurrence and nature of the landslide dam. In this paper, the dam was reconstructed using historic documents and geomorphic evidence. It was found that the landslide dam was about 70 m high, and it created a lake with a water volume of about 50×10⁶ m³ and an area of about 1.7 km². The landslide dam breached suddenly due to a major aftershock on June 10, 1786. The peak discharge at the dam breach was estimated using regression equations and a physically based predictive equation. The possibility of a future failure of the landslide seems high, particularly due to inherent seismic risk, and detailed geotechnical investigations are strongly recommended for evaluating the current stability of the landslide.     

Nonlinear Behaviour of an Embankment on Floating Stone Columns

This paper describes a benchmark problem for a floating stone columns supported embankment. In the 3D model, a thick soft subsoil deposit represented by Singapore marine clay was treated by floating stone columns to support a 2.0 m high embankment. The 3D numerical results were compared among different constitutive models such as the hardening soil model, soft soil model, modified Cam-clay model and Mohr-Coulomb model, highlighting the effect of non-linearity in the overall performance of the ground structure. The advanced constitutive soil models allow more realistic soil response to be investigated. From the numerical results, the Mohr-Coulomb model with elastic-perfectly plastic stress-strain response was able to give comparable total settlements but failed to demonstrate some intrinsic behaviours obtained with advanced soil models. These intrinsic behaviours include the mode of failure, displacements profile, stress transfer mechanism and rate of consolidation. This benchmark example has given us an improved understanding of the performance of floating stone columns when a more realistic soil behaviour is modelled.     

The propagation of solar cosmic-ray bursts

A model is presented in which we show analytically the three phases of anisotropy which occur during solar cosmic-ray events observed in the 7.5 MeV to 21 MeV kinetic-energy interval and reported by McCracken et al. (1971): (i) a highly anisotropic, near field-aligned, initial phase, (ii) a convective phase, and (iii) a late-time phase in which the anisotropy is approximately perpendicular to the mean interplanetary magnetic field. The model is based on the cosmic-ray particles being convectively transported out from the Sun, undergoing anisotropic diffusion along the interplanetary magnetic-field lines, and losing energy by adiabatic deceleration or by collision processes. The event is seen simply as a pulse moving outward from the Sun after a cosmic-ray burst with a negative density-gradient in front of it and a positive gradient behind. The convective phase (ii) occurs as the spatial peak moves past the observer and has a propagation speed V _d associated with it; the anisotropy vector late in the decay phase (iii) is the result of a residual balance between the radial outward convection and the inward radial component of the anisotropic diffusion. The mathematical solutions are based upon a diffusion coefficient proportional to heliocentric radius and independent of energy and are thus rather special. However they yield formulae for the propagation speed of the convective phase and the direction in space of the long-time anisotropy which are useful as a guide to the dependence of these quantities on the solar wind speed V, the diffusion coefficient and the spectral index . In this model V _d increases with V, , and ; and , the angle between the anisotropy vector at infinite time and the outward radial direction increases with /V and decreases as is increased. These predictions of the dependence of and V _d upon V, , and are open to observational verification.     

Comparison of a 3‐D DEM simulation with MRI data

This paper presents a comparison of a granular material studied experimentally and numerically. Simple shear tests were performed inside the magnetic core of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment. Spherical pharmaceutical pills were used as the granular material, with each pill's centre location determined by MRI. These centre locations in the initial assembly were then used as the initial configuration in the numerical simulation using the discrete element method. The contact properties between pharmaceutical pills used in the numerical simulation were obtained experimentally. The numerical predication was compared with experimental data at both macroscopic and microscopic levels. Good agreement was found at both levels. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.