Magnetic Mapping of Banded Iron Formation of Sandur Schist Belt,Dharwar Craton,India

High ground magnetic anomalies are observed at western basin of the Sandur schist belt (SSB) near Muraripura village, Karnataka. Sources for these anomalies are inferred due to presence of exposed banded iron formations hosted by metabasalts, arenaous and argillaceous rocks associated with the Donimali Formation of the schist belt. Two varieties of BIF bands are observed in the study area viz. Band 1 and Band 2. The bands 1 and 2 are displaced by lateral strike-slip fault. Band 1 is dominantly composed of banded iron formation, rich in iron ore minerals and silica chert. Band 2 is largely composed of ferruginous quartzite and quartz arenites. Qualitative analysis of the magnetic data indicates that the study area can be divided into three lithologically important BIF/BQ formations. Spectral and quantitative analysis of the magnetic data indicates, the average depth of band 1 is 70 m and band 2 is 130 m. The magnetic data results are well correlated with chemical analysis of borehole and surface rock samples data.     

Geochemistry and mineralogy of arsenic in (natural) anaerobic groundwaters

Here new data from field bioremediation experiments and geochemical modeling are reported to illustrate the principal geochemical behavior of As in anaerobic groundwaters. In the field bioremediation experiments, groundwater in Holocene alluvial aquifers in Bangladesh was amended with labile water-soluble organic C (molasses) and MgSO₄ to stimulate metabolism of indigenous SO₄-reducing bacteria (SRB). In the USA, the groundwater was contaminated by Zn, Cd and SO₄, and contained <10 μg/L As under oxidized conditions, and a mixture of sucrose and methanol were injected to stimulate SRB metabolism. In Bangladesh, groundwater was under moderately reducing conditions and contained ∼10 mg/L Fe and ∼100 μg/L As. In the USA experiment, groundwater rapidly became anaerobic, and dissolved Fe and As increased dramatically (As > 1000 μg/L) under geochemical conditions consistent with bacterial Fe-reducing conditions. With time, groundwater became more reducing and biogenic SO₄ reduction began, and Cd and Zn were virtually completely removed due to precipitation of sphalerite (ZnS) and other metal sulfide mineral(s). Following precipitation of chalcophile elements Zn and Cd, the concentrations of Fe and As both began to decrease in groundwater, presumably due to formation of As-bearing FeS/FeS₂. By the end of the six-month experiment, dissolved As had returned to below background levels. In the initial Bangladesh experiment, As decreased to virtually zero once biogenic SO₄ reduction commenced but increased to pre-experiment level once SO₄ reduction ended. In the ongoing experiment, both SO₄ and Fe(II) were amended to groundwater to evaluate if FeS/FeS₂ formation causes longer-lived As removal. Because As-bearing pyrite is the common product of SRB metabolism in Holocene alluvial aquifers in both the USA and Southeast Asia, it was endeavored to derive thermodynamic data for arsenian pyrite to better predict geochemical processes in naturally reducing groundwaters. Including the new data for arsenian pyrite into Geochemist’s Workbench, its stability field completely dominates in reducing Eh–pH space and “displaces” other As-sulfides (orpiment, realgar) that have been implied to be important in previous modeling exercises and reported in rare field conditions.     

A comparative study of landslide susceptibility mapping using weight of evidence,logistic regression and support vector machine and evaluated by SBAS-InSAR monitoring: Zhouqu to Wudu segment in Bailong River Basin,China

The determining of landslide-prone areas in mountainous terrain is essential for land planning and hazard mitigation. In this paper, a comparative study using three statistical models including weight of evidence model (WoE), logistic regression model (LR) and support vector machine method (SVM) was undertaken in the Zhouqu to Wudu segment in the Bailong River Basin, Southern Gansu, China. Six conditionally independent environmental factors, elevation, slope, aspect, distance from fault, lithology and settlement density, were selected as the explanatory variables that may contribute to landslide occurrence based on principal component analysis (PCA) and Chi-square test. The relation between landslide distributions and these variables was analyzed using the three models and the results then used to calculate the landslide susceptibility (LS). The performance of the models was then evaluated using both the highly accurate deformation signals produced by using the Small Baseline Subset Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technique and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. Results show more deformation points in areas with high and very high LS levels, and also more stable points in areas with low and very low LS levels for the SVM model. In addition, the SVM has larger area under the ROC curve. It indicates that the SVM has better prediction accuracy and classified ability. For the interpretability, the WoE derives the class of factors that most contributed to landsliding in the study area, and the LR reveals that factors including elevation, settlement density and distance from fault played major roles in landslide occurrence and distribution, whereas the SVM cannot provide relative weights for the variables. The outperformed SVM could be employed to determine potential landslide zones in the study area. Outcome of this research would provide preliminary basis for general land planning such as choosing new urban areas and infrastructure construction in the future, as well as for landslide hazard mitigation in Bailong River Basin.     

Embedding eco-friendly and smart technology features in affordable housing for community happiness in Malaysia

GeoJournal - Two phases of study are involved in this research: first, the sales strategies for affordable houses embedded with eco-friendly and smart technology features; and second, the impact of...     

Wave data assimilation using a hybrid approach in the Persian Gulf

The main goal of this study is to develop an efficient approach for the assimilation of the hindcasted wave parameters in the Persian Gulf. Hence, the third generation SWAN model was employed for wave modeling forced by the 6-h ECMWF wind data with a resolution of 0.5°. In situ wave measurements at two stations were utilized to evaluate the assimilation approaches. It was found that since the model errors are not the same for wave height and period, adaptation of model parameter does not result in simultaneous and comprehensive improvement of them. Therefore, an approach based on the error prediction and updating of output variables was employed to modify wave height and period. In this approach, artificial neural networks (ANNs) were used to estimate the deviations between the simulated and measured wave parameters. The results showed that updating of output variables leads to significant improvement in a wide range of the predicted wave characteristics. It was revealed that the best input parameters for error prediction networks are mean wind speed, mean wind direction, wind duration, and the wave parameters. In addition, combination of the ANN estimated error with numerically modeled wave parameters leads to further improvement in the predicted wave parameters in contrast to direct estimation of the parameters by ANN.     

Practical Incorporation of Multivariate Parameter Uncertainty in Geostatistical Resource Modeling

There is a need to bridge theory and practice for incorporating parameter uncertainty in geostatistical simulation modeling workflows. Simulation workflows are a standard practice in natural resource and recovery modeling, but the incorporation of multivariate parameter uncertainty into those workflows is challenging. However, the objectives can be met without considerable extra effort and programming. The sampling distributions of statistics comprise the core theoretical notion with the addition of the spatial degrees of freedom to account for the redundancy in the spatially correlated data. Prior parameter uncertainty is estimated from multivariate spatial resampling. Simulation-based transfer of prior parameter uncertainty results in posterior distributions which are updated by data conditioning and the model domain extents and configuration. The results are theoretically tractable and practical to achieve, providing realistic assessments of uncertainty by accounting for large-scale parameter uncertainty, which is often the most important component impacting a project. A simulation-based multivariate workflow demonstrates joint modeling of intrinsic shale properties and uncertainty in estimated ultimate recovery in a shale gas project. The multivariate workflow accounts for joint prior parameter uncertainty given the current well locations and results in posterior estimates on global distributions of all modeled properties. This is achieved by transferring the joint prior parameter uncertainty through conditional simulations.     

Dawn; the Vesta–HED connection; and the geologic context for eucrites,diogenites, and howardites

The Dawn mission has provided new evidence strengthening the identification of asteroid Vesta as the parent body of the howardite, eucrite, and diogenite (HED) meteorites. The evidence includes Vesta's petrologic complexity, detailed spectroscopic characteristics, unique space weathering, diagnostic geochemical abundances and neutron absorption characteristics, chronology of surface units and impact history, occurrence of exogenous carbonaceous chondritic materials in the regolith, and dimensions of the core, all of which are consistent with HED observations and constraints. Global mapping of the distributions of HED lithologies by Dawn cameras and spectrometers provides the missing geologic context for these meteorites, thereby allowing tests of petrogenetic models and increasing their scientific value.     

Spatio-temporal changes of marine macrobenthic community in sub-tropical waters upon recovery from eutrophication. I. Sediment quality and community structure

A two-year study was conducted in the vicinity of a harbour in sub-tropical Hong Kong, to examine the progress of improvement in sediment quality and recovery of macrobenthic community upon cessation of organic pollution caused by sewage discharge. Median sediment particle diameter (Mdphi) and levels of total organic carbon (TOC), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), ammonia-nitrogen (NH(3)-N) and total phosphorus (TP), as well as macrobenthic species composition and abundance were determined bi-monthly at three inside-harbour and two outside-harbour locations. At the two inside-harbour locations, significantly higher levels of TOC, TKN, NH(3)-N and TP in sediments were observed than the outside-harbour locations. However, no significant temporal change of nutrient levels was detected at all sampling locations during the two-year study, except a significant decrease in TKN and NH(3)-N levels at one outside-harbour location and a decline in NH(3)-N content at another outside-harbour location. Spatially, the highest in mean total species number, individual number, species diversity H' and lowest evenness J was found at one outside-harbour location, whereas the other four locations had relatively similar values. H' was negatively correlated with TOC, TKN, NH(3)-N and TP content in sediments while J was positively correlated with MDphi. Across the study period, the patterns of macrobenthic community were significantly different among all samplings and that the spatial difference of benthic community was best correlated with MDphi, TOC, TKN and water depth. A weak sign of recovery in macrobenthic community structure was detected at inside-harbour locations, with replacement of opportunistic by ubiquitous species over the two-year study. The slow recovery of macrobenthic community was related to sediment characteristics. Results of a larval settlement bioassay using the polychaete Capitella sp. I also demonstrated that the inside-harbour sediments were still unfavourable for colonization and larval settlement of species sensitive to pollution. The slow biodegradation of the organic pollutants and continuous presence of heavy metals in the sediment may hinder settlement and colonization of benthic animals. However, increases of H' and J were observed in a longer time scale when comparing the present data with those obtained four years ago. This suggested that a detectable recovery of benthic community in the harbour may take at least three years and a complete recovery may even take longer duration.     

Geographical impacts on social networks from perspectives of space and place: an empirical study using mobile phone data

Space and place are two fundamental concepts in geography. Geographical factors have long been known as drivers of many aspects of people’s social networks. But whether and how space and place affect social networks differently are still unclear. The widespread use of location-aware devices provides a novel source for distinguishing the mechanisms of their impacts on social networks. Using mobile phone data, this paper explores the effects of space and place on social networks. From the perspective of space, we confirm the distance decay effect in social networks, based on a comparison between synthetic social ties generated by a null model and actual social ties derived from real-world data. From the perspective of place, we introduce several measures to evaluate interactions between individuals and inspect the trio relationship including distance, spatio-temporal co-occurrence, and social ties. We found that people’s interaction is a more important factor than spatial proximity, indicating that the spatial factor has a stronger impact on social networks in place compared to that in space. Furthermore, we verify the hypothesis that interactions play an important role in strengthening friendships.     

Spatial representation in the social interaction potential metric: an analysis of scale and parameter sensitivity

The social interaction potential (SIP) metric measures urban structural constraints on social interaction opportunities of a metropolitan region based on the time geographic concept of joint accessibility. Previous implementations of the metric used an interaction surface based on census tracts and the locations of their centroids. This has been shown to be a shortcoming, as the metric strongly depends on the scale of the zoning system in the region, making it difficult to compare the SIP metric between metropolitan regions. This research explores the role of spatial representation in the SIP metric and identifies a suitable grid-based representation that allows for comparison between regions while retaining cost-effectiveness with respect to computational burden. We also report on findings from an extensive sensitivity analysis investigating the SIP metric’s input parameters such as a travel flow congestion factor and the length of the allowable time budget for social activities. The results provide new insights on the role of the modifiable areal unit problem in the computation of time geographic measures of accessibility.