Chronology and sediment provenance of extreme floods of Siang River (Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River valley), northeast Himalaya

This study explores paleoflood deposits of the Siang River, known as the Tsangpo in Tibet. The river that often experiences large floods brings down huge amount of sediment and water that adversely affect the downstream regions with large human populations in the states of northeast Himalaya and its foreland. Along it's ~300 km mountainous stretch we collected samples for sedimentological, petrographic and Sr–Nd isotopic study to explore sediment provenance and dated the paleofloods (via optically stimulated luminescence, OSL). Geomorphic indices including precipitation and a geomorphic swath profile across the Brahmaputra catchment were studied to understand the interplay of mountain relief and rainfall that determine potential zones of high erosion and sediment supply. The OSL technique indicated the Siang River experienced at least eight large floods between 7 and 1 ka, possibly under the influence of warm and wet climatic conditions. The petrographic and isotopic data suggests that the eastern Himalayan syntaxis, which has the highest uplift and exhumation rate in the area, is not always the highest sediment producing zone. In some instances, the Tibetan plateau produces higher fluxes of sediments via glacial and landslide lake outburst floods (GLOFs and LLOFs). © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation and comparison of LogitBoost Ensemble,Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Analysis,logistic regression and support vector machines methods for landslide susceptibility mapping

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the capabilities of four machine learning methods namely LogitBoost Ensemble (LBE), Fisher’s Linear Discriminate Analysis (FLDA), Logistic Regression (LR) and Support Vector Machines (SVM) to select the best method for landslide susceptibility mapping. A part of landslide prone area of Tehri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand state, India, was selected as a case study. Validation of models was carried out using statistical analysis, the chi square test and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. Result analysis shows that the LBE has the highest prediction ability (AUC = 0.972) for landslide susceptibility mapping, followed by the SVM (0.945), the LR (0.873) and the FLDA (0.870), respectively. Therefore, the LBE is the best and a promising method in comparison to other three models for landslide susceptibility mapping.     

Wide-field ultraviolet imager for astronomical transient studies

Though the ultraviolet (UV) domain plays a vital role in the studies of astronomical transient events, the UV time-domain sky remains largely unexplored. We have designed a wide-field UV imager that can be flown on a range of available platforms, such as high-altitude balloons, CubeSats, and larger space missions. The major scientific goals are the variability of astronomical sources, detection of transients such as supernovae, novae, tidal disruption events, and characterizing active galactic nuclei variability. The instrument has a 80 mm aperture with a circular field of view of 10.8 degrees, an angular resolution of ～22 arcsec, and a 240 - 390 nm spectral observation window. The detector for the instrument is a Microchannel Plate (MCP)-based image intensifier with both photon counting and integration capabilities. An FPGA-based detector readout mechanism and real time data processing have been implemented. The imager is designed in such a way that its lightweight and compact nature are well fitted for the CubeSat dimensions. Here we present various design and developmental aspects of this UV wide-field transient explorer.     

A seismic study to investigate the prospect of gas hydrate in Mahanadi deep water basin,northeastern continental margin of India

The presence of gas hydrates, one of the new alternative energy resources for the future, along the Indian continental margins has been inferred mainly from bottom simulating reflectors (BSR) and the gas stability zone thickness mapping. Gas hydrate reserves in Krishna Godawari Basin have been established with the help of gas-hydrate related proxies inferred from multidisciplinary investigations. In the present study, an analysis of 3D seismic data of nearly 3,420 km² area of Mahanadi deep water basin was performed in search of seismic proxies related with the existence of natural gas hydrate in the region. Analysis depicts the presence of BSR-like features over a large areal extent of nearly 250 km² in the central western part of the basin, which exhibit all characteristics of a classical BSR associated with gas hydrate accumulation in a region. The observed BSR is present in a specific area restricted to a structural low at the Neogene level. The coherency inversion of pre-stack time migration (PSTM) gathers shows definite inversion of interval velocity across the BSR interface which indicates hydrate bearing sediments overlying the free gas bearing sediments. The amplitude versus offset analysis of PSTM gathers shows increase of amplitude with offset, a common trend as observed in BSR associated with gas hydrate accumulation. Results suggest the possibility of gas hydrate accumulation in the central part of the basin specifically in the area of structural low at the Neogene level. These results would serve as preliminary information for selecting prospective gas hydrate accumulation areas for further integrated or individual study from geophysical, geological, geochemical and microbiological perspectives for confirmation of gas hydrate reserves in the area. Further, on the basis of these results it is envisaged that biogenic gas might have been generated in the region which under suitable temperature and pressure conditions might have been transformed into the gas hydrates, and therefore, an integrated study comprising geophysical, geological, geochemical and microbiological data is suggested to establish the gas hydrate reserves in Mahanadi deep water basin.     

A software package for evaluating the performance of a star sensor operation

We have developed a low-cost off-the-shelf component star sensor (StarSense) for use in minisatellites and CubeSats to determine the attitude of a satellite in orbit. StarSense is an imaging camera with a limiting magnitude of 6.5, which extracts information from star patterns it records in the images. The star sensor implements a centroiding algorithm to find centroids of the stars in the image, a Geometric Voting algorithm for star pattern identification, and a QUEST algorithm for attitude quaternion calculation. Here, we describe the software package to evaluate the performance of these algorithms as a star sensor single operating system. We simulate the ideal case where sky background and instrument errors are omitted, and a more realistic case where noise and camera parameters are added to the simulated images. We evaluate such performance parameters of the algorithms as attitude accuracy, calculation time, required memory, star catalog size, sky coverage, etc., and estimate the errors introduced by each algorithm. This software package is written for use in MATLAB. The testing is parametrized for different hardware parameters, such as the focal length of the imaging setup, the field of view (FOV) of the camera, angle measurement accuracy, distortion effects, etc., and therefore, can be applied to evaluate the performance of such algorithms in any star sensor. For its hardware implementation on our StarSense, we are currently porting the codes in form of functions written in C. This is done keeping in view its easy implementation on any star sensor electronics hardware.     

Multidisciplinary investigations exploring indicators of gas hydrate occurrence in the Krishna–Godavari Basin offshore, east coast of India

We report some main results of multidisciplinary investigations carried out within the framework of the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program in 2002–2003 in the Krishna–Godavari Basin offshore sector, east coast of India, to explore indicators of likely gas hydrate occurrence suggested by preliminary multi-channel seismic reflection data and estimates of gas hydrate stability zone thickness. Swath bathymetry data reveal new evidence of three distinct geomorphic units representing (1) a delta front incised by several narrow valleys and mass flows, (2) a deep fan in the east and (3) a WNW–ESE-trending sedimentary ridge in the south. Deep-tow digital side-scan sonar, multi-frequency chirp sonar, and sub-bottom profiler records indicate several surface and subsurface gas-escape features with a highly resolved stratification within the upper 50 m sedimentary strata. Multi-channel seismic reflection data show the presence of bottom simulating reflections of continuous to discrete character. Textural analyses of 76 gravity cores indicate that the sediments are mostly silty clay. Geochemical analyses reveal decreasing downcore pore water sulphate (SO₄ ²⁻) concentrations (28.7 to <4 mM), increasing downcore methane (CH₄) concentrations (0–20 nM) and relatively high total organic carbon contents (1–2.5%), and microbial analyses a high abundance of microbes in top core sediments and a low abundance of sulphate-reducing bacteria in bottom core sediments. Methane-derived authigenic carbonates were identified in some cores. Combined with evidence of gas-escape features in association with bottom simulating reflections, the findings strongly suggest that the physicochemical conditions prevailing in the study area are highly conducive to methane generation and gas hydrate occurrence. Deep drilling from aboard the JOIDES Resolution during 2006 has indeed confirmed the presence of gas hydrate in the Krishna–Godavari Basin offshore.     

A novel insight into vertical ground motion modelling in earthquake engineering

Recent observations of failure and damage of buildings and structures under seismic action has led to an increasing interest for an in-depth analysis of the vertical component of site ground motion. In particular, when dealing with saturated soils, the current engineering practice does not usually go beyond the simplified $u$–$p$ formulation of the Biot's equations describing the coupled hydro-mechanical behaviour, thus neglecting some terms of fluid inertial forces, despite the presence of more refined formulations, for example, the $u$–$U$ formulation. Therefore, a theoretical and numerical validation of the $u$–$p$ formulation as compared with the $u$–$U$ formulation is proposed in this work, where the numerical simulations are compared with the analytical solution for the $u$–$p$ formulation, which is also derived and illustrated in this text. The comparison between the two formulations and the analytical solution is provided for different levels of permeability and dynamic actions, which are representative of a wide scenario of site ground properties and seismic hazard in the vertical direction. In particular, the soil response is analysed in terms of acceleration and pore pressure time history, frequency content, acceleration response spectrum, and amplification ratio of acceleration. This study extends the discussion of the limits of applicability of the $u$–$p$ formulation with respect to the rigorous solution of Biot's equations (obtained here with $u$–$U$ formulation) to the context of a complex dynamic regime provided by the vertical components of real earthquake records, and paves the way for further investigations.