A New Report of Serpentinites from Northern Central Indian Ridge(at 6°S)—An Implication for Hydrothermal Activity

Serpentinites from the inside corner high(6°38.5′S/68°19.34′E)from the Northern Central Indian Ridge(NCIR)are comprised mainly of high Mg-rich lizardite and chrysotile pseudomorphs with varying morphologies.‘Mesh rim',‘window',‘hourglass' and‘bastite' are the most common textures displayed by both chrysotile and lizardite.Numerous chrysotile veins in association with cross cutting magnetite veins indicate an advanced stage of serpentinisation.The relatively high abundance of chrysotile and lizardite suggest their close association and formation at a temperature below 250℃. Abundant‘mesh rim'and‘bastite'texture and variegated matrix reveal that the present serpentinites might have formed due to the interaction of harzburgite and seawater.Positive Eu anomaly(Eu/Eu~* up to 3.38),higher La/Sm(up to 4.40)and Nb/La(up to 6.34)ratios suggest substantial hydrothermal influence during the formation of the serpentinites.     

Active tectonics in the Assam seismic gap between the meizoseismal zone of AD 1934 and 1950 earthquakes along eastern Himalayan front,India

The Assam Seismic Gap has witnessed a long seismic quiescence since the \({ Mw}{\sim }8.4\) great Assam earthquake of AD 1950. Owing to its improper connectivity over the last decades, this segment of the Himalaya has long remained inadequately explored by geoscientists. Recent geodetic measurements in the eastern Himalaya using GPS document a discrepancy between the geologic and geodetic convergence rates. West to east increase in convergence rate added with shorter time span earthquakes like the 1697 Sadiya, 1714 (\({ Mw}{\sim }8\)) Bhutan and 1950 (\({ Mw}{\sim } 8.4\)) Tibet–Assam, makes this discrepancy more composite and crucial in terms of seismic hazard assessment. To understand the scenario of palaeoearthquake surface rupturing and deformation of youngest landforms between the meizoseismal areas of \({ Mw}{\sim }8.1\) 1934 and 1950 earthquakes, the area between the Manas and Dhanshiri Rivers along the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT) was traversed. The general deformation pattern reflects north-dipping thrust faults. However, back facing scarps were also observed in conjugation to the discontinuous scarps along the frontal thrust. Preliminary mapping along with the published literature suggests that, in the eastern Himalayan front the deformation is taking place largely by the thrust sheet translation without producing a prominent fault-related folds, unlike that of the central and western Himalayas.     

Species Mapping Using Citizen Science Approach Through IBIN Portal: Use Case in Foothills of Himalaya

In this era of rapid global change, biodiversity monitoring and improving species repository to meet requirements toward conservation is costly affairs and needs a practical solution to identify and locate species with habitats. The integrated approach of citizen science and information technologies has proven to be effective solution for geographical and taxonomical data collection with public engagement, covering local to national scale. As a first step, a mobile app is designed and developed for the IBIN (Indian Bioresource Information Network), a digitized collection of the biological resources of India that serves as a common platform to access spatial and non-spatial information on biorecources can host their data through this single and intuitive platform with full privileges and authenticity. IBIN mobile app can be seen as an efficient and rapid solution to record data on species, utilizing GPS and camera features of mobile devices. Present paper deals with the citizen science approaches, its contribution in biodiversity field, outlines the design and development of IBIN mobile app and its first case study carried out at foothills of Himalaya.     

APPARENT RESISTIVITY OF A MULTILAYERED EARTH WITH A LAYER HAVING EXPONENTIALITY VARYING CONDUCTIVITY*

If the conductivity of any one of the layers of a horizontally stratified earth varies exponentially with depth with or without a discontinuity at the interface, the corresponding expressions for apparent resistivity for Wenner- and Schlumberger-sounding arrays can be formulated. The general case has been broadly divided into three categories for mathematical simplicity. All previous discussions of this problem can be regarded as particular cases of the present study.     

RESISTIVITY SOUNDING ON A MULTILAYERED EARTH CONTAINING TRANSITION LAYERS*

For curves over a horizontally stratified earth where any of the layers has a conductivity variation proportional to (1 +β·z)^N, where β and N are arbitrary constants and z is the depth to the layer, expressions for apparent resistivity for Wenner and Schlumberger sounding are derived. No assumption has been made about the continuity of conductivity at the interface. It is shown that most of the previous investigations in this connection can be regarded as particular cases of the present study.     

Late Pleistocene Paleoflood Deposits Identified by Grain Size Signatures,Parsons Valley Lake,Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu

A study involving grain size analysis was carried out from the Parsons valley lake deposit, Nilgiris, India to determine the depositional environments and paleoflood events since late Pleistocene period (～29,838 cal yr BP). A 72 cm lacustrine core was collected from the lake and eight organic rich sediment samples were AMS radiocarbon dated. The study reveals variations in the grain size distribution chiefly influenced by regional climatic conditions. Paleoflood events have been identified by the individual sedimentary flood signatures of varying changes in the magnitude of sediment supply from the background silty sediment matrix around ～29,838 and ～8405 cal yr BP.     

Upper bound solutions of bearing capacity of strip footing by pseudo-dynamic approach

This paper presents the pseudo-dynamic analysis of seismic bearing capacity of a strip footing using upper bound limit analysis. However, in the literature, the pseudo-static approach was frequently used by several researchers to compute the seismic bearing capacity factor theoretically, where the real dynamic nature of the earthquake accelerations cannot be considered. Under the seismic conditions, the values of the unit weight component of bearing capacity factor N _γE are determined for different magnitudes of soil friction angle, soil amplification and seismic acceleration coefficients both in the horizontal and vertical directions. The results obtained from the present study are shown both graphically as well as in the tabular form. It is observed that the bearing capacity factor N _γE decreases significantly with the increase in seismic accelerations and amplification. The results are thoroughly compared with the existing values in the literature and the significance of the present methodology for designing the shallow footing is discussed.