Spatial and morphometric relationships of submarine landslides offshore west and southwest Iberia

Landslides - Submarine landslides are a ubiquitous geohazard in the marine environment and occur at multiple scales. Increasing efforts have been made during the last decade to catalogue and...     

Gold–palladium mineralization at Bleïda Far West, Bou Azzer–El Graara Inlier, Anti-Atlas, Morocco

The structurally controlled Au–Pd mineralization at Bleïda Far West occurs in a volcano-sedimentary rock sequence in altered amphibolites and chlorite schists of the Neoproterozoic Bou Azzer–El Graara inlier. The Au–Pd mineralization is virtually sulfide-free; instead, gold is associated with hematite, barite, quartz, and calcite. The gold grains are silver- and palladium-bearing (up to 19 wt% Ag and 6.3 wt% Pd) and are intergrown with a distinct suite of mainly Pd-dominated platinum group minerals, namely mertieite-I/isomertieite, merenskyite, keithconnite, kotulskite, palladseite, and sperrylite, defining a Au–Pd–As–Sb–Se–Te chemical signature. Stable isotope and fluid inclusion studies indicate a wide range of fluid compositions with a prominent saline component. In conjunction with the mineral association, oxidizing fluids are indicated, and Au and PGE transport and deposition likely took place by chloride complexes in the epithermal range, at elevated f O₂ and/or low pH. It is still speculative whether the mineralization is late Pan-African (～600–550 Ma) in age, or connected with the Variscan orogeny (～330–300 Ma), or related to some other hydrothermal event. Common to all Au–Pd mineralizations worldwide (Brazil, Australia, UK), including Bleïda Far West, is their formation in the epithermal (<300°C) range; deposition mainly in brittle structures; sulfide-poor mineral assemblages comprising hematite, sulfate minerals, and selenides; and metal transport by, and deposition from, oxidized, chloride-rich fluids. These deposits are further characterized by noble metal abundances in the order Au>Pd>Pt and the chemical signature Au–Pd–Se–Te (±As, Sb, Bi). As such, the Au–Pd association represents a discrete style of gold mineralization distinct from other classes of gold deposits.     

Spectral band decomposition combined with nonlinear models: application to indoor formaldehyde concentration forecasting

This paper proposes a new approach for forecasting continuous indoor air quality time series and in particular the concentration of a common air pollutant in offices like formaldehyde. Forecasting is achieved through the combination of the spectral band decomposition using fast Fourier transform and nonlinear time series modeling. Two nonlinear models have been tested: a threshold autoregressive (TAR) model and a Chaos dynamics-based modeling. This study shows the benefit of the Fourier decomposition coupled with nonlinear modeling of each extracted component, compared to forecasting applied directly on the raw data. Both TAR and Chaos dynamics models are able to reproduce nonlinearities, with slightly better performance in the case of the second model. These hybrid models provide good performance on forecast time horizon up to 12 h ahead.     

The Importance of the Precipitation and the Susceptibility of the Slopes for the Triggering of Landslides Along the Roads

In order to characterise the influence of the heavyrains on the observed landslides during the 1996–1997hydrological cycle, rainfall records for the last 100years are analysed from 104 stations in easternAndalusia. Regarding the amounts of rain recordedbetween October 1996 and March 1997 in the 104stations studied, 31 presented new all-time records;15 presented values that were 80–100% of thepre-1995 record; 49 stations, 80–50%; and 9stations, < 50%. A map has been devised of thesusceptibility of the materials through which thesouth-eastern Andalusian road network crosses,together with an inventory of the damage caused byinstability phenomena on banks and cuttings of theroad network during the winter of 1996–1997. Therelationships between the rainfall during the studyperiod, the damage caused to the road network and thesusceptibility of the materials affected are analysed.The results indicate that there is a clearcorrespondence between the rainfall recorded and thesusceptibility of the materials with the inventorieddamage. It is concluded that the widespread seriousdamage caused in early 1997 to the roads andsurrounding areas in the Alpujarra region and thecoast of the Province of Granada was mainly caused bythe extraordinarily heavy rains. However, considerablyless damage was observed where the susceptibility ofthe terrain is low, thus highlighting the extremeusefulness of terrain-susceptibility maps for riskprevention and territorial planning.     

Improvement of the JRC Calculation Using Different Parameters Obtained Through a New Survey Method Applied to Rock Discontinuities

This paper presents a new, fast and economical method for digitizing a rock surface profile to determine its joint roughness coefficient (JRC) value (Barton and Choubey, Rock Mech Rock Eng 10:1–54, 1977) using a set of existing parameters, the appropriateness of which has been tested. The new procedure was applied to four rock road cuts in the Alpujarra area of Granada province (Andalusia, Spain), supported by 117 digitized profiles. The method avoids any personal subjectivity bias. The usual subjectivity in the visualization and assessment of the JRC value is estimated here by a survey test answered by 90 trained users. The survey test consisted of a set of JRC visual comparisons of 12 roughness profiles, selected from the 117 profiles surveyed during the field research in the Alpujarra region, with the Barton typical profiles. The results of the survey clearly show systematic inaccuracies in the traditional procedure that are reduced if the advice presented in the conclusions of this paper is taken in account when performing the visual estimation.     

Shear Strength Response of a Geotextile-Reinforced Chlef Sand: A Laboratory Study

During the last earthquake that occurred in Chlef (El Asnam 1980, Algeria), a significant decrease in the shear strength has caused major damages to several civil and hydraulic structures (earth dams, embankments, bridges, slopes and buildings), especially for the saturated sandy soil of the areas near Chlef valley. This paper presents a laboratory study of drained compression triaxial tests conducted on sandy soil reinforced with horizontal layers of geotextile, in order to study the influence of geotextile layer characteristics both on shear stress–strain and on volumetric change–strain. Tests were carried out on medium and dense sand. The experimental programme includes some drained compression tests performed on reinforced sand samples, for different values of the geotextile layers number (N _g), of confining pressure (\( \sigma_{\text{c}}^{\prime } \)) and relative density (D _r). The test results have shown that the contribution of the geotextile at low values of the axial strain (ε ₁) is negligible, for higher values of (ε ₁); geotextile induces a quasi-linear increase in the deviator stress (q) and leads to an increase in the volume contractiveness within the reinforced samples. A negligible influence of geotextile layers number (N _g) on the stress–strain behaviour and the volumetric change has been shown, when normalized with N _g. The results indicate that the contribution of geotextile to the stress–strain mobilization increases with increasing confining pressure, while its contribution to the volume contraction decreases with the increase in the confining pressure.     

闽江下游全新世孢粉记录的植被与环境变化

为了揭示闽江下游闽侯盆地第四纪沉积环境演变与人类活动历史,对闽江下游闽侯盆地庄边山遗址附近的FZ5钻孔进行了孢粉、硅藻分析。结果表明：闽侯盆地全新世海侵初始发生时间约为9 000 cal. a B.P.,至7 500 cal. a B.P.达到最大海侵范围,晚全新世海退的发生时间在闽侯盆地大约为1 900 cal. a B.P.。孢粉分析证实了当地早中全新世温暖的亚热带气候以及浓密的常绿阔叶林植被。在7 500―1 900 cal. a B.P.之间无论植被覆盖还是气候环境均比较稳定,高海平面时期的适宜气候以及海湾环境也有利于当地以渔猎经济方式为主的新石器文化（昙石山文化）的兴起和发展。自1 900 cal. a B.P.以后,孢粉组合突变为以先锋植物芒萁属（Dicranopteris）、禾本科（Poaceae）、松属（Pinus）等类型为主,揭示了当地植被受到人类农业刀耕火种的影响而发生显著变化。高含量的禾本科花粉（含一定数量的水稻）仅在剖面上部明显增加这一事实,证实了闽侯和福州一带水稻种植的大面积发展始于距今1 900 a前后。     

Contribution to a geodynamic reconstruction of the Anti-Atlas (Morocco) during Pan-African times with the emphasis on inversion tectonics and metallogenic activity at the Precambrian–Cambrian transition

New geochronological analyses (U–Pb SIMS zircon ages) have yielded ages of 552 ± 5 Ma for the Bou Madine rhyolitic dome (Ougnat, eastern Anti-Atlas), 543 ± 9 Ma for the Tachkakacht rhyolitic dyke (Saghro–Imiter, eastern Anti-Atlas), and 531 ± 5 Ma for the Aghbar trachytic sill (Bou Azzer, central Anti-Atlas). Inherited zircon cores from the Aghbar trachytic sill and from the Bou Madine rhyolitic dome have been shown to be of Statherian age (ca. 1600–1800 Ma) and Palæoproterozoic (>2100 Ma) age, respectively, suggesting that a significantly older protolith underlies the Pan-African rocks in the Central and Eastern Anti-Atlas. Granodiorites and rhyolites from the Saghro–Imiter area have similar low ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr (0.702–0.706) and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd (0.5116–0.5119) initial ratios, suggesting a mixture of mantle and lower crust sources. This can also be inferred from the low ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os ratios obtained on pyrite crystals from the rhyolites.A recently published lithostratigraphic framework has been combined with these new geochemical and geochronological data, and those from the literature to produce a new reconstruction of the complex orogenic front that developed at the northern edge of the Eburnian West African craton during Pan-African times. Three Neoproterozoic magmatic series can be distinguished in the Anti-Atlas belt, i.e., high-K calc-alkaline granites, high-K calc-alkaline to shoshonitic rhyolites and andesites, and alkaline-shoshonitic trachytes and syenites, which have been dated at 595–570, 570–545 and 530 Ma, respectively.The accretion of the Pan-African Anti-Atlas belt to the West African super continent (WAC) was a four-stage event, involving extension, subduction, moderate collision and extension. The calc-alkaline magmatism of the subduction stage was associated with large-scale base metal and gold mineralisation. Metallogenic activity was greatest during the final extensional stage, at the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary. It is characterised by world-class precious metal deposits, base–metal porphyry and SEDEX-type occurrences.     

Unsteady convective atmospheric vortices

The convective atmospheric vortex models of Kuo (1966) and Kendall (1978) are extended to allow the formulation of similarity equations for the unsteady vortex arising from an ambient flow with unstable stratification and rotation. In particular, a new analytical solution is found which allows flow at large radius that is more physically realistic than in any earlier solutions. Additional unsteady solutions are obtained numerically but at large radius these are subject to the limitations of earlier solutions.