Assessment of potential seismic hazard and site effect in Antakya (Hatay Province), SE Turkey

Antakya city is at risk because of strong earthquakes occurring in the area, and different soil conditions that can produce variation of the ground motion amplification. Microzonation of cities provides a basis for site-specific hazard analysis in urban settlements. In particular, seismic microzonation can be provided by means of detailed seismic assessment of the area, including earthquake recordings and geological studies. In this paper, we propose a preliminary microzonation map for the city of Antakya, based on the variation of the dominant periods and shear velocities of the sediments covering the area. The periods are retrieved from microtremor measurements conducted at 69 sites, using the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio technique. The results of microtremor analysis were compared with data obtained from refraction microtremor (ReMi) measurements at four profiles crossing the studied area. According to the classification of dominant periods, Antakya city can be divided into five zones, probably prone to different levels of seismic hazard. The shorter natural periods are in inner Antakya and both the sides of Asi River (i.e., northern and southern parts). The eastern and western parts of Antakya have maximum dominant periods. The V _s ³⁰ values were calculated by using the ReMi method along the profiles. Antakya city has V _s ³⁰ values in the range of category C of the national earthquake hazard reduction programme site classification.     

基于GIS的土耳其国际保护区G(o)ksu河水质的调查与建模

Gksu Delta is an important wetland where the Gksu River reaches to sea in the eastern of the town Tasucu-Ice1. The delta is classified as a Wetland of International Impor-tance according to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. The amount of fertilizers used in this area was 7200 tons in 2006. These pollutants affect the surface and groundwater quality negatively. The intensively used fertilizers and pesticides contain not only N- and P compounds but also some heavy metals. The contents of all pol-lutants in surface waters were determined for four different seasons between 2006 and 2008 and with these data a Geographic Information System (GIS) has been constructed by using Map Info. From the photometric heavy metal analysis, it is inferred that the excess concen-tration of Fe, Ni, Mn, Mo and Cu at some locations is the cause of undesirable quality for drinking purposes. The source of excess concentration of various heavy metals is the agri-cultural activities and fertilizers. It is determined that in all periods between 2006 and 2008 the heavy metals and other pollutants in the fertilizers and pesticides transported easily to river water with irrigation return flow. The organic pollutants, including COD, BOD, NH3 and NO3 followed the sharply increasing trends from Silifke city to Mediterranean Sea. The water quality of Gksu River is modeled and determined that the waste water discharge of 10,700 m3/day from Silifke city does not create a serious problem because of the high amount of flow rate of Gksu River.     

Automatic Building Extraction from Image and LiDAR Data with Active Contour Segmentation

Automatic building extraction is an important topic for many applications such as urban planning, disaster management, 3D building modeling and updating GIS databases. Its approaches mainly depend on two data sources: light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point cloud and aerial imagery both of which have advantages and disadvantages of their own. In this study, in order to benefit from the advantages of each data sources, LiDAR and image data combined together. And then, the building boundaries were extracted with the automated active contour algorithm implemented in MATLAB. Active contour algorithm uses initial contour positions to segment an object in the image. Initial contour positions were detected without user interaction by a series of image enhancements, band ratio and morphological operations. Four test areas with varying building and background levels of detail were selected from ISPRS’s benchmark Vaihingen and Istanbul datasets. Vegetation and shadows were removed from all the datasets by band ratio to improve segmentation quality. Subsequently, LiDAR point cloud data was converted to raster format and added to the aerial imagery as an extra band. Resulting merged image and initial contour positions were given to the active contour algorithm to extract building boundaries. In order to compare the contribution of LiDAR to the proposed method, the boundaries of the buildings were extracted from the input image before and after adding LiDAR data to the image as a layer. Finally extracted building boundaries were smoothed by the Awrangjeb (Int J Remote Sen 37(3): 551–579.  https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2015.1131868, 2016) boundary regularization algorithm. Correctness (Corr), completeness (Comp) and accuracy (Q) metrics were used to assess accuracy of segmented building boundaries by comparing extracted building boundaries with manually digitized building boundaries. Proposed approach shows the promising results with over 93% correctness, 92% completeness and 89% quality.     

Analysis and catalogue of sneaker waves in the US Pacific Northwest between 2005 and 2017

Sneaker waves are responsible for many casualties and beach rescues in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) region of the USA. In this paper, a catalogue of these events from 2005 to mid-2017 in Oregon and Northern California is presented. The events are grouped depending on the local characteristics into those involving structures, semi-enclosed beaches, and open-coast beaches. It was found that sneaker waves occurred between the months of October and April, which is also the time of the year of most storm activity in the PNW. The majority of the events are associated with long-period swell approaching the coast. Beach slope and significant wave height were not found to correlate with sneaker wave incidents. However, total water level analysis reveals that the run-up level was expected to reach the beachgoers for the majority of the investigated cases indicating that a forecasting system to warn beachgoers is possible.     

Utilization of waste marble to enhance volume change and strength characteristics of sand-stabilized expansive soil

In this paper, marble waste is evaluated as a secondary material to be utilized as potential stabilizer to improve the volume change and strength characteristics of sand-amended expansive soil, proposed as a possible landfill, pavement or sub-base material in a semi-arid climate. An experimental program was conducted on sand-expansive soil enhanced with marble waste, abundantly found as a by-product of construction industry, obtained from two different sources with different gradations, denoted as marble powder (MP) and marble dust (MD). One-dimensional swell, volumetric shrinkage, consolidation, unconfined compressive and flexural strength tests were conducted on expansive soil–sand mixtures with 5, 10 and 20% waste marble inclusions over curing periods of 7, 28 and 90 days. Test results showed that 10% marble powder and 5% marble dust by dry mass were the optimum amounts for mitigating the swell–shrink potential and compression index as well as yielding the highest unconfined compressive and flexural strength values. Moreover, the rate of reduction in swell potential versus the flexural strength over the curing periods studied is highest in 10% MP- and 5% MD-included specimens, the latter being more insensitive to this change. The soil mixtures displayed brittle behavior after marble addition, hence its utilization as a secondary additive to sand-amended expansive soil is recommended for soils exposed to lower flexural loads such as light traffic.     

Mechanical properties of lime-treated clay reinforced with different types of randomly distributed fibers

In this paper, a comparative experimental study was carried out to evaluate the effect of inclusion of different fiber types on strength of lime-stabilized clay. In this scope, a series of unconfined compressive strength tests were carried out on specimens including basalt and polypropylene fiber compacted under Standard Proctor effort (i.e., 35% by weight of soil). The effects of curing period (1, 7, 28, and 90 days), fiber type (basalt and polypropylene), fiber content (0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1%), fiber length (6, 12, and 19 mm), and lime content (0 and 9%) on strength properties were investigated. The results revealed that both basalt and polypropylene fibers increased the strength without inclusion of lime. For specimens including lime, strength of polypropylene fiber-reinforced specimens was remarkably higher than that reinforced with basalt fiber for lime-stabilized clay. However, greatest strength improvement was obtained by use of 0.75% basalt fiber of 19 mm length with 9% lime content after 90-day curing. Additionally, results of strength tests on specimens including 3 and 6% lime and 12-mm basalt fiber after 1, 7, 28, and 90-day curing were presented. It is evident that the use of 6-mm basalt fiber and 12-mm polypropylene fiber were the best options; however, efficiency of fiber inclusion is subject to change by varying lime contents. It was also observed that the secant modulus was increased by use of lime; however, strength of the correlations among secant modulus and unconfined compressive strength values was decreased by increasing amount of lime for specimens including both basalt and polypropylene fibers.     

Petrographic and petrophysical investigation on carbonate samples (Upper Cretaceous) from the Tushka Area (Egypt) with special focus on the effective pore radius

Petrographic and petrophysical properties of 42 carbonate rock samples from the Tushka Area, Egypt have been investigated. The samples originate from the Upper Cretaceous taken from seven shallow wells and were subdivided into three microfacies. The petrographic characterization of the glauconite-rich, fossiliferous limestones was carried out over 17 thin sections and an additional measurement of the glauconite content by color differentiation. The facies were characterized as (1) oolithic, low-dolomitic, and low-glauconitic, fossil-rich packstone with a tendency towards floatstone or rudstone; (2) glauconite-rich, low-dolomitic floatstone with a tendency towards rudstone; and (3) glauconite and iron mineral-rich, sparry calcitic cemented, and low-dolomitic rudstone. The petrophysical investigation providing grain density, porosity, electrical conductivity, specific internal surface, permeability, magnetic susceptibility, and the pore throat geometry supports the classification into three facies. A strong relation between permeability and formation factor is observed. The median pore radius derived from mercury porosimetry proves to be a good estimate of the effective hydraulic radius. An increased content of iron oxides was identified in facies 3. The increased iron content is related to higher values of both magnetic susceptibility and specific internal surface.     

Galactic model parameters for field giants separated from field dwarfs by their 2MASS and V apparent magnitudes

We present a method which separates field dwarfs and field giants by their 2MASS and V apparent magnitudes. This method is based on spectroscopically selected standards and is hence reliable.We applied it to stars in two fields, SA 54 and SA 82, and we estimated a full set of Galactic model parameters for giants including their total local space density. Our results are in agreement with the ones given in the recent literature. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Effects of Torul dam on water quality in the stream Harşit,NE Turkey

This paper evaluates the effects of Torul dam on the stream Harşit water quality in terms of 13 physico-chemical parameters in the Gümüşhane Province, Eastern Black Sea Basin, Turkey. For this purpose, a study was fortnightly conducted during the four seasons between March 2009 and February 2010. In two monitoring stations selected in the upstream and downstream of the Torul dam, T, pH, DO and EC were determined in situ, and collected water samples were analyzed for TH, COD, NH₄ ⁺-N, NO₂ ⁻-N, NO₃ ⁻-N, TN, TKN, PO₄ ³⁻-P and MBAS. According to the Turkish Water Pollution Control Regulation (TWPCR), the stream Harşit was classified, and the obtained results were evaluated for the values proposed by Turkish Standard (TS) 266 and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The results showed that the stream Harşit has high-quality water in terms of, T, pH, DO, COD, NH₄ ⁺-N and NO₃ ⁻-N, but slightly polluted water in terms of NO₂ ⁻-N, TKN and PO₄ ³⁻-P, and polluted for MBAS. It was concluded that Torul dam has a positive effect on the stream water quality in terms of decrease in the annual average concentration values. The percent decreases for TH, COD, NH₄ ⁺-N, NO₂ ⁻-N, NO₃ ⁻-N, TN, TKN, PO₄ ³⁻-P and MBAS were 17.1, 20.3, 56.2, 62.6, 11.7, 11.9, 11.4, 17.8 and 71.4, respectively. The reason for these decreases is probably due to the Torul dam reservoir where the water has a hydraulic residence time and the exposure to chemicals by aquatic organisms or populations that ingest the water. Also, statistical analysis shows that there are significant correlations among the studied parameters.     

Carbonate weathering and connate seawater influencing karst groundwaters in the Gevas–Gurpinar–Güzelsu basins,Turkey

There are 59 springs at the Gevas–Gurp?nar–Güzelsu basins, 38 of these springs emerge from the fractured karst aquifers (recrystallized limestone and travertine) and 21 emerge from the Yuksekova ophiolites, K?rkgeçit formation and alluvium. The groundwater samples collected from 38 out of the total of 59 springs, two streams, one lake and 12 wells were analyzed physico-chemically in the year 2002. EC and TDS values of groundwater increased from the marble (high altitude) to the ophiolites and alluvium (toward Lake Van) as a result of carbonate dissolution and connate seawater. Five chemical types of groundwater are identified: Ca–Mg–HCO₃, Mg–Ca–HCO₃, Mg–Na–HCO₃, Na–Ca–HCO₃ and Mg–Ca–Na–HCO₃. The calculations and hydrochemical interpretations show that the high concentrations of Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺ and HCO₃ ^? as predominant ions in the waters are mainly attributed to carbonate rocks and high pCO₂ in soil. Most of the karst springs are oversaturated in calcite, aragonite and dolomite and undersaturated in gypsum, halite and anhydrite. The water–rock interaction processes that singly or in combination influence the chemical composition of each water type include dissolution of carbonate (calcite and dolomite), calcite precipitation, cation exchange and freshening of connate seawater. These processes contribute considerably to the concentration of major ions in the groundwater. Stable isotope contents of the groundwater suggest mainly direct integrative recharge.