Mineralogy,petrography and micro-chemical characteristics of enclaves of mylonitic BIFs within Sukinda ultramafic complex,Odisha

Elongated NE-SW trending bodies of iron-rich rock are exposed adjacent to pyroxenite dyke within Sukinda ultramafic complex, Odisha. Field study followed by optical and electron microscopy, XRD and EPMA investigation reveal the rocks to be fine grained, weathered, limonitised; containing quartz, magnetite, hematite/martite and goethite. The rock has suffered from deformation during intrusion of chromiferous magma. It rarely shows banding/lamination, but largely exhibits mylonitic fabric, resulting from magmatic intrusion. The stronger deformation is evident from sub-grain formation, deformed mineral grains; often with orientation, stretching (boudinage) and shortening (folding); presence of porphyroclasts, pull-apart structure, undulose extinction, dynamic recrystallisation etc. From the microstructure and mineral abundance, the rock is designated as “Mylonitic Magentite Quartzite” (MMQ).Enrichment of some elements like Ni, Mg, Cr in the magnetite phase of MMQ is attributed to solid state diffusion of these elements from chromiferous mafic magma during thermal metamorphism. This is determined from electron probe microanalysis of iron-rich phase in MMQ, which is found to contain 88-90 wt% of FeO^(t) with ~1%, NiO, ~1%, MgO and 0.1% Cr₂O₃ having around 3 mole% of trevorite; 4-6% of magnesioferrite; 0.15-0.3% of chromite; 86-87% of magnetite and 3-4% of wustite. Considering presence of wustite as temperature indicator, the temperature of magma envisaged to be around 950-1100°C.In a later period, the MMQ has undergone oxidation and lateritisation owing to its prolonged exposure. During this process, new minerals like hematite and goethite substituted magnetite, resulting leaching of iron (FeO: 62-68%) and magnesium (MgO: 0.1-0.35) and enrichment of chromium (Cr₂O₃:4-7%) and nickel (NiO: 1.6-2.3%). The silica (SiO₂: 4-5%), alumina (Al₂O₃:~1%) are contributed by kaolinite, formed during lateritisation.The field and laboratory studies confirm these iron-rich exposures to be enclaves of BIFs, banded magnetite quartzite (BMQ) in particular, within the Sukinda chromiferous ultramafic complex. Micro-structural features and microchemical composition of iron minerals in these exposures are interpreted as the influence of forceful ultramafic intrusion into the existing BMQ and effect of thermal metamorphism followed by oxidation, weathering/lateritisation.     

Extraction of Glacio-Geomorphological Units of Tons River Watershed Based on Remote Sensing Techniques

Tons basin has the maximum share of glaciers, more than 50 glaciers, as well as glacierised area in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and the majority of the glaciers are of valley type. One of the important features of the glaciers of Tons valley is the presence of a thick mantle of supraglaciers moraine cover which can be attributed to the terrain characteristics, besides, the avalanche fed nature of the glaciers. The present study is the extraction of Glacio-geomorphological unit of Tons River basin based on the visual interpretation of remote sensing data. It was very much difficult in field, to extract all glacio-geomorphological units in glaciated area, but based on the remote sensing data, it becomes easy to identify. With the help of glacio-geomorphological map it has been found that four most important glaciers which fed the Tons River are Bandarpunch Glacier, Jaundar Bamak glacier, Jhajju Bamak and Tilku glacier. The tributaries of Tons River i.e. Harkidun Gad, Rupin Nadi and Supin Nadi are mainly fed by the mountain glaciers, valley glaciers and glacier lakes. The erosional terraces, glacio-fluvial terraces, open ??U?? shaped valleys, proglacial lake, lateral moraines, terminal moraines, palaeo-cirque and debris/talus cones are well developed in this glaciated regions. Glacio-geomorphic features are very much significant for palaeo-climatic reconstruction, showing variations, temporally and spatially. At the same time, these landforms, which are also altered by processes prevailing during interglacial period, helps in the geo-environment studies and glacier related problems like avalanches, global warming and cloudburst etc.     

Rainfall Estimation from Combined Observations Using KALPANA-IR and TRMM- Precipitation Radar Measurements over Indian Region

In the present study an attempt has been made to improve the rainfall estimation technique developed recently by Mishra et al. (2009a, 2009b) based on KALPANA and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-Precipitation Radar (PR) data over the Indian land and oceanic region. The algorithm for rainfall estimation was basically based on synergistically analyzing the thermal infra-red radiances from Kalpana/INSAT data along with the high resolution, horizontal and vertical rainfall estimates from PR. Presently the augmentation is based on the data base of precipitable water and relative humidity from National Centre for Environmental Prediction-Global forecast System (NCEP-GFS) data as a background field to correct for the biases in earlier algorithm. The algorithm is tested for many case studies of monsoon rainfall over India and adjoining oceanic regions. The rainfall from the present scheme is compared with the standard TRMM-3B42 rain product. The validation with the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) rain gauge and the Global Precipitation and Climatology Project (GPCP) version 2 rain products shows that the present scheme is able to retrieve the rainfall with a very good accuracy. These studies are aimed at the rainfall retrievals in near future from both INSAT-3D and Megha-Tropiques, IR and MW imagers respectively.     

Seasonality and Latitudinal Variation of Water Vapour and Aerosol Optical Thickness and Their relationship Over Tropical Indian Ocean

Aerosol and water vapour are very important element in the Earth’s climate system which has direct role in the Earth’s radiation budget. In this paper the seasonality, latitudinal distribution and the relationship of aerosol optical thickness (AOD) and water vapour (WV) using MODIS Level 3 monthly data from 2001 to 2008 are analysed. The analysis shows that AOD (0.55 μm) values reach maximum during southwest monsoon and remain minimum during northeast monsoon period. The Equatorial Indian Ocean shows minimum AOD (0.115 to 0.153) throughout the year compared to Arabian Sea (0.208 to 0.613) and Bay of Bengal (0.214 to 0.351). Arabian Sea shows high variation and maximum value of AOD compared to Bay of Bengal and Equatorial Indian Ocean. During southwest monsoon WV over Bay of Bengal was found higher in concentration compared to Arabian Sea and Equitorial Indian Ocean throughout the study period. Comparison between Arabian Sea (2.98 cm to 5.07 cm) and Bay of Bengal (3.49 cm to 5.94 cm) shows that WV concentration is less in Arabian Sea throughout the year. The analysis of correlation between WV and AOD was found to be inconsistent. However, AOD and WV shows a strong positive correlation for whole year (Mean R² =0.90) in the Equitorial Indian Ocean region except in the months of January, February and March. In general, the correlation between WV and AOD is found to be strongly positive for oceanic aerosol (sea salt) in low water vapour condition.     

Estimation of winter wheat crop growth parameters using time series Sentinel-1A SAR data

In the present study, Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar analysis of time series data at C-band was carried out to estimate the winter wheat crop growth parameters. Five different date images were acquired during January 2015–April 2015 at different growth stages from tillering to ripening in Varanasi district, India. The winter wheat crop parameters, i.e. leaf area index, vegetation water content (VWC), fresh biomass (FB), dry biomass (DB) and plant height (PH) were estimated using random forest regression (RFR), support vector regression (SVR), artificial neural network regression (ANNR) and linear regression (LR) algorithms. The Ground Range Detected products of Interferometric Wide (IW) Swath were used at VV polarization. The three different subplots of 1 m² area were taken for the measurement of crop parameters at every growth stage. In total, 73 samples were taken as the training data-sets and 39 samples were taken as testing data-sets. The highest sensitivity (adj. R^2?=?0.95579) of backscattering with VWC was found using RFR algorithm, whereas the lowest sensitivity (adj. R^2?=?0.66201) was found for the PH using LR algorithm. Overall results indicate more accurate estimation of winter wheat parameters by the RFR algorithm followed by SVR, ANNR and LR algorithms.     

Study of spectral reflectance characteristics of an urban environment — Case study of Kanpur city

Spectral reflectance Studies have been carried out on various features (man-made as well as natural) with reference to urban environment using a portable spectro-radiometer in wavelength regions ranging from 0.45 to 1.0 μm of Kanpur city and its surrounding areas. The signature values, thus collected, were used to draw spectral reflectance curves of each feature separately and to determine/select the optimum wavelength regions suitable for urban area studies. It has been observed that the best band width suitable for urban feature discrimination are between 0.45 to 0.55 μm (blue region) & 0.69 to 0.80 μm (near-infrared region) of the spectrum.     

Chemistry of acid production in black coal mine washery wastes

Column leaching tests on black coal mine washery wastes were performed, to determine the chemistry of acid generation. Coal mine coarse rejects and tailings were subjected to wet and dry cycle dissolution and subsequently column leached. The rates of iron sulphide oxidation and carbonate mineral dissolution were determined based on the drainage chemistry. The kinetic data from column leach experiments are used to predict the time required to deplete the acid producing and acid consuming minerals in the mine wastes. The acid production in the mine rejects was found to depend upon iron chemistry, carbonate chemistry, diffusion of oxygen, and permeability. The chemistry of the drainage from two different coal mines is compared.     

Mode of Occurrence and Characteristics of Mn-ore Bodies in Iron Ore Group of Rocks, North Orissa, India and Its Significance in Resource Evaluation

Abstract. Several meso‐scale manganese ore bodies, scattered within Jone's horse‐shoe shaped synclinorium, in Bonai‐Keonjhar region of north Orissa are well known in the mineral map of India. Different grades of manganese ores are being exploited from this region by various agencies over a few decades. However, deceptive nature of ore bodies and complexity in control of mineralisation greatly confuse the exploration geologists for evaluation of these resources. In a recent study, the authors have classified Mn‐ore bodies of this region into three broad categories such as stratiform, stratabound (‐replacement) and lateritoid types based on mode of occurrence and their other chemical characteristics. Mn‐ore bands occur in close association with BIF and iron ores. Volcaniclastic shale in large geographic extension encloses these ore bodies. In the stratiform category of ore bodies (BMnF, analogous of BIF), manganese and shale bands, in variables thickness, alternate with each other and extend to a great depth. Such ore bodies generally constitute marginal to low‐grade ores, are characterised by low Mn/Fe ratio (～2) and have relatively lower abundance of trace (1500 to 2500 ppm) and relatively higher REE constituents. The stratabound‐replacement types of ore bodies are of intra‐stratal nature, occurring within tuffaceous shale. These are mostly shear‐controlled ore bodies extending along a zone of certain width. Increase in average Mn/Fe ratio (～6) and trace content (5000 to 8500 ppm) by 5 to 2.5 order of magnitude respectively or more above stratiform category are characteristic of these deposits. The lateritoid ore bodies have limited depth persistency. Such deposits are usually very low in Mn/Fe ratio (<1), trace (<2000 ppm) and REE contents. Different methods of exploration techniques are suggested for various categories of Mn‐ore bodies. In this context, the above findings would be the database for the exploration geologists to evaluate the potential of newer/existing Mn‐ore resources in this part of north Orissa.     

Spectral analysis of monsoonal global energy and enstrophy and their nonlinear exchanges in the zonal wavenumber domain

Vertical distributions of various components of the tropospheric global rotational kinetic energy, enstrophy and available potential energy during July 1979, and the contributions to these from different zonal wave categories were studied. Representative levels in the lower and upper troposphere for the stationary and transient energetics were identified on the basis of different components of energy and enstrophy. The eddy energy and enstrophy contained in different zonal scale components in the lower and upper troposphere were studied to find out the preferred scales for stationary and transient monsoonal motion in the two atmospheric layers. The role of different zonal wave categories in the nonlinear exchanges of energy and enstrophy arising due to stationary-stationary, transient-transient, stationary-transient and observed flow interactions was examined. Stationary and transient global spectra of the aforesaid dynamical variables in terms of the zonal wavenumber(m) with triangular truncation atm = 42 were utilized for this purpose. It was found from the global average kinetic energy in lower and upper troposphere that the global stationary and transient motions were comparable in the lower troposphere while in the upper troposphere stationary motion dominated over the transient motion. The computed zonal and eddy energy confirmed that the stationary motion was predominantly zonal while the transient motion was dominated by eddies. From the time mean nonlinear interaction of kinetic energy (enstrophy) of observed flow it was seen that the long and short waves as well as the zonal flow gained kinetic energy (enstrophy) from medium waves due to nonlinear interactions. The transfer of available potential energy due to nonlinear interaction was down the scale except for short waves in the upper troposphere. The stationary-transient interaction was found to be an important element of the spatial-temporal varying atmospheric flow.