A Neotectonic based geomorphic analysis using remote sensing data to delineate potential areas of hydrocarbon exploration: Cachar area,Assam

TheAssamArakan fold thrust belt has highly deformed folded units of Tertiary sediments bounded by eastward dipping thrust slices with a convexity towards west. In the Tripura-Cachar region, this folded belt is characterized by the occurrence of wide synclines and narrow anticlines that hosts a number of hydrocarbon producing fields. In the Cachar area of Assam, most of these fields occur in the culmination of anticlinal structures. Other wells drilled in analogous structural settings are found to be dry. In this paper a neotectonic based geomorphic analysis is carried out to delineate a fault network and geomorphic highs in Cachar area as expressions of sub-surface structures which had subsequently been validated by available geophysical data. Of these geomorphic highs, those that are in the synclinal areas are believed to represent subtle sub-surface structural highs. Synclinal structures associated with NNE-SSW faults might be considered interesting for hydrocarbon exploration and are subsequently categorized following their degree of confidence for exploration of hydrocarbon. Additionally, a genetic model of the structures in the region is also proposed.     

An atmospheric instability derived with MODIS profile using real-time direct broadcast data over the Indian region

In this study, assessing the atmospheric instability, a new index, named here as MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) profile index (MPI), has been statistically computed using temperature and moisture profile data from the real-time direct broadcast receiving systems installed at three places of India Meteorological Department. The training dataset has been prepared using MODIS temperature and moisture profile from the Aqua and Terra satellites over the Indian region for clear and convective weather conditions during the period of March to June 2011. The MPI values are produced at 5?×?5?km pixel resolution when at least 6 out of 9 FOVs from MODIS granules are found cloud free. If more than 3 FOVs are cloudy, the MPI has not been computed. The formulation of MPI and its comparison have been examined with well-established traditionally used K index, Lifted Index and total totals index derived from radiosonde profiles of temperature, pressure and humidity. It has been observed that in most of the cases, MPI has well correlated with those derived from ground truth observations. Therefore, spatially interpolated MPI can be utilized as an indicator for regional and location-specific forecast over the areas where radiosonde data are not available. The results also indicated that MPI can be used as a sensitive measure in very early stages of instability developments such as thunderstorm and rainfall because no other single stability index can provide a distinct threshold value for these events. Therefore, a single MPI value at a certain threshold can be treated as a stability index instead of other available indices. It is also being proposed that the inclusion of MPI as a stability parameter in physical or numerical modeling can improve accurate local severe storm predictions as a useful predictor and can also be used as diagnostic tools. The MPI can make a useful simulation using entire temperature and moisture profile data for the assessment of instability significantly to severe weather forecasting since other instability indices are often derived from a fixed pressure level quantity of vertical profile parameters.     

The fallacy of Oppenheimer Snyder collapse: no general relativistic collapse at all,no black hole,no physical singularity

By applying Birkhoff’s theorem to the problem of the general relativistic collapse of a uniform density dust, we directly show that the density of the dust ρ=0 even when its proper number density n would be assumed to be finite! The physical reason behind this exact result can be traced back to the observation of Arnowitt et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 4: 375, 1960) that the gravitational mass of a neutral point particle is zero: m=0. And since, a dust is a mere collection of neutral point particles, unlike a continuous hydrodynamic fluid, its density ρ=mn=0. It is nonetheless found that for k=?1, a homogeneous dust can collapse and expand special relativistically in the fashion of a Milne universe. Thus, in reality, general relativistic homogeneous dust collapse does not lead to the formation of any black hole in conformity of many previous studies (Logunov et al., Phys. Part. Nucl. 37: 317, 2006; Kiselev et al., Theor. Math. Phys. 164: 972, 2010; Mitra, J. Math. Phys. 50: 042502, 2009a; Suggett, J. Phys. A 12: 375 1979b). Interestingly, this result is in agreement with the intuition of Oppenheimer and Snyder (Phys. Rev. 56: 456, 1939) too:“Physically such a singularity would mean that the expressions used for the energy-momentum tensor does not take into account some essential physical fact which would really smooth the singularity out. Further, a star in its early stages of development would not possess a singular density or pressure, it is impossible for a singularity to develop in a finite time.”     

Forest cover change prediction using hybrid methodology of geoinformatics and Markov chain model: A case study on sub-Himalayan town Gangtok,India

In the Himalayan states of India, with increasing population and activities, large areas of forested land are being converted into other land-use features. There is a definite cause and effect relationship between changing practice for development and changes in land use. So, an estimation of land use dynamics and a futuristic trend pattern is essential. A combination of geospatial and statistical techniques were applied to assess the present and future land use/land cover scenario of Gangtok, the subHimalayan capital of Sikkim. Multi-temporal satellite imageries of the Landsat series were used to map the changes in land use of Gangtok from 1990 to 2010. Only three major land use classes (built-up area and bare land, step cultivated area, and forest) were considered as the most dynamic land use practices of Gangtok. The conventional supervised classification, and spectral indices-based thresholding using NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and SAVI (Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index) were applied along with the accuracy assessments. Markov modelling was applied for prediction of land use/land cover change and was validated. SAVI provides the most accurate estimate, i.e., the difference between predicted and actual data is minimal. Finally, a combination of Markov modelling and SAVI was used to predict the probable land-use scenario in Gangtok in 2020 AD, which indicted that more forest areas will be converted for step cultivation by the year 2020.     

Commercial steel wool for reduction of hexavalent chromium in wastewater: batch kinetic studies and rate model

The present study aims at searching the potential of commercial grade steel wool in reducing hexavalent chromium in aqueous phase under batch mode. About 30 % of the initial hexavalent chromium was found to reduce within 2 h at a pH of 3. However, on testing the combined effects of different process parameters, namely the solution pH, wool loading, etc., the optimum batch parametric condition has been fixed. A moving boundary type kinetic model, which takes into account the effect of passivation along with the direct reduction mechanism to simulate the gross uptake profile of Cr(VI) from the bulk solution is proposed. The effective pore diffusivity of Cr(VI) in commercial steel wool was determined by a suitable global optimization technique. Additionally, the model is also capable to simulate the decline of active external surface area of the wool caused by passivation with time. A good match of the experimental data and model-simulated transient bulk concentration of Cr(VI) (under optimum parametric condition only) establishes the general validity of the proposed model.     

Non-circular beam correction to the CMB power spectrum

In the era of high precision CMB measurements, systematic effects are beginning to limit the ability to extract subtler cosmological information. The non-circularity of the experimental beam has become progressively important as CMB experiments strive to attain higher angular resolution and sensitivity. The effect of non-circular beam on the power spectrum is important at multipoles larger than the beam-width. For recent experiments with high angular resolution, optimal methods of power spectrum estimation are computationally prohibitive and sub-optimal approaches, such as the Pseudo-C_l method are used. We provide an analytic framework for correcting the power spectrum for the effect of beam non-circularity and non-uniform sky coverage (including incomplete/masked sky maps). The approach is perturbative in the distortion of the beam from non-circularity allowing for rapid computations when the beam is mildly non-circular. We advocate that when the non-circular beams are important, it is computationally advantageous to employ ‘soft’ azimuthally apodized masks whose spherical harmonic transforms die down fast with m.     

The retention of ammonia and sulfur dioxide during riming of ice particles and dendritic snow flakes: laboratory experiments in the Mainz vertical wind tunnel

Laboratory experiments were carried out in the Mainz vertical wind tunnel to determine the retention of the trace gases ammonia and sulfur dioxide dissolved in supercooled cloud droplets during riming. The conditions during riming were similar to the ones in atmospheric mixed phase clouds: temperatures from ?18 °C to ?5 °C, liquid water contents between 1 and 1.5 g m^?3, liquid drop radii between 10 and 20 μm, liquid phase concentrations from 1 to 22 mg/l. As collectors, floating ice particles and snow flakes with diameters between 6 mm and 1.5 cm were used. After riming the retention coefficients, i.e. the fractions of the species which remained in the ice phase after freezing were determined. Retention coefficients lying between 0.1 and 1.0 were measured depending on the solubility and dissociation of the trace gas, liquid phase concentration, ambient air temperature, and shape of rimed collector. This can be explained from the chemists’ point of view by the effective Henry’s law constant of the species and physically with the rate of latent heat removal from the rimed collector during freezing. Parameterizations derived from the different experimental cases describe the retention coefficients as a function of temperature. In general, an average retention of ammonia of 92?±?21 % was determined independently of liquid phase concentration while mean values for sulfur dioxide were 53?±?10 % at low liquid phase concentrations and 29?±?7 % at high liquid phase concentrations.     

Mirror matter in the solar system: new evidence for mirror matter from Eros

Mirror matter is an entirely new form of matter predicted to exist if mirror symmetry is a fundamental symmetry of nature. Mirror matter has the right broad properties to explain the inferred dark matter of the Universe and might also be responsible for a variety of other puzzles in particle physics, astrophysics, meteoritics and planetary science. It is known that mirror matter can interact with ordinary matter non-gravitationally via photon-mirror photon kinetic mixing. The strength of this possibly fundamental interaction depends on the (theoretically) free parameter ε. We consider various proposed manifestations of mirror matter in our solar system examining in particular how the physics changes for different possible values of ε. We find new evidence for mirror matter in the solar system coming from the observed sharp reduction in crater rates (for craters less than about 100 m in diameter) on the asteroid 433 Eros. We also re-examine various existing ideas including the mirror matter explanation for the anomalous meteorite events, anomalous slow-down of Pioneer spacecraft etc.     

Radiocarbon evidence of paleo-recharge (pre-Saraswati period) of potential deep aquifer in Thar desert

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), India, embarked upon exploration and exploitation of deep groundwater under the project named as “Saraswati” in arid Thar desert, Rajasthan, with a societal mission of providing water to the local people and cattle. A 555 m deep well drilled by the ONGC near Jaisalmer town in 2006 encountered a potential aquifer at a depth of 450–500 m. Radiocarbon dating of this well water indicated paleorecharge to be >40,000 yr BP (uncorrected) (Before Present with respect to 1950 AD), while the medium depth (∼200 m) well waters around that area showed an age range of ∼9,000 to 17,000 yr BP (uncorrected). These waters represent pre-Saraswati era recharge, because the mighty Saraswati flowed in this region between 7000–4000 yr BP. The stable isotope (δD and δ¹⁸O) and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) data of these waters clearly indicated absence of communication between the two aquifers (deep and medium depth). However, the extension of this deep aquifer needs to be determined.