Assessment of long term change in sediment condition after organic enrichment: defining recovery

Sediment condition at an Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) culture site in S.E. Tasmania, Australia was evaluated to determine the rate and extent of recovery after removal of farmed fish. By local standards the cage sediment at the start of this survey was markedly degraded but comparison with results from impact studies in Scotland, Canada and Norway suggests that the sediments were considerably less impacted than in northern temperate areas. The impact at the cages diminished rapidly with both time and distance; after only 2 months conditions were markedly improved. The macrobenthos indicated a slower recovery than chemical measures, after 36 months the benthic faunal community structure under the cages still differed from reference conditions even though other sediment measures had recovered. This study highlighted two other key issues in relation to monitoring and management of sediment recovery. First, techniques used to determine impact may not be appropriate for evaluation of recovery. Second, establishment of local baseline standards is extremely important to ensure appropriate evaluation of both impact and recovery.     

Geochemistry of coral from Papua New Guinea as a proxy for ENSO ocean–atmosphere interactions in the Pacific Warm Pool

A Porites sp. coral growing offshore from the Sepik and Ramu Rivers in equatorial northern Papua New Guinea has yielded an accurate 20-year history (1977–1996) of sea surface temperature (SST), river discharge, and wind-induced mixing of the upper water column. Depressions in average SSTs of about 0.5–1.0 °C (indicated by coral Sr/Ca) and markedly diminished freshwater runoff to the coastal ocean (indicated by coral δ¹⁸O, δ¹³C and UV fluorescence) are evident during the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events of 1982–1983, 1987 and 1991-1993. The perturbations recorded by the coral are in good agreement with changes in instrumental SST and river discharge/precipitation records, which are known to be diagnostic of the response of the Pacific Warm Pool ocean–atmosphere system to El Niño. Consideration of coastal ocean dynamics indicates that the establishment of northwest monsoon winds promotes mixing of near-surface waters to greater depths in the first quarter of most years, making the coral record sensitive to changes in the Asian–Australian monsoon cycle. Sudden cooling of SSTs by 1°C following westerly wind episodes, as indicated by the coral Sr/Ca, is consistent with greater mixing in the upper water column at these times. Furthermore, the coral UV fluorescence and oxygen isotope data indicate minimal contribution of river runoff to surface ocean waters at the beginning of most years, during the time of maximum discharge. This abrupt shift in flood-plume behaviour appears to reflect the duration and magnitude of northwest monsoon winds, which tend to disperse flood plume waters to a greater extent in the water column when wind-mixing is enhanced. Our results suggest that a multi-proxy geochemical approach to the production of long coral records should provide comprehensive reconstructions of tropical paleoclimate processes operating on interannual timescales.     

Hyporheic exchange flow around constructed in‐channel structures and implications for restoration design

In‐channel rock vane structures are widely used in stream restoration as a way to reduce stream channel erosion and create pool or riffle features. When these structures change hydraulic gradients they may affect ecological stream functions, such as hyporheic exchange flow (HEF) patterns. A study of constructed in‐channel structure controls on HEF was conducted in the third‐order Batavia Kill, New York using stream and hyporheic temperature amplitude analysis and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) hydraulic simulations. Temperature monitors were installed in the water column and channel bed at six locations around each of seven in‐channel restoration structures (three cross‐vanes and four J‐hooks) at baseflow in 2007. Elevation surveys of the structures were then used to simulate HEF using CFD. The results indicate a pattern of pronounced upwelling in the run section just below the structure, upwelling transitioning to downwelling within the pool, and pronounced downwelling in the glide out of the pool. This pattern is consistent with natural riffle pool sequences. The direction of HEF inferred from the temperature amplitude analysis agreed with the direction of flow simulated with CFD at 80% of the locations, and the few disagreements were expected due to model limitations. CFD simulation demonstrated that increasing stream flows result in changes in HEF spatial patterns and magnitude at each structure. This work illustrates how CFD simulations can guide design of in‐channel restoration structures for HEF function. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of the subsurface mobility of carbon nanoparticles at the field scale

The production and use of nanomaterials will inevitably lead to their disposal in the natural environment. To assess the risk that these materials pose to human and ecosystem health an understanding of their mobility and ultimate fate is essential. To date, however, relatively little research has been conducted on the fate of nanoparticles in subsurface systems. In this study the subsurface mobility of two carbon nanoparticles: nano-fullerenes (nC₆₀) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) is assessed. A two-dimensional finite element model was used to simulate the movement of these nanoparticles under a range of hydrologic and geological conditions, including a heterogeneous permeability field. The numerical model is based on colloid filtration theory (CFT) with a maximum retention capacity term. For the conditions evaluated the carbon nanotubes are much more mobile than nC₆₀ due to the smaller collector efficiency associated with carbon nanotubes. However, the mobility of nC₆₀ increased significantly when a maximum retention capacity term was included in the model. Model results also demonstrate that, for the systems examined, nanoparticles were predicted to be less mobile in heterogeneous systems compared to the homogeneous systems with the same average hydraulic properties.     

Evaluation of a probabilistic approach to simulation of alkalinity and electrical conductivity at a river bank filtration site

In river bank filtration, impurities present in the river water travel with the bank filtrate towards the pumping well. During this passage, certain types of impurities, such as turbidity, total coliform, and so forth, may get attenuated; however, it is interesting to note that some of the instant raw river water quality parameters, such as alkalinity and electrical conductivity, increase after the passage of water through the porous medium. This occurs because water, when passing through the soil pores, absorbs many of the solutes that cause an increase in alkalinity and electrical conductivity. Measurements at a river bank filtration site for a year showed that alkalinity of 116–32 mg l^?1 in river water increased to 222.4–159.9 mg l^?1 in the river bank filtered water. Likewise, the electrical conductivity increased from 280–131 μS cm^?1 to 462–409.6 μS cm^?1. This study uses a probabilistic approach for investigating the variation of alkalinity and electrical conductivity of source water that varies with the natural logarithm of the concentration of influent water. The probabilistic approach has the potential of being used in simulating the variation of alkalinity and electrical conductivity in river bank filtrate. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An archeomagnetic analysis of burnt grain bin floors from ca. 1200 to 1250 AD Iron-Age South Africa

Recognition of the rapid decay of Earth’s magnetic field over the last 150 years, chronicled in magnetic observatory and satellite data, highlights the need for a higher resolution record of geomagnetic field behavior over the past millennium. Such a record would help us better understand the nature of the recent dramatic changes. A limitation of the existing database is undersampling of the Southern Hemisphere. Here we investigate the potential of obtaining archeomagnetic data from Iron-Age burnt grain bins from southern Africa. These structures preserve oriented material that can record both paleodirections and paleointensity information. Directional data collected from three sites (ca. 1200–1250 AD) fall 9–22° to the East of predictions. Thellier–Coe and Shaw paleointensity results differ from model values by ～15%. The consistency of results between the three sites suggests that further investigations of these materials with different ages could markedly improve the current spatial distribution of the archeomagnetic database.     

Computation of response spectra from mining tremors using neural networks

Underground coal and copper ore exploitation in two Polish mining regions causes mining tremors and a series of other negative phenomena in the environment. Although these tremors are strictly connected with human activity, they differ considerably from other paraseismic vibrations. The moment of their occurrence is not to be foreseen likewise for earthquakes. The main problem discussed in the paper was formulated as the neural network evaluation of a relation between mining tremor energies, epicentral distances and acceleration response spectra. Back-propagation neural networks with Resilient back-propagation learning method were used. Each input vector included information about the mining tremor energy and the epicentral distance. Values of acceleration response spectrum were expected as the outputs of neural networks. Neurally evaluated spectra were compared with spectra computed on the basis of experimental data. After the network is trained and tested, it can be used for mapping of new data of mining tremor energies and epicentral distances into the spectra. Then, what is the substantial advantage of neural approach, the prediction of acceleration response spectra can be performed without recording of surface vibrations. In the light of the results, it is visible that the presented way of computation of acceleration response spectra can be peculiarly applied to prognosis of mining tremors influences on structures.     

CORRECTING FOR COLOURED PRIMARY REFLECTIVITY IN DECONVOLUTION1

Statistical deconvolution, as it is usually applied on a routine basis, designs an operator from the trace autocorrelation to compress the wavelet which is convolved with the reflectivity sequence. Under the assumption of a white reflectivity sequence (and a minimum-delay wavelet) this simple approach is valid. However, if the reflectivity is distinctly non-white, then the deconvolution will confuse the contributions to the trace spectral shape of the wavelet and reflectivity. Given logs from a nearby well, a simple two-parameter model may be used to describe the power spectral shape of the reflection coefficients derived from the broadband synthetic. This modelling is attractive in that structure in the smoothed spectrum which is consistent with random effects is not built into the model. The two parameters are used to compute simple inverse- and forward-correcting filters, which can be applied before and after the design and implementation of the standard predictive deconvolution operators. For whitening deconvolution, application of the inverse filter prior to deconvolution is unnecessary, provided the minimum-delay version of the forward filter is used. Application of the technique to seismic data shows the correction procedure to be fast and cheap and case histories display subtle, but important, differences between the conventionally deconvolved sections and those produced by incorporating the correction procedure into the processing sequence. It is concluded that, even with a moderate amount of non-whiteness, the corrected section can show appreciably better resolution than the conventionally processed section.     

Analysis of buried pipelines subjected to reverse fault motion

Presently available simplified analytical methods and semi-empirical methods for the analysis of buried pipelines subjected to fault motion are suitable only for the strike-slip and the normal-slip type fault motions, and cannot be used for the reverse fault crossing case. A simple finite element model, which uses beam elements for the pipeline and discrete nonlinear springs for the soil, has been proposed to analyse buried pipeline subjected to reverse fault motion. The material nonlinearities associated with pipe-material and soil, and geometric nonlinearity associated with large deformations were incorporated in the analysis. Complex reverse fault motion was simulated using suitable constraints between pipe-nodes and ground ends of the soil spring. Results of the parametric study suggest that the pipeline's capacity to accommodate reverse fault offset can be increased significantly by choosing a near-parallel orientation in plan with respect to the fault line. Further improvement in the response of the pipeline is possible by adopting loose backfill, smooth and hard surface coating, and shallow burial depth in the fault crossing region. For normal or near normal orientations, pipeline is expected to fail due to beam buckling at very small fault offsets.     

Cristobalite in a rhyolitic lava dome: evolution of ash hazard

Prolonged and heavy exposure to particles of respirable, crystalline silica-rich volcanic ash could potentially cause chronic, fibrotic disease, such as silicosis, in individuals living in areas of frequent ash fall. Here, we show that the rhyolitic ash erupted from Chaitén volcano, Chile, in its dome-forming phase, contains increased levels of the silica polymorph cristobalite, compared to its initial plinian eruption. Ash erupted during the initial, explosive phase (2–5 May 2008) contained approximately 2 wt.% cristobalite, whereas ash generated after dome growth began (from 21 May 2008) contains 13–19 wt.%. The work suggests that active obsidian domes crystallise substantial quantities of cristobalite on time-scales of days to months, probably through vapour-phase crystallisation on the walls of degassing pathways, rather than through spherulitic growth in glassy obsidian. The ash is fine-grained (9.7–17.7 vol.% <4 μm in diameter, the respirable range) and the particles are mostly angular. Sparse, fibre-like particles were confirmed to be feldspar or glass.