Forensic hydrology: what function tells about structure in complex settings

Facing the challenges of the European Water Framework Directive and competing demands requires a sound knowledge of the hydrological system. This is a major challenge in regions like Northeast Germany. The landscape has been massively reshaped during repeated advances and retreats of glaciation during the Pleistocene. This resulted in a complex setting of unconsolidated sediments with high textural heterogeneity and with layered aquifer systems, partly confined, but usually of unknown number and extent of single aquifers. The Institute of Landscape Hydrology aims both at a better understanding of hydrological processes and at providing a basis for sustainable water resources management in this region. That would require sound information about the respective regions of interest that are rarely available at sufficient degree of detail. Thus, there is urgent need for alternative approaches. For example, time series of groundwater head, lake water level and stream runoff do not only depend on (unknown) geological structures, but in turn can reveal information about major geological features. To that end, different approaches have been developed and successfully applied at different scales, based both on advanced time series analysis and dimension reduction approaches and on well-known and rather simple methods. This approach has been coined “forensic hydrology”: Like in a crime story, numerous pieces of evidence are combined in a systematic way to end up with a consistent conceptual model about the prevailing cause–effect relationships. An example is given for the Quillow catchment in Northeast Germany in a rather complex geological setting.     

Krokodile als Klimazeugen

Zusammenfassung Aus den wenigen bekannten Daten über Lebensweise und Verbreitung rezenter Krokodile wird versucht, Mindesttemperaturen für das Biotop fossiler Krokodile zu ermitteln. Die gefundenen Werte (+10 C und mehr für die Durchschnittstemperatur des kältesten Monats) sind im Vergleich mit bekannten PaläoTemperaturen durchaus wahrscheinlich.

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Summary Recent crocodiles are distributed up to the 10 or 15 C isothermal line of January/ N. Hemisphere or July/S. Hemisphere, see fig. 1. The analysis of the distribution of tertiary crocodiles in Europe indicates that probably recent and fossil crocodiles are restricted in their geographical range by the same temperature limits.

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Résumé Une analyse de la distribution des crocodiles tertiaires en Europe montre que probablement cettes formes fossiles de mÊme que les récents vivaient en régions oÚ les temperatures étaient au mois le plus froid au-dessus de 10 ou 15 degrés (v. Fig. 1).

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Erweiterte Fassung eines auf Anregung von Herrn Prof. Dr. H.Tobien auf der Jahrestagung der Geol. Ver. in Köln 1964 gehaltenen Vortrags.

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Zu danken habe ich Herrn Prof.Brinkmann, Bonn, und Herrn Prof. v.Gaertner, Hannover, für Diskussionshinweise (bezüglich des Biotops von Krokodilen und lokaler Temperaturverhältnisse), die in obigen Ausführungen berücksichtigt wurden; ferner danke ich Herrn Dipl.-Biol.Hemmer, Mainz, für kollegiale Beratung in zoologischen Fragen.     

A laboratory study of tracer tomography

A tracer tomographic laboratory study was performed with consolidated fractured rock in three-dimensional space. The investigated fractured sandstone sample was characterized by significant matrix permeability. The laboratory transport experiments were conducted using gas-flow and gas-tracer transport techniques that enable the generation of various flow-field patterns via adjustable boundary conditions within a short experimental time period. In total, 72 gas-tracer (helium) tests were performed by systematically changing the injection and monitoring configuration after each test. For the inversion of the tracer breakthrough curves an inversion scheme was applied, based on the transformation of the governing transport equation into a form of the eikonal equation. The reliability of the inversion results was assessed with singular value decomposition of the trajectory density matrix. The applied inversion technique allowed for the three-dimensional reconstruction of the interstitial velocity with a high resolution. The three-dimensional interstitial velocity distribution shows clearly that the transport is dominated by the matrix while the fractures show no apparent influence on the transport responses.     

Das Deutsche Hydrographische Institut an der Schnittstelle zwischen Grundlagen- und angewandter Forschung

Zusammenfassung Die relativ starre Aufteilung der Grundlagen- und der angewandten Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland auf verschiedene Bundes- bzw. Landesressorts hat administrative Vorteile, z. B. erleichterte Begutachtungsformalitäten, direkte Befriedigung von aktuell aufgetretenden Problemen durch Forschungshandlungen auf der Anwendungsseite und weitgehende Freiheit in der reinen Forschung.Die gegenseitige Bereicherung durch Ideen aus den Forscherköpfen einerseits und durch praktische Probleme andererseits wird dabei in der Bedeutung häufig unterschätzt.Anhand von vier Beispielen aus dem Deutschen Hydrographischen Institut (seit Juli 1990 Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie, BSH) wird der Vorteil einer engen Verzahnung dieser beiden Forschungsarten ineiner Institution dargestellt.nach einem Vortrag, gehalten im Festkolloqium am 29. Mai 1990 zu Ehren von Prof. Dr. H.-U. Roll zu seinem 80. Geburtstag     

Comparison of Phytoscreening and Direct‐Push‐Based Site Investigation at a Rural Megasite Contaminated with Chlorinated Ethenes

The reliable characterization of subsurface contamination of spatially extended contaminated sites is a challenging task, especially with an unknown history of land use. Conventional technologies often fail due to temporal and financial constraints and thus hinder the redevelopment of abandoned areas in particular. Here we compare two site screening techniques that can be applied quickly at relatively low cost, namely Direct Push (DP)‐based groundwater sampling and tree core sampling. The effectiveness of both methods is compared for a rural megasite contaminated with chlorinated hydrocarbons. Unexpected pollution hot spots could be identified using both of these methods, while tree coring even enabled the delineation of the contaminant plume flowing into an adjacent wetland inaccessible for DP units. Both methods showed a good agreement in revealing the spatial pattern of the contamination. The correlation between groundwater concentrations and equivalent concentrations in wood was linear and highly significant for trichloroethene. Correlation was less obvious for its metabolite cis‐dichloroethene, but still significant. As outcome of our study we recommend tree coring and for initial screening in combination with a DP sampling to retrieve quantitative data on groundwater pollutants in order to assess the contamination situation of a non‐ or only partly investigated site. The subsequent placement of monitoring wells for long‐term monitoring of contamination levels is recommended. A combination of methods would achieve more relevant information at comparable or possibly even lower efforts in comparison to a conventional site investigation.     

Geodetic observations of ice flow velocities over the southern part of subglacial Lake Vostok, Antarctica, and their glaciological implications

In the austral summer seasons 2001/02 and 2002/03, Global Positioning System (GPS) data were collected in the vicinity of Vostok Station to determine ice flow velocities over Lake Vostok. Ten GPS sites are located within a radius of 30 km around Vostok Station on floating ice as well as on grounded ice to the east and to the west of the lake. Additionally, a local deformation network around the ice core drilling site 5G-1 was installed.
The derived ice flow velocity for Vostok Station is  2.00 m a⁻¹± 0.01 m a⁻¹  . Along the flowline of Vostok Station an extension rate of about 10⁻⁵ a⁻¹ (equivalent to 1 cm km⁻¹ a⁻¹) was determined. This significant velocity gradient results in a new estimate of 28 700 years for the transit time of an ice particle along the Vostok flowline from the bedrock ridge in the southwest of the lake to the eastern shoreline. With these lower velocities compared to earlier studies and, hence, larger transit times the basal accretion rate is estimated to be 4 mm a⁻¹ along a portion of the Vostok flowline. An assessment of the local accretion rate at Vostok Station using the observed geodetic quantities yields an accretion rate in the same order of magnitude. Furthermore, the comparison of our geodetic observations with results inferred from ice-penetrating radar data indicates that the ice flow may not have changed significantly for several thousand years.     

From rocks to ore

Metal enrichment to ore grade is the ultimate outgrowth of large-scale and long-term fractionation processes of the thermally driven and unique water-cooled geological evolution of the Earth. Silicic magmatism along convergent margins is the most important lithospheric fractionation process for the formation of the continental crust and porphyry/intrusion-related ore deposits. Reconnaissance microanalysis of melt inclusions from Central Andean porphyry systems refines a metallogenic model for copper–gold and tin porphyry mineralization. Magmatic mixing and early exsolution of a fluid phase are important ingredients for porphyry Cu–Au systems in association with silicic rocks of moderate levels of fractionation (such as diorites and monzonites), whereas extended magmatic fractionation with late-stage fluid evolution characterize lithophile-element-enriched tin porphyry systems. Received: 25 June 1999 / Accepted: 11 January 2000     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis><Subscript>w</Subscript> 3.1–4.7 earthquakes in the southern Baltic Sea and adjacent areas in 2000, 2001 and 2004

The area south and east of the Baltic Sea has very minor seismic activity. However, occasional events occur as illustrated by four events in recent years, which are analysed in this study: near Wittenburg, Germany, on May 19, 2000, M _w = 3.1, near Rostock, Germany, on July 21, 2001, M _w = 3.4 and in the Kaliningrad area, Russia, two events on September 21, 2004 with M _w = 4.6 and 4.7. Locations, magnitudes (M _L and M _w) and focal mechanisms were determined for the two events in Germany. Synthetic modeling resulted in a well-confined focal depth for the Kaliningrad events. The inversion of macroseismic observations provided simultaneous solutions of the location, focal depth and epicentral intensity. The maximum horizontal compressive stress orientations obtained from focal mechanism solutions, approximately N–S for the two German events and NNW–SSE for the Kaliningrad events, show a good agreement with the regionally oriented crustal stress field.