Sediment transfer in an extremely low-gradient,low-relief and highly buffered system: Darwin Harbour catchment,northern Australia

Abstract

Sediment yields from and sediment transfer within catchments of very low relief and gradient, which make up about 50% of Earth’s surface, are poorly documented and their internal sediment dynamics are poorly known. Sediment sources, their proportionate contributions to valley floors and sediment yield, and storage are estimated using fallout radionuclides ²¹⁰Pb_(ex) and ¹³⁷Cs in the catchments that drain into Darwin Harbour, northern Australia, an example of this understudied catchment type that appears to be globally at the extreme end of this category of catchments. Unchannelled grassy valley floors (dambos, or seasonal wetlands) trap ～90% of the sediment delivered from hillslopes by sheet and rill erosion. Further down valley, small channels transport ～10% of the sediment that escapes from the dambos, and the remaining sediment comes from erosion of the channels. In this case, the fractional sediment storage is very high as a result of the existence of dambos, a landform that depends for its existence on low gradients.     

SEISMIC IMPACT LOADING IN INELASTIC TENSION-ONLY CONCENTRICALLY BRACED STEEL FRAMES: MYTH OR REALITY?

Tension-Only Concentrically Braced Frames (TOCBF) exhibit deteriorating pinched hysteretic behaviour during strong earthquakes. Slender braces transit between an elastic buckling state, a restraightening state, in which they carry almost no load, an elastic tensile loading state as they are suddenly taut and, finally, a tensile yielding state. It has long been suspected that the sudden increase in tensile forces in the braces of TOCBSF creates detrimental impact loading on the connections and other structural elements. No experimental evidence, however, has been provided so far to confirm, or to quantify, this impact phenomenon. This paper addresses this issue through shake table tests of half scale, two-storey, TOCBF models. By normalizing the hysteresis loops of braces obtained from shake table tests to the yield strength of steel obtained from quasi-static tests, the increase in tensile forces in the braces was obtained. Results of dynamic tensile tests on steel coupons under similar strain rates as observed during the shake table tests showed that this increase in tensile forces is not the result of impact, but is rather caused by a yield strength increase of the steel under high strain rate. A procedure is proposed to estimate and account for this increase in tensile forces in the braces at the design stage.     

Structural Control of Gold Mineralization of the Central Part of the Malouralsky Volcano–Plutonic Belt (the Polar Urals), Based on an Analysis of Multispectral Images from the Landsat 8 Spacecraft

Izvestiya, Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics - The central part of the Malouralsky volcanic–plutonic belt, which includes the Manyukuyu–Vorchatinsky ore cluster, is analyzed using...     

Late pleistocene (Devensian) glaciofluvial outwash at Banc-y-Warren,near Cardigan (west Wales)

On the southwest-facing slopes of a bedrock ridge lying between Cardigan Bay to the north and the Afon Teifi to the south stands a group of hills in which 30-35 m of cross-laminated and parallel-laminated sands with lenticular upward-fining gravel sequences are overlain by 10-12 m of gravel in a single foreset bed. The sediments mantle a surface of till sloping gently toward the southwest, were transported toward the southwest (across one margin of the Afon Teifi valley), and were cut by a system of densely arranged conjugate normal faults striking northwest-southeast. The lenticular gravels and fault system suggest that the deposits accumulated as a glaciofluvial outwash spread, and on top of an ice-lobe that became isolated in the Teifi valley during the downwasting of a glacier which had occupied Cardigan Bay and much of the country to the south. The large gravel foresets capping the succession are the only indication at Banc-y-Warren of the former existence of a lake, but neither a large nor deep body of water need be envisaged.