Development of dangerous geological processes in the Hankaisky Region of Primorskiy Krai （Russian Far East）

Hankaisky Region is the most densely populated and economic developed part of the Primorskiy Krai.It is promoting development of dangerous geological processes there.In the article the reasons of formation and intensive development in Hankaisky Region of the following dangerous geological processes lateral,winder and ground erosive,sill,floods,taluses,bogging,slope wash,karts,rebound of ground are considered.     

Photometric and Hα Observations of the Cataclysmic Star UX UMa

UBVRI photometry and spectroscopic observations around the H_α line of the cataclysmic star UX UMa are presented. The analysis of the 9-year photometry shows that the out-of-eclipse brightness of the system and the depth of the eclipse changes in different time scales while the width of the eclipse remains constant. The observed features of the light curves as well as the features of the two-peaked H_α profiles were attributed to an inhomogeneity of the accretion disk. “Spiral arm” model for a fitting of the light curves of UX UMa is proposed. It reproduces well the observational data. The obtained azimuthal extent of the spiral arms is of ∼90° and their light contribution is about 17–30of the total V flux of the disk. The obtained two dense structures at the outer disk covering partially the inner hot disk and the white dwarf at orbital phases ∼0.7 and ∼0.2 is in agreement with the predictions of the theoretical computations.     

Development of dangerous geological processes in the Hankaisky Region of Primorskiy Krai (Russian Far East)

Hankaisky Region is the most densely populated and economic developed part of the Primorskiy Krai. It is promoting development of dangerous geological processes there. In the article the reasons of formation and intensive development in Hankaisky Region of the following dangerous geological processes lateral, winder and ground erosive, sill, floods, taluses, bogging, slope wash, karts, rebound of ground are considered.     

Factors controlling diurnal variation in the isotopic composition of atmospheric water vapour observed in the taiga,eastern Siberia

Deciduous forest covers vast areas of permafrost under severe dry climate in eastern Siberia. Understanding the water cycle in this forest ecosystem is quite important for climate projection. In this study, diurnal variations in isotopic compositions of atmospheric water vapour were observed in eastern Siberia with isotope analyses of precipitation, sap water of larch trees, soil water, and water in surface organic layer during the late summer periods of 2006, 2007, and 2008. In these years, the soil moisture content was considerably high due to unusually large amounts of summer rainfall and winter snowfall. The observed sap water δ¹⁸O ranged from ?17.9‰ to ?13.3‰, which was close to that of summer precipitation and soil water in the shallow layer, and represents that of transpired water vapour. On sunny days, as the air temperature and mixing ratio rose from predawn to morning, the atmospheric water vapour δ¹⁸O increased by 1‰ to 5‰ and then decreased by about 2‰ from morning to afternoon with the mixing ratio. On cloudy days, by contrast, the afternoon decrease in δ¹⁸O and the mixing ratio was not observed. These results show that water vapour that transpired from plants, with higher δ¹⁸O than the atmospheric water vapour, contributes to the increase in δ¹⁸O in the morning, whereas water vapour in the free atmosphere, with lower δ¹⁸O, contributes to the decrease in the afternoon on sunny days. The observed results reveal the significance of transpired water vapour, with relatively high δ¹⁸O, in the water cycle on a short diurnal time scale and confirm the importance of the recycling of precipitation through transpiration in continental forest environments such as the eastern Siberian taiga. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Groundwater flow model of the Pipiripau watershed, Federal District of Brazil

In order to understand the groundwater dynamics and to improve the management of water resources in the Federal District of Brazil, this research proposes a 3D groundwater flow model to represent the groundwater level and flow system. The selected test site was the Pipiripau catchment. The development of the model was based on available geological, hydrogeological, geomorphological, climatological and pedological data. Geological and hydrogeological data were used to generate the 3D groundwater flow model. The 3D mesh elements of the domain were generated through the Groundwater Modeling System software, based on the logs of the well materials. The numerical simulation of the finite element method was implemented in the framework of the scientific software OpenGeoSys. With the 3D mesh-appropriated boundary conditions, annual average infiltration data and hydrogeological parameters were incorporated. Afterwards, the steady-state model was calibrated by the PEST software using available data of the water level from wells. The results showed the distribution of the steady-state hydraulic heads in the model domain, where the highest values occurred in the east and west recharge areas and the lowest values were found in the southwest of the basin. The results of this study can be a used as initial condition for the transient groundwater flow simulation and to provide a scientific basis for water resource management.     

Caveats on tomographic images

Geological and geodynamic models of the mantle often rely on joint interpretations of published seismic tomography images and petrological/geochemical data. This approach tends to neglect the fundamental limitations of, and uncertainties in, seismic tomography results. These limitations and uncertainties involve theory, correcting for the crust, the lack of rays throughout much of the mantle, the difficulty in obtaining the true strength of anomalies, choice of what background model to subtract to reveal anomalies, and what cross‐sections to select for publication. The aim of this review is to provide a relatively non‐technical summary of the most important of these problems, collected together in a single paper, and presented in a form accessible to non‐seismologists. Appreciation of these issues is essential if final geodynamic models are to be robust, and required by the scientific observations.     

Mineralogical characterization of Baptistina Asteroid Family: Implications for K/T impactor source

Bottke et al. [Bottke, W.F., Vokrouhlicky, D., Nesvorný, D., 2007. Nature 449, 48–53] linked the catastrophic formation of Baptistina Asteroid Family (BAF) to the K/T impact event. This linkage was based on dynamical and compositional evidence, which suggested the impactor had a composition similar to CM2 carbonaceous chondrites. However, our recent study [Reddy, V., Emery, J.P., Gaffey, M.J., Bottke, W.F., Cramer, A., Kelley, M.S., 2009. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 44, 1917–1927] suggests that the composition of (298) Baptistina is similar to LL-type ordinary chondrites rather than CM2 carbonaceous chondrites. This rules out any possibility of it being related to the source of the K/T impactor, if the impactor was of CM-type composition. Mineralogical study of asteroids in the vicinity of BAF has revealed a plethora of compositional types suggesting a complex formation and evolution environment. A detailed compositional analysis of 16 asteroids suggests several distinct surface assemblages including ordinary chondrites (Gaffey SIV subtype), primitive achondrites (Gaffey SIII subtype), basaltic achondrites (Gaffey SVII subtype and V-type), and a carbonaceous chondrite. Based on our mineralogical analysis we conclude that (298) Baptistina is similar to ordinary chondrites (LL-type) based on olivine and pyroxene mineralogy and moderate albedo. S-type and V-type in and around the vicinity of BAF we characterized show mineralogical affinity to (8) Flora and (4) Vesta and could be part of their families. Smaller BAF asteroids with lower SNR spectra showing only a ‘single’ band are compositionally similar to (298) Baptistina and L/LL chondrites. It is unclear at this point why the silicate absorption bands in spectra of asteroids with formal family definition seem suppressed relative to background population, despite having similar mineralogy.     

An initial formal model for spatial data infrastructures

The Commission on Spatial Data Standards of the International Cartographic Association is working to define formal models and technical characteristics of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). To date, this work has been restricted to the Enterprise and Information Viewpoints from the ISO Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing standard. The Commission has developed models for these two viewpoints. These models describe how the different parts of an SDI fit together in the viewpoints in question. These models should be seen as a contribution towards the overall model of the SDI and its technical characteristics. During the model development process, the roles of the different Actors in an SDI in the Enterprise and Information Viewpoints have also been identified in Use Case diagrams of an SDI. All the models have been developed using the Unified Modeling Language.     

Imaging heterogeneity of the crust adjacent to the Dead Sea fault using ambient seismic noise tomography

For the purpose of studying the Earth’s crust by means of tomography, we investigated cross-correlation functions emerging from long-term observations of propagating ambient seismic noise at pairs of broadband stations in Israel and Jordan. The data was provided by the eight permanent broadband stations of the Israel Seismic Network evenly distributed over Israel and the 30 stations of the DESERT2000 experiment distributed across the Arava Fault (South of the Dead Sea basin). To eliminate the influence of earthquakes and explosions, we have applied the methodology of Bensen et al. (Geophys J Int 169:1239–1260, 2007), including bandpass filtering and amplitude normalization in time and frequency domain. The cross-correlation functions estimated from continuous recordings of a few months were used to extract Rayleigh waves group velocity dispersion curves using automatic version of the frequency–time analysis procedure. Subsequently, these curves have been converted into the Rayleigh wave group velocity maps in the period range 5–20 s and S waves velocity maps in the depth range 5–15 km. In these maps, four velocity anomalies are prominent. Two of them are outlined by the previous reflection-refraction profiles and body wave tomography studies, i.e. a low velocity anomaly corresponds to the area of the extremely deep (down to 14 km) sedimentary infill in the Southern Dead Sea Basin and a high velocity anomaly in the Southern Jordan corresponds to the area of the Precambrian crystalline rocks of the Nubian Shield on the flanks of the Red Sea. The two other anomalies have not been reported before - the high velocity zone close to the Beersheba city and the low velocity anomaly in the region of Samaria-Carmel mountains - Southern Galilee. They have relatively low resolution and hence need further investigations for approving and contouring. The highest contrast between the average Rayleigh wave group velocity (2.7 km/s) and the anomalies is 10–13 %, comparable, however, to the level of noise in the data. The results have been verified by modeling the revealed anomalies which showed that all the four zones mentioned above could be detected by the tomography study.     

Propagation of brittle failure triggered by magma in Iceland

The architectures of normal faults at a divergent plate boundary in Iceland are examined by combining surface fault observations with cross-sectional studies at different structural levels to constrain a model of failure propagation. The structures of Holocene faults defining graben are analyzed to characterize the upper-most parts of ruptures. The shapes of faults resulting from growth and interaction of separate segments are used to better understand failure propagation inferred to occur in the intervening stages of displacement accumulation and lateral propagation. Pleistocene faults in volcanic sequences exhumed from 800 to 1000 m are analyzed to characterize deeper portions of failure that occurred beneath the central rift zone. Tertiary dikes exhumed from depths of 1300–1500 m are studied to infer how magma controls the failure initiation. Field studies in combination with a literature review indicate that the planar ruptures are likely to initiate at depth as magma-filled vertical fractures and lengthen upward and laterally. As failures propagate to higher crustal levels, they are likely to change into inclined normal faults. At near-surface levels, faults link with cooling joints and dilational fractures propagating downward from the surface. It is suggested that the inferred stages of fault propagation are characteristic for normal faults developed at spreading ridges.