Field Survey of the 27 February 2010 Chile Tsunami

On 27 February 2010, a magnitude M _w?=?8.8 earthquake occurred off the coast of Chile??s Maule region causing substantial damage and loss of life. Ancestral tsunami knowledge from the 1960 event combined with education and evacuation exercises prompted most coastal residents to spontaneously evacuate after the earthquake. Many of the tsunami victims were tourists in coastal campgrounds. The international tsunami survey team (ITST) was deployed within days of the event and surveyed 800?km of coastline from Quintero to Mehuín and the Pacific Islands of Santa María, Mocha, Juan Fernández Archipelago, and Rapa Nui (Easter). The collected survey data include more than 400 tsunami flow depth, runup and coastal uplift measurements. The tsunami peaked with a localized runup of 29?m on a coastal bluff at Constitución. The observed runup distributions exhibit significant variations on local and regional scales. Observations from the 2010 and 1960 Chile tsunamis are compared.     

Sampling errors of the global mean sea level derived from TOPEX/Poseidon altimetry

Sampling errors of the global mean sea level derived from TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) altimetry are explored using 31/ 4a of eddy-resolving numerical model outputs for sea level. By definition, the sampling errors would not exist if data were available everywhere at all times. Four problems with increasing and progressively added complexities are examined to understand the causes of the sampling errors. The first problem (P1) explores the error incurred because T/P with turning latitudes near 66° latitudes does not cover the entire globe. The second problem (P2) examines, in addition, the spatial sampling issue because samples are only available along T/P ground tracks. The third problem (P3) adds the additional complexity that sea level at any along track location is sampled only once every 10 d versus every 3 d for the model (i.e., the temporal sampling issue). The fourth problem (P4) incorporates the full complexity with the addition of real T/P data outages. The numerical model (Los Alamos POP model Run 11) conserves the total water volume, thus generating no global mean sea level variation. Yet when the model sea level is sampled in the four problems (with P4 using the real T/P sampling), variations occur as manifestations of the sampling errors. The results show root-mean-squares (rms) sampling errors for P1 of 0.67 (0.75) mm for 10 d (3 d) global mean sea level, 0.78 (0.86) mm for P2, 0.79 mm for P3, and 1.07 mm for P4, whereas the amplitudes of the sampling errors can be as large as 2.0 (2.7) mm for P1, 2.1 (2.7) mm for P2, 2.2 mm for P3, and 2.5 mm for P4. The results clearly show the largest source of the sampling errors to be the lack of global coverage (i.e., P1), which the model has actually underestimated due to its own less-than-global coverage (between latitudes about 77° latitudes). We have extrapolated that a truly global model would show the rms sampling error to be 1.14 (1.28) mm for P1, thus implying a substantially larger sampling error for P4.     

Background,conceptual structure and organizational-administrative establishing of a “sustainable development strategy” for Coral Islands

Minitope coral islands represent one third of the islands located in the tropical Indo-Pacific. Subsistence farming and extensive agriculture dominate the traditional structure of income. As the lack of natural resources, infrastructure and capital restrict the developmental changes, the islands' natural environment has been utilized as economic potential. Planning and realization of land use systems introduced have, however, often been based on an insufficient data basis and have often inadequately considered the consequences of human impacts on the natural environment and its controlling factors. The result was environmental degradation and ecological destruction, affecting also the population's socioeconomic situation and in some cases rendering alternative land use impossible. Therefore, the long-term utilization of coral islands and, hence, the economic development of those countries require a specific development strategy. Based on the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of touristic utilization of coral islands in the Maldivian Archipelago, the model for a sustainable development strategy and its aims are derived, and the objectives, the conceptual structure, and the way of establishing them organizationally and administratively are presented.     

SUPRPUMP: An Interactive Program for Well Test Analysis and Design

Abstract. We have developed a program which aids in the design and analysis of pumping tests and slug tests. In design mode, the program emphasizes calculation and plotting of the sensitivities of drawdown (or head) to well function parameters. In analysis mode, the program can analyze a given set of experimental data. For pumping tests, the program allows multiple observation wells and multiple variable-rate pumping wells. The program is written in a modular fashion, allowing easy addition of well functions to the currently existing library. An example based on a hypothetical pumping test illustrates the utility of sensitivity analysis for well test design.     

Composite magnetic anisotropy fabrics: experiments, numerical models and implications for the quantification of rock fabrics

Magnetic fabrics from rocks with multiple mineral-preferred orientations may have anisotropy ellipsoids whose shape and orientation arise from the addition of two or more component fabrics. Our numerical models and experiments demonstrate that such composite magnetic fabrics do not directly reflect the shapes and/or orientations of the individual mineral fabrics and we provide criteria for the recognition and interpretation of composite fabrics in natural rocks. These criteria include:

1. (1) the orientation of the maximum susceptibility axis is located at the intersection of two planar fabrics, and

2. (2) the shape of the susceptibility ellipsoid changes from oblate to prolate and the degree of anisotropy decreases, as the relative intensity of two planar component fabrics becomes equal and as the angle between the planar fabrics increases.

Composite magnetic fabrics are observed in the shales and slates of the Martinsburg Formation, Lehigh Gap, Pennsylvania. Modeling of the AMS (anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility) and ARMA (anhysteretic remanent magnetization anisotropy) behavior constrains the relative degree of anisotropy of the bedding-parallel and cleavage-parallel fabrics. In particular, ARMA model results allow a good estimate of magnetite fabric strength.

We conclude that, in the presence of composite magnetic fabrics, quantitative measures of finite strain in deformed rocks are limited by the ability to accurately determine the degree of anisotropy and relative susceptibility of each component fabric. Such determinations require knowledge of the mineral(s) that are responsible for the measured magnetic fabric and their behavior during deformation.     

Comparative geochemistry of jasperoids from Carlin-type gold deposits of the western United States

Exploration for Carlin-type gold orebodies in the western United States typically involves sampling and analysis of jasperoid, a distinctive alteration type formed by intense silicification of marine sediments. In this study, rock suites were collected from six orebodies and four similar but barren systems. Jasperoids at all ten systems contain episodically silicified breccias, quartz vein stockworks, elevated As, Sb, Hg, Ba and Tl, and, locally, anomalous Au and Ag. Jasperoids from the four barren systems are as anomalous as jasperoids from the six orebodies in all members of an epithermal geochemical suite, including gold and silver.A database suite containing 272 samples from six of the ten systems was analyzed for 45 elements. Q-mode factor analysis shows that geochemical variance in the epithermal geochemical suite is related to geochemical variance in Li, P, Mn, Ba, Mo, Cr, Co, V, Cd, Ni, U, Zn and Pb. Metalliferous marine black shales are enriched in these elements and are spatially related to Carlin-type deposits.A test suite containing 109 samples from the four remaining systems was analyzed to determine whether a discriminant function derived from the database suite could be applied to exploration. An 8-element function correctly assigned 40 of 42 jasperoid samples collected from the surface at the Carlin and Horse Canyon gold deposits. These results indicate that elements characteristic of metalliferous marine black shales can be used to identify Carlin-type systems with associated gold ore. Gold in Carlin-type orebodies may have been leached from a source-rock sequence which contains metalliferous marine black shales.