Key pluvial parameters in assessing rainfall erosivity in the south-west development region,Romania

Located in the south-western part of Romania, the south-west development region overlaps the main relief forms: the Carpathians mountains, the Getic Subcarpathians, the Getic piedmont, the Romanian plain and the Danube valley. The study aims at providing an overview on the main pluvial parameters and their role in assessing rainfall erosivity in the study area. The authors assessed the occurrence, frequency and magnitude of some of the most significant pluvial parameters and their impact on the climatic aggressiveness in the study area. Thus, the monthly and annual mean and extreme climatic values for different rainfall related parameters (e.g., maximum amounts of precipitation/24 hr, heavy rainfall), as well as relevant indices and indicators for pluvial aggressiveness (Fournier, Fournier Modified, Angot) were calculated. The rainfall erosivity was assessed in order to provide both the spatial distribution of the triggering extreme weather phenomena and the resulted intensity classes for the analysed indices and indicators. The authors used long-term precipitation records (1961–2010) for the selected relevant meteorological stations distributed throughout all analysed relief units.     

LABORATORIES DE MÉCANIQUE DES FLUIDES DOMAINE UNIVERSITAIRE—38—SAINT-MARTIN d'HERES

Abstract

Artificial recharge is a very suitable approach in the overall water resources management of a given area. What are the matter, the purposes and the past of recharge, the factors and the problems to be taken into account, the methods and the economics of this practice? Those are some questions to which the paper tries to give answers. Several examples are quoted as well as two projects in the Middle-East and North Africa.     

Application of portable X-ray fluorescence analyses to metabasalt stratigraphy,Plutonic Gold Mine,Western Australia

Stratigraphy, structure and host-rock chemistry are dominant controls on the location of Au in Archaean greenstone-hosted Au deposits, but the stratigraphy in such deposits is seldom obvious due to the monotonous nature of the host rocks or pervasive alteration associated with Au mineralisation. Portable, hand-held, X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometry provides a method to rapidly collect large amounts of whole-rock geochemical data that can yield new insights into both stratigraphy and Au localisation. Here we present results of pXRF analyses of samples from a representative section through Au-mineralised amphibolite-facies metabasaltic rocks at Plutonic Gold Mine, Western Australia. These data illustrate a geochemical stratigraphy in which individual lava flows can be identified on the basis of element concentrations. The most evolved basalts are at the structural base of the succession, and the least evolved at the top of the sequence, confirming previous geochemical interpretations and textural evidence that the sequence is overturned, and demonstrating for the first time that the presented section does not involve significant structural repetition. In conjunction with Au assay data, the pXRF data reveal that Au commonly occurs along basalt flow boundaries. The elemental concentration data clearly demonstrates for the first time the stratigraphic control on Au mineralisation that is not readily apparent at the macroscopic level. The methods described in this paper are readily applied, and have the potential to enhance the understanding of otherwise unclear stratigraphy and its control on mineralisation in many different types of deposits worldwide.     

New parameter for the assessment of blasting efficiency

The efficiency of a blast depends very widely on three groups of parameters: rock mass, blast geometrical parameters and energy distribution in space (borehole bottom, column energy) and time (delays between holes and rows). According to the expected results from a blast, there are several definitions for the term efficiency. The criterion for the block size reduction in the muck pile is often considered as important, because generally it has a great influence on the efficiency of all the operations after the blast. In this paper, a new parameter for the assessment of the blast efficiency is proposed, based on the relative comparison of area delimited by the Rosin-Rammler curves of the in situ rock mass and of the muck pile. This parameter is then compared to others previously established, namely the fragmentation index (Aler et al. 1996) and the surface energy ratio (Hamdi et al. 2001).     

Zeolite occurrences and the erionite-mesothelioma relationship in Cappadocia, central Anatolia, Turkey

Cappadocia is essentially covered by nine rhyolitic ignimbrite units, being the products of a multi-phase volcanism of Upper Miocene-Pliocene age. Around Ürgüp and the Kizilirmak River, these ignimbrites constitute a volcanic-sedimentary succession together with lacustrine sediments, called the Ürgüp formation. In the zeolite occurrences of Cappadocia that were found in the lacustrine parts of pyroclastics outcropping around the Tuzköy, Sarihidir, Karain, Çökek, Ibrahim Pasa and Karadag areas, clinoptilolite is the most common mineral and is associated with chabazite, erionite and phillipsite in some areas. A gain of alkaline-earths from the lake water, which is compensated by a loss of alkalis from the glass, took place during the formation of the different zeolite assemblages, which were probably controlled by the composition of the parent glasses. The distribution of erionite confirms its relation with mesothelioma cases in Tuzköy, Sarihidir and Karain villages that are located outside tourist areas. The high incidence of malignant mesothelioma in Karain may be explained by uncontrolled occupational exposure to erionite. The fairy chimneys, canyons and underground cities, which are situated in the unaltered or slightly altered parts of the Kavak, Zelve, Cemilköy, Gördeles and Kizilkaya ignimbrites do not constitute any health risk for the inhabitants or for visitors.     

Brown dwarf characterization with EChO

The Exoplanet Characterization Observatory (EChO) is a space mission concept dedicated to the analysis of exoplanet atmospheres using low-resolution spectroscopy in the infrared region between 0.55 and 11 μm. A fraction of its time will be used for ancillary science. We discuss here the prospect of a small survey of L and T-type brown dwarfs. These cold objects show properties comparable to those of giant planets, with the advantage of being brighter and not perturbed by host stars, therefore, they are very useful to understand processes and properties of planet atmospheres. At the same time, brown dwarfs still pose some challenges to stellar models that must include the formation of clouds and sedimentation processes that occur at the low temperatures of these objects. Hence, our aim is to build up an homogeneous catalogue of spectra of brown dwarfs as well as to characterize the spectral variability observed on some of them, which is attributed to the presence of clouds in their atmospheres. We demonstrate that EChO could provide the spectra of brown dwarfs between 1 and 11 μm with enough accuracy to reach these goals. We also present the current number of known brown dwarfs and we suggest a list of possible targets, although future surveys will probably provide better targets at the time of EChO launch if the mission is selected.     

Influence of sediment grain size and mineralogy on testate amoebae test construction

Testate amoebae are increasingly used for environmental monitoring as well as paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Paleoecological interpretations of testate amoebae assemblages depend on the understanding of the ecological processes operating today. We then ask the question of the link between testate structure and its environment. This study analyses both the grain size and mineralogical assemblage of tests of common species belonging to the genus Centropyxis and Difflugia. It is concluded that grain size is a limiting factor for test construction, whereas mineral composition is not. Hence, when analyzing agglutinated testate amoebae for paleoenvironmental reconstructions, it should be taken into account the mean grain size of the sediment. A non-appropriate grain-size probably inhibits the development of a testate amoebae specific assemblage.     

Geochemical characteristics of Yamadağı volcanics in central east Anatolia: an example from collision-zone volcanism

Neogene Yamadağı volcanic rocks consist of basaltic trachyandesite, trachyandesite, andesite, and dacite. The major- and trace-element chemistry indicates that the lavas are dominantly calc-alkaline and mildly alkaline in character, sodic in nature, and intermediate to acidic in composition. REE and trace-element patterns of volcanic rocks are similar to those typical of within plate magmatics. Volcanic rocks have low ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr (0.70389–0.70633) and high ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd ratios (0.51267–0.51276) and mostly plot within the mantle array of the isotope ratio diagram. The linear correlations among ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr−¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd, SiO₂−⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and SiO₂−¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd isotope ratios in the volcanics suggest that fractional crystallization combined with minor assimilation was an important process within the collision zone.