Photogeological mapping in parts of Cuddapah basin Kurnool and Prakasam Districts of Andhra Pradesh

An area of 2500 sq. Km. has been covered by photogeological mapping with selected field checks which forms a part of Cuddapah basin in the Kumool and Prakasam Districts of A.P. The rocks exposed in the area belong to the Cumbum and Bairankonda Formations of Cuddapah Super Group. They occur more or less as an alternating sequence. These formations are bound on the east by Dharawar gneisses and on the west by Nandyal Shales. The Bairankonda Formation is predominantly arenaceous with quartzite as the main member, being easily identifiable in the aerial photographs by its characteristic topography, coarse drainage, light grey tone etc. The Cumbum Formation is mainly argillaceous with slate/phyllite as the main member, intercalated with minor quartzite band and is expressed on the photographs in dark tone with dendritic to sub-parellel drainage and occurs relatively at lower elevations, mostly in plains. The Dharwar (Archaean) gneisses underlying the vast plains in the east are recognised by the sandy nature of soil and by the thrusted contact of this unit with the Bairankondas. The Nandyal Shales occupying the large cultivated area in west have a darker tone and a dendritic drainage pattern. They are Upper Kurnool in age. All the litho-units have undergone pre-Kurnool deformation resulting into plunging/doubly plunging antiforms and synforms trending NNE-SSW and a few shear zones and faults. Due to severe deformation a very prominant foliation has developed in the Cumbum unit. Groove lineation has also been developed in the hinge portions of major folds. The magmatic activity in these formations has been witnessed with the emplacement of reibeckite syenite and Kimberlite plugs and veins. Geomorphologically the area may be divided into two prominant units namely (i) Denudational landforms comprising (a) hills, ridges, inselbergs, bornhardts and hogbacks on Bairankonda quartzites and phyllites (b) pediment and dissected pediment on Cumbum Shales and Dharwar gneisses and (ii) Depositional landforms such as (a) alluvial fans and colluvial fans (b) alluvial valley fills along river courses and (c) sand dunes in Dharwar gneisses.     

Trajectories of zero rest-mass particles and gravitational trapping in interior geometries

Trajectories of zero rest-mass particles (ZRP) are quite well studied in Schwarzschild geometry but not in interior geometries. In this paper the trajectories of ZRP have been obtained and discussed for Tolman's IV solution. It is found that the inward moving ZRP approaches the centre up to a minimum distance and then draws away from it if the angle of emittance is less than that for the cone of avoidance. If, however, the angle of emittance is greater than the angle of cone of avoidance, the ZRP moves inwards up to a certain minimum distance from the centre and then stays at this distance in a circular orbit. In this regard four different kinds of orbits have been identified. Calculations have also been done for the number of ZRP that will escape such massive configuration.     

Love wave dispersion: Errors due to assumption of isotropy

Summary Frequency equation for Love waves, propagating in a transversely isotropic homogeneous layer which is embedded between two isotropic homogeneous half spaces, is obtained. Errors, in rigidity (h), density and thickness of the anisotropic layer, which arise due to the assumption of isotropy of the medium are calculated by numerically analyzing the frequency equation. The results show that the errors increase with the increasing frequencies, and their signs depend upon the value (whether less than or greater than 1) of the anisotropy co-efficient of the medium of the layer.     

Forest cover monitoring using remote sensing and GIS — A case study in Dhaulkhand range of Rajaji National Park,Uttar pradesh

Rajaji National Park in U.P. is a protected area where large number of nomad population live within the park area. Their dependence on the forest for cattle rearing and firewood has caused degradation of the forests. Proximity to settlements outside the park further adds to the problems. In the present study, forest cover and river, bed changes have been attempted by using temporal aerospace data of the year 1960 and 1993. Subsequently, PAMAP GIS package has been used for the change detection analysis. The study indicates that the land cover changes are mainly due to biotic factors. Some of the important changes in forest cover are: (i) transformation of mixed forest to scrub forest in 67 ha (ii) the sal mixed and mixed sal forest categories have replaced sal forest in 262 ha (iii) significant increase in forest plantation i.e. 2075 ha in the year 1960 to 3793 ha in 1993 (iv) eighteen times increase in Chirpine area, it increased from 13 ha in 1960 to 230 ha in 1993. The land cover changes in 6663 ha (45%) out of 14962 ha of the study area. The consequential changes in the river beds due to the change in the forest cover was also analyzed. During this period river beds with boulders have increased by 87 ha. These river bed changes include lengthening and broadening of river and change in river course.     

Equation of state of dense nuclear matter and an upper bound on neutron star masses

We have discussed, in general, the important physical parameters, likemaximum mass, radius, and the minimum rotation period of self-bound,causally consistent, and pulsationally stable neutron stars (Q-starmodels) by using a realistic stiff EOS (such that, the speed of sound,v P ^N, or nP=K(E-E _a ) ⁿ, where K 1 and n =1/(1-2N);where P and E represent respectively, the pressure and theenergy-density, and E _a is the value of E at the surface (r = a) of the configuration) within the two constraints imposed by: (i) The minimumrotation period, P _rot, for the pulsar known to date corresponds to1.558 ms, and (ii) The maximum number density anywhere inside thestructure for the models described as Q-stars cannot exceed 1nucleon/fm³. By using the empirical formula given by Koranda,Stergioulas and Friedman (1997) (KSF-formula), and imposing constraint(i), we have obtained an upper bound of M _max 7.76 M radius a 32.5 km, and the central energy-density around 2.17 ×10¹⁴ g cm^-3 (for n =1.01). Constraint (ii) provides the minimumrotation period, P _rot 0.489 ms for the maximum mass M _max 2.4 M, and the central energy-density around 2.20 ×10¹⁵ g cm^-3 (for n =1.01). The speed of sound at the centre ofthese models approaches 99% of the speed of light `c' (in thevacuum) and vanishes at the surface of the configuration together withpressure. If we relax the maximum Kepler frequency imposed by the fastestrotating pulsar known to date (constraint (i)), in view of certainobservational effects and theoretical evidences, and allow the present EOSto produce larger rotation rates than the 1.558 ms pulsar, the maximummass of the non-rotating model drops down to a value 7.2 M .The higher values of masses ( 7 M ) and radii (31-32 km) obtained in this study imply that these models may representthe massive compact objects like Cyg X-1, Cyg XR-1, LMC X-3, and otherswhich are known as black hole candidates (BHCs). This study also suggestthat the strongest contender for black hole at present might be recurrentnova V404 Cyg (mass estimate 8 -12 M ).     

Paradigm and ecological implication of changing agricultural land-use: A case study from Govind Wildlife Sanctuary, Central Himalaya, India

The paper scrutinizes that the changes in any sub-system(i.e.agriculture,livestock and forest) have direct impact on biophysical and social processes in village ecosystem of the central Himalayan region.In view of this,we studied the changes in spatial patterns of agricultural land use and dependency of agroecosystem on forest and animal husbandry over a period of two decades.Based on data analysis it was found that the cultivation of some traditional crops has either been abandoned in the area or declined by 25%-85% due to introduction of cash crops viz.,potato,kidney bean and apple farming with acreage increased up to 51%-72% in the last three decades.Livestock population of different categories has declined drastically by 17%-75%,and has resulted shortage of farmyard manure,deterioration of soil quality and fertility which leads to un-sustainability of agriculture system.The changes in agrobiodiversity have led to the dramatic increase in soil loss and runoff from the croplands together with the increase pressure on forests.The economic evaluation of each crop showed higher monetary benefit from cash crops as compared to traditional crops.Among all the evaluated crops,the monetary output/input ratio was found highest(3.04) for kidney bean and lowest(1.26) for paddy.Changes in land use and management have improved household income but at the cost of forest degradation,less productive animal husbandry and loss of agrodiversity in the region.Therefore,there is an urgent need to bring desirable changes in agricultural policy,research,land use and efficient management of the resources for maintaining sustainability in agro and Himalayan forest ecosystem.     

Estimation of snow cover distribution in Beas basin,Indian Himalaya using satellite data and ground measurements

In the present paper, a methodology has been developed for the mapping of snow cover in Beas basin, Indian Himalaya using AWiFS (IRS-P6) satellite data. The complexities in the mapping of snow cover in the study area are snow under vegetation, contaminated snow and patchy snow. To overcome these problems, field measurements using spectroradiometer were carried out and reflectance/snow indices trend were studied. By evaluation and validation of different topographic correction models, it was observed that, the normalized difference snow index (NDSI) values remain constant with the variations in slope and aspect and thus NDSI can take care of topography effects. Different snow cover mapping methods using snow indices are compared to find the suitable mapping technique. The proposed methodology for snow cover mapping uses the NDSI (estimated using planetary reflectance), NIR band reflectance and forest/vegetation cover information. The satellite estimated snow or non-snow pixel information using proposed methodology was validated with the snow cover information collected at three observatory locations and it was found that the algorithm classify all the sample points correctly, once that pixel is cloud free. The snow cover distribution was estimated using one year (2004–05) cloud free satellite data and good correlation was observed between increase/decrease areal extent of seasonal snow cover and ground observed fresh snowfall and standing snow data.     

Dispersion of love waves in non-uniform channels lying over homogeneous half-spaces

Summary Earth's crust has non-uniformity in lateral as well as in vertical directions. In some tectonically significant areas, extremely rapid Love waves velocity variations have been observed. To study Love waves dispersion characteristics in such areas, two non-uniform channels with exponential velocity and rigidity variations in vertical and lateral directions are considered. Theoretical dispersion curves are presented to understand quantitatively the effect of non-uniformity in different directions by using ray theory techniques.Theoretical Geophysics Group, National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad-7 (A.P. India.-NGRI Contribution No. 72-359.