Slope stability evaluation using Back Propagation Neural Networks

The Yudonghe landslide, located in western Hubei Province of China, consists of eastern and western subunits as well as a main landslide mass with upper and lower slip surfaces. As an important landslide close to Shuibuya Dam on the Qing River, its stability is crucial, as the slide might reactivate because of a change in ground-water level caused by filling of the Shuibuya Reservoir. Existing weakness zones, growth of ruptures, the downslope attitude of geologic strata, and water infiltration, which reduced the strength of rocks and soils, have been found to be the most important factors contributing to the Yudonghe landslide. With regard to the landslide processes, it can be noted that the original large-scale slide activity was due to erosion by the Qing River, the second sliding resulted from the fall of blocks from the head scarp, and the final activity was the growth of the eastern and western secondary slides. A base failure was the main type of slope movement, however, it was obvious that more than one sliding event occurred, as inferred from striations and fractures detected by microstructure analysis of soils along the failure surfaces. Slope instability was evaluated by the method of Back Propagation Neural Networks (BPNN), in which a four-layer BPNN model with five input nodes, two hidden layers, and two output nodes was constructed using a training data set of landslide samples throughout the Qing River area. The predicted results of this analysis showed that the factor of safety was 1.10, which indicates that the Yudonghe landslide is currently in a marginally stable condition.     

Did Paleogene North Atlantic rift-related eruptions drive early Eocene climate cooling?

The delivery of volcanogenic sulphur into the upper atmosphere by explosive eruptions is known to cause significant temporary climate cooling. Therefore, phreatomagmatic and phreatoplinian eruptions occurring during the final rifting stages of active flood basalt provinces provide a potent mechanism for triggering climate change.

During the early Eocene, the northeast Atlantic margin was subjected to repeated ashfall for 0.5 m.y. This was the result of extensive phreatomagmatic activity along 3000 km of the opening northeast Atlantic rift. These widespread, predominantly basaltic ashes are now preserved in marine sediments of the Balder Formation and its equivalents, and occur over an area extending from the Faroe Islands to Denmark and southern England. These ash-bearing sediments also contain pollen and spore floras derived from low diversity forests that grew in cooler, drier climates than were experienced either before or after these highly explosive eruptions. In addition, coeval plant macrofossil evidence from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA, also shows a comparable pattern of vegetation change. The coincidence of the ashes and cooler climate pollen and spore floras in northwest Europe identifies volcanism as the primary cause of climate cooling. Estimates show that whilst relatively few phreatomagmatic eruptive centres along the 3000 km opening rift system could readily generate 0.5–1 °C cooling, on an annual basis, only persistent or repeated volcanic phases would have been able to achieve the long-term cooling effect observed in the floral record. We propose that the cumulative effect of repeated Balder Formation eruptions initiated a biodiversity crisis in the northeast Atlantic margin forests. Only the decline of this persistent volcanic activity, and the subsequent climatic warming at the start of the Eocene Thermal Maximum allowed the growth of subtropical forests to develop across the region.     

Continental rift systems and anorogenic magmatism

Precambrian Laurentia and Mesozoic Gondwana both rifted along geometric patterns that closely approximate truncated-icosahedral tessellations of the lithosphere. These large-scale, quasi-hexagonal rift patterns manifest a least-work configuration. For both Laurentia and Gondwana, continental rifting coincided with drift stagnation, and may have been driven by lithospheric extension above an insulated and thermally expanded mantle. Anorogenic magmatism, including flood basalts, dike swarms, anorthosite massifs and granite-rhyolite provinces, originated along the Laurentian and Gondwanan rift tessellations. Long-lived volcanic regions of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, sometimes called hotspots, originated near triple junctions of the Gondwanan tessellation as the supercontinent broke apart. We suggest that some anorogenic magmatism results from decompression melting of asthenosphere beneath opening fractures, rather than from random impingement of hypothetical deep-mantle plumes.     

Quantum-thermodynamic treatment of intrinsic anharmonicity; Wallace’s theorem revisited

Wallace (in Thermodynamics of crystals, 1972) developed a theorem, rooted in rigid lattice dynamics, which incorporates intrinsic anharmonic effects in solids. The practical application of this theorem in mineral physics is computationally involved and this is the main reason for the theorem not getting the attention it deserves. Because intrinsic anharmonicity is an important issue at the extreme conditions in planetary mantles, we derived a method which removes the computational obstacles in applying this theorem. We extended the theorem to incorporate details of the phonon spectrum and tested our algorithm on forsterite (Mg₂SiO₄). Using a least squares inversion technique applied to all available experimental data, we show that it results in an accurate representation of thermodynamic properties and sound wave velocities of Mg₂SiO₄ in its complete pressure–temperature stability range. We also show that the accuracy of our results is not significantly affected by the use of a different equation of state.     

Crystal chemistry of titanite-structured compounds: the CaTi1-x Zr x OSiO4 (x≤0.5) series

Inhomogeneous aggregates of late-stage titanite enriched in Zr have been described recently from post-magmatic parageneses in silica-undersaturated rocks. In the natural samples, simple isovalent substitution of the large Zr (^[vi]R⁴⁺=0.72 Å) for Ti (^[vi]R⁴⁺=0.605 Å) is limited to an empirical maximum of 0.25 afu (15.3 wt.% ZrO₂). As the natural material is not suitable for crystallographic study, a series of CaTi_1-xZr_xOSiO₄ titanite samples have been synthesized by standard ceramic methods at ambient pressure in air, and their crystal structure determined by Rietveld refinement of laboratory powder X-ray diffraction patterns. All of the synthetic Zr-doped titanite varieties adopt space group A2/a and consist of distorted CaO₇ polyhedra together with less distorted (Ti_1-xZr_x)O₆ octahedra and SiO₄ tetrahedra. Cell dimensions and atomic coordinates together with volumes and distortion indices are given for all polyhedra. The empirical limit for Zr substitution in synthetic (F,OH)-free titanite is 0.5 afu (29.6 wt.% ZrO₂). The existence of a Zr analogue of titanite in nature is considered to be unlikely.     

Variation in nitrate and calcium as indicators of recharge pathways in Nolte Spring, PA

This study documents variations in calcium and nitrate concentrations that suggest changes in recharge pathways in a karst spring. The nitrate concentrations increased at the end of the growing season, showing the importance of the soil zone in the recharge pathway. The increase occurred over just a few days, which may be indicative of a change in contribution of baseflow in different seasons from deep to shallow groundwater. The calcium concentrations decreased several days after storm events. A change in the carbonate equilibrium is hypothesized because chloride was not diluted during these events. The decrease in calcium could be due to outgassing and calcite precipitation in the recharge area when older, higher ionic strength matrix water mixes with stormwater in open conduits. The use of geochemical indicators to better understand recharge pathways benefited from long-term monitoring and periods of daily sampling.     

Magmatic zircon oxygen isotopes of 1.88–1.87 Ga orogenic and 1.65–1.54 Ga anorogenic magmatism in Finland

Summary Oxygen isotope ratios of igneous zircon from magmatic rocks in Finland provide insights into the evolution and growth of the Precambrian crust during the Svecofennian orogeny. These data preserve magmatic δ¹⁸O values and correlate with major discontinuities in the lower crust. Oxygen isotope ratios of zircon across the 1.88–1.87 Ga Central Finland granitoid complex (CFGC) range from 5.50‰ to 6.84‰, except for three plutons in contact with the adjacent greenstone and metasedimentary belts (δ¹⁸O(Zrc) = 7.60‰–7.78‰). There is a systematic variation in δ¹⁸O(Zrc) with respect to geographic location in the CFGC, ranging from 6.60±0.23‰ (σ) in the northeast to 5.90±0.40‰ in the west-southwest. These values correlate with a change in crustal thickness and shift in geochemical composition. The oxygen isotope composition of the 1.65–1.54 Ga rapakivi granites and related rocks in southern Finland show a decreasing trend from north to south, independent of their emplacement age. The southern anorogenic granite group has an average δ¹⁸O in zircon of 6.14±0.07‰ and the northern anorogenic group has an average δ¹⁸O in zircon of 8.14±0.59‰. This difference reflects the boundary between island arc terrains accreted during the Paleoproterozoic. Deceased     

Uncertainty in adaptive capacity

The capacity to adapt is a critical element of the process of adaptation: it is the vector of resources that represent the asset base from which adaptation actions can be made. Adaptive capacity can in theory be identified and measured at various scales, from the individual to the nation. The assessment of uncertainty within such measures comes from the contested knowledge domain and theories surrounding the nature of the determinants of adaptive capacity and the human action of adaptation. While generic adaptive capacity at the national level, for example, is often postulated as being dependent on health, governance and political rights, and literacy, and economic well-being, the determinants of these variables at national levels are not widely understood. We outline the nature of this uncertainty for the major elements of adaptive capacity and illustrate these issues with the example of a social vulnerability index for countries in Africa. To cite this article: W.N. Adger, K. Vincent, C. R. Geoscience 337 (2005).