Unraveling the Peruvian Phase of the Central Andes: stratigraphy,sedimentology and geochronology of the Salar de Atacama Basin (22°30–23°S), northern Chile

The Salar de Atacama Basin holds important information regarding the tectonic activity, sedimentary environments and their variations in northern Chile during Cretaceous times. About 4000 m of high‐resolution stratigraphic columns of the Tonel, Purilactis and Barros Arana Formations reveal braided fluvial and alluvial facies, typical of arid to semi‐arid environments, interrupted by scarce intervals with evaporitic, aeolian and lacustrine sedimentation, displaying an overall coarsening‐upward trend. Clast‐count and point‐count data evidence the progressive erosion from Mesozoic volcanic rocks to Palaeozoic basement granitoids and deposits located around the Cordillera de Domeyko area, which is indicative of an unroofing process. The palaeocurrent data show that the source area was located to the west. The U/Pb detrital zircon geochronological data give maximum depositional ages of 149 Ma for the base of the Tonel Formation (Agua Salada Member), and 107 Ma for its middle member (La Escalera Member); 79 Ma for the lower Purilactis Formation (Limón Verde Member), and 73 Ma for the Barros Arana Formation. The sources of these zircons were located mainly to the west, and comprised from the Coastal Cordillera to the Precordillera. The ages and pulses record the tectonic activity during the Peruvian Phase, which can be split into two large events; an early phase, around 107 Ma, showing uplift of the Coastal Cordillera area, and a late phase around 79 Ma indicating an eastward jump of the deformation front to the Cordillera de Domeyko area. The lack of internal deformation and the thicknesses measured suggest that deposition of the units occurred in the foredeep zone of an eastward‐verging basin. This sedimentation would have ended with the K‐T phase, recognized in most of northern Chile.     

Activated sludge acclimation for toluene and DEHP degradation in a two-phase partitioning bioreactor

The effect of activated sludge acclimation on the biodegradation of toluene in the presence of a biodegradable non-aqueous phase liquid, di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), in a two-phase partitioning bioreactor was characterized. The influence of the presence of DEHP, at a ratio of 0.1 % (volume ratio), and of the acclimation of activated sludge (AS) on the biodegradation of hydrophobic VOC was studied. AS was acclimated to both toluene and DEHP simultaneously. Using acclimated cells, 73 and 96 % improvement of the mean biodegradation rates was recorded for toluene and the organic solvent (DEHP), respectively, if compared to the values recorded in the absence of acclimation, during tests performed in Erlenmeyer flasks. Degradation rates were further improved by the use of acclimated AS in a reactor with a large head space; degradation yields for toluene and DEHP were above 99 and 89 %, respectively.     

Effects of grain morphology on critical state: a computational analysis

We introduce a new DEM scheme (LS-DEM) that takes advantage of level sets to enable the inclusion of real grain shapes into a classical discrete element method. Then, LS-DEM is validated and calibrated with respect to real experimental results. Finally, we exploit part of LS-DEM potentiality by using it to study the dependency of critical state (CS) parameters such as critical state line (CSL) slope \(\lambda \), CSL intercept \(\varGamma \), and CS friction angle \(\varPhi _{\mathrm{CS}}\) on the grain’s morphology, i.e., sphericity, roundness, and regularity. This study is carried out in three steps. First, LS-DEM is used to capture and simulate the shape of five different two-dimensional cross sections of real grains, which have been previously classified according to the aforementioned morphological features. Second, the same LS-DEM simulations are carried out for idealized/simplified grains, which are morphologically equivalent to their real counterparts. Third, the results of real and idealized grains are compared, so the effect of “imperfections” on real particles is isolated. Finally, trends for the CS parameters (CSP) dependency on sphericity, roundness, and regularity are obtained as well as analyzed. The main observations and remarks connecting particle’s morphology, particle’s idealization, and CSP are summarized in a table that is attempted to help in keeping a general picture of the analysis, results, and corresponding implications.     

Strength criterion for cross-anisotropic sand under general stress conditions

By incorporating the fabric effect and Lode’s angle dependence into the Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion, a strength criterion for cross-anisotropic sand under general stress conditions was proposed. The obtained criterion has only three material parameters which can be specified by conventional triaxial tests. The formula to calculate the friction angle under any loading direction and intermediate principal stress ratio condition was deduced, and the influence of the degree of the cross-anisotropy was quantified. The friction angles of sand in triaxial, true triaxial, and hollow cylinder torsional shear tests were obtained, and a parametric analysis was used to detect the varying characteristics. The friction angle becomes smaller when the major principal stress changes from perpendicular to parallel to the bedding plane. The loading direction and intermediate principal stress ratio are unrelated in true triaxial tests, and their influences on the friction angle can be well captured by the proposed criterion. In hollow cylinder torsional shear tests with the same internal and external pressures, the loading direction and intermediate principal stress ratio are related. This property results in a lower friction angle in the hollow cylinder torsional shear test than that in the true triaxial test under the same intermediate principal stress ratio condition. By comparing the calculated friction angle with the experimental results under various loading conditions (e.g., triaxial, true triaxial, and hollow cylinder torsional shear test), the proposed criterion was verified to be able to characterize the shear strength of cross-anisotropic sand under general stress conditions.     

Identifying influence areas with connectivity analysis – application to the local perturbation of heterogeneity distribution for history matching

Numerical representations of a target reservoir can help to assess the potential of different development plans. To be as predictive as possible, these representations or models must reproduce the data (static, dynamic) collected on the field. However, constraining reservoir models to dynamic data – the history-matching process – can be very time consuming. Many uncertain parameters need to be taken into account, such as the spatial distribution of petrophysical properties. This distribution is mostly unknown and usually represented by millions of values populating the reservoir grid. Dedicated parameterization techniques make it possible to investigate many spatial distributions from a small number of parameters. The efficiency of the matching process can be improved from the perturbation of specific regions of the reservoir. Distinct approaches can be considered to define such regions. For instance, one can refer to streamlines. The leading idea is to identify areas that influence the production behavior where the data are poorly reproduced. Here, we propose alternative methods based on connectivity analysis to easily provide approximate influence areas for any fluid-flow simulation. The reservoir is viewed as a set of nodes connected by weighted links that characterize the distance between two nodes. The path between nodes (or grid blocks) with the lowest cumulative weight yields an approximate flow path used to define influence areas. The potential of the approach is demonstrated on the basis of 2D synthetic cases for the joint integration of production and 4D saturation data, considering several formulations for the weights attributed to the links.