New data on the Vrancea Nappe (Moldavidian Basin, Outer Carpathian Domain, Romania): paleogeographic and geodynamic reconstructions

A study has been performed on the Cretaceous to Early Miocene succession of the Vrancea Nappe (Outer Carpathians, Romania), based on field reconstruction of the stratigraphic record, mineralogical-petrographic and geochemical analyses. Extra-basinal clastic supply and intra-basinal autochthonous deposits have been differentiated, appearing laterally inter-fingered and/or interbedded. The main clastic petrofacies consist of calcarenites, sub-litharenites, quartzarenites, sub-arkoses, and polygenic conglomerates derived from extra-basinal margins. An alternate internal and external provenance of the different supplies is the result of the paleogeographic re-organization of the basin/margins system due to tectonic activation and exhumation of rising areas. The intra-basinal deposits consist of black shales and siliceous sediments (silexites and cherty beds), evidencing major environmental changes in the Moldavidian Basin. Organic-matter-rich black shales were deposited during anoxic episodes related to sediment starvation and high nutrient influx due to paleogeographic isolation of the basin caused by plate drifting. The black shales display relatively high contents in sub-mature to mature, Type II lipidic organic matter (good oil and gas-prone source rocks) constituting a potentially active petroleum system. The intra-basinal siliceous sediments are related to oxic pelagic or hemipelagic environments under tectonic quiescence conditions although its increase in the Oligocene part of the succession can be correlated with volcanic supplies. The integration of all the data in the “progressive reorientation of convergence direction” Carpathian model, and their consideration in the framework of a foreland basin, led to propose some constrains on the paleogeographic-geodynamic evolutionary model of the Moldavidian Basin from the Late Cretaceous to the Burdigalian.     

Image data fusion for the remote sensing of freshwater environments

Remote sensing based mapping of diverse and heterogeneous freshwater environments requires high-resolution images. Data fusion is a useful technique for producing a high-resolution multispectral image from the merging of a high-resolution panchromatic image with a low-resolution multispectral image. Given the increasing availability of images from different satellite sensors that have different spectral and spatial resolutions, data fusion techniques that combine the strengths of different images will be increasingly important to Geography for land-cover mapping. Different data fusion methods however, add spectral and spatial distortions to the resultant data depending on the geographical context; therefore a careful selection of the fusion method is required. This paper compares a technique called subtractive resolution merge, which has not previously been formally tested, with conventional techniques such as Brovey transformation, principal component substitution, local mean and variance matching, and optimised high pass filter addition. Data fusion techniques are grouped into spectral and spatial centric methods. Subtractive resolution merge belongs to a new class of data fusion techniques that uses a mix of both spatial and spectral centric approaches. The different data fusion techniques were applied to a QuickBird image of a semi-aquatic freshwater environment in New Zealand. The results were compared both qualitatively and quantitatively using spectral and spatial error metrics. This research concludes that subtractive resolution merge performed better than all the other techniques and will be a valuable technique for enhancing images for freshwater land-cover mapping.     

Analysis of China vegetation dynamics using NOAA-AVHRR data from 1982 to 2001

The authors derived the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from the NOAA/AVHRR Land dataset, at a spatial resolution of 8km and 15-day intervals, to investigate the vegetation variations in China during the period from 1982 to 2001. Then, GIS is used to examine the relationship between precipitation and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in China, and the value of NDVI is taken as a tool for drought monitoring. The results showed that in the study period, China’s vegetation cover had tended to increase, compared to the early 1980s; mean annual NDVI increased 3.8%. The agricultural regions (Henan, Hebei, Anhui and Shandong) and the west of China are marked by an increase, while the eastern coastal regions are marked by a decrease. The correlation between monthly NDVI and monthly precipitation/temperature in the period 1982 to 2001 is significantly positive (R2=0.80, R2=0.84); indicating the close coupling between climate conditions (precipitation and temperature) and land surface response patterns over China. Examination of NDVI time series reveals two periods: (1) 1982–1989, marked by low values below average NDVI and persistence of drought with a signature large-scale drought during the 1982 and 1989; and (2) 1990–2001, marked by a wetter trend with region-wide high values above average NDVI and a maximum level occurring in 1994 and 1998.     

Surface Matching and Change Detection Using a Modified Hough Transformation for Robust Parameter Estimation

Many photogrammetric and GIS applications, such as city modelling, change detection and object recognition, deal with surfaces. Change detection involves looking for differences between two surface models that are obtained from different sensors, for example an optical sensor and a laser scanner, or by the same sensor at different epochs. Surfaces obtained through a sampling process may also have to be compared for future processing (for example transformation parameter estimation and change detection). Surface matching is therefore an essential task in these applications. The matching of surfaces involves two steps. The first step deals with finding the correspondences between two surface points and/or patches. The second step requires the determination of transformation parameters between the two surfaces. However, since most surfaces consist of randomly distributed discrete points and may have different reference systems, finding the correspondences cannot be achieved without knowing the transformation parameters between the two surfaces. Conversely, deriving the transformation parameters requires the knowledge of the correspondence between the two point sets. The suggested approach for surface matching deals with randomly distributed data sets without the need for error prone interpolation and requires no point-to-point correspondence between the two surfaces under consideration. This research simultaneously solves for the correspondence and the transformation parameters using a Modified Iterated Hough Transform for robust parameter estimation. Several experiments are conducted to prove the feasibility and the robustness of the suggested approach, even when a high percentage of change exists.     

Geochemistry and Mineralogy of Paleocene Coal from the Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel Coalfields of Pakistan

Pakistan is rich in coal resources, which amount to around 186 billion tons. The Paleocene Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel coalfields are located in the Central Salt Range Punjab Province and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan, respectively. Padhrar coal has not been studied in detail and the Darra Adam Khel coalfields are newly-discovered, so no research has been done, due to security considerations. In this study, an attempt has been made to study the geochemical and mineralogical characteristics of the Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel coals, in order to learn about the coal quality, element enrichment mechanism, sedimentary medium conditions and potentially valuable elements for coal utilization. The Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel coals are low to medium ash, low moisture content, high in volatiles and high total sulfur coal. The vitrinite reflectance in Darra Adam Khel coal is higher than in Padhrar coal, indicating either a greater burial depth or the effects of Himalayan tectonism. The vitrinite content is dominant in the Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel coals, followed by inertinite and liptinite, the major minerals including quartz, clay minerals, calcite and pyrite. The trace elements Ni, As, Be Zn, Ge, Mo, Ta, W, Co and Nb, Sn, Hf, Ta, Pb, Th, Cd, In, Be, V, Cr, Zr, Ag, Li, W and Co are concentrated in some of the Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel coal samples, respectively. The Padhrar coal shows positive Ce, Eu and Gd anomalies, with most of the Darra Adam Khel coal showing negative Ce, Eu and positive Gd anomalies with high LREE. The Al2O3/TiO2 values indicate that the sediment source of the Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel coals is mostly related to intermediate igneous rocks. The Sr/Ba, SiO2 + Al2O3, Fe2O3 + CaO + MgO/SiO2 + Al2O3 and high sulfur content in the Padhrar and Darra Adam Khel coals indicate epithermal and marine water influence with a tidal flat, coal-forming environment and a deltaic coal-forming environment, respectively.     

Studies of clump structure of photodissociation regions at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths

To interpret the millimeter and sub-millimeter line emissions of atomic and molecular species from galactic and extragalactic photodissociation regions, warm gas components and molecular clouds, generally, escape probability formalism of Tielens & Hollenbach (herein referred as TH) are employed which is based on the assumption of plane parallel geometry of infinite slab allowing photons to escape only from the front. Contrary to the assumption observationally it is found that these lines are optically thin except OI(63μ m) and low rotational transitions of CO and some other molecules. This observational evidence led us to assume that emitting regions are finite parallel plane slab in which photons are allowed to escape from both the surfaces (back and front). Therefore, in the present study escape of radiations from both sides of the homogeneous and also clumpy PDR/molecular clouds are taken into consideration for calculating the line intensities at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths (hereinafter referred as QA). Results are compared with that of the TH model. It is found that thermal and chemical structures of the regions are almost similar in both the formalisms. But line intensities are modified by differing factors. Particularly at low density and low kinetic temperature and also for optically thin lines line intensities calculated from TH and QA model differ substantially. But at density higher than the critical density and also for optically thick lines TH and QA models converge to almost same values. An attempt has been made to study the physical conditions of the M17 region employing the present formalism.     

Practical finite analytic methods for simulation of advection-dominated solute transport

Abstract

The practical finite-analytic (PFA) method was applied to the solution of the one-dimensional advection–dispersion equation (ADE) for solute transport in porous media under advection-dominated (high Peclet number, Pe) conditions. Several PFA spatial-temporal computational molecules were developed for Cauchy and pulse loading boundary conditions. The PFA solutions were compared with solutions from the upwind method and quadratic upwind differencing (QUICK) scheme. For all boundary conditions the trapezoidal explicit PFA (EPFA) computational molecule gave the most accurate results at very high Pe number as long as the Courant number (Cr) was close to one. Stability analysis shows that the PFA molecules are always stable for high Pe number.