On the applicability of viscosity-based capillary bundle concepts to predict the penetration behaviour of polymer solutions into sand

Acta Geotechnica - The increasing use of polymer solutions as support fluids in pile drilling, diaphragm walling or tunnelling applications demands a more detailed discussion of their penetration...     

Global Calibration of SARAL/AltiKa Using Multi-Mission Sea Surface Height Crossovers

SARAL/AltiKa completed its first year in orbit in March 2014. The 1 Hz GDR-T data of the first 10 cycles of the mission are used to perform a comprehensive quality assessment by means of a global multi-mission crossover analysis. Within this approach, SARAL sea surface heights are compared with data from other current missions, mainly Jason-2 and Cryosat-2, to reveal its accuracy and consistency with the other altimeter systems. Alongside with global mean range bias and instrumental drifts, investigations on geographically correlated errors as well as on the realization of the systems origin are performed. The study proves the high quality and reliability of SARAL. The mission shows only a small range bias of about ?5 cm with respect to Jason-2 and neither significant time-tag bias nor instrumental drifts. With 1.3 cm the scatter of radial errors is in the same order of magnitude as for Cryosat-2 and Jason-1 GM and will probably further improve using an enhanced sea state bias (SSB) model. However, the wet tropospheric corrections from SARAL radiometer still show some systematic effects influencing the range bias as well as geographically correlated error patterns and the z-component of the origin. Improved inflight calibration will be necessary to overcome these effects.     

Evidence for Amazonian acidic liquid water on Mars—A reinterpretation of MER mission results

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) missions have confirmed aqueous activity on Mars. Here we review the analyses of the field-based MER data, and conclude that some weathering processes in Meridiani Planum and Gusev crater are better explained by late diagenetic water-rock interactions than by early diagenesis only. At Meridiani, the discovery of jarosite by MER-1 Opportunity indicates acidic aqueous activity, evaporation, and desiccation of rock materials. MER-based information, placed into the context of published data, point to local and limited aqueous activity during geologically recent times in Meridiani. Pre-Amazonian environmental changes (including important variations in the near-surface groundwater reservoirs, impact cratering, and global dust storms and other pervasive wind-related erosion) are too extreme for pulverulent jarosite to survive over extended time periods, and therefore we argue instead that jarosite deposits must have formed in a climatically more stable period. Any deposits of pre-existent concretionary jarosite surviving up to the Amazonian would not have reached completion in the highly saline and acidic brines occurring at Meridiani. MER-2 Spirit has also revealed evidence for local and limited Amazonian aqueous environmental conditions in Gusev crater, including chemical weathering leading to goethite and hematite precipitation, rock layering, and chemical enhancement of Cl, S, Br, and oxidized iron in rocks and soils. The estimated relative age of the impact crater materials in Gusev indicates that these processes have taken place during the last 2 billion years. We conclude that minor amounts of shallow acidic liquid water have been present on the surface of Mars at local scales during the Amazonian Period.     

Major and trace elements in German bottled water,their regional distribution,and accordance with national and international standards

The market for mineral water has been growing steadily over the last few years. Germany is the country with the highest number of bottled mineral water brands (908 bottled water samples from 502 wells/brands were analyzed). The per capita consumption of mineral water in Germany in 2003 was 129 L. A wide range of values of one to seven orders of magnitude was determined for 71 elements in the bottled water samples analyzed by ICP-QMS, ICP-AES, IC, titration, photometric, conductometric and potentiometric methods. A comparison of the element concentrations and the legal limits for both bottled and tap water (EU, Germany, US EPA, WHO) shows that only 70% of the 908 mineral water samples fulfill the German and EU drinking water (i.e., tap water) regulations for all parameters (not including pH) for which action levels are defined. Nearly 5% of the bottled water samples not fulfill the German and EU regulations for mineral and table water. Comparison of our results with the current German and European action levels for mineral and table water shows that only 42 of the bottled water samples exceed the limits for one or more of the following elements: arsenic, nitrate, nitrite, manganese, nickel and barium concentrations. Ten of the bottled water samples contain uranium concentrations above the 10 μg/L recommended limit.     

Identification of cryovolcanism on Titan using fuzzy cognitive maps

Future planetary exploration of Titan will require higher degrees of on-board automation, including autonomous determination of sites where the probability of significant scientific findings is the highest. In this paper, a novel Artificial Intelligence (AI) method for the identification and interpretation of sites that yield the highest potential of cryovolcanic activity is presented. We introduce the theory of fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) as a tool for the analysis of remotely collected data in planetary exploration. A cognitive model embedded in a fuzzy logic framework is constructed via the synergistic interaction of planetary scientists and AI experts. As an application example, we show how FCM can be employed to solve the challenging problem of recognizing cryovolcanism from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Cassini data. The fuzzy cognitive map is constructed using what is currently known about cryovolcanism on Titan and relies on geological mapping performed by planetary scientists to interpret different locales as cryovolcanic in nature. The system is not conceived to replace the human scientific interpretation, but to enhance the scientists’ ability to deal with large amounts of data, and it is a first step in designing AI systems that will be able, in the future, to autonomously make decisions in situations where human analysis and interpretation is not readily available or could not be sufficiently timely. The proposed FCM is tested on Cassini radar data to show the effectiveness of the system in reaching conclusions put forward by human experts and published in the literature. Four tests are performed using the Ta SAR image (October 2004 fly-by). Two regions (i.e. Ganesa Macula and the lobate high backscattering region East of Ganesa) are interpreted by the designed FCM as exhibiting cryovolcanism in agreement with the initial interpretation of the regions by Stofan et al. (2006). Importantly, the proposed FCM is shown to be flexible and adaptive as new data and knowledge are acquired during the course of exploration. Subsequently, the FCM has been modified to include topographic information derived from SAR stereo data. With this additional information, the map concludes that Ganesa Macula is not a cryovolcanic region. In conclusion, the FCM methodology is shown to be a critical and powerful component of future autonomous robotic spacecraft (e.g., orbiter(s), balloon(s), surface/lake lander(s), rover(s)) that will be deployed for the exploration of Titan.     

Remotely sensed soil moisture integration in an ecosystem carbon flux model. The spatial implication

While remote sensing is able to provide spatially explicit datasets at regional to global scales, extensive application to date has been found only in the reporting and verification of ecosystem carbon fluxes under the Kyoto Protocol. One of the problems is that new remote sensing datasets can be used only with models or data assimilation schemes adapted to include a data input interface dedicated to the type and format of these remote sensing datasets. In this study, soil water index data (SWI), derived from the ERS scatterometer (10-daily time period with a spatial resolution of 50 km), are integrated into the ecosystem carbon balance model C-Fix to assess 10-daily Net Ecosystem Productivity (NEP) patterns of Europe from the remote sensing perspective on an approximate 1-by-1 km² pixel scale using NDVI-AVHRR data. The modeling performance of NEP obtained with and without the assimilation of remotely sensed soil moisture data in the carbon flux model C-Fix is evaluated with EUROFLUX data. Results show a general decrease of the RRMSE of up to 11 with an average of 3.46. C-Fix is applied at the European scale to demonstrate the potential of this ecosystem carbon flux model, based on remote sensing inputs. More specifically, the strong impact of soil moisture on the European carbon balance in the context of the Kyoto Protocol (anthropogenic carbon emissions) is indicated at the country level. Results suggest that several European countries shift from being a carbon sink (i.e., NEP > 1) to being a carbon source (i.e., NEP < 0) whether or not short-term water availability (i.e., soil moisture) is considered in C-Fix NEP estimations.     

Geochemical Characteristics of a Veinlet Kupferschiefer Profile from the Lubin Mine, Southwestern Poland

Previous studies have shown that the ascending, oxidizing brines play a very important role in Kupferschiefer mineralization. Fractures could be the pathway of the brines. In order to clarify the influences of the brines on bulk organic matter, aromatic hydrocarbons and Kupferschiefer mineralization, one veinlet Kupferschiefer profile from the Lubin mine, southwestern Poland was studied with the microscopic, geochemical and Rock-Eval methods. The microscopic results indicate that organic matter of the veinlet sample consists dominantly of bitumen. Its extract content is higher than in other samples. The dominant aromatic compounds are naphthalene and alkylated naphthalenes (Na-PAH), which have migrated into the veinlet sample from other sediments. The content of phenanthrene and its methylated derivatives (Ph-PAH) is much lower than in other samples. The reason may be due to their heavier mass than Na-PAH. It is more difficult for Ph-PAH to migrate. The Na-PAH was probably removed from the shale by dist