Effects of the planned ephesus recreational canal on freshwater–seawater interface in the Selçuk sub-basin, İzmir-Turkey

An artificial water canal opening is planned between the Agean Sea and the historical Ephesus site for the sake of tourism in the Selçuk sub-basin. In order to predict the effects of the planned canal on freshwater–seawater interface and related contamination in the aquifer, 3-D numerical density dependent flow and solute transport simulations were carried out. The simulations included the pre-pumping and pumping periods without a canal and the prediction period in the presence of the canal. Chloride concentration comparisons of the results obtained from the pre-pumping period and the pumping period indicate that the freshwater-seawater interface in the aquifer has progressed inland due to artificial discharge in the sub-basin. Drawdown during the pumping period is about 15 cm. The planned canal opening could further lower the groundwater levels in the area and would change the groundwater flow directions in the first 4 years. Then the levels and flow directions will nearly recover. However, the canal opening could cause further seawater intrusion into the aquifer to the extent that groundwater would be unfit to use for irrigation after the seventh year of the canal opening in the irrigation cooperative II wells area and would be unfit to use for drinking purposes after the tenth year in the municipality wells area located at the south of the cooperative II wells. On the other hand, the cooperative I wells would not be effected by the opening of the canal.     

博斯腾湖与伊塞克湖水位变化特征及预测对比

根据1961—2012年湖泊水位观测资料,采用时间序列线性趋势分析与小波分析法,对比研究了博斯腾湖与伊塞克湖近50多年来水位变化特征,并对湖泊未来水位变化趋势进行预测。结果显示:(1)1961—2012年,博斯腾湖和伊塞克湖年水位总体呈显著的下降趋势。20世纪80年代中期之前,两湖水位变化趋势基本一致,都平稳下降;90年代后,博斯腾湖水位变化波动比伊塞克湖更为频繁,经历了迅速上升和下降的阶段,而伊塞克湖年水位较为稳定。(2)水位小波分析结果表明,博斯腾湖和伊塞克湖年水位变化分别存在18a和22a的主周期,从水位未来变化趋势预测结果来看,博斯腾湖水位将来一段时间继续下降,伊塞克湖水位则继续上升。     

Geomorphic evidence for active tectonic deformation in the coastal part of Eastern Black Sea,Eastern Pontides,Turkey

The Eastern Pontides (EP), which is the under transpressional deformation zone, is an active mountain belt that has been rising rapidly since the Cenozoic era because of the Arabian-Eurasian convergence. Morphometric studies have been performed to investigate the tectonic activity of this region and better understand the characteristics of the faults geomorphologically; the faults control the mountain fronts in the drainage basin of the EP. The results show the Hypsometric Curve (HC)-Hypsometric Integral (0.37-HI-0.67), Basin-Shaped Analysis (1.2-B_s-7), Valley-Floor-Width to Height-Ratio (0.4-V_f-1.2) and Asymmetry Factor (35-AF-81) applied to 46 drainage basins together with 9 tectonically controlled geomorphic indices (1.2-S_mf-1.5) and a Stream Length Gradient (30-S_L-120) indicate that the EP is tectonically active, and when the areas are evaluated according to S_mf and V_f analyses, the tectonic level is relatively high. According to our conceptual model for the uplifting of the EP, with respect to field studies and morphometric analysis, (i) the EP is the active deformation zone and has a “push-up” geometry in conjunction with the North Anatolian Fault; (ii) the EP is progressively uplifting at a rate of more than 0.5 mm/yr in along with the thrust faults of the Black Sea Fault (BSF) and Borjomi-Kazbegi Fault (BKF).     

FEG-EPMA mapping and Fe-Ti oxide mineral chemistry of Brahmaputra River sediments in Bangladesh: provenance and petrogenetic implications

The present research deals with the FEG-EPMA mapping and Fe-Ti oxide mineral chemistry of Brahmaputra River sediments in Bangladesh. Major heavy minerals in the sediments consist of garnet (8.5–21.3%), kyanite (5.35–11.9%), monazite (2.3–5.3%), sillimanite (1.8–4.7%), zircon (3.6–9.1%), and a considerable amount of opaques mainly Fe-Ti oxide minerals (23.1–35.4%). The detrital Fe-Ti oxide minerals carry significant clues to the parent rocks or sources. In these contexts, detrital opaques (Fe-Ti oxides) have been analyzed with an electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA). These opaques (Fe-Ti oxide) display six types of textural patterns, dominantly seriate with granular, emulsion, and acicular sandwich structures and trellis type of textural patterns. These textural patterns belong to five intergrowths of Fe-Ti oxide minerals such as (1) ilmenite-hematite, (2) magnetite-ilmenite, (3) hematite-rutile, (4) ilmenite-hematite-rutile, and (5) ilmenite-rutile, where ilmenite-hematite intergrowth is common. Alteration is seen in both exsolved and unexsolved ilmenites. Textural patterns and mineral chemistry of the studied ilmenite minerals provide lines of evidence of low-temperature magmatic inheritance, later modified by diffusional processes. The estimated temperature and oxygen fugacity from the magnetite-ilmenite exsolution range from 547.6 to 558.2 °C and from 10^?21.4 to 10^?21.7, respectively. The data are also consistent with hematite-ilmenite temperature (between 537 and 540 °C) and oxygen fugacity (10^?21.7 to 10^?21.9) measurements in Cox’s Bazar beach placers. These temperatures and oxygen fugacities specify Fe-Ti oxide assemblages equilibrated in a T-fO₂ field very near to the FMQ buffer curve suggesting a crustal source (magmatic and/or metamorphic), which is modified significantly by metamorphic processes.     

A photometric study of the eclipsing binary 68 u Her

The aim of this paper is to present and study the light curves (B andV) of the eclipsing binary 68 u Her from the photometric observations made at Al-Battani Observatory.New photometric elements have been obtained by a Fourier analysis of the light changes in the frequency-domain.     

Quantitative analysis of physical and geotechnical factors affecting methane emission in municipal solid waste landfill

The amount of methane that vent from landfills is dependent on the physical, chemical and biological components of the soil cover. Especially moisture content and temperature of the soil are known as the major controlling factors. In situ moisture content measurement is very critical because the moisture content of the soil continuously changes within minutes to hours as a result of change in temperature. The presented study used time domain reflectometry to measure in situ moisture content and analyzed moisture content, temperature and methane data of the landfill soil cover in a quantitative manner. Geotechnical factors including soil grain size and uniformity coefficient of the soil were analyzed and their influence on moisture content and methane emission was examined. The authors used kriging and polynomial regression methods to characterize the spatial distribution of moisture content and methane emission. Methane emission showed good temporal correlation with soil temperature, however, no significant relationship between moisture content and methane emission was observed. Spatial distribution of soil attributes was also analyzed to examine its effect on those variables. The spatial pattern of moisture content was quite similar to that of uniformity coefficient, C _u and that of clay content of the soil but strongly contrasted to that of methane emission.     

Geophysical Investigation of Fresh‐Saline Water Interface: A Case Study from South Punjab,Pakistan

The importance of the study of fresh‐saline water incursion cannot be over‐emphasized. Borehole techniques have been widely used, but they are quite expensive, intrusive, and time consuming. The electrical resistivity method has proved very successful in groundwater assessment. This advanced technique uses the calculation of Dar‐Zarrouk (D‐Z) parameters, namely longitudinal unit conductance, transverse unit resistance, and longitudinal resistivity has been employed by using 50 vertical electrical sounding points to assess the groundwater and delineate the fresh‐saline water interface over 1045 km² area of Khanewal in Southern Punjab of Pakistan. The x‐y plots and maps of D‐Z parameters were produced to establish a decipherable vision for the occurrence and distribution of different water‐bearing formations of fresh‐saline water aquifers through a complicated situation of intermixing of different resistivity ranges for fresh‐saline water bodies. This technique is useful to reduce the ambiguity produced by the process of equivalence and suppression which cause intermixing in differentiating fresh, brackish, and saline aquifers during interpretation. The fresh‐saline water interface is correlated very well with the previous studies of water quality analysis carried out in Khanewal area. The results suggest that the D‐Z parameters are useful for demarcating different aquifer zones. The behavior and pattern of D‐Z parameters with respect to occurrence and distribution of different water‐bearing formations were effectively identified and delineated in the study area.     

Spectroscopic Observation of Oscillations in the Corona During the Total Solar Eclipse of 22 July 2009

We performed high resolution spectroscopy of the solar corona during the total solar eclipse of 22 July 2009 in two emission lines: the green line at 5303 ? due to Fe xiv and the red line at 6374 ? due to Fe x, simultaneously from Anji (latitude 30°28.1′ N; longitude 119°35.4′ E; elevation 890 m), China. A two-mirror coelostat with 100 cm focal length lens produced a 9.2 mm image of the Sun. The spectrograph using 140 cm focal length lens in Littrow mode and a grating with 600 lines per millimeter blazed at 2 μm provided a dispersion of 30 m? and 43 m? per pixel in the fourth order around the green line and third order around the red line, respectively. Two Peltier cooled 1k × 1k CCD cameras, with a pixel size of 13 μm square and 14-bit readout at 10 MHz operated in frame transfer mode, were used to obtain the time sequence spectra in two emission lines simultaneously. The duration of totality was 341 s, but we could get spectra for 270 s after a trial exposure at an interval of 5 s. We report here on the detection of intensity, velocity, and line width oscillations with periodicity in the range of 25 – 50 s. These oscillations can be interpreted in terms of the presence of fast magnetoacoustic waves or torsional Alfvén waves. The intensity ratios of green to red emission lines indicate the temperature of the corona to be 1.65 MK in the equatorial region and 1.40 MK in the polar region, relatively higher than the expected temperature during the low activity period. The width variation of the emission lines in different coronal structures suggests different physical conditions in different structures.     

Improving hydrodynamic modeling of an estuary in a mixed tidal regime by grid refining and aligning

Water levels and flows in the Singapore coastal waters are driven by the complex interactions of the Indian and Pacific Ocean tides, seasonal monsoon-driven contributions and also forced by local winds. The Singapore Regional Model was developed to simulate hydrodynamics in the Strait of Singapore which produces representative sea level variation in this region. However, resolution and alignment of the grid system of the model with respect to depth contours in some of its subregions, i.e., the Johor Estuary area require further improvement. For this, the grid system of the model was modified and compared the simulated results with field measurements. The computed flow velocities agreed better with field observations when the grid resolution was increased. However, improving the alignment of the grid with the channel boundary (with a much lower increase in grid resolution) provided a substantially larger improvement of the model performance. The grid modification greatly influenced the computed salinity in the estuary, while water levels are slightly affected. Further analysis of model results showed a pronounced ebb tidal asymmetry generated by the O1–K1–M2 tidal constituents in the estuary.     

An algorithm for the optimum design of braced and unbraced steel frames under earthquake loading

A solution technique based on the sequential linear programming (SLP) method is presented for the optimum design of braced and unbraced steel frames in seismic regions. First, the optimum rigidity distribution of the frames under static loading is computed, then the optimization procedure is repeated under the combined loading, setting lower bounds on the optimum static cross-sectional areas and increasing allowable stresses. The stiffness, stress, displacement and side constraints are included in the optimization problem. As a result, a highly non-linear mathematical programming problem is produced. A non-linear programming algorithm is offered for the solution which is based on the successive linearization of non-linear expressions and employs the simplex routine in an iterative manner. Design variables are chosen to be the free nodal displacements and the cross-sectional areas of the members, while the objective function is taken to be the minimization of the total volume of the structure. As numerical applications, optimum weights of several frames (unbraced, concentrically and eccentrically braced) under static and combined loading cases are computed and the results are compared with those available in the literature.