Empirical assessment of rockfall and debris flow risk along the Karakoram Highway,Pakistan

Natural Hazards - The Karakoram Highway links north Pakistan with southwest China. It passes through unique geomorphological, geological and tectonic setting. This study focused 200-km-long section...     

Investigation of Failed Slopes Based on a New Method of Back Analysis in Rock Masses: A Case Study

Geotechnical and Geological Engineering - Small variation in shear strength parameters results in remarkable changes in the safety factor (SF) of a rock slope. In this regard, rock mass strength of...     

Deterministic and probabilistic representation of near-field pulse-like ground motion

The response and damage assessment of engineering structures under near-field ground motions is currently of great interest. Near-field ground motion with directivity focusing or fling effects produces pulse-like ground motion that has characteristics different from those of ordinary records. This paper develops simple deterministic and probabilistic models for near-field pulse-like ground motions. These models belong to the class of engineering models that aim to replicate some of the gross features observed in near-field records. The ground velocity is expressed as a steady-state function or a stationary random process modulated by an envelope function. Both models account for the non-stationarity and the multiple pulses in the ground velocity. While the deterministic model is similar to some of the models developed earlier, the probabilistic model facilitates handling uncertainties in the ground motion and variability in the structure's properties. For instance, this model combined with structural reliability methods can be used for reliability assessment of structures under near-field random ground motion. The reduction of the structural response by adding supplemental dampers is also investigated.     

Estimation of aquifer hydraulic parameters from surface geophysical measurements: a case study of the Upper Cretaceous aquifer, central Sinai, Egypt

The integration of geophysical data with direct hydrogeological measurements can provide a minimally invasive approach to characterize the subsurface at a variety of resolutions and over many spatial scales. The field of hydrogeophysics has attracted much attention during the last two decades. In this domain, the geophysical data inverted to geophysical models are interpreted in terms of the hydrogeology to serve as a basis for the definition of hydraulic models in the areas of interest. The hydraulic conductivity (K) value measured in a reference borehole has been combined with the electrical conductivity obtained from nearby geo-electromagnetic sounding data in the Cenomanian (Upper Cretaceous) aquifer, central Sinai, Egypt. The resulting relation was interpreted with Dar Zarrouk parameters to infer the transmissivity variations at other vertical electrical sounding locations, where K values are unknown. Coincident transient electromagnetic data have been adopted to increase accuracy while interpreting the aquifer geoelectrical properties. The results indicate that the transmissivity values in the aquifer of interest vary from 2,446 to 9,694 m²/day, and K varies from 12.9 to 57.0 m/day throughout the studied area.     

Modelling underground cadastral survey data in CityGML

In underground environments, survey elements such as survey points and observations provide the information required to define legal boundaries. These elements are also used to connect underground legal spaces to a geodetic survey network. Due to the issues of current 2D approaches for managing underground cadastral data, prominent 3D data models have been extended to support underground land administration. However, previous studies mostly focused on defining underground legal spaces and boundaries, with less emphasis on survey elements. This research aims to extend CityGML to support underground cadastral survey data. The proposed extension is based on the survey elements elicited from underground cadastral plans, which is then implemented for an underground case study area in Melbourne, Australia. This extension integrates underground survey data with legal and physical data in a 3D digital environment and provides an improved representation of survey elements, facilitating the management and communication of underground cadastral survey data.     

Neutral-neutral reactions for the formation of C3O and C3S

We investigate, neutral-neutral radiative association reactions (C₂+CO) and (C₂+CS) for the formation of C₃O and C₃S respectively by DFT. Both the reactions are spin allowed and found to be exothermic and barrierless in nature. The product of these reactions are perfectly linear and the calculated rotational transitions are in good agreement with earlier published data. At the DFT/TZ2P level, the difference between the calculated rotational constant and experimental one is 0.064 % for C₃O and 0.16 % for C₃S. We also discussed the intrinsic and relative stability of these molecules.     

Prospectivity modeling of porphyry copper deposits: recognition of efficient mono- and multi-element geochemical signatures in the Varzaghan district,NW Iran

Acta Geochimica - The Varzaghan district at the northwestern margin of the Urumieh–Dokhtar magmatic arc, is considered a promising area for the exploration of porphyry Cu deposits in Iran. In...     

Extension at the coast of the Makran subduction zone (Iran)

In the Makran subduction zone, earthquake focal mechanisms and geodetic data indicate that the deforming prism currently experiences N–S compression. However, palaeostress inversions performed on normal faults observed along the coast reveal local stress components consistent with N‐S extension. Previously proposed mechanisms such as gravitational collapse are not favoured by N–S compression and surface uplift. We propose that the observed kinematics result from transient stress reversals following large earthquakes. During the interseismic period (now), the region experiences N–S compression. However, following a large reverse rupture on the subduction interface, stresses in the inner wedge relax, enabling a brief period of extensional faulting before a compressive stress state is re‐established. This mechanism, also observed in other subduction zones, requires low overall stresses in the upper plate and that the margin ruptures in large megathrust earthquakes that result in nearly complete stress drops.     

Improving urban cellular automata performance by integrating global and geographically weighted logistic regression models

In many of the conventional cellular automata (CA) models, particularly Urban‐CA which are used for urban growth, the spatial heterogeneities and local differences of the land use conversion processes are ignored. Global logistic regression (LR) is a popular model employed to define the transition rules of Urban‐CA. By considering the local characteristics, Geographically Weighted Logistic Regression (GWLR) provides interesting capabilities for urban growth modelling. In this research, in addition to using GWLR in the definition of transition rules, the advantages of integrating GWLR and LR for urban growth simulation were evaluated; these have not been considered in previous studies. Local and global probabilities obtained from the calibration of GWLR and LR were combined to define the transition rules of an Urban‐CA. Urban growth was simulated in the Islamshahr sub‐region located southwest of Tehran, Iran for the two periods 1992‐1996 and 1996‐2002, and data from these periods were used for training and testing the prediction abilities, respectively. In the first period, GWLR showed good performance and a significant contribution to the enhancement of the simulation performance, but in the second period, the effectiveness of LR on the prediction accuracy increased. Due to their complementary roles, the integration of the GWLR and LR models resulted in improved simulation performance in both periods.