A study of the relation between intensity oscillations and magnetic field parameters in a sunspot: Hinode observations

We present properties of intensity oscillations of a sunspot in the photosphere and chromosphere using G band and Ca II H filtergrams from Hinode. Intensity power maps as function of magnetic field strength and frequency reveal reduction of power in the G band with an increase in photospheric magnetic field strength at all frequencies. In Ca II H, however, stronger fields exhibit more power at high frequencies, particularly in the 4.5–8.0 mHz band. Power distributions in different locations of the active region show that the oscillations in Ca II H exhibit more power compared to that of the G band. We also relate the power in intensity oscillations with different components of the photospheric vector magnetic field using near simultaneous spectro-polarimetric observations of the sunspot from the Hinode spectropolarimeter. The photospheric umbral power is strongly anti-correlated with the magnetic field strength and its line-of-sight component but there is a good correlation with the transverse component. A reversal of this trend is observed in the chromosphere except at low frequencies(ν≤ 1.5 mHz). The power in sunspot penumbrae is anti-correlated with the magnetic field parameters at all frequencies(1.0 ≤ν≤ 8.0 mHz) in both the photosphere and chromosphere, except that the chromospheric power shows a strong correlation in the frequency range 3–3.5 mHz.     

What can we learn about crustal structure from thermal data?

Thermal data represent a valuable remote sensing aid in studying crustal evolution. Heat flow (Q) results from the heat loss by the cooling earth and from the heat production ( A ) of the radiogenic elements brought to the upper crust by magmatic intrusives. Heat flow is often observed to be linearly related to heat production. The slope of this relation, or thermal depth (D), has been used to infer a global upward enrichment in heat-producing elements. This thermal depth has been equated with the thickness of granites, but such an interpretation has not been confirmed everywhere. The depth to which granitic plutons are rooted can be computed from the inversion of gravity data. It averages 7±2 km and is much smaller than the thermal depth. Granulite facies rocks are assumed to be present in the lower crust on the basis of seismic and geochemical data. These rocks are generally depleted or initially poor in radiogenic elements (U, Th, K). It is suggested that the thermal depth reflects the depth to the depleted layer in continental regions and that it corresponds to the granulitic layer in most places. Worldwide thermal and seismic data support this relationship, although surface heterogeneities introduce complications. Thermal data can therefore be used to constrain the structure of the crust and its evolution through time.     

Boulder falls in Hong Kong — insights from power law relationships and supervised machine learning

Landslides - Intelligently predicting the frequency and volume of natural hazards, including boulder falls, attracts widespread attention in earth science and engineering communities. Taking Hong...     

Gradient-based Pareto optimal history matching for noisy data of multiple types

The advantages of the simultaneous integration of production and time-lapse seismic data for history matching have been demonstrated in a number of previous studies. Production data provide accurate observations at particular spatial locations (wells), while seismic data enable global, though filtered/noisy, estimates of state variables. In this work, we present an efficient computational tool for bi-objective history matching, in which data misfits for both production and seismic measurements are minimized using an adjoint-gradient approach. This enables us to obtain a set of Pareto optimal solutions defining the optimal trade-off between production and seismic data misfits (which are, to some extent, conflicting). The impact of noise structure and noise level on Pareto optimal solutions is investigated in detail. We discuss the existence of the “best” trade-off solution, or least-conflicting posterior model, which corresponds to the history-matched model that is expected to provide the least-conflicting forecast of future reservoir performance. The overall framework is successfully applied in 2D and 3D compositional simulation problems to provide a single least-conflicting posterior model and, for the 2D case, multiple samples from the posterior distribution using the randomized maximum likelihood method.     

Lizards and snakes from the late Miocene hominoid locality of Ravin de la Pluie (Axios Valley,Greece)

We here describe lizards and snakes from the late Miocene (MN 10) of Ravin de la Pluie, near Thessaloniki, Greece, a locality widely known for its hominoid primate Ouranopithecus macedoniensis. The new finds comprise two large-sized lizards (a probable anguine and a varanid) and two snakes (an elapid and a small-sized “colubrine”). Even if the material is represented by few specimens, this is the first record of squamates from the late Miocene MN 10 biozone of southeastern Europe and the third only for the whole continent. The importance of the varanid vertebrae for systematic attributions is discussed. The new varanid limb elements described herein rank among the few such specimens in the fossil record of monitor lizards. Judging from the new and previously published varanid appendicular material, we suggest that Neogene monitor lizards from Europe possessed comparatively short and robustly built limbs. Distinctive scars on one of the limb elements are interpreted as bite marks of a predator or scavenger, offering insights on the palaeoecology of the herpetofauna of the locality.     

Reduced-order modeling for thermal recovery processes

Thermal recovery can entail considerably higher costs than conventional oil recovery, so the use of computational optimization techniques in designing and operating these processes may be beneficial. Optimization, however, requires many simulations, which results in substantial computational cost. Here, we implement a model-order reduction technique that aims at large reductions in computational requirements. The technique considered, trajectory piecewise linearization (TPWL), entails the representation of new solutions in terms of linearizations around previously simulated (and saved) training solutions. The linearized representation is projected into a low-dimensional space, with the projection matrix constructed through proper orthogonal decomposition of solution “snapshots” generated in the training step. Two idealized problems are considered here: primary production of oil driven by downhole heaters and a simplified model for steam-assisted gravity drainage, where water and steam are treated as a single “effective” phase. The strong temperature dependence of oil viscosity is included in both cases. TPWL results for these systems demonstrate that the method can provide accurate predictions relative to full-order reference solutions. Observed runtime speedups are very substantial, over 2 orders of magnitude for the cases considered. The overhead associated with TPWL model construction is equivalent to the computation time for several full-order simulations (the precise overhead depends on the number of training runs), so the method is only applicable if many simulations are to be performed.     

Using soil survey data for series-level environmental phosphorus risk assessment

Choosing soil series scale for assessing phosphorus (P) retention and release characteristics may help relate routinely collected series-specific soil survey data with P retention and aid in designing series-specific P management strategies. Phosphorus retention and release characteristics of pedons collected from two benchmark upland soil series (Berks and Monongahela) and two floodplain (Huntington and Lindside) soil series of West Virginia (USA) were assessed by evaluating P sorption capacity (PSC, Langmuir method) and its major determinants, and effect of different levels of degree of P saturation (DPS) and soil test P (STP, Mehlich-1 P) on the desorbable P (0.01 M CaCl₂-extractable) concentrations. The PSC of the two floodplain soils, Huntington and Lindside, was similar but lower than PSC of upland Berks and Monongahela soils. However, thicker A horizons of Huntington and Lindside soils may compensate for their lower PSC. The B horizons exhibited higher PSC than A horizons. However, slow permeability and thinness of such horizons may discount the higher PSC effect. Relationship of PSC with ammonium oxalate extractable Al (AOX-Al) and Fe (AOX-Fe), dithionite–citrate–bicarbonate extractable Al (DCB-Al) and Fe (DCB-Fe), total C, clay content, and pH [soil:water ratio 1:1 (pH-water) and soil:0.01 M CaCl₂ solution ratio 1:2 (pH-CaCl₂)] showed that in general all except Fe and total C influenced PSC significantly. Aluminum associated with crystalline clay minerals particularly affected PSC, especially of upland soils. Most of the soils did not release considerable P even beyond the conventional critical limit of 25 % DPS for well-drained soils. DPS-desorbable P relationships, though, reflected poor reliability of DPS as an environmental index. At a given DPS and STP, surface horizons released more P than their subsurface counterparts and thus reflected the net sink character of subsurface horizons. Most of the soils did not show considerable release of P even beyond agronomically high STP levels (>23 mg kg^?1). The study provides an economical alternative to time and money-intensive lysimetric studies for assessing subsurface P loss. It reveals the workability of integrating environmental P studies with soil survey data and superiority of integrated assessment of environmental indices of P over the use of any single index.