Constraints on sedimentary ages of the Chuanlinggou Formation in the Ming Tombs,Beijing, North China Craton: LA-ICP-MS and SHRIMP U–Pb dating of detrital zircons

Detrital zircons in five sedimentary samples, MC1 to MC5, from the bottom of the Chuanlinggou Formation in the Ming Tombs District, Beijing, were dated with the LA-ICP-MS and SHRIMP U–Pb methods. Age spectra of the five samples show a major peak at 2500 Ma and a secondary peak at 2000 Ma, suggesting their provenances were mainly from the crystalline basement of the North China Craton and the Trans-North China Orogen. The youngest zircon has an age of 1673 ± 44 Ma, indicating that the Chuanlinggou Formation was deposited after this age. From sample MC4 to MC5, lithology changed from a clastic rock (fine-grained sandstone) to a carbonate rock (fine-grained dolomite), suggesting that the depositional basin became progressively deeper. The age spectrum of sample MC5 shows a major peak at 2500 Ma and a secondary peak at 2000 Ma. Sample MC4, which is stratigraphically lower than sample MC5, only had one peak at 2500 Ma. We conclude that there was a transgressive event when sediments represented by MC5 was deposited, and seawater carried ca. 2000 Ma clastic materials to the basin where the Chuanlinggou Formation was deposited, leading to the addition of ca. 2000 Ma detritus. Our research indicates that the source area for the sediments became more extensive with time. We conclude that the Chuanlinggou Formation in the Ming Tombs District was deposited in a low-energy mud flat sedimentary environment in the inter-supra tidal zone because it is mainly composed of silty mudstone and fine-grained sandstone with relatively simple sedimentary structures.     

Mechanical behavior and micro-structure of cement kiln dust-stabilized expensive soil

In this study, the effects of cement kiln dust (CKD) on the swelling properties, strength properties, and microstructures of CKD-stabilized expansive soil were investigated. Samples were prepared and stabilized with different CKD content ratios, ranging from 0 to 18% by dry mass. The results obtained show that the maximum swelling pressures decrease exponentially with increases in CKD content. Both the cohesion and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) increase at ratios below 10% CKD and then decrease slightly, above that ratio. CKD can also improve the strength of saturated, expansive soil. There is no visible change of UCS for soil without CKD when cured, while the UCS of a sample with 10% CKD content after curing for 90 days is higher than that after curing for only 1 day. This indicates that CKD can improve the long-term strength of expansive soil. Finally, microstructure analysis reveals that the addition of CKD reduces the montmorillonite content of expansive soil and decreases its swelling properties. The addition of CKD also changes the pore volume distribution, both the size and amount of macro-pores and micro-pores decrease with increase in CKD content. For saturated samples, the size of macro-pores is obviously reduced, while that of micro-pores is slightly increased for both treated and untreated soils. Hydration and saturation processes make the soil structure become dispersive which results in a lower strength, and adding CKD can restrain this process. The suggested optimal CKD content is between 10 and 14% and with a curing time of more than 27 days.     

北极斯瓦尔巴、高亚洲和阿尔卑斯山冰川物质平衡对比研究

基于冰川物质平衡和平衡线高度数据,对北极斯瓦尔巴、高亚洲和阿尔卑斯山的冰川物质平衡变化和平衡线高度空间分布特征进行了对比分析,得出以下结论：（1）阿尔卑斯山冰川年均负物质平衡值最大,为-907 mm;斯瓦尔巴为-431 mm;高亚洲最小,为-264 mm。（2）高亚洲和斯瓦尔巴冰川物质平衡年振幅较小,年际变化较小;阿尔卑斯山冰川物质平衡年振幅较大,年际变化较大。斯瓦尔巴冰川物质平衡趋向正平衡,阿尔卑斯山和高亚洲冰川物质平衡趋向负平衡。（3）斯瓦尔巴内陆的冰川平衡线高度高于沿海地区,高亚洲冰川平衡线高度呈纬向地带性、经向地带性和区域地带性的分布规律,阿尔卑斯山的冰川平衡线高度主要受冰川所处海拔的影响。     

音频大地电磁测深在齐大山铁矿王家堡子采区深部找矿中的应用

鞍山齐大山铁矿王家堡子采区产出鞍山式沉积变质型铁矿,铁矿石多以磁铁贫矿为主,局部产出富铁矿,目前钻探工程控制标高为-600 m,采区深部的资源潜力是急待解决的问题,为此对采区进行音频大地电磁测量和研究工作。齐大山铁矿的电性变化复杂,通过先期的实验剖面确定了矿区铁矿体的3种不同电阻率特征,然后对王家堡子采区的3760线、4050线、4500线进行音频大地电磁测量、数据处理和断面反演分析。推测3760线的低阻由磁铁贫矿引起,局部高阻为假象赤铁贫矿引起;推测4050线和4500线浅部的低阻由磁铁贫矿引起,深部的高阻为假象赤铁贫矿及磁铁贫矿引起。同时预测3760线、4050线和4500线西侧深部均有低电阻率显示,反映出隐伏铁矿床的存在特征,推测在-1 000 m标高以下仍存在有隐伏的富矿体或板状磁铁贫矿。经过钻探验证,获得了预期的找矿效果。     

Study on Water Internal Recycle Process and Mechanism in Typical Mountain Areas of Inland Basins,Northwest China: Progress and Challenge

The water resource and its change of mountainous area are very important to the oasis economic system and ecosystem in the arid areas of northwest China. Accurately understanding the water transfer and circulation process among vegetation, soil, and atmosphere over different hydrological units in mountainous areas such as snow and ice, cold desert, forest and grassland is the basic scientific issue of water research in cold and arid regions, which is also the basis of water resource delicacy management and regulation. There are many research results on the hydrological function of different land covers in mountain areas, basin hydrological processes, however, there are only very limited studies on the water internal recycle at basin scale. The quantitative study on the mechanism of water internal recycle is still at the starting stage, which faces many challenges. The key project “Study on water internal recycle processes and mechanism in typical mountain areas of inland basins, Northwest China” funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China will select the Aksu River and Shule River Basin, which have better observation basis, as study area. The internal mechanism of moisture transfer and exchange process of different land cover and atmosphere, the internal mechanism of water cycle in the basin, and water transfer paths in atmosphere will be studied through enhancing runoff plot experiments on different land cover, analyzing the mechanism of water vapor transfer and exchange between different land covers in the watershed by isotope tracing on the water vapor flux of vegetation water, soil moisture and atmospheric moisture, improving the algorithms of remote sensing inversion and ground verification on land surface evapotranspiration on different land cover, and analyzing the water vapor flux from reanalysis data, and the coupling modeling of regional climate model and land surface process model. At last, the effect of different land cover in hydrological process of mountain area, and the impact of land cover on downstream oasis will be systematically analyzed.     

A modified mix-differenced approach for estimating multi-GNSS real-time satellite clock offsets

A modified mixed-differenced approach for estimating multi-GNSS real-time clock offsets is presented. This approach, as compared to the earlier presented mixed-differenced approach which uses epoch-differenced and undifferenced observations, further adds a satellite-differenced process. The proposed approach, based on real-time orbit products and a mix of epoch-differenced and satellite-differenced observations to estimate only satellite clock offsets and tropospheric zenith wet delays, has fewer estimated parameters than other approaches, and thus its implementing procedure is efficient and can be performed and extended easily. To obtain high accuracy, the approach involves three steps. First, the high-accuracy tropospheric zenith wet delay of each station is estimated using mixed-differenced carrier phase observations. Second, satellite clock offset changes between adjacent epochs are estimated using also mixed-differenced carrier phase observations. Third, the satellite clock offsets at the initial epoch are estimated using satellite-differenced pseudorange observations. Finally, the initial epoch clock results and clock offset changes are concatenated to obtain the clock results of the current epoch. To validate the real-time satellite clock results, multi-GNSS post-processing clock products from IGS ACs were selected for comparison. From the comparison, the standard deviations of the GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo systems clock results are approximately 0.1–0.4 ns, except for the BeiDou GEO satellites. The root mean squares are about 0.4–2.3 ns, which are similar to those of other international real-time products. When the clock estimates were assessed based on a pseudo-kinematic PPP procedure, the positioning accuracies in the East, North and Up components reach 5.6, 5.5 and 7.6 cm, respectively, which meet the centimeter level and are comparable to the application of other products.     

Variations of methane stable isotopic values from an Alpine peatland on the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Acta Geochimica - Isotopic signature is a powerful tool to discriminate methane (CH4) source types and constrain regional and global scale CH4 budgets. Peatlands on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau are...     

Investigation of the penetration characteristics of snake skin-inspired pile using DEM

Acta Geotechnica - Snake can perfectly utilize its scales to move. Inspired by the snake scales, this study investigated the characteristics of the snake skin-inspired pile penetration process. Six...