A crustal suture and lineament in North Africa

A possible suture between an old craton in West Africa and the Arabian—Nubian shield is marked by a persistent zone of Phanerozoic weakness. This zone extends between the Nile and Niger deltas and passes through the Qattara embayment, along the Bahariya fault, through the Kufra basin, between the Tibesti and Jabal al Uwaynat massifs, through the Bahr el Ghazal and Lake Chad areas, and along the Benoue trough.     

Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks with satellite observations: a comparison of methods

Mapping and monitoring carbon stocks in forested regions of the world, particularly the tropics, has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years as deforestation and forest degradation account for up to 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions, and are now included in climate change negotiations. We review the potential for satellites to measure carbon stocks, specifically aboveground biomass (AGB), and provide an overview of a range of approaches that have been developed and used to map AGB across a diverse set of conditions and geographic areas. We provide a summary of types of remote sensing measurements relevant to mapping AGB, and assess the relative merits and limitations of each. We then provide an overview of traditional techniques of mapping AGB based on ascribing field measurements to vegetation or land cover type classes, and describe the merits and limitations of those relative to recent data mining algorithms used in the context of an approach based on direct utilization of remote sensing measurements, whether optical or lidar reflectance, or radar backscatter. We conclude that while satellite remote sensing has often been discounted as inadequate for the task, attempts to map AGB without satellite imagery are insufficient. Moreover, the direct remote sensing approach provided more coherent maps of AGB relative to traditional approaches. We demonstrate this with a case study focused on continental Africa and discuss the work in the context of reducing uncertainty for carbon monitoring and markets.     

Updating the Phase 1 habitat map of Wales, UK, using satellite sensor data

The Phase 1 Survey is the most comprehensive and widely used national level map of semi-natural habitats in Wales. However, the survey was based largely on field survey and was conducted over several decades, before being completed in 1997. Given that resources for a repeat survey were limited, this study has used an object-orientated rule-based classification implemented within eCognition of multi-temporal satellite sensor data acquired between 2003 and 2006 to map semi-natural habitats and agricultural land across Wales, thereby allowing a progressive update of the Phase 1 Survey. The classification of objects to Phase 1 habitat classes was undertaken in two steps; firstly the landscape of Wales was divided into objects using orthorectified SPOT-5 High Resolution Geometric (HRG) reflectance data (10 m spatial resolution) and Land Parcel Information System (LPIS) boundaries. A rule-base was then developed to progressively discriminate and map the distribution of 105 sub-habitats across Wales based on time-series of SPOT HRG, Terra-1 Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) LISS-3 data, derived datasets (e.g., vegetation indices, fractional images) and ancillary information (e.g., topography). The rules coupled knowledge of ecology and the information content of these remote sensing data using a combination of thresholds, Boolean operations and fuzzy membership functions. A second rule-base was then developed to translate the more detailed sub-habitat classification to Phase 1 habitat classes. Indicative accuracies of the revised Phase 1 mapping, based on comparisons with the later Phase 2 survey (for selected habitats), were >80% overall and typically between 70% and 90% for many classes. Through this exercise, Wales has become the first country in Europe to produce a national map of habitats (as opposed to land cover) through object-orientated classification of satellite sensor data. Furthermore, the approach can be adapted to allow continual monitoring of the extent and condition of habitats and agricultural land.     

Normalized algorithm for mapping and dating forest disturbances and regrowth for the United States

Forest disturbances such as harvesting, wildfire and insect infestation are critical ecosystem processes affecting the carbon cycle. Because carbon dynamics are related to time since disturbance, forest stand age that can be used as a surrogate for major clear-cut/fire disturbance information has recently been recognized as an important input to forest carbon cycle models for improving prediction accuracy. In this study, forest disturbances in the USA for the period of ∼1990–2000 were mapped using 400+ pairs of re-sampled Landsat TM/ETM scenes in 500m resolution, which were provided by the Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System project. The detected disturbances were then separated into two five-year age groups, facilitated by Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data, which was used to calculate the area of forest regeneration for each county in the USA.     

Modelling Watersheds as Spatial Object Hierarchies: Structure and Dynamics

The generation, transport and fate of non-point source pollutants in surface water systems is recognized as a major threat to water supplies, aquatic and coastal ecosystems. The transformation and movement of water, carbon and nutrients through watersheds integrates a set of ecosystem processes along hydrologic flowpaths. Human individual and institutional interactions with these processes involve direct addition or abstraction of these substances, or the alteration of land cover and drainage systems. In natural and developed catchments, these processes often vary at granularities ranging from below the level of a hillslope, up through regional watersheds. This suggests the need for the development of hierarchical analysis tools that can address the integration of a set of biophysical, biogeochemical and socioeconomic processes over a spectrum of scales. We describe and illustrate the use of a watershed model implemented as a spatial object hierarchy, representing successively contained landform classes associated with class specific processes as member functions. The model has been linked in a range of looser and tighter couplings with GRASS and ArcView, supplemented by specific terrain analytical functions. We illustrate the data and model system for an instrumented catchment monitored as part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site centering on integrated carbon, water and nutrient cycling.     

Equivalent continuum strain calculations based on 3D particle kinematic measurements of sand

Constitutive modeling of granular materials has been a subject of extensive research for many years. While the calculation of the Cauchy stress tensor using the discrete element method has been well established in the literature, the formulation and interpretation of the strain tensor are not as well documented. According to Bagi, 1 researchers mostly adopt well‐known continuum or discrete microstructural approaches to calculate strains within granular materials. However, neither of the 2 approaches can fully capture the behavior of granular materials. They are considered complementary to each other where each has its own strengths and limitations in solving granular‐mechanics problems. Zhang and Regueiro 2 proposed an equivalent continuum approach to calculating finite strain measures at the local level in granular materials subjected to large deformations. They used three‐dimensional discrete element method results to compare the proposed strains measures. This paper presents an experimental application of the Zhang and Regueiro 2 approach using three‐dimensional synchrotron microcomputed tomography images of a sheared Ottawa sand specimen. Invariant Eulerian finite strain measures were calculated for representative element volumes within the specimen. The spatial maps of Eulerian octahedral shear and volumetric strain were used to identify zones of intense shearing within the specimen and compared well with maps of incremental particle translation and rotation for the same specimen. The local Eulerian volumetric strain was compared to the global volumetric strains, which also can be considered as an averaging of all local Eulerian volumetric strains.     

The effect of horizontal resolution on simulation of very extreme US precipitation events in a global atmosphere model

We investigate the ability of a global atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) to reproduce observed 20 year return values of the annual maximum daily precipitation totals over the continental United States as a function of horizontal resolution. We find that at the high resolutions enabled by contemporary supercomputers, the AGCM can produce values of comparable magnitude to high quality observations. However, at the resolutions typical of the coupled general circulation models used in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the precipitation return values are severely underestimated.     

Accurate real‐time hybrid earthquake simulations on large‐scale MDOF steel structure with nonlinear viscous dampers

This paper presents real‐time hybrid earthquake simulation (RTHS) on a large‐scale steel structure with nonlinear viscous dampers. The test structure includes a three‐story, single‐bay moment‐resisting frame (MRF), a three‐story, single‐bay frame with a nonlinear viscous damper and associated bracing in each story (called damped braced frame (DBF)), and gravity load system with associated seismic mass and gravity loads. To achieve the accurate RTHS results presented in this paper, several factors were considered comprehensively: (1) different arrangements of substructures for the RTHS; (2) dynamic characteristics of the test setup; (3) accurate integration of the equations of motion; (4) continuous movement of the servo‐controlled hydraulic actuators; (5) appropriate feedback signals to control the RTHS; and (6) adaptive compensation for potential control errors. Unlike most previous RTHS studies, where the actuator stroke was used as the feedback to control the RTHS, the present study uses the measured displacements of the experimental substructure as the feedback for the RTHS, to enable accurate displacements to be imposed on the experimental substructure. This improvement in approach was needed because of compliance and other dynamic characteristics of the test setup, which will be present in most large‐scale RTHS. RTHS with ground motions at the design basis earthquake and maximum considered earthquake levels were successfully performed, resulting in significant nonlinear response of the test structure, which makes accurate RTHS more challenging. Two phases of RTHS were conducted: in the first phase, the DBF is the experimental substructure, and in the second phase, the DBF together with the MRF is the experimental substructure. The results from the two phases of RTHS are presented and compared with numerical simulation results. An evaluation of the results shows that the RTHS approach used in this study provides a realistic and accurate simulation of the seismic response of a large‐scale structure with rate‐dependent energy dissipating devices. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new Lower Triassic (Induan) Jerus Limestone locality in northwest Pahang,Peninsular Malaysia: Conodont fauna,depositional and tectonic settings

Limestones exposed north of Raub, Pahang, Malaysia, and sandwiched between the Bentong‐Raub Suture Zone and the westernmost margin of the Sukhothai Arc terrane, yield a late Dienerian (late Induan) conodont fauna. The co‐occurrence of Neospathodus dieneri Sweet (morphotypes 1, 2 and 3) and Neospathodus pakistanensis Sweet represents the Neospathodus dieneri morphotype 3 sub‐zone of the Neospathodus dieneri Zone. The sampled limestones are interpreted as the northwards extension of the Jerus Limestone which crops out near Cheroh and Jerus villages, significantly extending the known outcrop of the Jerus Limestone northwards. The Jerus Limestone is interpreted as hemipelagic and formed in a foredeep or forearc setting on top of the accretionary complex formed by eastwards subduction of the Palaeo‐Tethys during the Lower to Middle Triassic.