Rockfall hazards increase the risk of train derailment along railway corridors in western Canada. In this study, repeated terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) datasets were collected every 2–3 months at three different sites along the Thompson and Fraser River corridors in British Columbia, referred to as the Goldpan, White Canyon, and Mile 109 sites. A total of 207 rockfall events occurring across all three sites between November 11, 2014 and October 18, 2016 were recorded in a database. For each of these rockfalls, pre-failure deformation was measured using a method of three-dimensional roto-translation block tracking. Each rockfall was classified by its deformation behaviour and further categorised based on failure mechanism, volume, lithology, and the roughness condition of the failure plane. Results reveal that detectable levels of deformation were measured in 33% of the total number of rockfall events using the present methods. Rotation deformation was most commonly observed in toppling failures with relatively steep joint orientations. Conversely, planar sliding blocks generally exhibited the least measurable deformation, with the majority not showing any precursory translation or rotation. It is postulated that overhanging rockfall configurations may suppress the expression of deformation in rockfall source blocks, though additional research is required to confirm this. 相似文献
Natural Hazards - We identify 14 mechanisms, marine and non-marine, one man made, that result and could result in the formation of boulder deposits after reviewing issues associated with clast... 相似文献
Renewable energy curtailment is a critical issue in China, impeding the country’s transition to clean energy and its ability to meet its climate goals. This paper analyzes the impacts of more flexible coal-fired power generation and improved power dispatch towards reducing wind power curtailment. A unit commitment model for power dispatch is used to conduct the analysis, with different scenarios demonstrating the relative impacts of more flexible coal-fired generation and improved power dispatch. Overall, while we find both options are effective in reducing wind power curtailment, we find that improved power dispatch is more effective: (1) the effect of ramping down coal-fired generators to reduce wind power curtailment lessens as the minimum output of coal-fired generation is decreased; and (2) as a result, at higher wind capacity levels, wind curtailment is much more significantly reduced with improved power dispatch than with decreased minimum output of coal-fired generation.
Key policy insights
China should emphasize both coal power flexibility and dispatch in its policies to minimize renewable power curtailment and promote clean energy transition.
China should accelerate the process of implementing spot market and marginal cost-based economic dispatch, while making incremental improvements to the existing equal share dispatch in places not ready for spot market.
A key step in improving of dispatch is incorporating renewable power forecasts into the unit commitment process and updating the daily unit commitment based on the latest forecast result.
China should expand the coal power flexibility retrofit programme and promote the further development of the ancillary service market to encourage more flexibility from coal-fired generation.
Subsurface deformation is a driver for river path selection when deformation rates become comparable to the autogenic mobility rate of rivers. Here we combine geomorphology, soil and sediment facies analyses, and geophysical data of the Late Quaternary sediments of the central Garo-Rajmahal Gap in Northwest Bengal to link subsurface deformation with surface processes. We show variable sedimentation characteristics, from slow rates (<0.8 mm/year) in the Tista megafan at the foot of the Himalaya to nondeposition at the exposed surface of the Barind Tract to the south, enabling the development of mature soils. Combined subsidence in the Tista fan and uplift of the Barind Tract are consistent with a N-S flexural response of the Indian plate to loading of the Himalaya Mountains given a low value of elastic thickness (15–25 km). Provenance analysis based on bulk strontium concentration suggests a dispersal of sediment consistent with this flexural deformation—in particular the abandonment of the Barind Tract by a Pleistocene Brahmaputra River and the current extents of the Tista megafan lobes. Overall, these results highlight the control by deeply rooted deformation patterns on the routing of sediment by large rivers in foreland settings. 相似文献
This article borrows a statistical method from physical geography—topographical prominence—to suggest a new technique for measuring the relative significance or rank of population centers. Unlike raw population measures, prominence gives consideration to both the spatial intensity of concentrated population areas as well as the spatial dependence or independence of neighboring settlement clusters in relation to one another. We explain how to apply the topographic prominence calculation method to gridded population data and examine its practical utility through case studies of several U.S. states. We then discuss some ways in which parametric choices about point-to-surface transformations can result in considerably different outcomes and offer further suggestions for conceptualizing and measuring population center significance. 相似文献
Small, steep, uplifting coastal watersheds are prolific sediment producers that contribute significantly to the global marine
sediment budget. This study illustrates how sedimentation evolves in one such system where the continental shelf is largely
sediment-starved, with most terrestrial sediment bypassing the shelf in favor of deposition in deeper basins. The Santa Barbara–Ventura
coast of southern California, USA, is considered a classic area for the study of active tectonics and of Tertiary and Quaternary
climatic evolution, interpretations of which depend upon an understanding of sedimentation patterns. High-resolution seismic-reflection
data over >570 km2 of this shelf show that sediment production is concentrated in a few drainage basins, with the Ventura and Santa Clara River
deltas containing most of the upper Pleistocene to Holocene sediment on the shelf. Away from those deltas, the major factor
controlling shelf sedimentation is the interaction of wave energy with coastline geometry. Depocenters containing sediment
5–20 m thick exist opposite broad coastal embayments, whereas relict material (bedrock below a regional unconformity) is exposed
at the sea floor in areas of the shelf opposite coastal headlands. Locally, natural hydrocarbon seeps interact with sediment
deposition either to produce elevated tar-and-sediment mounds or as gas plumes that hinder sediment settling. As much as 80%
of fluvial sediment delivered by the Ventura and Santa Clara Rivers is transported off the shelf (some into the Santa Barbara
Basin and some into the Santa Monica Basin via Hueneme Canyon), leaving a shelf with relatively little recent sediment accumulation.
Understanding factors that control large-scale sediment dispersal along a rapidly uplifting coast that produces substantial
quantities of sediment has implications for interpreting the ancient stratigraphic record of active and transform continental
margins, and for inferring the distribution of hydrocarbon resources in relict shelf deposits. 相似文献
An experimental parametric study of a novel air-assisted platform-type model called power-augmented ram vehicle is described. The zero-speed regimes of the model over the water are investigated. The recovered thrust, pressure underneath the platform, and the model attitude are recorded for variable system geometry, loading conditions, and propulsor thrust. The stern flap under the model platform provides an effective mechanism for controlling the thrust recovery and the air-jet-induced lift. Unstable behavior of the model is found at sufficiently high levels of the propulsor thrust. 相似文献