The geological evolution of the Gangpur Schist Belt,eastern India: Constraints on the formation of the Greater Indian Landmass in the Proterozoic

The Central Indian Tectonic Zone (CITZ) is a Proterozoic suture along which the Northern and Southern Indian Blocks are inferred to have amalgamated forming the Greater Indian Landmass. In this study, we use the metamorphic and geochronological evolution of the Gangpur Schist Belt (GSB) and neighbouring crustal units to constrain crustal accretion processes associated with the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Indian Blocks. The GSB sandwiched between the Bonai Granite pluton of the Singhbhum craton and granite gneisses of the Chhotanagpur Gneiss Complex (CGC) links the CITZ and the North Singhbhum Mobile Belt. New zircon age data constrain the emplacement of the Bonai Granite at 3,370 ± 10 Ma, while the magmatic protoliths of the Chhotanagpur gneisses were emplaced at c. 1.65 Ga. The sediments in the southern part of the Gangpur basin were derived from the Singhbhum craton, whereas those in the northern part were derived dominantly from the CGC. Sedimentation is estimated to have taken place between c. 1.65 and c. 1.45 Ga. The Upper Bonai/Darjing Group rocks of the basin underwent major metamorphic episodes at c. 1.56 and c. 1.45 Ga, while the Gangpur Group of rocks were metamorphosed at c. 1.45 and c. 0.97 Ga. Based on thermobarometric studies and zircon–monazite geochronology, we infer that the geological history of the GSB is similar to that of the North Singhbhum Mobile Belt with the Upper Bonai/Darjing and the Gangpur Groups being the westward extensions of the southern and northern domains of the North Singhbhum Mobile Belt respectively. We propose a three‐stage model of crustal accretion across the Singhbhum craton—GSB/North Singhbhum Mobile Belt—CGC contact. The magmatic protoliths of the Chhotanagpur Gneisses were emplaced at c. 1.65 Ga in an arc setting. The earliest accretion event at c. 1.56 Ga involved northward subduction and amalgamation of the Upper Bonai Group with the Singhbhum craton followed by accretion of the Gangpur Group with the Singhbhum craton–Upper Bonai Group composite at c. 1.45 Ga. Finally, continent–continent collision at c. 0.96 Ga led to the accretion of the CGC with the Singhbhum craton–Upper Bonai Group–Gangpur Group crustal units, synchronous with emplacement of pegmatitic granites. The geological events recorded in the GSB and other units of the CITZ only partially overlap with those in the Trans North China Orogen and the Capricorn Orogen of Western Australia, indicating that these suture zones are not correlatable.     

Hydroclimatic significance of stable isotopes in precipitation from glaciers of Garhwal Himalaya,Upper Ganga Basin (UGB), India

Stable isotopic composition of precipitation as preserved in continental proxy climate archives (e.g., ice cores, lacustrine sediments, tree rings, groundwater, and organic matter) can sensitively record fluctuations in local meteorological variables. These are important natural climatic tracers to understand the atmospheric circulation patterns and hydrological cycle and to reconstruct past climate from archives. Precipitation was collected at Dokriani Glacier to understand the response of glaciers to climate change in the Garhwal Central Himalaya, Upper Ganga Basin. The local meteoric water line deviates from the global meteoric water line and is useful for the identification of moisture source in the region. The data suggest different clusters of isotopic signals, that is, summer (June–September) and winter (November–April); the mean values of δ¹⁸O, δD, and d ‰ during summer are ?13.03‰, ?84.49‰, and 19.78 ‰, respectively, whereas during winter, the mean values of δ¹⁸O, δD, and d ‰ are ?7.59‰, ?36.28‰, and 24.46 ‰, respectively. Backward wind trajectory analysis ascertains that the major source of precipitation during summer is from the Indian Summer Monsoon and during winter from the westerlies. Regression analysis has been carried out in order to establish interrelationship between the precipitation isotopic signatures and meteorological variables such as air temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation. Temperature and precipitation have good correlation with the isotopic signatures of precipitation with R² values >.5, suggesting that both temperature and amount effects prevail in the study region. Multiple regression analysis found strong relationships for both the seasons. The relationship of deuterium excess with δ¹⁸O, relative humidity, and precipitation are significant for the winter season. No significant relationships of deuterium excess were found with other meteorological variables such as temperature and radiation. The correlation and regression analysis performed are significant and valuable for interpretation of processes in the hydrological cycle as well as for interpretation of palaeoclimate records from the region.     

Biodiversity Information System for North East India

Abstract

Biodiversity is the variety and variability of flora and fauna in an ecosystem. Articulated into genes, species, and ecosystem, it provides the biological plasticity needed by life on the earth to adapt changes. As we approach towards the forthcoming century, the earth's diversity of life is increasingly at risk through a combination of mostly human induced factors leading to erosion of genetic resources, extinction of species and collapse of ecological systems. Insitu conservation, biotechnology tools for conservation and prospecting, species habitat relationship and following evolutionary process of speciation are some of the challenges. India being one of the mega biodiversity centers of the world is also known for its traditional knowledge of conservation. The varied regions of the country, with unique floristic and faunal richness, their vastness, endemism, heterogeneity and also inaccessibility of large areas have necessitated creation of authentic baseline database on biodiversity. With the advent of Internet based Geographic Information System technology an effort is being made to harness the power of these technologies to facilitate biodiversity conservation.

The information system organizes the data base generated under the project on “Biodiversity Characterization at landscape level using remote sensing and Geographic Information System in North East India” of the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Space, Government of India. The entire database is organized in object oriented relational database using Oracle as Backend and Visual Basic, ASP as front end. The web enabling part comes through uploading the entire spatial and non‐spatial data at a common platform using ArcSDE and ArcIMS The spatial characterization of landscape structures and its linkages with attribute information on the floristic composition, economic valuation, endemism are presented in Biodiversity Information System on a sharable environment. It is a step to evolve with new a mechanism to conserve biological diversity at local, regional and national level.     

Utilities of Virtual 3D City Models Based on CityGML: Various Use Cases

Virtual 3D city models are increasingly being used to model the realms of the real world for utilization in a number of applications related to environmental simulations including, urban planning, mapping the energy characteristics of buildings, noise mapping, flood modelling, etc. Apart from geometric and appearance/textural information, these applications have a requirement for complex urban semantics. Currently, a number of 3D standards are available in CAD, BIM and GIS related domains for the storage, visualization and transfer of 3D geospatial datasets. Initially, the 3D data models (such as COLLADA, VRML, X3D, etc.) were purely graphical/geometrical in nature and mainly used for visualization purposes. With the inclusion of thematic modules in OGC CityGML, the integration of geometry and semantics in a single data model paved the way for better sharing of virtual 3D city models. In spite of the availability of a wide range of 3D data standards, there are certain differences with respect to geometry, topology, semantics, LODs, etc., which complicates the integration of 3D geodata from heterogeneous sources. This paper serves to highlights the need for the innovative solutions with respect to the urban environmental related simulations primarily based on the use of virtual 3D city models. Four use cases are studied in this context namely, (1) urban solar potential estimation using CityGML models, (2) simulation of traffic noise level mapped on building walls from the urban road segments, (3) CityGML based 3D data models interoperability, and (4) 3D indoor logistics and subsurface utilities. However, for modelling majority of use cases, CityGML does not provide explicit thematic representations but provides support for extending the CityGML schema using Application Domain Extensions. In a nutshell, the study explores the semantic modelling capabilities of the CityGML for the transformation of native 3D virtual city models to one satisfying capabilities like semantic information and support towards interoperability.     

Nonlinear elastic analysis of shallow footings subjected to eccentric inclined loads

In this study, the behaviour of shallow foundations subjected to eccentric inclined loads is presented using nonlinear elastic finite element analysis. The material non-linearity of the soil has been taken into consideration by employing the hyperbolic stress-strain model. The formulation of an isoparametric interface/joint element which is used between footing base and soil media has been presented. Tests have been conducted to determine the characteristics of soil-footing interface. Forty cases of strip footing resting on sand and subjected to eccentric-inclined load which were studied by Agrawal (1986) through model tests, have been analysed. The predicted pressure-settlement, pressure-horizontal displacement and pressure-tilt characteristics have been compared with experimental results of Agrawal (1986) and a reasonable agreement between the two has been observed.     

Evaluation of digital elevation models for delineation of hydrological response units in a Himalayan watershed

This study reports results from evaluation of the quality of digital elevation model (DEM) from four sources viz. topographic map (1:50,000), Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) (90 m), optical stereo pair from ASTER (15 m) and CARTOSAT (2.5 m) and their use in derivation of hydrological response units (HRUs) in Sitla Rao watershed (North India). The HRUs were derived using water storage capacity and slope to produce surface runoff zones. The DEMs were evaluated on elevation accuracy and representation of morphometric features. The DEM derived from optical stereo pairs (ASTER and CARTOSAT) provided higher vertical accuracies than the SRTM and topographic map-based DEM. The SRTM with a coarse resolution of 90 m provided vertical accuracy but better morphometry compared to topographic map. The HRU maps derived from the fine resolution DEM (ASTER and CARTOSAT) were more detailed but did not provide much advantage for hydrological studies at the scale of Sitla Rao watershed (5800 ha).     

Pressure–settlement characteristics of rectangular footings on reinforced sand

A method has been proposed to obtain the pressure–settlement characteristics of rectangular footings resting on reinforced sand based on constitutive laws of soils. The confining effect of the reinforcement provided in the soil at different layers has been incorporated in the analysis by considering the equivalent stresses generated due to friction at the soil– reinforcement interface. The prerequisite of the method is the value of ultimate bearing capacity, which can be obtained from the approaches already available in literature. The value of settlement may be read directly from pressure–settlement curves for the given pressure intensity. Therefore, the rectangular footing resting on reinforced sand can be proportioned satisfying shear failure and settlement criteria.     

Development of CityGML Application Domain Extension for Indoor Routing and Positioning

CityGML is an open data model for storage and exchange of 3D city models. It is categorised into thirteen thematic classes, i.e., buildings, tunnels, bridges, etc., lacking the other themes such as indoor routing and positioning. With the amplified use of indoor routing and positioning, the need for prerequisite notion of detailed semantic, as well as geometric information of the 3D building data has grown. We intend to extend the CityGML schema to add attributes of indoor features using the facility of Application Domain Extension (ADE) provided by the OGC CityGML 2.0. In this study, we aim to showcase the formation of Indoor Routing and Positioning ADE along with the process concerning its development, such as the 3D model design, network dataset creation, routing, positioning and Unified Modeling Language based ADE application schema generation. This research would help the users to easily store and exchange 3D city data on which they can perform routing and positioning inside the buildings with enhanced semantic and geometric properties.     

Markov random field-based method for super-resolution mapping of forest encroachment from remotely sensed ASTER image

Forest encroachment (FE) is a problem in Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) in India for environment and planning. Small gaps created in the forest slowly expand its periphery disturbing the biodiversity. Therefore, intrusion of poachers, slash and burn and other factors causing FE must be carefully detected and monitored. Remote sensing offers a great opportunity to accomplish this task because of its synoptic view. Conventional classification methods with remotely sensed images are problematic because of small size of FE and mixed landcover composition. This study presents an application of super-resolution mapping (SRM) based on Markov random field for detection of FE using ASTER (15 m) images. The SRM results were validated using multispectral IRS LISS-IV (5.8 m) image. Non-contiguous FE patches of various sizes and shapes are characterized using the spatial contextual information. The novelty of this approach lies in the identification and separability of small FE pockets which could not be achieved with pixel-based maximum likelihood classifier (MLC). The SRM parameters were optimized and found comparable to previous studies. Classification accuracy obtained with SRM at scale factor 3 is κ = 0.62 that is superior to accuracy of MLC (κ = 0.51). SRM is a promising tool for detection and monitoring of FE at Rutland Island in ANI, India.