Petrography of low rank coals with reference to liquefaction potential

Ten sub-bituminous coals were analyzed petrographically and chemically as part of a program by the Alberta Research Council to investigate the compositional properties of Alberta coals and relationship to liquefaction potential. In addition, four lignites, two from Saskatchewan and one each from Texas and North Dakota, were studied for comparative purposes. Liquefaction experiments were carried out on three of the Alberta coals and on density fractions of the two U.S. lignites. Petrographically the ten sub-bituminous coals could be divided into two populations; one with high huminite and liptinite contents (>90%) and one with substantially lower contents (70–75%). The two U.S. lignites showed huminite plus liptinite contents of less than 70% while the Saskatchewan coals were somewhat higher. Reflectance measurements on the sub-bituminous coals showed a range of 0.33 to 0.51 with a rough correlation to the ASTM rank designations of these coals. Reflectivities determined on the lignites were generally lower. Float-sink fractionation of the two U.S. lignites and two sub-bituminous coals showed enrichment of huminite and liptinite in the lighter fractions and inertinite and mineral matter in the heavier splits. Examination of the relationship between liquefaction yields and petrographic composition showed a rough positive correlation with huminite-liptinite content. Examination of liquefaction residues suggested total conversion of the liptinite, extensive conversion of huminite and possible partial conversion and reactivity of the semifusinite maceral of the inertinite group.     

Transport and economic development in the less-developed countries: Some reflections on the seaports of Kenya and Tanzania

The significant role of transport in the development of less-developed countries is widely accepted, but the critical importance of seaports is often under-appreciated. Evidence from the Indian Ocean ports of Kenya and Tanzania is used in this paper to illustrate and support the argument that efficient port operation is an essential contributory factor in the development process.     

An experimental investigation of volatile exsolution in evolving magma chambers

Previous laboratory experiments investigating the fluid dynamics of replenished magma chambers have been extended to model effects resulting from the release of gas. Turbulent transfer of heat between a layer of dense, hot and volatile-rich mafic magma overlying cooler more evolved magma can lead to crystallization and exsolution of volatiles in the lower layer. Small gas bubbles can cause the bulk density to decrease to that of the upper layer and thus produce sudden overturning and initiate mixing, followed by further exsolution of gas and explosive eruption. These processes have been modelled in the laboratory using a chemical reaction between sodium or potassium carbonate and nitric acid to release small bubbles of CO₂. We have investigated both the initial overturning produced by gas release in the lower layer, and the subsequent evolution of gas due to intimate mixing of the two layers. The latter experiments, in which the reactants remained isolated in the two layers until overturning occurred, demonstrated unambiguously that the fluxes of chemical components across the interfaces between convecting layers are very slow compared to the flux of heat. This shows that the evolution of layers of magma of different origins and composition can take place nearly independently of each other. The magmas can coexist in the same stratified chamber, until their bulk densities become equal and they mix together. The processes illustrated in these experiments could occur in H₂O-bearing magmas such as in the calcalkaline association and in CO₂-bearing mafic magmas such as in silica undersaturated suites.     

A rod-less piston corer for lake sediments; an improved, rope-operated percussion corer

A lightweight, percussion corer, suitable for use in remote lakes of moderate depth, is described. The operation of the corer and suggestions for securing and transporting long sediment cores are presented. In particular, the design and use of a recovery pot, which allows the retrieval of undisturbed cores from sediments of unknown depth, is detailed.     

Multiple suppression by 2D filtering in the parabolic τ–p domain: a wave-equation-based method1

The filter for wave-equation-based water-layer multiple suppression, developed by the authors in the x-t, the linear τ-p, and the f-k domains, is extended to the parabolic τ-2 domain. The multiple reject areas are determined automatically by comparing the energy on traces of the multiple model (which are generated by a wave-extrapolation method from the original data) and the original input data (multiples + primaries) in τ-p space. The advantage of applying the data-adaptive 2D demultiple filter in the parabolic τ-p domain is that the waves are well separated in this domain. The numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of such a dereverberation procedure. Filtering of multiples in the parabolic τ-p domain works on both the far-offset and the near-offset traces, while the filtering of multiples in the f-k domain is effective only for the far-offset traces. Tests on a synthetic common-shot-point (CSP) gather show that the demultiple filter is relatively immune to slight errors in the water velocity and water depth which cause arrival time errors of the multiples in the multiple model traces of less than the time dimension (about one quarter of the wavelet length) of the energy summation window of the filter. The multiples in the predicted multiple model traces do not have to be exact replicas of the multiples in the input data, in both a wavelet-shape and traveltime sense. The demultiple filter also works reasonably well for input data contaminated by up to 25% of random noise. A shallow water CSP seismic gather, acquired on the North West Shelf of Australia, demonstrates the effectiveness of the technique on real data.     

Comparison of acoustic instruments in an atmospheric turbulent flow over water

In the fall of 1968 an International Intercomparison Experiment was conducted to compare, among other things, acoustic anemometers designed for measurements of atmospheric turbulence. Excellent agreement was obtained in measurements of the vertical component, but an important discrepancy was revealed in measurements of the downwind velocity. The discrepancy proved far more significant in the cospectra than in the spectra themselves. It is evident that great care must be taken in the design of such instruments. An acoustic instrument was shown to have insufficient signal-to-noise ratio to serve as a thermometer under the near-neutral conditions often encountered over water.Comparison of the data-handling and data-analysis techniques showed that although the methods differed widely, the results were essentially identical.