城市地理研究中的单分形、多分形和自仿射分形

分形几何学在城市地理研究中具有广泛的应用,然而很多基本概念却让初学者感到迷惑。如何区分单分形、自仿射分形与多分形,是一个基本而重要的问题。简单分形容易理解,而真实的地理现象很少是单分形的。城市生长过程具有自仿射特征,而城市空间格局却具有多分形性质。作者发现,各种分形的共性在于三个方面：标度律、分数维和熵守恒。论文基于标度、分维和熵守恒公式,借助隐喻城市生长的规则分形来区分单分形、多分形和自仿射分形,讨论分形系统演化的机理、分形与空间自相关和空间异质性的联系,同时澄清一些在地理分形研究中的常见错误概念。最后以城市位序-规模分布为例,说明并对比单分形和多分形在城市地理研究中的建模与应用思路。     

京津冀城市用地形态的双分形特征及其演化

区域城乡一体化的标志之一是城镇体系结构的一体化,这个过程可以从标度的角度进行描述和评价。分形是标度分析的重要方法,地理空间无尺度分布特征的典型参数是分维。论文以京津冀城镇体系为例,利用遥感图像的解译数据和人口普查数据开展分形分析、位序-规模分布分析和异速标度分析,用以解释1995—2013年间京津冀城镇体系演化的过程。结果表明,京津冀城镇体系及其演化的特征有：①京津冀空间结构和位序-规模分布都表现为自仿射双分形结构;②京津冀区域的城市人口-城区面积异速标度退化为假线性关系;③随着城镇体系的演化,自仿射的双分形结构逐步向自相似分形结构演化。由此得出结论：其一,京津冀城镇体系存在结构性的不协调因素。其空间结构和等级结构具有二元化特征,但演化方向却呈现内在结构一体化的显著趋势。其二,大城市用地不够集约。城市边缘区的无序扩张导致土地利用铺张浪费。地方政府和规划专家可以有意识地利用城镇体系演化的这种特征和趋势制定管理措施和优化规划方案。     

Physics of fracturing and seismic energy release: A review

This review was prepared as an opening lecture for the International Symposium on Physics of Fracturing and Seismic Energy Release, held at the Castle of Liblice near Prague from October 28 to November 1, 1985, and organized by the Geophysical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The review attempts to classify and synthesize results of recent studies in fracture mechanics and earthquake source physics. The following topics are discussed: recent developments in fracture mechanics, earthquake source modeling, heterogeneous fault planes, foreshocks and aftershocks, faults and fractals, and moment tensor solutions. This rather broad range of topics prevents presentation of a complete list of all relevant works, though over one hundred and seventy references are cited.     

Bootstrapped discrete scale invariance analysis of geomagnetic dipole intensity

The technique of bootstrapped discrete scale invariance allows multiple time-series of different observables to be normalized in terms of observed and predicted characteristic timescales. A case study is presented using the SINT2000 time-series of virtual axial dipole moment, which spans the past 2 Myr. It is shown that this sequence not only bears a clear signature of a preferred timescale of about 55.6 Ka, but additionally predicts similar features (of shorter and longer duration) that are actually observed on the timescales of historical secular variation and dipole reversals, respectively. In turn, the latter two empirical sources both predict the characteristic timescale found in the dipole intensity sequence. These communal scaling characteristics suggest that a single underlying process could be driving dynamo fluctuations across all three observed timescales, from years to millions of years.     

Fractures: Finite-size scaling and multifractals

The distributions of contact area and void space in single fractures in granite rock have been determined experimentally by making metal casts of the void spaces between the fracture surfaces under normal loads. The resulting metal casts on 52 cm diameter core samples show a complex geometry for the flow paths through the fracture. This geometry is analyzed using finite-size scaling. The spanning probabilities and percolation probabilities of the metal casts are calculted as functions of observation scale. Under the highest stresses of 33 MPa and 85 MPa there is a significant size-dependence of the geometric flow properties for observation scales smaller than 2 mm. Based on this data, the macroscopic percolation properties of the extended fracture can be well represented by relatively small core samples, even under normal stresses larger than 33 MPa. The metal casts also have rich multifractal structure that changes with changing stress.     

Chaotic seismic faulting with a mass-spring model and velocity-weakening friction

We present a systematic analysis of the dynamical behavior introduced by fault zone heterogeneities, using a simple mass-spring model with velocity-weakening friction. The model consists of two sliding blocks coupled to each other and to a constant velocity driver by clastic springs. The state of this system can be characterized by the positions of the two blocks relative to the driver. Symmetry stabilizes the system and generates only cyclic behavior. For an asymmetric system where the frictional forces for the two blocks are not equal, the solutions exhibit chaotic behavior. The transition from stable cyclic behavior to chaos is characterized by the period-doubling route to chaos. Lyapunov exponents are computed to quantify the deterministic chaos and to locate the onset of the chaotic evolution in parameter space. In many examples of deterministic chaos, chaotic behavior of a low-order system implies chaos in similar higher order systems. Thus, our results provide substantial evidence that crustal deformation is an example of deterministic chaos.     

Multifractal modeling and spatial point processes

The multifractal model can be applied to spatial point processes. It provides new, approximately power-law type, expressions for their second-order intensity and K (r) functions. The box-counting and cluster dimensions are different but mutually interrelated according to multifractal theory. This approach is used to describe the underlying spatial structure of gold mineral occurrences in the Iskut River area, northwestern British Columbia. The box-counting and cluster dimensions for the example are estimated to be 1.335±0.077 and 1.219±0.037, respectively. The relatively strong clustering of the gold deposits is reflected by the fact that both values are considerably less than the corresponding Euclidean dimension (=2).