Holocene-emerged notches and tectonic uplift along the Jalisco coast, Southwest Mexico

This paper presents the preliminary results from a study of Holocene-emerged shorelines, marine notches, and their tectonic implications along the Jalisco coast. The Pacific coast of Jalisco, SW Mexico, is an active tectonic margin. This coast has been the site of two of the largest earthquakes to occur in Mexico this century: the 1932 (Mw 8.2) Jalisco earthquake and the 1995 (Mw 8.0) Colima earthquake. Measurement and preliminary radiocarbon dating of emergent paleoshorelines along the Jalisco coast provide the first constraints upon the timing for tectonic uplift. Along this coastline, uplifted Holocene marine notches and wave-cut platforms occur at elevations ranging from ca. 1 to 4.5 m amsl. In situ intertidal organisms dated with radiocarbon, the first ever reported for the Jalisco area, provide preliminary results that record tectonic uplift during at least the past 1300 years BP at an average rate of about 3 mm/year. We propose a model in which coseismic subsidence produced by offshore earthquakes is rapidly recovered during the postseismic and interseismic periods. The long-term period is characterized by slow tectonic uplift of the Jalisco coast. We found no evidence of coastal interseismic and long-term subsidence along the Jalisco coast.     

Simulation of seismic response in a city-like environment

We study the seismic response of idealized 2D cities, constituted by non-equally spaced, non-equally sized homogenized blocks anchored in a soft layer overlying a hard half space. The blocks and soft layer are occupied by dissipative media. To simulate such response, we use an approximation of the viscoelastic modulus by a low-order rational function of frequency and incorporate this approximation into a first-order-in-time scheme. Our results display spatially variable, strong, long-duration responses inside the blocks and on the ground, which qualitatively match the responses observed in some earthquake-prone cities of Mexico, France, the USA, etc.     

Response of active tectonics on the alluvial Baghmati River, Himalayan foreland basin, eastern India

Active tectonics in a basin plays an important role in controlling a fluvial system through the change in channel slope. The Baghmati, an anabranching, foothills-fed river system, draining the plains of north Bihar in eastern India has responded to ongoing tectonic deformation in the basin. The relatively flat alluvial plains are traversed by several active subsurface faults, which divide the area in four tectonic blocks. Each tectonic block is characterized by association of fluvial anomalies viz. compressed meanders, knick point in longitudinal profiles, channel incision, anomalous sinuosity variations, sudden change in river flow direction, river flow against the local gradient and distribution of overbank flooding, lakes, and waterlogged area. Such fluvial anomalies have been identified on the repetitive satellite images and maps and interpreted through DEM and field observations to understand the nature of vertical movements in the area. The sub-surface faults in the Baghmati plains cut across the river channel and also run parallel which have allowed us to observe the effects of longitudinal and lateral tilting manifested in avulsions and morphological changes.     

Current states of stress in the northern Andes as indicated by focal mechanisms of earthquakes

Systematic inversion of double couple focal mechanisms of shallow earthquakes in the northern Andes reveals relatively homogeneous patterns of crustal stress in three main regions. The first region, presently under the influence of the Caribbean plate, includes the northern segment of the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia and the western flank of the Central Cordillera (north of 4°N). It is characterized by WNW–ESE compression of dominantly reverse type that deflects to NW–SE in the Merida Andes of Venezuela, where it becomes mainly strike–slip in type. A major bend of the Eastern thrust front of the Eastern Cordillera, near its junction with the Merida Andes, coincides with a local deflection of the stress regime (SW–NE compression), suggesting local accommodation of the thrust belt to a rigid indenter in this area. The second region includes the SW Pacific coast of Colombia and Ecuador, currently under the influence of the Nazca plate. In this area, approximately E–W compression is mainly reverse in type. It deflects to WSW–ENE in the northern Andes south of 4°N, where it is accommodated by right-lateral displacement of the Romeral fault complex and the Eastern front of the northern Andes. The third, and most complex, region is the area of the triple junction between the South American, Nazca and Caribbean plates. It reveals two major stress regimes, both mainly strike–slip in type. The first regime involves SW–NE compression related to the interaction between the Nazca and Caribbean plates and the Panama micro-plate, typically accommodated in an E–W left-lateral shear zone. The second regime involves NW–SE compression, mainly related to the interaction between the Caribbean plate and the North Andes block which induces left-lateral displacement on the Uramita and Romeral faults north of 4°N.Deep seismicity (about 150–170 km) concentrates in the Bucaramanga nest and Cauca Valley areas. The inversion reveals a rather homogeneous attitude of the minimum stress axis, which dips towards the E. This extension is consistent with the present plunge of the Nazca and Caribbean slabs, suggesting that a broken slab may be torn under gravitational stresses in the Bucaramanga nest. This model is compatible with current blocking of the subduction in the western northern Andes, inhibiting the eastward displacement of slabs, which are forced to break and sink in to the asthenosphere under their own weight.     

Earthquakes and soil liquefaction in flood stories of the ancient Near East

Flood stories in the Hebrew Bible and the Koran appear to be derived from earlier flood stories like those in the Gilgamesh Epic and still earlier in the Atrahasis. All would have their source from floods of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The Gilgamesh Epic magnifies the catastrophe by having the flood begin with winds, lightning, and a shattering of the earth, or earthquake. Elsewhere in Gilgamesh, an earthquake can be shown to have produced pits and chasms along with gushing of water. It is commonly observed that earthquake shaking causes water to gush from the ground and leaves pits and open fissures. The process is known as soil liquefaction. Earthquake is also a possible explanation for the verse “all the fountains of the great deep (were) broken up” that began the Flood in Genesis. Traditionally, the “great deep” was the ocean bottom. A more recent translation substitutes “burst” for “broken up” in describing the fountains, suggesting that they erupted at the ground surface and were caused by an earthquake with soil liquefaction. Another relation between soil liquefaction and the Flood is found in the Koran where the Flood starts when “water gushed forth from the oven”. Soil liquefaction observed erupting preferentially into houses during an earthquake provides a logical interpretation if the oven is seen as a tiny house. A case can be made that earthquakes with soil liquefaction are embedded in all of these flood stories.     

Clustering and visualization of earthquake data in a grid environment

We present a web client-server service WEB-IS, which we have developed for remote analysis and visualization of seismic data consisting of both small magnitude events and large earthquakes. We show that the problem-solving environment (PSE) intended for prediction of large magnitude earthquakes can be based on this WEB-IS idea. The clustering schemes, feature generation, feature extraction techniques and rendering algorithms form a computational framework of this environment. On the other hand, easy and fast access both to the seismic data distributed among distant computing resources and to computational and visualization resources can be realized in a GRID framework. We discuss the usefulness of NaradaBrokering (iNtegrated Asynchronous Real-time Adaptive Distributed Architecture) as a middleware, allowing for flexibility and high throughput for remote visualization of geophysical data. The WEB-IS functionality was tested both on synthetic and the actual earthquake catalogs. We consider the application of similar methodology for tsunami alerts.     

旅游业对石林县区域经济的影响与对策分析

随着西部大开发战略的深入实施,如何全面认识旅游业对西部经济落后地区经济的影响,成为旅游学界关注的热点问题之一。通过对石林县社会经济统计数据的综合分析以及实地调研,证实了旅游业对促进石林县国民经济总量扩大、推动产业结构高级化和带动相关产业发展等方面具有积极作用。同时,针对当前石林旅游内部结构和发展质量中存在的旅游产品单一、景区发展失衡和社区受益不足等主要问题,提出了以推动区域经济总体发展和带动农村居民脱贫作为旅游发展的两大基本任务和实现旅游产业增长模式从数量型向内涵型增长转变的基本思路,以及相应的对策。     

中小城市实施电子报批的总体方案研究

电子报批是规划管理部门实施信息化办公的一个重要方向和趋势,能够极大地提高规划管理部门办案的规范性、科学性、严密性和高效性。本文提出了中小城市实施电子报批的总体方案,并对系统建设的框架、功能、建设策略、实施模式等关键问题进行了深入地探讨。提出的策略和技术思路对中小城市实施电子报批有较好的指导意义。     

近岸Ⅱ类水体表层悬浮泥沙浓度遥感模式研究进展

因为具有明显的时间与空间分辨率优势,遥感数据成为近岸Ⅱ类水体悬浮泥沙浓度(SSC)信息提取研究的重要数据源之一.悬浮泥沙遥感信息提取的现状可归纳为:(1)建立近岸Ⅱ类水体SSC遥感模式的方法有三种类型,分别是基于地面光谱与SSC测量的反射率反演方法、基于图像信息法和基于大气辐射传输理论模型法;(2)基于地面测量的反射率反演方法属于理论与经验相结合的方法,也是目前用于SSC定量化遥感模式研究的常用方法.其数学表达形式包括线性关系式、对数关系式、负指数关系式、Gordon模式和综合模式等;(3)到目前为止已有的Ⅱ类水体SSC遥感模式适用性方面还不理想,远未达到与试验室分析相匹配的精度.文章认为:加强地面水文光谱实验研究,建立多光谱SSC定量模式,以高分辨率和高光谱遥感融合数据为基础的SSC定量遥感是今后该方向发展趋势.     

An efficient and robust approach to predict ship self-propulsion coefficients

Achieving a reliable and accurate numerical prediction of the self-propulsion performance of a ship is still an open problem that poses some relevant issues. Several CFD methods, ranging from boundary element methods (BEM) to higher-fidelity viscous Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) based solvers, can be used to accurately analyze the separate problems, i.e. the open water propeller and the hull calm water resistance. However, when the fully-coupled self-propulsion problem is considered, i.e. the hull advancing at uniform speed propelled by its own propulsion system, several complexities rise up. Typical flow simplifications adopted to speed-up the simulations of the single analysis (hull and propeller separately) lose their validity requiring a more complex solver to tackle the fully-coupled problem. The complexity rises up further when considering a maneuver condition. This aspect increases the computational burden and, consequently, the required time which becomes prohibitive in a preliminary ship design stage.The majority of the simplified methods proposed in literature to include propeller effects, without directly solve the propeller flow, in a high-fidelity viscous solver are not able to provide all the commonly required self-propulsion coefficients. In this work, a new method to enrich the results from a body force based approach is proposed and investigated, with the aim to reduce as much as possible the computational burden without losing any useful result. This procedure is tested for validation on the KCS hull form in self-propulsion and maneuver conditions.