Scattering from a fractal surface: acoustical experiments and comparison with near-nadir models

A homogeneous resin print of the surface of a naturally-fractured granite block with an experimental Hurst exponent H?0.7 is placed in a water tank. An acoustical source insonifies the surface in a near-nadir direction and the backscattered waves are recorded near the source. Such measurements are made at different positions along a profile above the surface in order to obtain the energy spectrum of the mean backscattered wavefield. The wavelength range considered is 0.58?λ?8.72 mm in water. A synthetic energy spectrum is obtained from a model [Shepard and Campbell, Icarus 141 (1999) 156] which represents the rough surface as an ensemble of point scatterers and assumes a single-scattering regime. This model reasonably fits with the experimental spectrum with the largest discrepancies observed for λ<2.5 mm. The fit is improved in the whole wavelength interval by accounting for the long-range topography variations occurring along the averaging profile.     

Paleo-pole positions from martian magnetic anomaly data

Magnetic component anomaly maps were made from five mapping cycles of the Mars Global Surveyor's magnetometer data. Our goal was to find and isolate positive and negative anomaly pairs which would indicate magnetization of a single source body. From these anomalies we could compute the direction of the magnetizing vector and subsequently the location of the magnetic pole existing at the time of magnetization. We found nine suitable anomaly pairs and from these we computed paleo-poles that were nearly equally divided between north, south and mid-latitudes. These results suggest that during the existence of the martian main magnetic field it experienced several reversals and excursions.     

Geophysics For Slope Stability

A pre-requisite in slope stability analyses is that the internal structure and the mechanical properties of the soil or rock mass of the slope, are known or can be estimated with a reasonable degree of certainty. Geophysical methods to determine the internal structure of a soil or rock mass may be used for this purpose. Various geophysical methods and their merits for slope stability analyses are discussed. Seismic methods are often the most suitable because the measurements depend on the mechanical properties that are also important in the mechanical calculation of slope stability analyses. Other geophysical methods, such as electromagnetic, electric resistivity, self-potential, and gravity methods, may be useful to determine the internal structure, but require a correlation of found boundaries with mechanical properties.     

Post‐stack stratigraphic inversion workflow applied to carbon dioxide storage: application to the saline aquifer of Sleipner field‡

In the Norwegian North Sea, the Sleipner field produces gas with a high CO₂ content. For environmental reasons, since 1996, more than 11 Mt of this carbon dioxide (CO₂) have been injected in the Utsira Sand saline aquifer located above the hydrocarbon reservoir. A series of seven 3D seismic surveys were recorded to monitor the CO₂ plume evolution. With this case study, time‐lapse seismics have been shown to be successful in mapping the spread of CO₂ over the past decade and to ensure the integrity of the overburden. Stratigraphic inversion of seismic data is currently used in the petroleum industry for quantitative reservoir characterization and enhanced oil recovery. Now it may also be used to evaluate the expansion of a CO₂ plume in an underground reservoir. The aim of this study is to estimate the P‐wave impedances via a Bayesian model‐based stratigraphic inversion. We have focused our study on the 1994 vintage before CO₂ injection and the 2006 vintage carried out after a CO₂ injection of 8.4 Mt. In spite of some difficulties due to the lack of time‐lapse well log data on the interest area, the full application of our inversion workflow allowed us to obtain, for the first time to our knowledge, 3D impedance cubes including the Utsira Sand. These results can be used to better characterize the spreading of CO₂ in a reservoir. With the post‐stack inversion workflow applied to CO₂ storage, we point out the importance of the a priori model and the issue to obtain coherent results between sequential inversions of different seismic vintages. The stacking velocity workflow that yields the migration model and the a priori model, specific to each vintage, can induce a slight inconsistency in the results.     

金苞花组培苗安全养护的气候环境条件

本文以金苞花为例,尝试了组培苗从试管内到自然条件下安全养护的小气候环境模拟并获得成功,提出了“关键阶段,过渡阶段和适应阶段”的三段安全养护措施及其相应的气象条件。这对名贵花卉的商业性生产是有意义的。     

成都城市发展对气候影响的初步探讨

本文通过成都城市发展前后气候要素变化的对比分析,探索了城市化对成都市气候影响的基本规律,并用统计方法得出了城市“热岛”强度(△T,△Tmin)与城市人口总户数及建成区面积密切相关的客观事实,为改善和治理成都城市气候提供了一定的依据。     

Tomography of the Earth’s core using supernova neutrinos

We investigate the possibility to use the neutrinos coming from a future galactic supernova explosion to perform neutrino oscillation tomography of the Earth’s core. We propose to use existing or planned detectors, resulting in an additional payoff. Provided that all of the discussed uncertainties can be reduced as expected, we find that the average matter densities of the Earth’s inner and outer cores could be measured with a precision competitive with geophysics. However, since seismic waves are more sensitive to matter density jumps than average matter densities, neutrino physics would give partly complementary information.     

城市地球物理学发展展望

目前，全球50％以上的人口生活在地球表面不到1％的面积上，城市化是当今全球发展的重要趋势。人类活动是生物圈中最重要的活动之一。半个世纪以来，人类活动的重要特征就是人口的城市化。作为传统地球物理学的一个新的发展领域，城市地球物理学就应运而生了。城市面临的环境问题和灾害减轻问题，都要求发展城市地下三维地图的科学基础。地下三维地图既是城市地球物理学的核心科学问题，也是我国地球物理学家面临的挑战和机遇。城市地球物理是地球物理学新的发展领域。     

Tidal encounters of ellipsoidal granular asteroids with planets

We investigate planetary fly-bys of asteroids using an approximate volume-averaged method that offers a relatively simple, but very flexible, approach to study the rotational dynamics of ellipsoids. The asteroid is considered to be a deformable, prolate ellipsoid, with its interior being modeled as a rigid-granular material. Effects due to the asteroid's rotation, its self-gravity and gravitational interaction with the planet are included. Using a simplified approach allows us to explore in detail the mechanics of asteroid's deformations and disruptions during planetary encounters. We also compare our results with those obtained by Richardson et al. [Richardson, D.C., Bottke Jr., W.F., Love, S.G., 1998. Icarus 134, 47-76] who used a large numerical code. We find that many of the features reported by them can indeed be captured by our rather simple methodology, and we discuss the reasons why some of our results differ from theirs.     

Planetary dynamos: effects of electrically conducting flows overlying turbulent regions of magnetic field generation

A fully three-dimensional, nonlinear, time-dependent, multi-layered spherical kinematic dynamo model is used to study the effect on the observable external magnetic field of flow in an electrically conducting layer above a spherical turbulent dynamo region in which the α effect generates the magnetic field. It is shown that the amplitude and structure of an observable planetary magnetic field are largely determined by the magnitude and structure of the flow in the overlying layer. It is also shown that a strong-field planetary dynamo can be readily produced by the effect of an electrically conducting flow layer at the top of a convective core. The overlying layer and the underlying convective region constitute a magnetically strongly coupled system. Such overlying layers might exist at the top of the Earth's core due to chemical or thermal causes, in the cores of other terrestrial planets for similar reasons, and in Saturn due to the differentiation of helium from hydrogen. An electrically conducting and differentially rotating layer could exist above the metallic hydrogen region in Jupiter and affect the jovian magnetic field similar to the overlying layers in other planets. Lateral temperature gradients resulting in thermal winds drive the flow in the overlying layers. All planetary magnetic fields could be maintained by similar turbulent convective dynamos in the field-generation regions of planets with the differences among observable magnetic fields due to different circulations in the overlying electrically conducting layers.