Short‐term intertidal bar mobility on a ridge‐and‐runnel beach,Merlimont, northern France

Digital elevation models and topographic pro?les of a beach with intertidal bar and trough (ridge‐and‐runnel) morphology in Merlimont, northern France, were analysed in order to assess patterns of cross‐shore and longshore intertidal bar mobility. The beach exhibited a pronounced dual bar–trough system that showed cross‐shore stationarity. The bars and troughs were, however, characterized by signi?cant longshore advection of sand under the in?uence of suspension by waves and transport by strong tide‐ and wind‐driven longshore currents. Pro?le changes were due in part to the longshore migration of medium‐sized bedforms. The potential for cross‐shore bar migration appears to be mitigated by the large size of the two bars relative to incident wave energy, which is modulated by high vertical tidal excursion rates on this beach due to the large tidal range (mean spring tidal range = 8·3 m). Cross‐shore bar migration is also probably hindered by the well‐entrenched troughs which are maintained by channelled high‐energy intertidal ?ows generated by swash bores and by tidal discharge and drainage. The longshore migration of intertidal bars affecting Merlimont beach is embedded in a regional coastal sand transport pathway involving tidal and wind‐forced northward residual ?ows affecting the rectilinear northern French coast in the eastern English Channel. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Testing a statistical curve‐fitting procedure for quantifying sediment populations within multi‐modal particle‐size distributions

This paper describes a series of tests designed to evaluate the capacity of a personal computer (PC) based statistical curve‐fitting program called MIX to quantify composite populations within multi‐modal particle‐size distributions. Three natural soil samples were analysed by a Coulter Multisizer, and their particle‐size distributions analysed using MIX software to identify the modes, standard deviations and proportions of their composite populations. The particle‐size distributions of the three natural soil samples were then numerically combined in equal proportions using a spreadsheet program to create synthetic particle‐size distributions of known populations. MIX was then tested on the synthetic particle‐size distributions to see if the modes and proportions it identified were similar to those modes and proportions known to characterize the synthetic particle‐size distributions. The main outcome is that MIX can very accurately describe the modal particle size and proportions of the major composite populations within a particle‐size distribution. However MIX has difficulty in identifying small populations (those contributing <10 per cent of a total particle‐size distribution), particularly when they are located in the central sections of particle‐size distributions, overlain by larger populations, or when positioned in the fine tails of distributions. Despite these minor shortcomings, MIX is a valuable tool for the examination and interpretation of particle‐size data. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Knickpoint recession rate and catchment area: the case of uplifted rivers in Eastern Scotland

Knickpoint behaviour is a key to understanding both the landscape responses to a base‐level fall and the corresponding sediment fluxes from rejuvenated catchments, and must be accommodated in numerical models of large‐scale landscape evolution. Knickpoint recession in streams draining to glacio‐isostatically uplifted shorelines in eastern Scotland is used to assess whether knickpoint recession is a function of discharge (here represented by its surrogate, catchment area). Knickpoints are identified using DS plots (log slope versus log downstream distance). A statistically significant power relationship is found between distance of headward recession and catchment area. Such knickpoint recession data may be used to determine the values of m and n in the stream power law, E = KA^mSⁿ. The data have too many uncertainties, however, to judge definitively whether they are consistent with m = n = 1 (bedrock erosion is proportional to stream power and KPs should be maintained and propagate headwards) or m = 0·3, n = 0·7 (bedrock incision is proportional to shear stress and KPs do not propagate but degrade in place by rotation or replacement). Nonetheless, the E Scotland m and n values point to the dominance of catchment area (discharge) in determining knickpoint retreat rates and are therefore more consistent with the stream power law formulation in which bedrock erosion is proportional to stream power. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Postglacial topographic evolution of glaciated valleys: a stochastic landscape evolution model

The retreat of valley glaciers has a dramatic effect on the stability of glaciated valleys and exerts a prolonged influence on the subsequent fluvial sediment transport regime. We have studied the evolution of an idealized glaciated valley during the period following retreat of ice using a numerical model. The model incorporates a stochastic process to represent deep‐seated landsliding, non‐linear diffusion to represent shallow landsliding and an approximation of the Bagnold relation to represent fluvial sediment transport. It was calibrated using field data from several recent surveys within British Columbia, Canada. We present ensemble model results and compare them with results from a deterministic linear‐diffusion model to show that explicit representation of large landslides is necessary to reproduce the morphology and channel network structure of a typical postglacial valley. Our model predicts a rapid rate of fluvial sediment transport following deglaciation with a subsequent gradual decline, similar to that inferred for Holocene time. We also describe how changes in the model parameters affect the estimated magnitude and duration of the paraglacial sediment pulse. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of bed mobility on resistance to overland flow

When sediment grains are transported as bed load in overland flow, there is a net transfer of momentum from the flow to the grains. When these grains collide with other grains, whether on the bed or in the flow, streamwise flow velocity decreases and resistance to flow increases. Resistance to flow generated in this manner is termed bed‐load transport resistance. Resistance to flow f over a plane bed may be partitioned into grain resistance f_g and bed‐load transport resistance f_bt. We use the symbols f_btf and f_btm to denote f_bt for flows over fixed beds and over mobile beds, respectively, and we compute the effect of bed mobility on flow resistance f_mob by subtracting f_btf from f_btm. The data for this study come from 54 flume experiments with fixed beds and 38 with mobile beds. On average f_mob is approximately equal to half of f_btm, which is about one‐quarter of f. Hence, f_mob is about one‐tenth of f. Predictive equations are developed for f_btf, f_btm and f_mob using dimensional analysis to identify the relevant independent variables and regression analysis to evaluate the coefficients associated with these variables. Values of f_mob are always positive which implies that mobile beds offer greater resistance to flow than do fixed beds. Evidently bed‐load grains colliding with mobile beds lose more momentum to the bed than do grains colliding with fixed beds. In other words, grain collisions with mobile beds are less elastic than those with fixed beds. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effective number of cycles of earthquake ground motion

The seismic response of any system that accumulates damage under cyclic loading is dependent not only on the maximum amplitude of the motion but also its duration. This is explicitly recognized in methods for estimating the liquefaction potential of soil deposits. Many researchers have proposed that the effective number of cycles of the ground motion is a more robust indicator of the destructive capacity of the shaking than the duration. However, as is the case with strong‐motion duration, there is no universally accepted approach to determining the effective number of cycles of motion, and the different methods that have been proposed can give widely varying results for a particular accelerogram. Definitions of the effective number of cycles of motion are reviewed, classified and compared. Measurements are found to differ particularly for accelerograms with broad‐banded frequency content, which contain a significant number of non‐zero crossing peaks. The key seismological parameters influencing the number of cycles of motion and associated equations for predicting this quantity for future earthquakes are identified. Correlations between cycle counts and different duration measures are explored and found to be rather poor in the absence of additional parameters. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Magnetotelluric data inversion with seismic data constraint

Introduction The research on the structure and physical property of ancient hidden hill, igneous rocks and basement is relatively difficult by using seismic data only. If we combine seismic data, magneto-telluric (MT) data and geophysical data together, better results can be obtained for the above problem. A number of geophysicists at home and abroad, such as CHEN and WANG (1990), Siri-punvarapor and Egbert (2000) have tried many methods to solve the problem by the inversion of seismic da…     

Discussion on the dynamic mechanism of Great North China area based on the observed stress data

Introduction The Great North China, located at longitude 106E to 124E and latitude 31N to 42N, in-cludes three secondary active tectonic blocks, Ordos, Yanshan and North China plain (Figure 1). The geological tectonics of these three secondary blocks is much different from each other. As a stable block with high rigidity, the Ordos block is mostly surrounded by down-faulted basins with an inactive interior since Cenozoic, although the fault zones along its boundary are strongly active wi…     

Primary component analysis method and reduction of seismicity parameters

Introduction Data mining (SHAO and YU, 2003) is a new kind of technique developed with database and artificial intelligence in recent years, which processes the data in the database to abstract the im- plied and pre-unknown, but potentially useful information and knowledge from large amounts of incomplete, noisy, blurring and stochastic data. For data mining, data purging is an important link beforehand that includes eliminating noise, making up lost domain, and deleting ineffective data, as…     

Study on comparison between absolute and relative input energy spectra and effects of ductility factor

Introduction Estimation of an attenuation relationship for strong ground motion parameters has been an interesting research subject in the field of engineering seismology and has played a very important role in seismic safety evaluation, seismic zoning, seismic hazard evaluation of major constructions, etc. At present, the generally used parameters include peak acceleration, peak velocity and elastic response spectrum. Such parameters mentioned above are essentially independent of the duration…