Variability in Early Amazonian Tharsis stress state based on wrinkle ridges and strike-slip faulting

We present evidence for a decrease in the magnitude of Tharsis-circumferential compressive stress during the Late Hesperian to the Middle Amazonian based on chronologic changes in the predominant style of faulting in southern Amazonis Planitia. Using high-resolution MOLA topography, we identify a population of strike-slip faults that exhibit Middle Amazonian-aged displacements of regional chrono-stratigraphic units. These strike-slip faults are adjacent to an older population of previously documented Late Hesperian-aged thrust faults (wrinkle ridges). Along-strike orientations of these thrust and strike-slip faults reveal the Tharsis-radial stress to be the area's most compressive remote principal stress and that this stress orientation and magnitude persisted throughout the Late Hesperian to the Middle Amazonian. We show that the change in the predominant style of faulting from thrust faulting to strike-slip faulting during this time requires a decrease of the Tharsis-circumferential compressive stress to a magnitude less than lithostatic load, with negligible change in stress orientation.     

Early Jurassic rift structures associated with the Soapaga and Boyacá faults of the Eastern Cordillera, Colombia: Sedimentological inferences and regional implications

The NW-trending Bucaramanga fault links, at its southern termination, with the Soapaga and Boyacá faults, which by their NW trend define an ample horsetail structure. As a result of their Neogene reactivation as reverse faults, they bound fault-related anticlines that expose the sedimentary fill of two Early Jurassic rift basins. These sediments exhibit the wedge-like geometry of rift fills related to west-facing normal faults. Their structural setting was controlled further by segmentation of the bounding faults at approximately 10 km intervals, in which each segment is separated by a transverse basement high. Isopach contours and different facies associations suggest these transverse anticlines may have separated depocenters of their adjacent subbasins, which were shaped by a slightly different subsidence history and thereby decoupled. The basin fill of the relatively narrow basin associated with the Soapaga fault is dominated by fanglomeratic successions organized in two coarsening-upward cycles. In the larger basin linked to the Boyacá fault, the sedimentary fill consists of two coarsening-upward sequences that, when fully developed, vary from floodplain to alluvial fan deposits. These Early Jurassic rift fills temporally constrain the evolution of the Bucaramanga fault, which accommodated right-lateral displacement during the early Mesozoic rift event.     

On the Importance of Geolithological Features for the Estimate of the Site Response: The Case of Catania Metropolitan Area (Italy)

The evaluation of seismic site response in the urban area of Catania was tackled by selecting test areas having peculiar lithological and structural features, potentially favourable to large local amplifications of ground motion. The two selected areas are located in the historical downtown and in the northern part of Catania where the presence of a fault is evident. Site response was evaluated using spectral ratio technique taking the horizontal- to-vertical component ratio of ambient noise. Inferences from microtremor measurements are compared with results from synthetic accelerograms and response spectra computed at all drillings available for this area. Such method is particularly suitable in urban areas where the nature of the outcropping geological units is masked by city growth and anthropic intervention on the surface geology. The microtremor H/V spectral ratios evaluated at soft sites located within the downtown profile tend to be smaller than that usually reported in the literature for such soils. A tendency for amplifications to peaks near 2 Hz is observed only in some sites located on recent alluvial deposits. Evidences for amplifications of site effects (frequency range 4–8 Hz) were observed in the sampling sites located on the fault, with a rapid decrease of spectral amplitude just a few tenths of metres away from the discontinuity. Numerical simulations evidenced the importance of geolithological features at depth levels even greater than 20–30 m. Besides this, the results strongly confirm the importance of the subsurface geological conditions, in the estimate of seismic hazard at urban scale.     

2-D deformation of two welded half-spaces due to a blind dip-slip fault

The solution of two-dimensional problem of an interface breaking long inclined dip-slip fault in two welded half-spaces is well known. The purpose of this note is to obtain the corresponding solution for a blind fault. The solution is valid for arbitrary values of the fault-depth and the dip angle. Graphs showing the variation of the displacement field with the distance from the fault, for different values of fault depth and dip angle are presented. Contour maps showing the stress field around a long dip-slip fault are also obtained     

Surface pollen and its relationship to vegetation on the southern slope of the eastern Qilian Mountains

The objective of this study is to investigate pollen-vegetation relationship in the Qilian Mountains. The eastern Qilian Mountains are located in the transitional zone of the Tibetan Plateau, the Loess Plateau and the arid region of Northwest China, which is one of the key areas of global environmental change. A total of 13 surface pollen samples from main vegetation have been collected. Pollen percentages were calculated in all samples. In order to reveal the relationship between pollen composition and the vegetation types from which the soil samples have been collected, Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) ordination method was employed on the pollen data. The results show that dominating vegetation types can be recognized by their pollen spectra: Picea crassifolia forest, alpine shrub and alpine meadow as well. Altitude and temperature determine the distribution of the surface pollen and the vegetation. The good agreement between modern vegetation and surface samples across this area provides a measure of the reliability of using pollen data to reconstruct paleoenvironment and paleovegetation patterns in this or other similar regions. However the loss of Betula pollen in forest needs further investigation. Pollen oxidation is the most important factor contributing to the damage of modern pollen in the study area. Pollen concentrations decrease with the increase of pH values of soils, and decrease sharply when the pH exceeds 7.6.     

一种实现依比例街区自动合并的算法

针对依比例街区的图形特征，介绍了一种实现街区自动合并的有效算法，即利用数学形态学和模式识别对栅格数据进行追踪，然后提取街区轮廓线，编辑后就得到最终合并的街区。