Travel-time residuals and three-dimensional velocity structure of Italy

Jeffreys-Bullen P and PKP travel-time residuals observed at more than 50 seismic stations distributed along Italy and surrounding areas in the time interval 1962–1979, indicate the complex velocity pattern of this region. Strong lateral velocity inhomogeneities and low velocity zones are required to explain the observed pattern of residuals. In particular, late arrivals of about 1 sec are observed in the Apenninic mountain range, requiring both greater crustal thickness and low velocity layers, coherent with seismic refraction data and surface wave dispersion measurements. The seismic stations located in the Western and Eastern Alps indicate the presence of high velocities. In the Western Alps the strong azimuthal variation of residuals and the high values of early arrivals have a close relationship to the Ivrea body, an intrusive crustal complex characterized by a velocity as high as 7–7.2 km/sec.A travel-time inversion performed with theAki et al. (1977) block model, confirms the peculiar characteristics and the sharp variations in the lithosphere of the whole Italian region, with values of velocity perturbations between many adjacent blocks, ranging in size from 50 to 100 km, and independent from the earth parametrization chosen, reaching values up to 10% in the lithospheric part and 5% in the asthenosphere. 3-D inversion requires also high velocity along the Tyrrhenian coastal margin, equivalent to an uprise of major crustal and lithospheric discontinuities along this part of the Italian peninsula. Moreover low velocity material must be present in the northern part of the Adriatic foreland, in the lithosphere-asthenosphere system, closely related to the stress and seismicity pattern, and the lateral bending of the lithosphere in the same region.     

利用噪声记录估计福建地区中上地壳体波速度结构

In this paper,the dispersion curves of the Rayleigh wave and Love wave were extracted from the seismic noise records of 25 broadband stations of the Fujian Seismic Network, and inverted for the lithosphere velocity structure. Furthermore,the velocity model was verified by the seismic explosion observations. Our results indicate that the resolution of the lithosphere velocity structure obtained by this method is good in the shallow part,but in the deep part,inversion accuracy for the wave velocity structure is low,which is caused mainly by the small inter-station distance chosen in the paper. Thus the wave dispersion curves have high accuracy in the short-period part,but the warp of the wave dispersion curve in long-period part is large. Considering the results from both the noise inversion and the traditional inversion,we finally present a new velocity model,and the theoretical travel time calculated with the new model matches the explosion travel time very well.     

低孔隙度泥页岩应力依赖的各向异性裂纹演化特性研究

本文在实验室对所获取的东营地区层理发育的低孔隙度页岩和泥岩的各向异性裂纹演化特性进行了研究, 获得了各向同性条件下泥页岩的力学与超声波响应特性, 分析了应力幅度对于页岩声波速度和各向异性的影响.主要结论包括:(1)泥页岩在循环载荷下存在滞后效应, 表明其经历了去压实或油气产生导致的超压; (2)泥岩和页岩具有不同程度的各向异性, 随着各向同性压力的增高微裂隙逐渐闭合, 样品的各向异性程度减弱; (3)分析了岩石韧度和裂纹损伤参数随压力的变化特征, 相比泥岩, 页岩各向异性程度更高, 随压力变化更明显, 其裂纹导致的附加各向异性更强; (4)分析了各向异性岩石的动态弹性模量特征, 由于软裂隙空间的闭合, 动态弹性模量在低压条件下都随着围压的增加有硬化趋势.     

Influence of shallowness,bank inclination and bank roughness on the variability of flow patterns and boundary shear stress due to secondary currents in straight open-channels

Boundary shear stress and flow variability due to its interaction with main flow and secondary currents were investigated under conditions that extend previous research on trapezoidal channels. Secondary currents that scale with the flow depth were found over the entire width in all experiments. These findings contradict the widespread perception that secondary currents die out at a distance of 2.5 times the flow depth from the bank, a perception which is largely based on experiments with smooth boundaries. The reported results indicate that a stable pattern of secondary currents over the entire channel width can only be sustained over a fixed horizontal bed if the bed's roughness is sufficient to provide the required transverse oscillations in the turbulent shear stresses. Contrary to laboratory flumes, alluvial river bed always provide sufficient roughness. The required external forcing of this hydrodynamic instability mechanism is provided by the turbulence-generated near-bank secondary currents. The pattern of near-bank secondary currents depends on the inclination and the roughness of the bank. In all configurations, secondary currents result in a reduction of the bed shear stress in the vicinity of the bank and a heterogeneous bank shear stress that reaches a maximum close to the toe of the bank. Moreover, these currents cause transverse variability of 10–15% for the streamwise velocities and 0.2u_*²–0.3u_*?² for the bed shear stress. These variations are insufficient to provide the flow variability required in river restoration projects, but nevertheless must be accounted for in the design of stable channels.     

Reactive transport in stratified flow fields with idealized heterogeneity

A two-dimensional equation governing the steady state spatial concentration distribution of a reactive constituent within a heterogeneous advective–dispersive flow field is solved analytically. The solution which is developed for the case of a single point source can be generalized to represent analogous situations with any number of separate point sources. A limiting case of special interest has a line source of constant concentration spanning the domain’s upstream boundary. The work has relevance for improving understanding of reactive transport within various kinds of advection-dominated natural or engineered environments including rivers and streams, and bioreactors such as treatment wetlands. Simulations are used to examine quantitatively the impact that transverse dispersion (deviations from purely stochastic-convective flow) can have on mean concentration decline in the direction of flow. Results support the contention that transverse mixing serves to enhance the overall rate of reaction in such systems.     

Comparison of particle size characteristics of the Tertiary 'red clay' and Pleistocene loess in the Chinese Loess Plateau: implications for origin and sources of the 'red clay'

The origin of the Tertiary ‘red clay’ underlying the Pleistocene loess in the Chinese Loess Plateau remains controversial, although several lines of evidence have suggested a wind‐blown origin. This study examines the particle‐size parameters of the late Miocene and Pliocene ‘red clay’ by comparing it with those of the late Pleistocene loess. The particle‐size distribution of a total of 15 339 loess and 6394 ‘red clay’ samples taken from 12 loess sections along a north–south transect and two ‘red clay’ sequences at Lingtai and Jingchuan was systematically analysed. The median grain size, skewness and kurtosis of the late Pleistocene loess all show a systematic southward change and are principally influenced by distance from source region. The spatial and temporal differentiation of dust deposits is expressed in a skewness–kurtosis–median grain size ternary diagram, from which the distance to the source region can be inferred. The particle‐size characteristics of the Tertiary ‘red clay’ sediments are very similar to those of the palaeosols within the late Pleistocene loess deposits, suggesting an aeolian origin for the ‘red clay’. Based on the comparison of ‘red clay’ and loess in the ternary diagrams, it is inferred that the source–sink distance was greater in the Neogene than in the last and penultimate interglacials, and that the dust source region in north‐western China underwent a progressive expansion during the period from at least 7·0 Ma to the present.     

A Maastrichtian palaeomagnetic pole for the Pacific plate from a skewness analysis of marine magnetic anomaly 32

The asymmetry (skewness) of marine magnetic anomaly 32 (72.1–73.3  Ma) on the Pacific plate has been analysed in order to estimate a new palaeomagnetic pole. Apparent effective remanent inclinations of the seafloor magnetization were calculated from skewness estimates of 108 crossings of anomaly 32 distributed over the entire Pacific plate and spanning a great-circle distance of ~12  000  km. The data were inverted to obtain a palaeomagnetic pole at 72.1°N, 26.8°E with a 95 per cent confidence ellipse having a 4.0° major semi-axis oriented 98° clockwise of north and a 1.8° minor semi-axis; the anomalous skewness is 14.2° ± 3.7°. The possible dependence of anomalous skewness on spreading rate was investigated with two empirical models and found to have a negligible effect on our palaeopole analysis over the range of relevant spreading half-rates, ~25 to ~90  mm  yr⁻¹ . The new pole is consistent with the northward motion for the Pacific plate indicated by coeval palaeocolatitude and palaeoequatorial data, but differs significantly from, and lies to the northeast of, coeval seamount poles. We attribute the difference to unmodelled errors in the seamount poles, mainly in the declinations. Comparison with the northward motion inferred from dated volcanoes along the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain indicates 13° of southward motion of the Hawaiian hotspot since 73  Ma. When the pole is reconstructed with the Pacific plate relative to the Pacific hotspots, it differs by 14°–18° from the position of the pole relative to the Indo–Atlantic hotspots. This has several possible explanations including bias in one or more of the palaeomagnetic poles, motion between the Pacific and Indo–Atlantic hotspots, and errors in plate reconstructions relative to the hotspots.     

The role of critical velocity ionization phenomena in the atmosphere of Io

The Alfvén's critical ionization velocity (CIV) have been observed in a number of laboratory and space experiments. In the Io-torus system, relative velocity of the plasma species in the torus with respect to the neutral species in the Io's atmosphere and neutral cloud exceeds the critical velocity required for CIV. Townsand condition is satisfied up to 6r _io , in the neutral cloud when Io passes through the torus. In this paper it is shown that during the passage of Io through the plasma torus, apart from critical velocity and Townsand condition, a number of other requirements are also satisfied. Therefore, it is concluded that, the CIV mechanism must play an important role in ionizing the neutral cloud and enriching the plasma torus.     

Geometrical characteristics of phase and group velocity surfaces in anisotropic media

The phase and group velocity surfaces are essential for wave propagation in anisotropic media. These surfaces have certain features that, especially, for shear waves result in complications for modelling and inversion of recorded wavefields. To analyse wave propagation in an anisotropic model, it is important to identify these features in both the phase and group domains. We propose few characteristics for this analysis: the energy flux angle, decomposed in the polar and azimuth angle correction angles and enhancement factor, which is able to characterize both singularity points and triplication zones. The very simple equation that controls the triplications is derived in the phase domain. The proposed characteristics are illustrated for elastic and acoustic anisotropic models of different symmetry classes.