Internal soil moisture and piezometric responses to rainfall-induced shallow slope failures

Better knowledge regarding internal soil moisture and piezometric responses in the process of rainfall-induced shallow slope failures is the key to an effective prediction of the landslide and/or debris flow initiation. To this end, internal soil moisture and piezometric response of 0.7-m-deep, 1.5-m-wide, 1.7-m-high, and 3.94-m-long semi-infinite sandy slopes rested on a bi-linear impermeable bedrock were explored using a chute test facility with artificial rainfall applications. The internal response time defined by the inflection point of the soil moisture and piezometric response curves obtained along the soil–bedrock interface were closely related to some critical failure states, such as the slope toe failure and extensive slope failures. It was also found that the response times obtained at the point of abrupt bedrock slope decrease can be used as indicators for the initiation of rainfall-induced shallow slope failures. An investigation of spatial distributions of soil water content, ω (or degrees of saturation, S_r), in the slope at critical failure states shows that the 0.2 m – below – surface zone remains unsaturated with S_r 40–60%, regardless of their distances from the toe and the rainfall intensity. Non-uniform distributions of ω (or S_r) along the soil–bedrock interface at critical failure states were always associated with near-saturation states (S_r 80–100%) around the point of bedrock slope change or around the transient ‘toe’ upstream of the slumped mass induced by the retrogressive failure of the slope. These observations suggest the important role of the interflow along the soil–bedrock interface and the high soil water content (or high porewater pressure) around the point of bedrock slope deflection in the rainfall-induced failure of sandy slopes consisting of shallow impermeable bedrocks. The present study proposes an ‘internal response time’ criterion to substantiate the prediction of rainfall-induced shallow slope failures. It is believed that the ‘internal response time’ reflects the overall characteristics of a slope under rainfall infiltration and can be as useful as the conventional meteorology-based threshold times. The ‘internal response time’ theory can be generalized via numerical modeling of slope hydrology, slope geology and slope stability in the future.     

Low-frequency current variability observed at the shelfbreak in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico: November 2004–May 2005

Fourteen acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) were deployed on the shelf and slope for 1 year just west of the DeSoto Canyon in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) as part of its Slope to Shelf Energetics and Exchange Dynamics (SEED) project. The winter and spring observations are discussed here in regards to the low-frequency current variability and its relation to wind and eddy forcing. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analyses showed that two modes described most of the current variability. Wind-forced variability of the along-shelf flow was the main contributor in Mode 1 while eddies contributed much of the variability in Mode 2. Wind-stress controlled currents on the shelf and slope at time scales of about a week. On longer time scales, variations in the currents on both the outer shelf and slope appear to be related to seasonal variations in the time-cumulated wind stress curl. Winds were dominant in driving the along-shelf transports, particularly along the slope. However, the effective wind stress component was found to be aligned with the west Florida shelf direction rather than the local shelf direction. Eddy intrusions, which were more numerous in winter and spring than in summer and fall, and winds were found to contribute significantly to cross-shelf exchange processes.     

Numerical modeling of two-phase flow in heterogeneous permeable media with different capillarity pressures

Contrast in capillary pressure of heterogeneous permeable media can have a significant effect on the flow path in two-phase immiscible flow. Very little work has appeared on the subject of capillary heterogeneity despite the fact that in certain cases it may be as important as permeability heterogeneity. The discontinuity in saturation as a result of capillary continuity, and in some cases capillary discontinuity may arise from contrast in capillary pressure functions in heterogeneous permeable media leading to complications in numerical modeling. There are also other challenges for accurate numerical modeling due to distorted unstructured grids because of the grid orientation and numerical dispersion effects. Limited attempts have been made in the literature to assess the accuracy of fluid flow modeling in heterogeneous permeable media with capillarity heterogeneity. The basic mixed finite element (MFE) framework is a superior method for accurate flux calculation in heterogeneous media in comparison to the conventional finite difference and finite volume approaches. However, a deficiency in the MFE from the direct use of fractional flow formulation has been recognized lately in application to flow in permeable media with capillary heterogeneity. In this work, we propose a new consistent formulation in 3D in which the total velocity is expressed in terms of the wetting-phase potential gradient and the capillary potential gradient. In our formulation, the coefficient of the wetting potential gradient is in terms of the total mobility which is smoother than the wetting mobility. We combine the MFE and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods to solve the pressure equation and the saturation equation, respectively. Our numerical model is verified with 1D analytical solutions in homogeneous and heterogeneous media. We also present 2D examples to demonstrate the significance of capillary heterogeneity in flow, and a 3D example to demonstrate the negligible effect of distorted meshes on the numerical solution in our proposed algorithm.     

Quantification of spatial gradation of slope positions

Transition between slope positions (e.g., ridge, shoulder slope, back slope, foot slope, and valley) is often gradual. Quantification of spatial transitions or spatial gradations between slope positions can increase the accuracy of terrain parameterization for geographical or ecological modeling, especially for digital soil mapping at a fine scale. Current models for characterizing the spatial gradation of slope positions based on a gridded DEM either focus solely on the parameter space or depend on too many rules defined by topographic attributes, which makes such approaches impractical. The typical locations of a slope position contain the characteristics of the slope position in both parameter space and spatial context. Thus, the spatial gradation of slope positions can be quantified by comparing terrain characteristics (spatial and parametrical) of given locations to those at typical locations. Based on this idea, this paper proposes an approach to quantifying the spatial gradation of slope positions by using typical locations as prototypes. This approach includes two parts: the first is to extract the typical locations of each slope position and treat them as the prototypes of this position; and the second is to compute the similarity between a given location and the prototypes based on both local topographic attributes and spatial context. The new approach characterizes slope position gradation in both the attribute domain (i.e., parameter space) and the spatial domain (i.e., geographic space) in an easy and practicable way. Applications show that the new approach can quantitatively describe spatial gradations among a set of slope positions. Comparison of spatial gradation of A-horizon sand percentages with the quantified spatial gradation of slope positions indicates that the latter reflects slope processes, confirming the effectiveness of the approach. The comparison of a soil subgroup map of the study area with the maximum similarity map derived from the approach also suggests that the quantified spatial gradation of slope position can be used to aid geographical modeling such as digital soil mapping.     

南京市水西门市民广场防洪墙地段滑坡成因机制与工程地质灾害防治对策

概述了南京市水西门市民广场地质环境背景 ,分析了广场建设和灾害发生过程中存在的工程地质条件、工程、管理等方面的问题 ,剖析了该滑坡产生的机制 ,针对近年南京地区边坡失稳和滑坡灾害时有发生的状况 ,提出了防治对策。     

准噶尔盆地阜东斜坡区侏罗系层序地层学研究

通过地震、钻测井及生物地层资料的综合研究,认为准噶尔盆地阜东斜坡区侏罗系发育6套层序、两个构造层序。层序及沉积相空间分布的差异反映八道湾期至西山窑期以北部物源为主,下部构造层序揭示了北部抬升、南部均衡沉降的构造格局,头屯河期至喀拉扎期以南部物源为主,上部构造层序反映南部抬升、湖盆急剧收缩的构造格局。研究区主要发育冲积扇－辫状河三角洲－湖泊沉积体系,其次为曲流河－三角洲－湖泊沉积体系。早中侏罗世,本区以暖温带潮湿气候为主,但在三工河早期及头屯河中期有两次气候变干变热过程,晚侏罗世为亚热带干旱、半干旱气候,晚期的干旱气候还是导致湖盆急剧萎缩的重要因素。     

鄂尔多斯盆地陕北斜坡延长区块储层流体识别

延长油田区块位于鄂尔多斯盆地陕北斜坡东部延安单斜的中间部位,为研究天然气储层及储层中高含气分布区,2008年在延长油田区块内完成三维地震勘探344km2。本文对三维地震资料应用吸收系数、频谱分解、振幅衰减等地震属性进行流体识别试验。试验结果表明振幅衰减对含气层段异常响应相对敏感,吸收系数对高含气层段有一定反映。利用天然气储层各层段振幅衰减极大值,参考吸收系数剖面的高值层段,分析预测了三维区块含气概率高的平面分布区,2009年在预测的含气概率高分布区进行了探井验证,取得了比较理想的效果。     

京张地区区域地壳稳定性评价

在野外调查和广泛收集资料的基础上,分析了控制和影响京张地区区域地壳稳定性的主要因素及内外动力地质的耦合作用。选取活动断裂、地震活动性和深部地球物理等因素,同时选取工程岩组、地形地貌与地表地质灾害等11个因素作为评价因子,并对评价因子进行了分类赋值。采用多因素加权叠加分析方法,建立了区域地壳稳定性评价模型,基于GIS平台对京张地区的区域地壳稳定性进行了定量化评价,将研究区划分为稳定区、次稳定区、次不稳定区和不稳定区4个等级。依据区域地壳稳定性评价结果,为京张高速铁路、云顶滑雪场、石京龙滑雪场的建设和运营提出相关建议,为京张地区国土规划提供了基础依据。      

岩质高边坡稳定性支持向量机预测方法研究

提出一种基于支持向量机的岩质边坡稳定性预测方法。该方法地很好的表达了岩质边坡稳定性与其影响因素之间的非线性映射关系,并应用该方法建立了相应的模型。预测结果表明,利用该方法进行岩质边坡稳定性预测是可行的、有效的。