Revising macroseismic data in Switzerland: The December 20, 1720 earthquake in the region of Lake Constance

Upgrading the Earthquake Catalog of Switzerland (ECOS) included revising the earthquake of 1720. This change has major importance for history and seismology.Although that quake has been the subject of several publications, none was based on critical methods. This re-evaluation of the event is built upon a new and more reliable database established after investigating archives and libraries. Using data from such historical sources, we assigned new site intensities, adopting the criteria established by the European macroseismic scale EMS 98 (Grünthal, 1998).We discovered that the event had been assigned an overestimated intensity, due to interpretation errors in former earthquake catalogs and compilations. We recommend reducing the intensity from I₀= VIII to I₀= VI (EMS 98). The moment magnitude is given as M_W= 4.6. Since the event had been considered the largest for its respective area, downgrading it now will influence the seismic hazard assessment for this region.     

Average recurrence intervals of strong earthquakes and potential risky segments along the Taiyuan-Linfen portion of the Shanxi graben system

Introduction In AD 1303, the great Hongtong, Shanxi, earthquake of magnitude 8 caused a very serious disaster, which killed over one hundred thousands people at least (Department of Earthquake Dis- *aster Prevention, State Seismological Bureau, 1995). On the occasion of commemorating this ca-tastrophe having occurred for 700 years, we have important problems that need to be answered: How long the average recurrence interval of the grea…     

Physicochemistry and Mineralogy of Storm Dust and Dust Sediment in Northern China

Dust sediments collected from 1995 to 1998 in Beijing, Dunhuang, Inner Mongolia, Kashi, the Kunlun Mountains, Lanzhou, Ningxia, the Taklimakan Desert, and Xi‘an, China, were characterized in terms of their physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties. Most aerosols and dust analysed ranged in texture from silty clay to clay loam. Their median particle diameters (Mds) generally ranged between 5 to 63μm,coinciding with those of loess from central China and the finest sand from northwestern China. The dust sediments were characterized by a predominance of SiO2 and Al2O3, followed by K2O. Their SiO2/Al2O3and K2O/SiO2 molar ratios ranged from 5.17 to 8.43 and from 0.009 to 0.0368, respectively. The mass concentration spectrum during a dust storm showed a single peak, rather than the triple peak generally observed under clear sky conditions. The dominant minerals were chlorite, illite, calcite, and dolomite.These physical, chemical, and mineralogical properties were consistent with those of aeolian soils and loess in western and central China. The results suggest that aerosols and fine-gained fractions of dust sediments collected in northern China are mainly composed of soil material transported from the arid and semiarid regions of China and Mongolia by prevailing winds. The rate of deposition and properties of dust falling on eastern China were strongly influenced by meteorological conditions, season, latitude, longitude, and altitude of the sampling sites.     

1997年7月19日影响北京地区的暴雨个例分析

针对在实际业务预报中经常遇到的北京地区降水的两种特殊性(明显天气系统移来时，北京地区降水明显比周围偏多或偏少)，选取一个实例利用中尺度非静力模式(MM5)对降水比周围偏多情况进行了高分辨率数值模拟和敏感性试验。结果表明，该模式比较成功地模拟了此次天气过程及其相关的中尺度系统的发生发展，凝结潜热对天气过程的发生发展有重要作用，而地形在天气过程中也起着主要作用，低层潜在不稳定能量的储备和输送是暴雨发生不可缺少的条件。     

基于GIS/RS的流域水文过程分布式模拟——Ⅰ模型的原理与结构

面向流域水资源管理,提出了一个基于GIS/RS的流域分布式水文模型,模型主要包括单元水文模型与河网汇流模型两大部分。单元水文模型涉及到冠层截留、融雪、蒸散发、坡面流、非饱和土壤水运动和地下水出流等水文物理过程。产流计算考虑到地形坡度的影响采用基于地形指数的计算方法。汇流演算基于河网结构采用分段马斯京根方法。模型的大部分参数与输入信息可以利用GIS和RS技术获取,能够对气候变化和人类活动对下垫面的改变,做出快速的模拟与响应。     

月壤的物理和机械性质

月壤是在O2、水、风和生命活动都不存在的情况下，由陨石和微陨石撞击、宇宙射线和太阳风轰击、月表温差导致岩石热胀冷缩破碎等因素的共同作用下形成的。月壤独特的形成过程，加上独特的月表环境，使月壤在粒度分布、颗粒形态、颗粒比重、孔隙比和孔隙率、电性和电磁性质、压缩性、抗剪性、承载力等方面均与地球土壤存在较大差异，这些参数的平均值和最佳估计值，可以作为月表机械设计和操作、宇航员装备设计、月球着陆场选址的主要依据，对月球资源开发和利用以及月球基地建设具有极其重要的意义。     

河北省物理地层界线厘定

以现代地层学多重划分为理论依据,以岩石地层单元组的密度、磁化率、剩余磁化强度及厚度加权算术平均值等物性参数为研究对象,以有序地质量最优分割方法为数学手段,进行河北省全区综合地层柱物理地层界线的厘定,并对其地质意义进行了初步讨论。     

Some Morphological Aspects and Hydrological Characterization of the Tagus Floods in the Santarém Region, Portugal

In Portugal, few studies have been made of the historical floods of the RiverTagus (the longest in the Iberian Peninsula). This fact led to the study of theLower Tagus (Santarém region) using written historical documents,cartographic documents and hydrological data, consisting mainly of waterlevel records. With the support of the historical documents and the analysisof all the maps, it was possible to verify that the human intervention has beenfundamental in the morphological changes of the Tagus' channel. It becameaware that the river changed from a braided to a single channel with alternatebars. From the hydrological data, return periods for the floods were determined,using the Pearson Type 3 distribution. The selection of the most important floods,from 1855 to 1998, enabled to build a ``flood hazard scale' for this region.     

Differential spaces of critical geography

This intervention address some of the social and epistemological mechanisms that construct an `international' writing space imbued with an Anglo-American hegemony. This is done by way of three examples, each making it possible to infer one of the general mechanisms at work. Taking off from the, comment, by the way of examples from Denmark, tries to illustrate how a truthful acknowledgement of the contextuality of geographical knowledges can multiply the spaces of critical geography--in the end enriching Anglo-American and non-Anglo-American debates alike.     

At the heart of the cultural approach in geography: Thinking space

The way that space is thought of is at the heart of the cultural approach in geography. The passing down of all the components of a culture depends upon the way data is aquired and processed, the results memorized or broadcast. Communication shapes the experience and the knowledge of space and time. It gives to everyone the idea that the real world is doubled by a beyond which plays a central role in social life, since it is upon such a beyond that normative thinking relies and that a significance is given to individual and social life. The spheres of lived-in and known space and time, as well as that of the beyond, vary according to available technologies. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.