Garnet-biotite diffusion mechanisms in complex high-grade orogenic belts: Understanding and constraining petrological cooling rates in granulites from Ribeira Fold Belt (SE Brazil)

Cooling rates based on the retrograde diffusion of Fe²⁺ and Mg between garnet and biotite inclusions commonly show two contrasting scenarios: a) narrow closure temperature range with apparent absence of retrograde diffusion; or b) high result dispersion due to compositional variations in garnet and biotite. Cooling rates from migmatites, felsic and mafic granulites from Ribeira Fold Belt (SE Brazil) also show these two scenarios. Although the former can be explained by very fast cooling, the latter is often the result of open-system behaviour caused by deformation. Retrogressive cooling during the exhumation of granulite-facies rocks is often processed by thrusting and shearing which may cause plastic deformation, fractures and cracks in the garnet megablasts, allowing chemical diffusion outside the garnet megablast – biotite inclusion system.However, a careful use of garnets and biotites with large Fe/Mg variation and software that reduces result dispersion provides a good correlation between closure temperatures and the size of biotite inclusions which are mostly due to diffusion and compositional readjustment to thermal evolution during retrogression.Results show that felsic and mafic granulites have low cooling rates (1–2 °C/Ma) at higher temperatures and high cooling rates (∼100 °C/Ma) at lower temperatures, suggesting a two-step cooling/exhumation process, whereas migmatites show a small decrease in cooling rates during cooling (from 2.0 to 0.5 °C/Ma). These results agree with previously obtained thermochronological data, which indicates that this method is a valid tool to obtain meaningful petrological cooling rates in complex high-grade orogenic belts, such as the Ribeira Fold Belt.     

东昆仑东段东昆中构造带韧性剪切作用及其地质意义

东昆仑东段东昆中构造带经历了多期(次)构造事件,现今保留了复杂多样的构造样式。哈图沟、清水泉—塔妥和沟里等地区构造变形十分强烈,且发育有呈NWW-SEE展布的韧性剪切带。通过野外调研及显微构造研究,对东昆中构造带几何学、运动学及动力学等进行了分析,并通过费氏台和EBSD技术对其进行石英C轴组构分析后认为该剪切带为一压-扭性构造界面,且早期为左旋逆冲,晚期为右旋走滑,变形温度为400~550℃。对剪切带内的石英亚颗粒及动态重结晶粒度测量计算出研究区内韧性剪切带古应力值约为153.791 MPa。哈图沟牦牛山组变形砾岩(4个测点)有限应变测量结果显示,越靠近东昆中断裂带砾石Flinn指数、应变程度、罗德系数(绝对值)越大,且Flinn指数均大于1,属拉伸变形。结合区域地质资料,认为东昆仑东段东昆中韧性剪切带形成于晚海西—印支期。     

三轴应力状态下盐岩强度分析探讨

通过分析盐岩在三轴应力状态下的变形,说明了较高围压下盐岩的大变形特性,提出了三轴应力状态下,利用轴向荷载除以试件初始横截面面积得到应力-应变关系存在的问题,据此对工程应变和对数应变进行了分析和对比,阐明了这两种应变的适用条件,并开展了不同围压下的试验测试和对试验结果对比分析。研究揭示了应利用对数应变分析盐岩的大变形特性和对变形后的应力进行修正,得到了盐岩的工程应变和对数应变均可表示为围压的线性函数,围压为20 MPa时的轴向压缩变形量是5 MPa时的3.09倍。围压越高,对数应变修正得到的最大轴向应力与不修正的差值越大,用对数应变修正后的轴向应力低于不修正的结果,围压达到20 MPa时,前者仅为后者的63.85%。     

Bayesian modelling the retreat of the Irish Sea Ice Stream

We present an 8000‐year history spanning 650 km of ice margin retreat for the largest marine‐terminating ice stream draining the former British–Irish Ice Sheet. Bayesian modelling of the geochronological data shows the ISIS expanded 34.0–25.3 ka, accelerating into the Celtic Sea to reach maximum limits 25.3–24.5 ka before a collapse with rapid marginal retreat to the northern Irish Sea Basin (ISB). This retreat was rapid and driven by climatic warming, sea‐level rise, mega‐tidal amplitudes and reactivation of meridional circulation in the North Atlantic. The retreat, though rapid, is uneven, with the stepped retreat pattern possibly a function of the passage of the ice stream between normal and adverse ice bed gradients and changing ice stream geometry. Initially, wide calving margins and adverse slopes encouraged rapid retreat (～550 m a^?1) that slowed (～100 m a^?1) at the topographic constriction and bathymetric high between southern Ireland and Wales before rates increased (～200 m a^?1) across adverse bed slopes and wider and deeper basin configuration in the northern ISB. These data point to the importance of the ice bed slope and lateral extent in predicting the longer‐term (>1000 a) patterns and rates of ice‐marginal retreat during phases of rapid collapse, which has implications for the modelling of projected rapid retreat of present‐day ice streams. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Meso‐scale particle modeling of concrete deterioration caused by alkali‐aggregate reaction

A meso‐scale particle model is presented to simulate the expansion of concrete subjected to alkali‐aggregate reaction (AAR) and to analyze the AAR‐induced degradation of the mechanical properties. It is the first attempt to evaluate the deterioration mechanism due to AAR using the discrete‐element method. A three‐phase meso‐scale model for concrete composed of aggregates, mortar and the interface is established with the combination of a pre‐processing approach and the particle flow code, PFC2D. A homogeneous aggregate expansion approach is applied to model the AAR expansion. Uniaxial compression tests are conducted for the AAR‐affected concrete to examine the effects on the mechanical properties. Two specimens with different aggregate sizes are analyzed to consider the effects of aggregate size on AAR. The results show that the meso‐scale particle model is valid to predict the expansion and the internal micro‐cracking patterns caused by AAR. The two different specimens exhibit similar behavior. The Young's modulus and compressive strength are significantly reduced with the increase of AAR expansion. The shape of the stress–strain curves obtained from the compression tests clearly reflects the influence of internal micro‐cracks: an increased nonlinearity before the peak loading and a more gradual softening for more severely affected specimens. Similar macroscopic failure patterns of the specimens under compression are observed in terms of diagonal macroscopic cracks splitting the specimen into several triangular pieces, whereas localized micro‐cracks forming in slightly affected specimens are different from branching and diffusing cracks in severely affected ones, demonstrating different failure mechanisms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reply to the discussion by Conti R., De Sanctis L. and Viggiani G.M.B. on ‘Influence of diaphragm wall installation on the numerical analysis of deep excavation’ by Burlon S., Mroueh H. & Shahrour I.

The authors thank the discussers R.Conti, L.De Sanctis and G.M.B.Viggiani for their interest to the paper entitled ‘Influence of diaphragm wall installation on the numerical analysis of deep excavation’ and for providing the opportunity to submit additional information to clarify some issues. The authors broadly agree with the comments which deal with three main aspects of the paper: presence of water and type of analysis, constitutive modelling and numerical strategies. The present reply addresses some additional issues that the discussers find not clear on the original paper submitted by the writers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of growing watershed imperviousness on hydrograph parameters and peak discharge

An increasing impervious area is quickly extending over the Wu‐Tu watershed due to the endless demands of the people. Generally, impervious paving is a major result of urbanization and more recently has had the potential to produce more enormous flood disasters than those of the past. In this study, 40 available rainfall–runoff events were chosen to calibrate the applicable parameters of the models and to determine the relationships between the impervious surfaces and the calibrated parameters. Model inputs came from the outcomes of the block kriging method and the non‐linear programming method. In the optimal process, the shuffled complex evolution method and three criteria were applied to compare the observed and simulated hydrographs. The tendencies of the variations of the parameters with their corresponding imperviousness were established through regression analysis. Ten cases were used to examine the established equations of the parameters and impervious covers. Finally, the design flood routines of various return periods were furnished through use of approaches containing a design storm, block kriging, the SCS model, and a rainfall‐runoff model with established functional relationships. These simulated flood hydrographs were used to compare and understand the past, present, and future hydrological conditions of the watershed studied. In the research results, the time to peak of flood hydrographs for various storms was diminished approximately from 11 h to 6 h in different decrements, whereas peak flow increased respectively from 127 m³ s^?1 to 629 m³ s^?1 for different storm intensities. In addition, this study provides a design diagram for the peak flow ratio to help engineers and designers to construct hydraulic structures efficiently and prevent possible damage to human life and property. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high strain‐rate constitutive model for sand and its application in finite‐element analysis of tunnels subjected to blast

The paper presents a constitutive model for simulating the high strain‐rate behavior of sands. Based on the concepts of critical‐state soil mechanics, the bounding surface plasticity theory and the overstress theory of viscoplasticity, the constitutive model simulates the high strain‐rate behavior of sands under uniaxial, triaxial and multi‐axial loading conditions. The model parameters are determined for Ottawa and Fontainebleau sands, and the performance of the model under extreme transient loading conditions is demonstrated through simulations of split Hopkinson pressure bar tests up to a strain rate of 2000/s. The constitutive model is implemented in a finite‐element analysis software Abaqus to analyze underground tunnels in sandy soil subjected to internal blast loads. Parametric studies are conducted to examine the effect of relative density and type of sand and of the depth of tunnel on the variation of stresses and deformations in the soil adjacent to the tunnels. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the prediction of the Toce alpine basin floods with distributed hydrologic models

With the objective of improving flood predictions, in recent years sophisticated continuous hydrologic models that include complex land‐surface sub‐models have been developed. This has produced a significant increase in parameterization; consequently, applications of distributed models to ungauged basins lacking specific data from field campaigns may become redundant. The objective of this paper is to produce a parsimonious and robust distributed hydrologic model for flood predictions in Italian alpine basins. Application is made to the Toce basin (area 1534 km²). The Toce basin was a case study of the RAPHAEL European Union research project, during which a comprehensive set of hydrologic, meteorological and physiographic data were collected, including the hydrologic analysis of the 1996–1997 period. Two major floods occurred during this period. We compare the FEST04 event model (which computes rainfall abstraction and antecedent soil moisture conditions through the simple Soil Conservation Service curve number method) and two continuous hydrologic models, SDM and TDM (which differ in soil water balance scheme, and base flow and runoff generation computations). The simple FEST04 event model demonstrated good performance in the prediction of the 1997 flood, but shows limits in the prediction of the long and moderate 1996 flood. More robust predictions are obtained with the parsimonious SDM continuous hydrologic model, which uses a simple one‐layer soil water balance model and an infiltration excess mechanism for runoff generation, and demonstrates good performance in both long‐term runoff modelling and flood predictions. Instead, the use of a more sophisticated continuous hydrologic model, the TDM, that simulates soil moisture dynamics in two layers of soil, and computes runoff and base flow using some TOPMODEL concepts, does not seem to be advantageous for this alpine basin. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.