Seismic structure and tectonics of the Shackleton Fracture Zone (Drake Passage,Scotia Sea)

The structural framework of the southern part of the Shackleton Fracture Zone has been investigated through the analysis of a 130-km-long multichannel seismic reflection profile acquired orthogonally to the fracture zone near 60° S. The Shackleton Fracture Zone is a 800-km-long, mostly rectilinear and pronounced bathymetric lineation joining the westernmost South Scotia Ridge to southern South America south of Cape Horn, separating the western Scotia Sea plate from the Antarctic plate. Conventional processing applied to the seismic data outlines the main structures of the Shackleton Fracture Zone, but only the use of enhanced techniques, such as accurate velocity analyses and pre-stack depth migration, provides a good definition of the acoustic basement and the architecture of the sedimentary sequences. In particular, a strong and mostly continuous reflector found at about 8.0 s two-way traveltime is very clear across the entire section and is interpreted as the Moho discontinuity. Data show a complex system of troughs developed along the eastern flank of the crustal ridge, containing tilted and rotated blocks, and the presence of a prominent listric normal fault developed within the oceanic crust. Positive flower structures developed within the oceanic basement indicate strike-slip tectonism and partial reactivation of pre-existing faults. Present-day tectonic activity is found mostly in correspondence to the relief, whereas fault-induced deformation is negligible across the entire trough system. This indicates that the E–W-directed stress regime present in the Drake Passage region is mainly dissipated along a narrow zone within the Shackleton Ridge axis. A reappraisal of all available magnetic anomaly identifications in the western Scotia Sea and in the former Phoenix plate, in conjunction with new magnetic profiles acquired to the east of the Shackleton Fracture Zone off the Tierra del Fuego continental margin, has allowed us to propose a simple reconstruction of Shackleton Fracture Zone development in the general context of the Drake Passage opening.     

Slope instability of San Miniato hill (Florence, Italy): possible deformation patterns

The hill of San Miniato (Florence, Italy) has been repeatedly identified in the past as the site of a slow moving, intermittent landslide. Possible hypotheses regarding the mechanisms responsible for past movements and for cracks and fissures present today are formulated based on the comparison of historical information and processed monitoring data. Although it is not possible to completely exclude a large inactive landslide that involves the entire northern slope, it seems more probable that the slide, if it does exist, is no longer active and that present-day damage is due to separate shallow movements concentrated in man-made deposits. This hypothesis can only be verified with a temporal extension of the monitoring activities, necessary in any case for planning possible safeguarding measures for the cultural heritage in the area.     

Determination of Lithium, Beryllium and Boron at Trace Levels by Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Sector Field Mass Spectrometry

The analytical capabilities of laser ablation (LA)-ICP-MS in determining Li, Be and B at trace levels in geological samples have been tested on a series of glass reference materials and natural samples. The LA-ICP-MS instrument used consisted of a sector-field ICP-MS coupled with a laser ablation microprobe operating at either 266 or 213 nm wavelength. Reference glasses from NIST (SRM 612, 614 and 616) and MPI-DING (KL2-G, ML3B-G, StHs6/80-G, GOR128-G, GOR132-G, T1-G and ATHO-G) were selected to develop the analytical method and to assess the best instrumental configuration. A series of calcic amphiboles with different Li, Be and B concentrations were also analysed using both LA-ICP-MS and SIMS to test the applicability of the method to natural minerals. Results indicated that with a spot size of 40 μm the agreement between measured and reference values of Li, Be and B is generally better than 10% for NIST SRM 612 and 20% for NIST SRM 614. Average reproducibility at the 2s level was 10% for Li, 20% for Be and 15% for B. Limits of detection were approximately 100 ng g^-1 for Be and B and 200 ng g^-1 for Li. These results were confirmed by analyses carried out on natural amphiboles and compared well in terms of precision and accuracy with those commonly achieved by SIMS.     

Hierarchical simulation of aquifer heterogeneity: implications of different simulation settings on solute-transport modeling

The fine-scale heterogeneity of porous media affects the large-scale transport of solutes and contaminants in groundwater and it can be reproduced by means of several geostatistical simulation tools. However, including the available geological information in these tools is often cumbersome. A hierarchical simulation procedure based on a binary tree is proposed and tested on two real-world blocks of alluvial sediments, of a few cubic meters volume, that represent small-scale aquifer analogs. The procedure is implemented using the sequential indicator simulation, but it is so general that it can be adapted to various geostatistical simulation tools, improving their capability to incorporate geological information, i.e., the sedimentological and architectural characterization of heterogeneity. When compared with a standard sequential indicator approach on bi-dimensional simulations, in terms of proportions and connectivity indicators, the proposed procedure yields reliable results, closer to the reference observations. Different ensembles of three-dimensional simulations based on different hierarchical sequences are used to perform numerical experiments of conservative solute transport and to obtain ensembles of equivalent pore velocity and dispersion coefficient at the scale length of the blocks (meter). Their statistics are used to estimate the impact of the variability of the transport properties of the simulated blocks on contaminant transport modeled on bigger domains (hectometer). This is investigated with a one-dimensional transport modeling based on the Kolmogorov-Dmitriev theory of branching stochastic processes. Applying the proposed approach with diverse binary trees and different simulation settings provides a great flexibility, which is revealed by the differences in the breakthrough curves.     

Implementation of the European Water Framework Directive: Natural variability associated with the CARLIT method on the rocky shores of the Ligurian Sea (Italy)

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) 2000/60/EC, adopted by the European Community in 2000 with the goal of maintaining and improving the aquatic environments, requires that member states achieve and maintain a good ecological status of all water bodies by 2015. In the marine context, the ecological status has to be quantified applying indexes based on appropriate key biological elements, which allow the categorization of water bodies into five Ecological Status (ES) classes. The CARLIT index is a cartographic monitoring tool enabling the Ecological Quality Ratio (EQR) to be calculated using macroalgae in coastal hard bottoms as a key biological element; at present it is being applied in Spain, France and Italy. To detect actual changes of water quality and, consequently, rely on the application of indexes for the assessment of the ecological status in the marine environment, it is necessary to evaluate their sensitivity to natural variability at different temporal and spatial scales. In this study we present a first quantification of natural (spatial and temporal) variability of EQR‐CARLIT quality assessment in 2006 and 2007 along the Ligurian coast (North‐Western Mediterranean, Italy). The EQR‐CARLIT values recorded along the Ligurian coastline show that natural variability of EQR‐CARLIT is low and that it does not affect the attribution of a given stretch of coast to a particular ES class, in agreement with the major human pressures acting in the area (urbanization, river load, sea‐farming). A small‐scale variability was detected, strengthening the use of cartography of the whole rocky shore, whenever possible, or, alternatively, the assessment of the ecological status for long stretches of coast, to encompass the small‐scale variability due to local factors.     

Prototype measurements and small-scale model tests of wave overtopping at shallow rubble-mound breakwaters: the Ostia-Rome yacht harbour case

The paper presents the comparison between the results of small-scale model tests and prototype measurements of wave overtopping at a rubble-mound breakwater. The specific structure investigated is the west breakwater of the yacht harbour of Rome at Ostia (Italy) and is characterized by a gentle seaward slope (1/4) and by a long, shallow foreshore. The laboratory tests firstly aimed at carefully reproducing two measured storms in which overtopping occurred and was measured. The tests have been carried out in two independent laboratories, in a wave flume and in a wave basin, hence using a two-dimensional (2-D) and a three-dimensional (3-D) setup. In the 2-D laboratory tests no overtopping occurred during the storm reproductions; in the 3-D case discharges five to ten times smaller than those observed in prototype have been measured. This indicates the existence of model and scale effects. These effects have been discussed on the basis of the results of several parametric tests, which have been carried out in both laboratories, in addition to the storm reproductions, varying wave and water level characteristics. Final comparison of all the performed tests with 86 prototype measurements still suggests the existence of scale and model effects that induce strong underestimation of overtopping discharge at small scale. The scale reproduction of wave breaking on the foreshore, together with the 3-D features of the prototype conditions and the absence of wind stress in the laboratory measurements, have been individuated as the main sources of scale and model effects. The paper also provides a comparison between the data and a largely used formula for wave overtopping discharges in the presence of structures similar to the one at hand. The suitable value of a roughness factor that appears in that formula is investigated and good agreement is found with other recent researches on rubble-mound breakwaters.     

Nonlinear wave coupling in type IV solar radio bursts

In order to explain a fine structure of parallel ridges in stationary type IV continua, the emission due to the coupling of electrostatic upper hybrid waves and Bernstein waves at the sum frequency of the upper hybrid and harmonics of the gyro frequency has been calculated. If the energy density of these electrostatic waves is of the order of 10^-3 times the thermal energy density, then the observed zebra pattern can be emitted by a region with a diameter of 10³ km.     

Comparison of the SFI peculiar velocities with the IRAS 1.2-Jy gravity field

We present a comparison between the peculiar velocity fields measured from a recently completed l -band Tully–Fisher survey of field spirals (SFI) and that derived from the IRAS 1.2-Jy redshift survey galaxy distribution. The analysis is based on the expansion of these data in redshift space using smooth orthonormal functions, and is performed using low- and high-resolution expansions, with an effective smoothing scale which increases almost linearly with redshift. The effective smoothing scales at 3000 km s⁻¹ are 1500 and 1000 km s⁻¹ for the low- and high-resolution filters. The agreement between the high- and low-resolution SFI velocity maps is excellent. The general features in the filtered SFI and IRAS velocity fields agree remarkably well within 6000 km s⁻¹. This good agreement between the fields allows us to determine the parameter β = Ω^0.6 / b , where Ω is the cosmological density parameter, and b is the linear biasing factor. From a likelihood analysis on the SFI and IRAS modes we find that β = 0.6 ± 0.1, independently of the resolution of the modal expansion. For this value of β, the residual fields for the two filters show no systematic variations within 6000 km s⁻¹. Most remarkable is the lack of any coherent, redshift-dependent dipole flow in the residual field.