Paleomonsoon precipitation deduced from a sediment core from the equatorial Indian Ocean

Rapid shifts in past climate recorded in polar ice sheets have elicited various explanations relating to either thermohaline circulation changes by ice-rafting or natural greenhouse gas concentrations modulated by climatic conditions in the tropics. To compare the tropical paleoclimate record with the polar record, one must choose sediment cores from highly productive ocean regions. Necessarily, such regions reflect the wind records in the tropics, because high productivity is associated with upwelling driven by winds. Comparing tropical precipitation records with high-latitude records is, however, a more difficult task because sediments recording paleoprecipitation usually have low sedimentation rates, and offer coarser resolution relative to polar ice cores. Here, we present δ ¹⁸O data of three planktonic species of Foraminifera (a proxy for precipitation) from such a sediment core, spanning the past 35 ka for the equatorial Indian Ocean, which falls under the southwest monsoon (SWM) realm. Results show that minimum SWM precipitation occurred at the Last Glacial Maximum, with a subsequent increase at Termination IA. During the Holocene, SWM precipitation intensified uniformly up to the core top (∼2.2 ka b.p.), as revealed by generally decreasing δ ¹⁸O values. Variations in precipitation are consistent with climate changes recorded in polar ice sheets. Although the different resolutions of the two records preclude a rigorous comparison, abrupt cooling/warming events appear to be accompanied by sudden reduction/enhancement in (SWM) rainfall. Thus, mechanisms with time scales much shorter than a millennium, such as natural greenhouse warming (e.g., CH₄ concentration), controlled by emissions from the tropics, could have played a major role in high-latitude climate change.     

Neotectonic Control on the Geomorphic Evolution of the Gangotri Glacier Valley, Garhwal Himalaya

The paper records evidences of neotectonic activities in the Gangotri glacier valley that are found to be responsible for the present-day geomorphic set-up of the area since the last phase of major glaciation. Geomorphological features indicate the presence of a large glacier in the valley in the geological past. Prominent planar structures present in the rocks were later on modified into sets of normal faults in the present-day Himalayan tectonic set-up giving rise to graben structures. The block nearest the snout is traversed by the NW-SE trending Gaumukh fault. A number of terraces mark the entrenchment of Bhagirathi River in this part. The contrasting drainage morphometric parameters of two sides of the valley and asymmetric recessional patterns of the tributary glaciers further document movement along the fault. The distribution and orientation of debris fans also seem to be controlled by neotectonic activity. The neotectonic activity that followed the process of deglaciation has brought the glacially carved, wide U- shaped valley in contact with the present-day fluvially incised narrow and relatively deep valley. The wider segments have become sites of active deposition of glacially eroded debris. The low gradient and excessive filling has resulted in the river attaining a braided nature in these segments.     

Anisotropic model with decaying cosmological term

A spatially homogeneous and anisotropic locally rotationally symmetric Bianchi type-I spacetime with cosmological term \(\varLambda \) in \(f(R,T) \) theory has been studied. The exact solution of the field equations is obtained under a variation law of the Hubble parameter \((H) \) which yields a time dependent deceleration parameter (Banerjee and Das in Gen. Relativ. Gravit. 37:10, 2005). The model presents a cosmological scenario which describes early deceleration and late time acceleration. The physical parameters of the model have been analysed.     

Gravity anomalies and associated tectonic features over the Indian Peninsular Shield and adjoining ocean basins

A combined gravity map over the Indian Peninsular Shield (IPS) and adjoining oceans brings out well the inter-relationships between the older tectonic features of the continent and the adjoining younger oceanic features. The NW–SE, NE–SW and N–S Precambrian trends of the IPS are reflected in the structural trends of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal suggesting their probable reactivation. The Simple Bouguer anomaly map shows consistent increase in gravity value from the continent to the deep ocean basins, which is attributed to isostatic compensation due to variations in the crustal thickness. A crustal density model computed along a profile across this region suggests a thick crust of 35–40 km under the continent, which reduces to 22/20–24 km under the Bay of Bengal with thick sediments of 8–10 km underlain by crustal layers of density 2720 and 2900/2840 kg/m³. Large crustal thickness and trends of the gravity anomalies may suggest a transitional crust in the Bay of Bengal up to 150–200 km from the east coast. The crustal thickness under the Laxmi ridge and east of it in the Arabian Sea is 20 and 14 km, respectively, with 5–6 km thick Tertiary and Mesozoic sediments separated by a thin layer of Deccan Trap. Crustal layers of densities 2750 and 2950 kg/m³ underlie sediments. The crustal density model in this part of the Arabian Sea (east of Laxmi ridge) and the structural trends similar to the Indian Peninsular Shield suggest a continent–ocean transitional crust (COTC). The COTC may represent down dropped and submerged parts of the Indian crust evolved at the time of break-up along the west coast of India and passage of Reunion hotspot over India during late Cretaceous. The crustal model under this part also shows an underplated lower crust and a low density upper mantle, extending over the continent across the west coast of India, which appears to be related to the Deccan volcanism. The crustal thickness under the western Arabian Sea (west of the Laxmi ridge) reduces to 8–9 km with crustal layers of densities 2650 and 2870 kg/m³ representing an oceanic crust.     

Is tidal forcing critical to trigger large Sumatra earthquakes?

Complexity in the earthquake mechanism is manifested in different forms such as fractal distribution, clustering of seismicity, etc., and characterized as critical phenomenon. Occurrences of earthquakes generally represent the state of metastable equilibrium. The Andaman–Sumatra subduction zone is one of the most seismically active corridors (possibly in metastable state) in the world. Recently, the region faced three major earthquakes of magnitude more than 8.5 (M ~ 9.1 on December 26, 2004; M ~ 8.6 on March 28, 2005; M ~ 8.6 on April 11, 2012). Researchers have suggested multiple causes of earthquake generation in this region including the one with possible correlation of tidal stresses with earthquake occurrences. The latter issue, however, has been hotly debated in view of the fact that a small stress generated due to tidal forcing cannot cause such a bigger magnitude earthquake. We study here the impact of tidal forcing on critically generated earthquake phenomena. We examined the statistical behavior of recurrence time interval of earthquakes using the available data for period of about 40 years from 1973 to 2013. We constrain the simple empirical toy model using the concept of catastrophe theory to evaluate the impact of small tidal forcing on the critical state of earthquakes occurrences. In addition to the major role of Helmholtz free energy during the plate motion, our analysis suggests that the stability and critical behavior of the earthquake in Sumatra region could be associated with tidal forcing, however, only for triggering of some of the “Catastrophic–Chaotic” earthquake phenomenon.     

Probing Statistical Isotropy of Cosmological Radio Sources using Square Kilometre Array

There currently exist many observations which are not consistent with the cosmological principle. We review these observations with a particular emphasis on those relevant for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). In particular, several different data sets indicate a preferred direction pointing approximately towards the Virgo cluster. We also observe a hemispherical anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) temperature fluctuations. Although these inconsistencies may be attributed to systematic effects, there remains the possibility that they indicate new physics and various theories have been proposed to explain them. One possibility, which we discuss in this review, is the generation of perturbation modes during the early pre-inflationary epoch, when the Universe may not obey the cosmological principle. Better measurements will provide better constraints on these theories. In particular, we propose measurement of the dipole in number counts, sky brightness, polarized flux and polarization orientations of radio sources. We also suggest test of alignment of linear polarizations of sources as a function of their relative separation. Finally we propose measurement of hemispherical anisotropy or equivalently dipole modulation in radio sources.     

Mid-term periodicities and heliospheric modulation of coronal index and solar flare index during solar cycles 22–23

We applied fast Fourier transform techniques and Morlet wavelet transform on the time series data of coronal index, solar flare index, and galactic cosmic ray, for the period 1986–2008, in order to investigate the long- and mid-term periodicities including the Rieger (\({\sim }130\) to \({\sim }190\) days), quasi-period (\({\sim }200\) to \({\sim }374\) days), and quasi-biennial periodicities (\({\sim }1.20\) to \({\sim }3.27\) years) during the combined solar cycles 22–23. We emphasize the fact that a lesser number of periodicities are found in the range of low frequencies, while the higher frequencies show a greater number of periodicities. The rotation rates at the base of convection zone have periods for coronal index of \({\sim }1.43\) years and for solar flare index of \({\sim }1.41\) year, and galactic cosmic ray, \({\sim }1.35\) year, during combined solar cycles 22–23. In relation to these two solar parameters (coronal index and solar flare index), for the solar cycles 22–23, we found that galactic cosmic ray modulation at mid cut-off rigidity (\(\hbox {Rc} = 2.43\hbox {GV}\)) is anti-correlated with time-lag of few months.     

Evaluation of hydrogeochemical processes and groundwater quality for suitability of drinking and irrigation purposes: a case study in the Aosta Valley region,Italy

The present study aims to discuss the hydrogeochemical processes in the Aosta Valley region and assess the quality of its groundwater for suitability of drinking and irrigation purposes. One hundred twenty-two samples were collected from the Aosta Valley region in the years 2007 and 2008 (61 per year), and analysed for pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness, major cations and anions. The pH of the samples in both years indicated a near-neutral to alkaline nature of the groundwater. The cation and anion chemistry showed the general ionic abundance as: Ca²⁺ > Mg²⁺ > Na⁺ > K⁺ and HCO₃ ^?>SO₄ ^2?>Cl^?>NO₃ ^?>F^? in both years. Ca²⁺-Mg²⁺-HCO₃ ^? and Ca²⁺-Mg²⁺-Cl^?-SO₄ ^2? were the dominant hydrogeochemical facies. The computed saturation indices demonstrated that the groundwater was supersaturated with respect to dolomite and calcite in both years. The groundwater chemistry of the study area was mainly controlled by the dissolution of carbonate, sulphate and silicate minerals, as well as ion exchange processes. A comparison of the groundwater quality in relation to drinking water standards showed that most of the water samples were suitable for drinking and domestic uses. The computed water quality index (WQI) values of the study area groundwater ranged from 24 to 84 in the year 2007 and from 22 to 82 in the year 2008, and all the location fell under the Excellent to Good category. Quality assessment for irrigation uses revealed that the groundwater was good to permissible quality for irrigation; however, locally higher salinity, residual sodium carbonate (RSC) and magnesium hazard (MH) restricted its suitability for irrigation at a few sites. These results will be useful in implementing future measures in groundwater resource management at regional and national level.