Permeability Estimation with the Augmented Lagrangian Method for a Nonlinear Diffusion Equation

We consider numerical identification of the piecewise constant permeability function in a nonlinear parabolic equation, with the augmented Lagrangian method. By studying this problem, we aim at also gaining some insight into the potential ability of the augmented Lagrangian method to handle permeability estimation within the full two-phase porous-media flow setting. The identification is formulated as a constrained minimization problem. The parameter estimation problem is reduced to a coupled nonlinear algebraic system, which can be solved efficiently with the conjugate gradient method. The methodology is developed and numerical experiments with the proposed method are presented.     

Urban fieldwork in geographical education in Levanger,Norway

Despite a long tradition of fieldwork and outdoor education in Norwegian schools, teachers and pupils are not familiar with conducting systematic field studies of modern urban environments. The authors of the present article are convinced that urban fieldwork ought to be included in the teaching syllabus in Norwegian schools, and for several years they have worked on developing urban fieldwork as a part of the study programme in teacher education at Nord-Trøndelag University College (Høgskolen in Nord-Trøndelag or HiNT). The fieldwork element has gradually been expanded, and in recent years pupils from neighbouring primary schools have participated in the programme. The use of ICT has increasingly become an important part of the work in the field as well as in the follow-up phase. Special emphasis has been put on the use of digital stories. The experiences of this work are presented and discussed in the article. In the final section of the article the authors discuss further development of urban fieldwork, paying particular attention to the use of new digital technology and enquiry approaches.     

The parent bodies of CR chondrites and their secondary history

Renazzo-type (CR) chondrites are a relatively rare group of carbonaceous chondrites with the vast majority having escaped thermal alteration. This means that CRs are composed of relatively unprocessed material, depending on the extent of aqueous alteration they have experienced. Hydration in CRs ranges from incipient alteration of matrix glass, up to nearly complete replacement of the rock by hydration products. The extent of secondary processes is often difficult to assess in these meteorites, due to their heterogeneity and diversity of alteration products. Yet, this is crucial in order to understand the extent of geological processing that occurred on the primary parent body. Additionally, the parent asteroids of CRs remain a mystery, mainly because terrestrial oxyhydroxide signatures dominate the reflectance spectra of CRs. In this work, we have conducted optical and IR reflectance and transmission spectra of 25 CR chondrites in order to (i) better evaluate the extent of aqueous alteration that occurred on the CR parent body, and (ii) find possible parent body candidates. Terrestrial oxyhydroxides were removed from 12 samples, as these tend to interfere with the optical-IR spectra of CRs. Our results suggest, among other, that (i) aqueous alteration in most of our CRs was limited to the matrix and (ii) most CRs may stem from a continuum of X-to-C complex asteroids, depending on their extent of aqueous alteration. More specifically, the endmembers being Xk/Xn types and Cgh/Ch types. This has strong implication in regard to what we can expect from the Psyche mission.