Using Clustered Heat Maps in Mineral Exploration to Visualize Volcanic-Hosted Massive Sulfide Alteration and Mineralization

Natural Resources Research - This study proposes an extension of a visualization approach common in biochemistry (the clustered heat maps—CHMs) to geochemical data with the main objective of...     

Influence of time-domain dam–reservoir interaction on cracking of concrete gravity DAMS

Based on a non-linear dam-reservoir interaction model, a study investigating the earthquake response of concrete gravity dams is presented. For the propagation of cracks in unreinforced mass concrete, a discrete crack approach formulation based on the finite element method is applied. A special crack element is used to follow a fictitious crack in order to account for a zone of microcracks developing at the crack tip. The reservoir is modelled using the boundary element method. At a fictitious boundary dividing the irregular finite part of the reservoir from the regular infinite part, the loss of energy due to pressure waves moving away towards infinity is taken into account rigorously. Analyses are performed on the tallest non-overflow monolith of the Pine Flat Dam located in Kern County, California. The interaction of a dam, which may exhibit cracks in mass concrete, with a reservoir domain of arbitrary geometry extending to infinity is studied. Some main parameters are investigated. The importance of tools capable of handling the non-linear dam-reservoir interaction is emphasized.     

Lysimeter soil water balance evaluation for an experiment developed in the Southern Brazilian Atlantic Forest region

This study aims at monitoring the behaviour of the rainfall, runoff, drainage, soil water storage, and evapotranspiration variables involved in the water balance measured by lysimeter data. The evaluation of the water balance considered different time scales, where the components were monitored daily and in 10‐day accumulated period intervals. The results demonstrated that in wet periods the soil water content was greater at a depth of 10 cm, whereas in the dry periods a greater concentration was observed at 70 cm depth. At the depth of 30 cm, the lowest values of soil water content were observed for both wet and dry periods. The results, obtained through the use of tensiometers and time domain reflectometry installed internally and externally to the lysimeter, were very close, which was more noticeable during the periods of lower water loss by the soil. The water balance, calculated from the lysimeter data, demonstrated that 70% of the total rainfall was lost by the process of evapotranspiration. The drainage accounted for 27·5% of the precipitated water, highlighting the fact that this component should not be disregarded in the water balance calculation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.