Magnitude of σ1, σ2, and σ3 at mid-crustal levels in an orogenic belt: Microboudin method applied to an impure metachert from Turkey

We revised an equation for estimating palaeostress magnitude using the microboudin technique by incorporating the influence of time on the fracture strength of minerals. The equation was used to estimate triaxial palaeostresses from a rare sample of metachert from Turkey that contains microboudinaged, columnar tourmaline grains in a wide range of orientations within the foliation plane. The estimated principal palaeostresses are σ₁ = 605 MPa, σ₂ = 598 MPa, and σ₃ = 597 MPa. As the microboudinage is considered to have occurred immediately before the rock encountered the brittle-plastic transition during exhumation, these stress values correspond to conditions at approximately 18 km depth and 300 °C within a Cretaceous orogenic belt.     

Use of an optical oxygen sensor to measure dissolved oxygen in seawater

The use of an optical oxygen sensor to measure dissolved oxygen in seawater was investigated. The sensor is based on the dynamic quenching of an oxygen-sensitive fluorochrome embedded in the tip. Dissolved oxygen in seawater samples collected from eight stations at depths ranging from 3000 to 6000 m was analyzed both with the optical sensor and by the Winkler titration method. The two sets of data did not differ significantly. The stability and simplicity of the method and the good agreement of the results with those of the titration method indicate that the sensor would be useful for fieldwork.     

Simultaneous multifrequency observations of an eruptive prominence at millimeter wavelengths

Radio images and spectra of an eruptive prominence were obtained from simultaneous multifrequency observations at 36 GHz, 89 GHz, and 110 GHz on May 28, 1991 with the 45-m radio telescope at Nobeyama Radio Observatory (NRO), the National Astronomical Observatory, Japan (NAOJ). The radio spectra indicated that the optical depth is rather thick at 36 GHz whereas it is thin at 89 and 110 GHz. The H data, taken at Norikura Solar Observatory, NAOJ, suggest that the eruption of an active region filament was triggered by an H flare. The shape and position of the radio prominence generally coincided with those of H images. The radio emission is explained with an isothermal cool thread model. A lower limit for the electron temperature of the cool threads is estimated to be 6100 K. The range of the surface filling factors of the cool threads is 0.3–1.0 after the H flare, and 0.2–0.5 in the descending phase of the eruptive prominence. The column emission measure and the electron number density are estimated to be of the order of 10²⁸ cm^–5 and 10¹⁰ cm^–3, respectively. The physical parameters of a quiescent prominence are also estimated from the observations. The filling factors of the eruptive prominence are smaller than those of the quiescent prominence, whereas the emission measures and the electron densities are similar. These facts imply that each cool thread of the prominence did not expand after the eruption, while the total volume of the prominence increased.     

Transtensional deformation in the Lake Tahoe region, California and Nevada, USA

Dextral transtensional deformation is occurring along the Sierra Nevada–Great Basin boundary zone (SNGBBZ) at the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada microplate. In the Lake Tahoe region of the SNGBBZ, transtension is partitioned spatially and temporally into domains of north–south striking normal faults and transitional domains with conjugate strike-slip faults. The normal fault domains, which have had large Holocene earthquakes but account only for background seismicity in the historic period, primarily accommodate east–west extension, while the transitional domains, which have had moderate Holocene and historic earthquakes and are currently seismically active, primarily record north–south shortening. Through partitioned slip, the upper crust in this region undergoes overall constrictional strain.Major fault zones within the Lake Tahoe basin include two normal fault zones: the northwest-trending Tahoe–Sierra frontal fault zone (TSFFZ) and the north-trending West Tahoe–Dollar Point fault zone. Most faults in these zones show eastside down displacements. Both of these fault zones show evidence of Holocene earthquakes but are relatively quiet seismically through the historic record. The northeast-trending North Tahoe–Incline Village fault zone is a major normal to sinistral-oblique fault zone. This fault zone shows evidence for large Holocene earthquakes and based on the historic record is seismically active at the microearthquake level. The zone forms the boundary between the Lake Tahoe normal fault domain to the south and the Truckee transition zone to the north.Several lines of evidence, including both geology and historic seismicity, indicate that the seismically active Truckee and Gardnerville transition zones, north and southeast of Lake Tahoe basin, respectively, are undergoing north–south shortening. In addition, the central Carson Range, a major north-trending range block between two large normal fault zones, shows internal fault patterns that suggest the range is undergoing north–south shortening in addition to east–west extension.A model capable of explaining the spatial and temporal partitioning of slip suggests that seismic behavior in the region alternates between two modes, one mode characterized by an east–west minimum principal stress and a north–south maximum principal stress as at present. In this mode, seismicity and small-scale faulting reflecting north–south shortening concentrate in mechanically weak transition zones with primarily strike-slip faulting in relatively small-magnitude events, and domains with major normal faults are relatively quiet. A second mode occurs after sufficient north–south shortening reduces the north–south S_hmax in magnitude until it is less than S_v, at which point S_v becomes the maximum principal stress. This second mode is then characterized by large earthquakes on major normal faults in the large normal fault domains, which dominate the overall moment release in the region, producing significant east–west extension.     

基于夜间灯光数据的环渤海地区城市化空间模式和过程研究

1 Introduction Urban agglomeration is a system of cities, supporting by the modern transportation and information network in the system, these cities, with different characteristics, types, sizes and hierarchies, interact with each other, and one or two …     

Tectonic evolution of lower crustal rocks in an exposed magmatic arc section in the Hidaka metamorphic belt, Hokkaido, northern Japan

Abstract : The Hidaka metamorphic belt consists of an island-arc assembly of lower to upper crustal rocks formed during early to middle Paleogene time and exhumed during middle Paleogene to Miocene time. The tectonic evolution of the belt is divided into four stages, D₀rs, D₁, D₂rs, and D₃, based on their characteristic deformation, metamorphism, and igneous activity. The premetamorphic and igneous stage (D₀) involves tectonic thickening of an uppermost Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary accretionary complex, including oceanic materials in the lower part of the complex. D₁ is the stage of prograde metamorphism with increasing temperatures at a constant pressure during an early phase, and with a slight decrease of pressure at the peak metamorphic phase, accompanying flattening of metamorphic rocks and intrusions of mafic to intermediate igneous rocks. At the peak, incipient partial melting of pelitic and psammitic gneisses took place in the amphibolite–granulite facies transition zone, the melt and residuals cutting the foliations formed by flattening. In the deep crust, large amounts of S-type tonalite magma formed by crustal anatexis, intruded into the granulite facies gneiss zone and also into the upper levels of the metamorphic sequence during the subsequent stage. During D₁ stage, mafic and intermediate magmas supplied and transported heat to form the arc-type crust and at the same time, the magmatic underplating caused extensional doming of the crust, giving rise to flattening and vertical uplifting of the crustal rocks. D₂ stage is characterized by subhorizontal top-to-the-south displacement and thrusting of lower to upper crustal rocks, forming a basal detachment surface (décollement) and duplex structures associated with intrusions of S-type tonalite. Deformation structures and textures of high-temperature mylonites formed along the décollement, as well as the duplex structures, show that the D₂ stage movement occurred under a N-S trending compressional tectonic regime. The depth of intra-crustal décollement in the Hidaka belt was defined by the effect of multiplication of two factors, the fraction of partial melt which increases downward, and the fluid flux which decreases downward. The crustal décollement, however, might have extended to the crust-mantle boundary and/or to the lithosphere and asthenosphere boundary. The subhorizontal movement was transitional to a dextral-reverse-slip (dextral transpression) movement accompanied by low-temperature mylonitization with retrograde metamorphism, the stage defined as D₃. The crustal rocks from the basal décollement to the upper were tilted eastward on the N–S axis and exhumed during the D₃ stage. During D₂ and D₃ stages, the intrusion of crustal acidic magmas enhanced the crustal deformation and exhumation in the compressional and subsequent transpressional tectonic regime.     

Techniques and methods of arsenic contaminated groundwater exploration in the Hetao plain of Inner Mongolia,China

1990年报道了在中国内蒙古河套平原由于饮用污染的地下水而患砷中毒的病例.估计目前内蒙受到砷中毒影响的居民已超过41万人.从1997年至2004年,在长达8年的时间里,我们进行了水文地质调查、地质调查和医学调查,并装置了管道输送的供水系统.这些调查揭示了河套平原地下水受砷污染的机理:由于被吸收的砷释放进入地下水,蓄水层中不断加强的还原环境造成铁氢氧化物的溶解.为了防止砷中毒病人数量的进一步增加,停止饮用污染过的水和供应安全的饮用水是重要的.我们需要根据当地的地质和水文地质条件来了解砷污染的机理.     

New interpretation of the Franciscan mélange at San Simeon coast,California: tectonic intrusion into an accretionary prism

Many concepts and interpretations on the formation of the Franciscan mélange have been proposed on the basis of exposures at San Simeon, California. In this paper, we show the distribution of chaotic rocks, their internal structures and textures, and the interrelationship between the chaotic rocks and the surrounding sandstones (turbidites). Mélange components, particularly blueschists, oceanic rocks, including greenstone, pillow lava, bedded chert, limestone, sandstone, and conglomerate, have all been brecciated by retrograde deformation. The Cambria Slab, long interpreted as a trench slope basin, is also strongly deformed by fluidization, brecciation, isoclinal folding, and thrusting, leading us to a new interpretation that turbiditic rocks (including the Cambria Slab) represent trench deposits rather than slope basin sediments. These rocks form an accretionary prism above mélanges that were diapirically emplaced into these rocks first along sinistral-thrust faults, and then along dextral-normal faults. Riedel shear systems are observed in several orders of scale in both stages. Although the exhumation of the blueschist blocks is still controversial, the common extensional fractures and brecciation in most of the blocks in the mélanges and further mixture of various lithologies into one block with mélange muddy matrix indicate that once deeply buried blocks were exhumed from considerable depths to the accretionary prism body, before being diapirically intruded with their host mélange along thrust and normal faults, during which retrograde deformation occurred together with retrograde metamorphism. Recent similar examples of high-pressure rock exhumation have been documented along the Sofugan Tectonic Line in the Izu forearc areas, in the Mineoka belt in the Boso Peninsula, and as part of accretionary prism development in the Nankai and Sagami troughs of Japan. These modern analogues provide actively forming examples of the lithological and deformational features that characterize the Franciscan mélange processes.     

Development of partial factor design method on bending strength of piles for Japanese Specifications for Highway Bridges

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the development of a partial factor design method on the bending strength of piles for the Japanese Specifications for Highway Bridges. First, uncertainties in mobilised bending moments and yield bending moments were evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations. Second, the reliability of piles designed by the previous specifications were evaluated on the basis of reliability analysis considering uncertainties in the mobilised bending moments, yield bending moments, and other factors. Finally, a partial factor design method utilising a survey subsurface investigation method and ground type was developed to reach target reliability levels determined by the Standards.