Significance of correspondence between river discharge and proloculus size of benthic Foraminifera in paleomonsoonal studies

Variations in the mean proloculus size (MPS) of the benthic foraminiferal speciesRotalidium annectens were studied in a core collected off Karwar (20 m water depth), on the west coast of India. Comparison of downcore variations in the MPS with rainfall (five-year average) over a period of 100 years from the catchment area of the Kali River shows a direct correlation. This implies that higher MPS values indicate high rainfall over the catchment area and thus confirms the earlier hypothesis that the MPS is inversely related to salinity. The correspondence between MPS and rainfall shows a high potential in generating proximity data for the reconstruction of a paleo-precipitational history.     

Estimation of near surface soil moisture in a sloping terrain of a Himalayan watershed using ENVISAT ASAR multi‐incidence angle alternate polarisation data

Soil moisture is one of the important input variables in hydrological and water erosion models. The extraction of information on near surface soil moisture from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is well established mostly for flat terrain and using low incidence angle single polarisation data. The ENVISAT advanced SAR (ASAR) data available in multiple incidence angles and alternate polarisation modes were investigated in this study for soil moisture estimation in sloping terrain. The test site was Sitla Rao watershed in the Lesser Himalayas of northern India. Empirical models were developed to estimate near surface soil moisture in bare agricultural fields using alternate polarisation ASAR data. Both soil moisture and surface roughness field measurements were performed during the satellite passes. Backscatter from medium incidence angle (IS‐4) and vertical‐vertical (VV) polarisation signal is correlated better with volumetric soil moisture content compared to other incidence angles. The model parameters were further improved, and soil moisture estimation was refined by combining medium incidence angle (IS4) vertical‐horizontal polarisation response as another variable along with VV polarisation response. The effect of slope on the radar backscatter was minimized by incorporating local incidence angles derived from an ASTER DEM. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sediment storage and release from Himalayan piggyback basins and implications for downstream river morphology and evolution

Piggyback basins developed at the mountain fronts of collisional orogens can act as important, and transient, sediment stores along major river systems. It is not clear, however, how the storage and release of sediment in piggyback basins affects the sediment flux and evolution of downstream river reaches. Here, we investigate the timing and volumes of sediment storage and release in the Dehra Dun, a piggyback basin developed along the Himalayan mountain front in northwestern India. Based on OSL dating, we show evidence for three major phases of aggradation in the dun, bracketed at ca. 41–33 ka, 34–21 ka and 23–10 ka, each accompanied by progradation of sediment fans into the dun. Each of these phases was followed by backfilling and (apparently) rapid fan‐head incision, leading to abandonment of the depositional unit and a basinward shift of the active depocentre. Excavation of dun sediment after the second and third phases of aggradation produced time‐averaged sediment discharges that were ca. 1–2% of the modern suspended‐sediment discharges of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers that traverse the margins of the dun; this sediment was derived from catchment areas that together comprise 1.5% of the drainage area of these rivers. Comparison of the timing of dun storage and release with upstream and downstream records of incision and aggradation in the Ganga show that sediment storage in the dun generally coincides with periods of widespread hinterland aggradation but that late stages of dun aggradation, and especially times of dun sediment excavation, coincide with major periods of sediment export to the Ganga Basin. The dun thus acts to amplify temporal variations in hinterland sediment supply or transport capacity. This conceptual model appears to explain morphological features of other major river systems along the Himalayan front, including the Gandak and Kosi Rivers, and may be important for understanding sediment flux variations in other collisional mountain belts.     

Understanding confluence dynamics in the alluvial Ganga–Ramganga valley, India: An integrated approach using geomorphology and hydrology

Confluence dynamics in the Ganga–Ramganga valley in the western Ganga plains of India has been studied through systematic mapping of channel configuration using multi-date remote sensing images and topographic sheets for a period spanning nearly 100 years (1911–2000). The study has been supplemented with a detailed analysis of the channel morphology, hydrology and sediment transport characteristics of the different rivers. Our study indicates that new confluences have been created during this period and that the confluence points have moved both upstream and downstream on a historical time scale. Apart from major avulsions, other processes that have controlled the confluence movements include river capture, cut-offs and aggradation in the confluence area. River capture occurs through lateral bank erosion and migration, encroachment by the master stream and beheading of smaller rivers resulting in upstream movement of the confluence point. Another process which influences the upstream migration of the confluence is an increase in sinuosity of one of the channels near the confluence and then a cut-off. Aggradation in the confluence area and local avulsions of the primary channel in a multi-channel system seem to be the major process controlling the downstream movement of the confluence point. Analysis of channel morphology, hydrology and sediment budget for the study period supports our interpretations.     

Perturbations of a geo-centric synchronous satellite with resonance

We have investigated the resonances due to the perturbations of a geo-centric synchronous satellite under the gravitational forces of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth including it’s equatorial ellipticity. The resonances at the points resulting from (i) the commensurability between \(\dot{\theta}_{0}\) (steady-state orbital angular rate of the satellite) and \(\dot{\theta}_{m}\) (angular velocity of the moon around the earth) and (ii) the commensurability between \(\dot{\theta}_{0}\) and \(\dot{\psi}_{0}\) (steady-state regression rate of the synchronous satellite) are analyzed. The amplitude and the time period of the oscillation have been determined by using the procedure as given in Brown and Shook (Planetary Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1933). We have observed that as θ _m (0^°≤θ _m ≤45^°) and ψ (0^°≤ψ≤135^°) increase, the amplitude decreases and the time period also decreases. We have also shown the effect of ψ on amplitude and time period for 0^°≤Γ≤45^°, where Γ is the angle measured from the minor axis of the earth’s equatorial ellipse to the projection of the satellite on the plane of the equator.     

Optimization of spatial statistical approaches to identify land use/land cover change hot spots of Pune region of Maharashtra using remote sensing and GIS techniques

This study investigated land use/land cover change (LULCC) dynamics using temporal satellite images and spatial statistical cluster analysis approaches in order to identify potential LULCC hot spots in the Pune region. LULCC hot spot classes defined as new, progressive and non-progressive were derived from Gi* scores. Results indicate that progressive hot spots have experienced high growth in terms of urban built-up areas (20.67% in 1972–1992 and 19.44% in 1992–2012), industrial areas (0.73% in 1972–1992 and 3.46% in 1992–2012) and fallow lands (4.35% in 1972–1992 and ?6.38% in 1992–2012). It was also noticed that about 28.26% of areas near the city were identified as new hot spots after 1992. Hence, non-significant change areas were identified as non-progressive after 1992. The study demonstrated that LULCC hot spot mapping through the integrated spatial statistical approach was an effective approach for analysing the direction, rate, spatial pattern and spatial relationship of LULCC.     

A model‐based data‐driven dictionary learning for seismic data representation

Planar waves events recorded in a seismic array can be represented as lines in the Fourier domain. However, in the real world, seismic events usually have curvature or amplitude variability, which means that their Fourier transforms are no longer strictly linear but rather occupy conic regions of the Fourier domain that are narrow at low frequencies but broaden at high frequencies where the effect of curvature becomes more pronounced. One can consider these regions as localised “signal cones”. In this work, we consider a space–time variable signal cone to model the seismic data. The variability of the signal cone is obtained through scaling, slanting, and translation of the kernel for cone‐limited (C‐limited) functions (functions whose Fourier transform lives within a cone) or C‐Gaussian function (a multivariate function whose Fourier transform decays exponentially with respect to slowness and frequency), which constitutes our dictionary. We find a discrete number of scaling, slanting, and translation parameters from a continuum by optimally matching the data. This is a non‐linear optimisation problem, which we address by a fixed‐point method that utilises a variable projection method with ?₁ constraints on the linear parameters and bound constraints on the non‐linear parameters. We observe that slow decay and oscillatory behaviour of the kernel for C‐limited functions constitute bottlenecks for the optimisation problem, which we partially overcome by the C‐Gaussian function. We demonstrate our method through an interpolation example. We present the interpolation result using the estimated parameters obtained from the proposed method and compare it with those obtained using sparsity‐promoting curvelet decomposition, matching pursuit Fourier interpolation, and sparsity‐promoting plane‐wave decomposition methods.     

Enabling affordable omnidirectional subsurface extended image volumes via probing

Image gathers as a function of subsurface offset are an important tool for the inference of rock properties and velocity analysis in areas of complex geology. Traditionally, these gathers are thought of as multidimensional correlations of the source and receiver wavefields. The bottleneck in computing these gathers lies in the fact that one needs to store, compute, and correlate these wavefields for all shots in order to obtain the desired image gathers. Therefore, the image gathers are typically only computed for a limited number of subsurface points and for a limited range of subsurface offsets, which may cause problems in complex geological areas with large geologic dips. We overcome increasing computational and storage costs of extended image volumes by introducing a formulation that avoids explicit storage and removes the customary and expensive loop over shots found in conventional extended imaging. As a result, we end up with a matrix–vector formulation from which different image gathers can be formed and with which amplitude‐versus‐angle and wave‐equation migration velocity analysis can be performed without requiring prior information on the geologic dips. Aside from demonstrating the formation of two‐way extended image gathers for different purposes and at greatly reduced costs, we also present a new approach to conduct automatic wave‐equation‐based migration‐velocity analysis. Instead of focusing in particular offset directions and preselected subsets of subsurface points, our method focuses every subsurface point for all subsurface offset directions using a randomized probing technique. As a consequence, we obtain good velocity models at low cost for complex models without the need to provide information on the geologic dips.