Geophysical investigation using resistivity and GPR methods: a case study of a lubricant oil waste disposal area in the city of Ribeirão Preto,São Paulo,Brazil     

Alexandre Lisboa Lago  Vagner Roberto Elis  Welitom Rodrigues Borges  Giovanni Chaves Penner 《Environmental Geology》2009,58(2):407-417

Geophysics has been shown to be effective in identifying areas contaminated by waste disposal, contributing to the greater efficiency of soundings programs and the installation of monitoring wells. In the study area, four trenches were constructed with a total volume of about 25,000 m³. They were almost totally filled with re-refined lubricating oil waste for approximately 25 years. No protection liners were used in the bottoms and laterals of the disposal trenches. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the potential of the resistivity and ground penetrating radar (GPR) methods in characterizing the contamination of this lubricant oil waste disposal area in Ribeirão Preto, SP, situated on the geological domain of the basalt spills of the Serra Geral Formation and the sandstones of the Botucatu Formation. Geophysical results were shown in 2D profiles. The geophysical methods used enabled the identification of geophysical anomalies, which characterized the contamination produced by the trenches filled with lubricant oil waste. Conductive anomalies (smaller than 185 Ωm) immediately below the trenches suggest the action of bacteria in the hydrocarbons, as has been observed in several sites contaminated by hydrocarbons in previously reported cases in the literature. It was also possible to define the geometry of the trenches, as evidenced by the GPR method. Direct sampling (chemical analysis of the soil and the water in the monitoring well) confirmed the contamination. In the soil analysis, low concentrations of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were found, mainly naphthalene and phenanthrene. In the water samples, an analysis verified contamination of the groundwater by lead (Pb). The geophysical methods used in the investigation provided an excellent tool for environmental characterization in this study of a lubricant oil waste disposal area, and could be applied in the study of similar areas.  相似文献   

U?Pb and 40Ar?39Ar geochronology of Palaeozoic units in the northern Apennines: determining protolith age and alpine evolution using the Calamita Schist and Ortano Porphyroid     

Giovanni Musumeci  Francesco Mazzarini  Massimo Tiepolo  Gianfranco Di Vincenzo 《Geological Journal》2011,46(4):288-310

In the northern Apennines, the Palaeozoic basement involved in the Late Oligocene–Middle Miocene nappe stack contains metamorphic units for which hypothetical ages have been assigned on the basis of lithological correlations with the Palaeozoic formations of the Variscan chain in Sardinia. This uncertainty concerning the age poses limitations to reconstructing the Palaeozoic stratigraphy, defining the Alpine and pre‐Alpine histories and correlations with other domains of the Variscan chain. We present the U Pb age of detrital zircon and the ⁴⁰Ar ³⁹Ar age of metamorphic muscovite for the Calamita Schist and Ortano Porphyroid, two metamorphic units of undetermined Palaeozoic age cropping out in the eastern Elba Island. The radioisotopic data allows us to: (i) define the Early Carboniferous and Middle Ordovician ages for the Calamita Schist and Ortano Porphyroid, respectively, as well as their derivation (flysch deposit and magmatic rocks); (ii) pose some constraints concerning their alpine tectonic and metamorphic histories. These new data generate a more precise reconstruction of the Palaeozoic sequence in the northern Apennines, and they document that the Palaeozoic basement involved in the alpine deformation underwent internal stacking with an inversion of the original sequence. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Since turtles cannot talk: what beak movement sensors can tell us about the feeding ecology of neritic loggerhead turtles,Caretta caretta     

Sandra Hochscheid  Andrea Travaglini  Fulvio Maffucci  Graeme C. Hays  Flegra Bentivegna 《Marine Ecology》2013,34(3):321-333

Understanding the role that consumers play in an ecosystem requires knowledge about food selection and intake rates. However, such basic data are often difficult to obtain, particularly for marine animals that are not easy to observe. To overcome this problem, a beak movement sensor was employed on a free‐ranging loggerhead turtle in a neritic foraging habitat at the Domitian littoral (SW Italy). In combination with gastrointestinal content analysis from six turtles found dead in the same area we sought to identify which beak movement patterns were associated with which prey type, and to quantify the ingestion of the various prey types. Brachyuran crabs (100% occurrence), in particular Liocarcinus vernalis, and small molluscs (66% occurrence) were found most frequently in the stomach and intestine of the turtles. Beak movements revealed average ingestion rates of (mean ± SE) 0.27 ± 0.13 food items per minute and that feeding occurred predominantly during dives >4 m and during early morning and evening. Interestingly, the time spent feeding amounted to only 2.2% of the total observation time, whereas feeding‐associated dives added up to just above 10% of the total time. We thus established that loggerhead turtles in this area are specialised on brachyuran crabs, on which they prey with high success during the short time dedicated to foraging. This information strengthens our knowledge about turtle–prey and turtle–habitat interactions, which are essential data to delineate the role that turtles play in this and similar marine ecosystems. Moreover, since the same area is also intensively used by the regional bottom trawl fishery, our results have important conservation implications, because they clearly show the time of day and water depths for which fishing activity should be regulated to reduce the number of turtles that are currently being incidentally caught in this area.  相似文献   

Comparing models of debris-flow susceptibility in the alpine environment   总被引：12，自引：3，他引：9  

Alberto Carrara  Giovanni Crosta  Paolo Frattini   《Geomorphology》2008,94(3-4):353

Debris-flows are widespread in Val di Fassa (Trento Province, Eastern Italian Alps) where they constitute one of the most dangerous gravity-induced surface processes. From a large set of environmental characteristics and a detailed inventory of debris flows, we developed five models to predict location of debris-flow source areas. The models differ in approach (statistical vs. physically-based) and type of terrain unit of reference (slope unit vs. grid cell). In the statistical models, a mix of several environmental factors classified areas with different debris-flow susceptibility; however, the factors that exert a strong discriminant power reduce to conditions of high slope-gradient, pasture or no vegetation cover, availability of detrital material, and active erosional processes. Since slope and land use are also used in the physically-based approach, all model results are largely controlled by the same leading variables.Overlaying susceptibility maps produced by the different methods (statistical vs. physically-based) for the same terrain unit of reference (grid cell) reveals a large difference, nearly 25% spatial mismatch. The spatial discrepancy exceeds 30% for susceptibility maps generated by the same method (discriminant analysis) but different terrain units (slope unit vs. grid cell). The size of the terrain unit also led to different susceptibility maps (almost 20% spatial mismatch). Maps based on different statistical tools (discriminant analysis vs. logistic regression) differed least (less than 10%). Hence, method and terrain unit proved to be equally important in mapping susceptibility.Model performance was evaluated from the percentages of terrain units that each model correctly classifies, the number of debris-flow falling within the area classified as unstable by each model, and through the metric of ROC curves. Although all techniques implemented yielded results essentially comparable; the discriminant model based on the partition of the study area into small slope units may constitute the most suitable approach to regional debris-flow assessment in the Alpine environment.  相似文献   

Study of Shallow Low-Enthalpy Geothermal Resources Using Integrated Geophysical Methods     

Lara De Giorgi  Giovanni Leucci 《Acta Geophysica》2015,63(1):125-153

The paper is focused on low enthalpy geothermal exploration performed in south Italy and provides an integrated presentation of geological, hydrogeological, and geophysical surveys carried out in the area of municipality of Lecce. Geological and hydrogeological models were performed using the stratigraphical data from 51 wells. A ground-water flow (direction and velocity) model was obtained. Using the same wells data, the ground-water annual temperature was modeled. Furthermore, the ground surface temperature records from ten meteorological stations were studied. This allowed us to obtain a model related to the variations of the temperature at different depths in the subsoil. Integrated geophysical surveys were carried out in order to explore the low-enthalpy geothermal fluids and to evaluate the results of the model. Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and self-potential (SP) methods were used. The results obtained upon integrating the geophysical data with the models show a low-enthalpy geothermal resource constituted by a shallow ground-water system.  相似文献   

Improved 2-D attenuation analysis for Northern Italy using a merged dataset from selected regional seismic networks     

Paola Morasca  Marco Massa  Enrica Laprocina  Kevin Mayeda  Scott Phillips  Luca Malagnini  Daniele Spallarossa  Giovanni Costa  Paolo Augliera 《Journal of Seismology》2010,14(4):727-738

A merged, high-quality waveform dataset from different seismic networks has been used to improve our understanding of lateral seismic attenuation for Northern Italy. In a previous study on the same region, Morasca et al. (Bull Seismol Soc Am 98:1936–1946, 2008) were able to resolve only a small area due to limited data coverage. For this reason, the interpretation of the attenuation anomalies was difficult given the complexity of the region and the poor resolution of the available data. In order to better understand the lateral changes in the crustal structure and thickness of this region, we selected 770 earthquakes recorded by 54 stations for a total of almost 16,000 waveforms derived from seismic networks operating totally or partially in Northern Italy. Direct S-wave and coda attenuation images were obtained using an amplitude ratio technique that eliminates source terms from the formulation. Both direct and early-coda amplitudes are used as input for the inversions, and the results are compared. Results were obtained for various frequency bands ranging between 0.3 and 25.0 Hz and in all cases show significant improvement with respect to the previous study since the resolved area has been extended and more crossing paths have been used to image smaller scale anomalies. Quality-factor estimates are consistent with the regional tectonic structure exhibiting a general trend of low attenuation under the Po Plain basin and higher values for the Western Alps and Northern Apennines. The interpretation of the results for the Eastern Alps is not simple, possibly because our resolution for this area is still not adequate to resolve small-scale structures.  相似文献   

Seismic fragility curves of as-built single-span masonry arch bridges     

Giovanni Tecchio  Marco Donà  Francesca da Porto 《Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering》2016,14(11):3099-3124

Masonry arch bridges are crucial elements in the railway transportation network throughout Europe. Although significant advances in seismic risk assessment of various bridge types have been made by developing fragility curves of generalized classes of structures, there are no comparable tools for masonry arch structures. In this context, this paper presents the construction of seismic fragility curves of single-span masonry bridges according to the limit analysis method. An iterative procedure is implemented to define the capacity curve of the equivalent single degree of freedom system through non-linear kinematic analysis. The process involves determination of the collapse mechanism, calculation of the limit load multiplier, and definition of the thrust line. The intrinsic variability of the seismic action is incorporated with the use of different sets of elastic spectra compatible with EC 8 Type-1 spectrum for various types of soil, with peak ground acceleration varying over the range 0.05–1.5 g. The fragility curves of the generalized classes of single-span masonry bridges are finally obtained from the effective ranges of the main geometric and material parameters affecting arch bridge capacity.  相似文献   

Numerical reconstruction of trajectory of small-size surface drifter in the Mediterranean sea     

Elena Y. Shchekinova  Yogesh Kumkar  Giovanni Coppini 《Ocean Dynamics》2016,66(2):153-161

In this study, we addressed the effects of wind-induced drift on Lagrangian trajectories of surface sea objects using high-resolution ocean forecast and atmospheric data. Application of stochastic Leeway model for prediction of trajectories drift was considered for the numerical reconstruction of the Elba accident that occurred during the period 21.06.2009–22.06.2009: a person on an inflatable raft was lost in the vicinity of the Elba Island coast; from the initial position, the person on a raft drifted southwards in the open sea and later he was found on a partially deflated raft during rescue operation. For geophysical forcing, we used high-resolution currents from the Mediterranean Forecasting System and atmospheric wind from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. To investigate the effect of wind on trajectory behavior, numerical simulations were performed using different categories of drifter-like particles similar to a person on an inflatable raft. An algorithm of spatial clustering was used to differentiate the most probable search areas with a high density of particles. Our results showed that the simulation scenarios using particles with characteristics of draft-limited sea drifters provided better prediction of an observed trajectory in terms of the probability density of particles.  相似文献   

Strategic groundwater resources in the Tagliamento River basin (northern Italy): hydrogeological investigation integrated with geophysical exploration     

Dimitra Rapti-Caputo  Antonio Bratus  Giovanni Santarato 《Hydrogeology Journal》2009,17(6):1393-1409

The western sector of the Tagliamento River basin (Friuli Venezia-Giulia Region; northern Italy) is characterized by important water resources, both superficial and underground. In particular, in the Quaternary deposits of the plain, up to a depth of 500 m, six artesian aquifer systems exist. A large amount of lithological, geomorphological, and hydrogeological data is presented, allowing for definition of (a) the principal aquifer system of the area to a depth of about 500 m; (b) geometrical characteristics of the aquifers (thickness, lateral extension, etc); (c) the hydraulic parameters (hydraulic conductivity, transmissivity); (d) chemico-physical characteristics of the water; and (e) vulnerability to pollution of the aquifer systems. In a test area, where many boreholes were drilled for fresh water supply, the conceptual hydrogeological model was integrated by a detailed and repeated three-dimensional (3D) resistivity survey using combined electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and time-domain electromagnetic (TDEM) soundings. ERT investigation was mainly used to get detailed information about geometry and porosity of the overburden and to calibrate the shallowest TDEM information.  相似文献   

Assessment of water vapor retrievals from a GPS receiver network     

Stefania Bonafoni  Augusto Mazzoni  Domenico Cimini  Mario Montopoli  Nazzareno Pierdicca  Patrizia Basili  Piero Ciotti  Giovanni Carlesimo 《GPS Solutions》2013,17(4):475-484

We present an assessment of a GPS receiver operational network to produce accurate integrated precipitable water vapour (IPWV) during a two-week field experiment carried out in Central Italy around the city of Rome, where different instruments were operative. This experimental activity provided an excellent opportunity to compare the GPS products with independent measurements provided by ground-based and space-based sensors and to evaluate their quality in terms of absolute accuracy of IPWV, analyzing also the spatial scale of GPS estimates. For instance, the assimilation into Numerical Weather Prediction models of IPWV provided by a GPS network or its exploitation in space geodesy applications to correct tropospheric effects requires an accuracy in the order of 0.1 cm to be ascribed to IPWV observations. In this work, we assessed that the accuracy for GPS IPWV estimates is 0.07 cm. Moreover, this experiment has pointed out strengths and limitations of an operational network for the water vapor estimation, such as a proper receiver distribution to achieve the desired spatial resolution and a coverage of GPS stations in both flat and mountains regions.  相似文献