Chile has a rich, but poorly known history of placer gold mining. At present, this sector is almost nonexistent and there are some restrictions for its revival: disperse and partial information on existing resources and limited technical expertise to assess the potential of placer gold mine sites. This paper presents the background, methodology and results of the prioritization process of known prospects of this kind in Chile. This research was part of a publicly funded project aimed to incentivize the development of this industry. The ranking was carried out using the analytic hierarchy process, which allowed to include different quantitative and qualitative variables related to the economic potential, technical aspects, contextual viability and socioeconomic factors in the analysis. The results show that, despite the increasing relevance of environmental and community issues in mining development, the business potential and the economic/technical aspects are the main factors in the early selection of a site to advance in exploration and development activities. Both variables represented around 40% and 37% of weights in the final selection, respectively. In contrast, contextual viability and local socioeconomic impacts only accounted for the remaining 23%. This study also shows that the inclusion of experts with different backgrounds in the process enriches the analysis and does not significantly distort the final outcome of the prioritization. Finally, the relevance of using MCDM tools when assessing the attractiveness of mine sites for their development is highlighted, particularly when public funds for subsequent exploration activities are committed.
Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - This work analyzes the geomagnetic field variations recorded at the Magnetic Observatory of Karazin Kharkiv National University (in the period range of 1–1000 s)... 相似文献
Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - The solar activity at different latitudes is analyzed based on daily observations at Kodaikanal, Mount Wilson, Sacramento Peak, and Meudon observatories in the CaIIK... 相似文献
Water Resources - The space–time variations in the Oka basin water chemistry have been considered. The specific features in the river water and groundwater pollution along the Oka channel and... 相似文献
Input energy is the principal component of the energy balance equation. It is beneficial to determine, through its components, how the recoverable and irrecoverable energies are distributed within the structural elements. Several equations and attenuation relations to define mass-normalized input energy spectra exist in the literature. They are mainly proposed for elastic systems subjected to far-fault EQs. There is a lack of experimental verification of these proposed spectra. In this paper, experimental assessment was performed to the existing spectra, and further improvements were accomplished. For this purpose, steel cantilever columns were tested on the shake table for two specific historical EQs coincidently having similar spectral acceleration values. Based on the experimental results, a three-part mass-normalized relative input energy spectrum was formulated including soil type, EQ (corner period, intensity, duration, spectral acceleration, and velocity), and structural behavioral characteristics (period and structural damping). The proposed input energy spectrum was experimentally calibrated and numerically validated for various EQs featuring near- and far-field types. Analytical and experimental comparisons were made between the previously developed spectrum and the newly proposed one. The validation studies and the statistical evaluations exposed that the proposed spectrum yielded better agreement with the experimental and numerical results. 相似文献
Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - We develop an approach to create a model of the solar extreme ultraviolet spectrum in the wavelength range responsible for dissociation of molecular oxygen... 相似文献
Barrier islands are important landforms in many coastal systems around the globe. Studies of modern barrier island systems are mostly limited to those of siliciclastic realms, where the islands are recognized as mobile features that form on transgressive coastlines and migrate landward as sea-level rises. Barrier islands of the ‘Great Pearl Bank’ along the United Arab Emirates coast are the best-known carbonate examples. These Holocene islands, however, are interpreted to be anchored by older deposits and immobile. The mid-Holocene to late-Holocene depositional system at Al Ruwais, northern Qatar, provides an example of a mobile carbonate barrier island system, perhaps more similar to siliciclastic equivalents. Sedimentological and petrographic analyses, as well as 14C-dating of shells and biogenic remains from vibracored sediments and surface deposits, show that after 7000 years ago a barrier system with a narrow back-barrier lagoon formed along what is now an exposed coastal zone, while, contemporaneously, a laterally-extensive coral reef was forming immediately offshore. After 1400 years ago the barrier system was forced to step ca 3 km seaward in response to a sea-level fall of less than 2 m, where it re-established itself directly on the mid-Holocene reef. Since that time, the barrier has retreated landward as much as 1000 m to its current position, exposing previously-deposited back-barrier lagoonal sediment at the open-coast shoreline. In modern neritic warm-water carbonate settings mobile barrier island systems are rare. Their construction and migration may be inhibited by reef formation, early cementation, and the relative inefficiency of sourcing beach sediments from open carbonate shelves. Carbonate barrier island systems likely formed more commonly during geological periods when ramps and unrimmed shelves predominated and in calcite seas, when meteoric cementation was minimized as a result of initial calcitic allochem mineralogy. As with their siliciclastic analogues, however, recognition of the influence of these transient landforms in the rock record is challenging. 相似文献
Hekla volcano is a major producer of large, widespread silicic tephras. About 3000 years ago, the dominant eruption mode shifted from infrequent large (>1 km3) to more frequent moderate (<1 km3) eruptions. In the following two millennia ≥20 explosive silicic-to-intermediate eruptions occurred, and six or more basaltic. Three categories can be identified with dacite/andesite to basaltic andesite in the oldest eruptions through basaltic andesite to basalt in the youngest eruptions. Ten tephra layers of the first category have distinct field characteristics: a pale lower unit and a dark upper unit (two coloured or TC-layers). Colour separation is sharp indicating a stratified magma chamber origin. The lower unit is dominantly andesitic (61–63% SiO2), while the upper unit is basaltic andesite (53–57% SiO2). Volumes of the eight largest TC-layers range from 0.2 to 0.7 km3 as freshly fallen. Radiocarbon and soil accumulation rate dates constrain the TC-layers to between 3000 and 2200 years ago. Two of these (~2890 and ~2920 b2k) are likely to occur overseas. Low SiO2 in the last erupted tephra of the TC-layers is comparable to that of historical Hekla lavas, implying a final effusive phase. The Hekla edifice may, consequently, be younger than 3000 years. 相似文献
The 2 to 5 km thick, sandstone-dominated (>90%) Jura Quartzite is an extreme example of a mature Neoproterozoic sandstone, previously interpreted as a tide-influenced shelf deposit and herein re-interpreted within a fluvio-tidal deltaic depositional model. Three issues are addressed: (i) evidence for the re-interpretation from tidal shelf to tidal delta; (ii) reasons for vertical facies uniformity; and (iii) sand supply mechanisms to form thick tidal-shelf sandstones. The predominant facies (compound cross-bedded, coarse-grained sandstones) represents the lower parts of metres to tens of metres high, transverse fluvio-tidal bedforms with superimposed smaller bedforms. Ubiquitous erosional surfaces, some with granule–pebble lags, record erosion of the upper parts of those bedforms. There was selective preservation of the higher energy, topographically-lower, parts of channel-bar systems. Strongly asymmetrical, bimodal, palaeocurrents are interpreted as due to associated selective preservation of fluvially-enhanced ebb tidal currents. Finer-grained facies are scarce, due largely to suspended sediment bypass. They record deposition in lower-energy environments, including channel mouth bars, between and down depositional-dip of higher energy fluvio-ebb tidal bars. The lack of wave-formed sedimentary structures and low continuity of mudstone and sandstone interbeds, support deposition in a non-shelf setting. Hence, a sand-rich, fluvial–tidal, current-dominated, largely sub-tidal, delta setting is proposed. This new interpretation avoids the problem of transporting large amounts of coarse sand to a shelf. Facies uniformity and vertical stacking are likely due to sediment oversupply and bypass rather than balanced sediment supply and subsidence rates. However, facies evidence of relative sea level changes is difficult to recognise, which is attributed to: (i) the areally extensive and polygenetic nature of the preserved facies, and (ii) a large stored sediment buffer that dampened response to relative sea-level and/or sediment supply changes. Consideration of preservation bias towards high-energy deposits may be more generally relevant, especially to thick Neoproterozoic and Lower Palaeozoic marine sandstones. 相似文献