Two‐layer scree/snow‐avalanche triggered by rockfall (Eastern Alps): Significance for sedimentology of scree slopes     

Diethard Sanders  Lukas Widera  Marc Ostermann 《Sedimentology》2014,61(4):996-1030

Rockfalls that trigger scree‐laden snow avalanches are common in mountain ranges, but the resulting avalanche development and its role in understanding the sedimentology of scree slopes are rarely described in detail. On Riepenwand (2774 m above sea‐level, Kalkkögel range, Alps), on 6 May 2011 a 5800 m³ rockfall of dolostone detached from the flank of a gorge in the upper part of the mountain. After first collapsing into the gorge, the fragmented rock mass fell down freely for 150 m onto a talus covered by coarse‐granular snow. Rockfall impact triggered a medium‐scale avalanche that developed: (i) a lower layer A of entrained, pure snow; and (ii) an upper layer B of clay‐sized to boulder‐sized fragments mixed with snow. This ‘two‐layer scree/snow avalanche’ halted in the distal slope segment of the talus. Boulders within layer B mainly came to rest in the distal part of the avalanche deposit. Fragments smaller than cobble‐size grade did not show obvious downslope segregation. With snowmelt, the rockfall fragments dispersed in layer B were concentrated to a clast‐supported veneer that was draped over the older talus surface upon slower melting of avalanche layer A. In the grain‐size fraction ≤16 mm, a mean of 5 wt% matrix (silt‐sized to clay‐sized grains) of the rockfall‐derived scree of layer B is similar to a mean matrix content of 7 wt% within stratified talus slopes of the Kalkkögel range. This similarity suggests that a major share of matrix – widespread in stratified talus – stems from rockfalls. The characteristics of the scree veneer as melt‐lag of a scree‐laden snow avalanche will be blurred with time. Fossil talus successions may contain a substantial proportion of scree carried down by snow avalanches. The formation of a distinct sedimentary facies of snow avalanche‐deposited scree is impeded by processes of redeposition and deposit modification on talus.  相似文献   

The Herschel PACS photometer calibration     

Markus Nielbock  Thomas Müller  Ulrich Klaas  Bruno Altieri  Zoltán Balog  Nicolas Billot  Hendrik Linz  Koryo Okumura  Miguel Sánchez-Portal  Marc Sauvage 《Experimental Astronomy》2013,36(3):631-660

We present a flux calibration scheme for the PACS chopped point-source photometry observing mode based on the photometry of five stellar standard sources. This mode was used for science observations only early in the mission. Later, it was only used for pointing and flux calibration measurements. Its calibration turns this type of observation into fully validated data products in the Herschel Science Archive. Systematic differences in calibration with regard to the principal photometer observation mode, the scan map, are derived and amount to 5 ? 6 %. An empirical method to calibrate out an apparent response drift during the first 300 Operational Days is presented. The relative photometric calibration accuracy (repeatability) is as good as 1 % in the blue and green band and up to 5 % in the red band. Like for the scan map mode, inconsistencies among the stellar calibration models become visible and amount to 2 % for the five standard stars used. The absolute calibration accuracy is therefore mainly limited by the model uncertainty, which is 5 % for all three bands.  相似文献   

Polyhedral modelling of underground excavations     

Marc Elmouttie  George Poropat  Grégoire Krähenbühl 《Computers and Geotechnics》2010

The use of key-block theory for the analysis of blocky rock mass structures in mining and civil engineering is well established. Such methods have traditionally been used to analyse the stability of rock blocks at free surfaces only. These methods have also been limited to the analysis of relatively few discontinuities, usually assumed to be infinitely persistent.  相似文献   

Time-window-based filtering method for near-surface detection of leakage from geologic carbon sequestration sites     

Lehua Pan  Jennifer L. Lewicki  Curtis M. Oldenburg  Marc L. Fischer 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2010,60(2):359-369

We use process-based modeling techniques to characterize the temporal features of natural biologically controlled surface CO₂ fluxes and the relationships between the assimilation and respiration fluxes. Based on these analyses, we develop a signal-enhancing technique that combines a novel time-window splitting scheme, a simple median filtering, and an appropriate scaling method to detect potential signals of leakage of CO₂ from geologic carbon sequestration sites from within datasets of net near-surface CO₂ flux measurements. The technique can be directly applied to measured data and does not require subjective gap filling or data-smoothing preprocessing. Preliminary application of the new method to flux measurements from a CO₂ shallow-release experiment appears promising for detecting a leakage signal relative to background variability. The leakage index of ±2 was found to span the range of biological variability for various ecosystems as determined by observing CO₂ flux data at various control sites for a number of years.  相似文献   

The South Eastern Durance fault permanent network: Preliminary results     

Philippe Volant  Catherine Berge-Thierry  Pierre Dervin  Marc Cushing  Georgianna Mohammadioun  Franck Mathieu 《Journal of Seismology》2000,4(2):175-189

The Durance fault area is located in South EasternFrance. This fault system is characterized byhistorical earthquakes (one every century, since 1509,with a magnitude between 5.0 and 5.3). This is theonly fault in France with such a periodic historicalseismic activity. In order to study an active fault ina moderate seismic context, the IPSN (Institute forNuclear Safety and Protection) decided to install apermanent network in 1992, surrounding the fault area.Such a permanent seismic network has been installed inthe french Pyrenees in the Arette area (Gagnepain etal., 1980). While the Arette network covers a regionaffected by several major faults, our network isdevoted to the study of the specific Durance fault.Major historical earthquakes are clearly associatedwith this structure. From an instrumental point ofview, few earthquakes have been recorded since 1962with the national network. Our network shows a smallseismic activity, with the epicenters well alignedalong the fault direction. Moreover, focal mechanismscomputed for two events agree with the regionalmicrostructural studies (Cushing et al., 1997).Finally, a study of the shear wave splittingunderlines preferential S wave polarization for twostations. The H/V ratio on noise microtremors has beencomputed for each station in order to check theirpositions in term of site effects. It does not exhibitany amplification effect (except for two stations).The comparisons with H/V ratio on earthquake datasetshow the important biases we can obtain with realearthquakes.  相似文献   

The Correlation Structure of Matheron's Classical Variogram Estimator Under Elliptically Contoured Distributions     

Marc G. Genton 《Mathematical Geology》2000,32(1):127-137

The classical variogram estimator proposed by Matheron can be written as a quadratic form of the observations. When data have an elliptically contoured distribution with constant mean, the correlation between the classical variogram estimator at two different lags is a function of the spatial design matrix, the covariance matrix, and the kurtosis. Several specific cases are studied closely. A subclass of elliptically contoured distributions with a particular family of covariance matrices is shown to possess exactly the same correlation structure for the classical variogram estimator as the multivariate independent Gaussian distribution. The consequences on variogram fitting by generalized least squares are discussed.  相似文献   

Groundwater components in the alluvial aquifer of the alpine Rhone River valley, Bois de Finges area, Wallis Canton, Switzerland     

Marc Schürch  François-D. Vuataz 《Hydrogeology Journal》2000,8(5):549-563

Source, type, and quantity of various components of groundwater, as well as their spatial and temporal variations were determined by different hydrochemical methods in the alluvial aquifer of the upper Rhone River valley, Bois de Finges, Wallis Canton, Switzerland. The methods used are hydrochemical modeling, stable-isotope analysis, and chemical analysis of surface water and groundwater. Sampling during high- and low-water periods determined the spatial distribution of the water chemistry, whereas monthly sampling over three years provided a basis for understanding seasonal variability. The physico-chemical parameters of the groundwater have spatial and seasonal variations. The groundwater chemical composition of the Rhone alluvial aquifer indicates a mixing of weakly mineralized Rhone River water and SO₄-rich water entering from the south side of the valley. Temporal changes in groundwater chemistry and in groundwater levels reflect the seasonal variations of the different contributors to groundwater recharge. The Rhone River recharges the alluvial aquifer only during the summer high-water period. Electronic Publication  相似文献   

Major and trace element compositions of georgiaites: Clues to the source of North American tektites     

Edward F. ALBIN  Marc D. NORMAN  Michael RODEN 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2000,35(4):795-806

Abstract— Electron microprobe and laser ablation, inductively‐coupled plasma mass spectrometer analyses of 24 georgiaites show that these tektites are all Si‐rich (79–83 wt% SiO₂) glasses with variable major and trace element abundances (e.g., FeO varies from 2.1 to 3.7 wt%). Glass compositions are similar to but not identical with average upper continental crust. For example, georgiaites are light rare earth element enriched with small negative Eu anomalies (Eu/Eu*=0.73‐0.86) and La‐Th‐Sc systematics are intermediate between that of Archean and post‐Archean continental crust. When the georgiaite data are placed in the context of data for all North American tektites, triangular arrays appear on some oxide‐oxide plots (e.g., FeO‐MgO). Large variations in refractory element abundances and ratios compared to the variation in SiO₂ favors mixing over volatilization as a cause of the compositional variation. If all the tektites formed as a result of a single impact, then triangular arrays in oxide‐oxide variation diagrams require at least three source components. These components include a Si‐rich material, probably a quartz‐rich sand that was predominant in the formation of georgiaites. Two relatively silica‐poor and Fe‐rich components have compositional characteristics similar to shales and greywackes. The La‐Th‐Sc systematics of the georgiaites and most other North American tektites are distinctive and could potentially be used to link the tektites to Eocene sediments at the Chesapeake Bay impact structure.  相似文献   

Probability distributions for maximum wave and crest heights     

Marc Prevosto  Harald E. Krogstad  Agns Robin 《Coastal Engineering》2000,40(4)

The paper discusses short- and long-term probability models of ocean waves. The Gaussian theory is reviewed, and nonlinear short-term probability distributions are derived from a narrow band second-order model. The nonlinearity has different impact on different measurement techniques, and this is further demonstrated for wave data from the WAVEMOD Crete measurement campaign and laser data from the North Sea. Finally, we give some examples on how the short-term statistics may be used to estimate the probability distributions for the maximum waves during individual storms as well as in a wave climate described by long-term distributions.  相似文献   

Galactic bulges from Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS observations: ages and dust     

Reynier F. Peletier  Marc Balcells  Roger L. Davies  Y. Andredakis  A. Vazdekis  A. Burkert  F. Prada 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1999,310(3):703-716

We present optical and near-infrared colour maps of the central regions of bulges of S0 and spiral galaxies obtained with WFPC2 and NICMOS on the Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ). By combined use of HST and ground-based data, the colour information spans a region from a few tens of pc to a few kpc. In almost all galaxies, the colour profiles in the central 100–200 pc become more rapidly redder. We attribute the high central colour indices to a central concentration of dust. We infer an average extinction at the centre of A _V =0.6–1.0 mag. Several objects show central dust rings or discs at subkpc scales similar to those found by others in giant ellipticals. For galactic bulges of types S0 to Sb, the tightness of the B − I versus I − H relation suggests that the age spread among bulges of early-type galaxies is small, at most 2 Gyr. Colours at 1 R _eff, where we expect extinction to be negligible, are similar to those of elliptical galaxies in the Coma cluster, suggesting that these bulges formed at the same time as the bright galaxies in Coma. Furthermore, the galaxy ages are found to be independent of their environment. As it is likely that Coma was formed at redshift z >3, our bulges, which are in groups and in the field, must also have been formed at this epoch. Bulges of early-type spirals cannot be formed by secular evolution of bars at recent epochs, because such bulges would be much younger. There are three galaxies of type Sbc and later; their bulges are younger and could perhaps arise from secular evolution of transient bars. Our results are in good agreement with semi-analytic predictions, which also predict that bulges, in clusters and in the field, are as old as giant ellipticals in clusters.  相似文献