ALBERT

Description: The February 2014 eruption of Kelud volcano (Indonesia) destroyed most of the instruments near it. We use remote seismic and infrasound sensors to reconstruct the eruptive sequence. The first explosions were relatively weak seismic and infrasound events. A major stratospheric ash injection occurred a few minutes later and produced long-lasting atmospheric and ground-coupled acoustic waves that were detected as far as 11,000 km by infrasound sensors, and up to 2,300 km away on seismometers. A seismic event followed ~12 minutes later and was recorded 7,000 km away by seismometers. We estimate a volcanic intensity [ Pyle , 2000] around 10.9, placing the 2014 Kelud eruption between the 1980 Mount St. Helens and 1991 Pinatubo eruptions intensities. We demonstrate how remote infrasound and seismic sensors are critical for the early detection of volcanic explosions, and how they can help to constrain and understand eruptive sequences

Description: Varied acoustic signals were recorded at Kīlauea Volcano in mid-2007, coincident with dramatic changes in the volcano's activity. Prior to this time period, Pu'u 'Ō'ō crater produced near-continuous infrasonic tremor and was the primary source of degassing and lava effusion at Kīlauea. Collapse and draining of Pu'u 'Ō'ō crater in mid-June produced impulsive infrasonic signals and fluctuations in infrasonic tremor. Fissure eruptions on 19 June and 21 July were clearly located spatially and temporally using infrasound arrays. The 19 June eruption from a fissure approximately mid-way between Kīlauea's summit and Pu'u 'Ō'ō produced infrasound for ∼30 minutes—the only observed geophysical signal associated with the fissure opening. The infrasound signal from the 21 July eruption just east of Pu'u 'Ō'ō shows a clear azimuthal progression over time, indicative of fissure propagation over 12.9 hours. The total fissure propagation rate is relatively slow at 164 m/hr, although the fissure system ruptured discontinuously. Individual fissure rupture times are estimated using the acoustic data combined with visual observations.

Description: Microbaroms are continuous infrasonic signals with a dominant frequency around 0.2 Hz produced by ocean surface waves. Monitoring stations around the globe routinely detect strong microbaroms in the lee of tropical cyclones. We utilize a parametric wind model and a spectral wave model to construct the tropical cyclone wave field and a theoretical acoustic source model to describe the intensity, spatial distribution, and dynamics of microbarom sources. This approach excludes ambient wave conditions and facilitates a parametric analysis to elucidate the source mechanism within the storm. A stationary tropical cyclone produces the strongest microbarom signals at the center, where the waves generated by the cyclonic winds converge. As the tropical cyclone moves forward, the converging wave field becomes less coherent and lags and expands behind the storm center. The models predict a direct relation between the storm forward speed and the location of maximum microbarom source intensity consistent with the infrasonic observations from Hurricane Felicia 2009 in the North Central Pacific.

Description: The explosive fragmentation of the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteorite generated a large airburst with an equivalent yield of 500 kT TNT. It is the most energetic event recorded by the infrasound component of the CTBT-IMS, globally detected by 20 out of 42 operational stations. This study performs a station-by-station estimation of the IMS detection capability to explain infrasound detections and non-detections from short to long distances, using the Chelyabinsk meteorite as global reference event. Investigated parameters influencing the detection capability are the directivity of the line source signal, the ducting of acoustic energy and the individual noise conditions at each station. Findings include a clear detection preference for stations perpendicular to the meteorite trajectory, even over large distances. Only a weak influence of stratospheric ducting is observed for this low-frequency case. Furthermore, a strong dependence on the diurnal variability of background noise levels at each station is observed, favoring nocturnal detections.

Description: A magnetostratigraphy-based chronological framework has been constructed in the Eocene sediments of the Montserrat alluvial fan/fan-delta complex (southeast Ebro Basin), in order to unravel forcing controls on their sequential arrangement and to revise the tectonosedimentary history of the region. The palaeomagnetic study is based on 403 sites distributed along an 1880-m-thick composite section, and provides improved temporal constraints based on an independent correlation to the geomagnetic polarity time scale. The new chronological framework together with sequence stratigraphy and geohistory analysis allow us to investigate the interplay between factors controlling the sequential arrangement of the Montserrat complex at the different temporal scales and to test for orbitally driven climate forcing. The results suggest that the internal stacking pattern in transgressive and regressive sequences sets within the more than 1000-m-thick Milany Composite Megasequence can be explained as the result of subsidence-driven accommodation changes under a general increase of sediment supply. Composite sequences (tens to hundreds of metres thick) likely reflect orbitally forced cyclicity related to the 400-kyr eccentricity cycle, possibly controlled by climatically induced sea-level fluctuations. This study also provides new insights on the deformational history of the area, and shows a correlation between (tectonic) subsidence and forelimb rotation measured on basin-margin deformed strata. Integration of subsidence curves from different sectors of the eastern Ebro Basin allows us to estimate the variable contribution of tectonic loads from the two active basin margins: the Catalan Coastal Ranges and the Pyrenees. The results support the presence of a double flexure from Late Lutetian to Late Bartonian, associated with the two tectonically active margins. From Late Bartonian to Early Priabonian the homogenization of subsidence values is interpreted as the result of the coupling of the two sources of tectonic load. © 2011 The Authors. Basin Research © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists.

Description: This article focuses on the relationships between the large-scale stratigraphic architecture of the Almazán basin infill and the sedimentation rates (SR) calculated for precise time intervals. Our aim was to improve the understanding of the timing and causes of the architectural changes, their significance in terms of accommodation space and sediment supply and their relationship with climate and tectonics. The study area includes the Gómara fluvial fan, the main sediment transfer system of the Almazán basin during Paleogene times. Its large-scale architecture shifted through time between a stacking pattern of low density ribbon-like and high density sheet-like channel fills. Laterally to the fluvial system, mudstone and evaporitic mudstone units represented evaporitic mudflats which passed laterally into palustrine/lacustrine limestone units interpreted as lakes and ponds. Stacked calcretes occurred in distal alluvial and distal floodplain settings. A magnetostratigraphy encompassing 2600 m guided by available fossil mammal biochronology has provided a temporal framework that spans the complete Paleogene infill of the basin, from Late Lutetian to Late Oligocene, filling a gap in the Cenozoic chronostratigraphy of Spanish basins. This permits to constrain the kinematics of the structures both in the basin and in its margins, and to provide the timing for the depositional sequences. These data, combined with a magnetostratigraphic map, where magnetic reversals were traced through the Gómara monocline, allow a detailed analysis of the SR variability across the fluvial system and its adjacent depositional environments. The results show that high sedimentation rates (around 30–40 cm kyr−1) are related to fluvial environments with low density ribbon-shaped channels, while low SR (around or below 10 cm kyr−1) are related to high density sheet-like channels. Laterally, mud dominated environments with high SR (15–20 cm kyr−1) grade into palustrine/lacustrine carbonated environments with low SR (around 9 cm ky−1). The lowest SR (about 3 cm kyr−1) are related to the development of stacked calcrete profiles in distal floodplain and in the connection of distal alluvial and palustrine/lacustrine units. © 2015 The Authors. Basin Research © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists

Description: The syntectonic continental conglomerates of the South-Central Pyrenees record the late stages of thin-skinned transport of the South-Pyrenean Central Units and the onset of exhumation of the Pyrenean Axial Zone (AZ) in the core of the orogen. New magnetostratigraphic data of these syntectonic continental conglomerates have established their age as Late Lutetian to Late Oligocene. The data reveal that these materials were deposited during intense periods of tectonic activity of the Pyrenean chain and not during the cessation of the deformation as considered previously. The magnetostratigraphic ages have been combined with new detrital apatite fission track (AFT) thermochronology from AZ-derived granite cobbles within the syntectonic conglomerates. Distribution of the granitic cobbles with different AFT ages and track lengths combined with their depositional ages reveal information on the timing and rate of episodes of exhumation in the orogen. Some AFT ages are considerably older than the AFT ages of the outcropping AZ granitic massifs, indicating erosion from higher crustal levels within the massifs than presently exposed or from completely eroded plutons. Inverse thermal modelling reveals two well-defined periods of rapid cooling in the hinterland at ca. 50-40 and ca. 30-25Ma, with another poorly defined cooling episode at ca. 70-60Ma. The lowest stratigraphic samples experienced postburial annealing caused by the deposition of younger syntectonic sediments during progressive burial of the south Pyrenean thrust and fold belt. Moreover, samples from the deeper stratigraphic levels also reveal postorogenic cooling during the Late Miocene as a response to the excavation of the Ebro River towards the Mediterranean Sea. Our data strongly support previous ideas about the burial of the South Pyrenean fold and thrust belt by Late Palaeogene syntectonic conglomerates and their subsequent re-excavation and are consistent with other thermochronological data and thermal modelling from the interior part of the orogen. © 2010 The Authors. Basin Research © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists.

Description: We propose and test a conceptual framework for evaluating the relative timing of different types of sedimentary indicators of tectonism in alluvial foreland basin settings. We take the first occurrence of a detrital grain from a newly exposed source-area lithology to provide the best indicator of the onset of tectonic uplift in the source area. Source-area unroofing may lag behind initial uplift because of the type, thickness and structure of rocks in the uplifted mountain block, drainage patterns and climate. However, once exposed, advective transport disperses grains quickly throughout fluvial systems. Because of increased subsidence rate from thrust belt loading, an increase in sedimentation rate begins coincident with tectonic load emplacement within the flexural half-width of the basin. However, farther out into the basin increased sedimentation rates lag behind the composition signal because of time lags associated with propagation of the thrust load and attendant sediment loads into the basin. The progradation of syntectonic gravel lags behind all of these signals as a direct function of the relative proportion of gravel fraction within transported sediment and rates and geometry of subsidence, which selectively traps the coarsest grain-size fractions in the most proximal parts of the basin. We demonstrate this signal attenuation in the syntectonic Horta-Gandesa alluvial system (late Eocene-Oligocene), exposed along the southeast margin of the Ebro Basin, Spain. The results demonstrate that: (1) the time spans between the compositional signal and the progradation of the gravel front can be geologically significant, on the order of more than a million years within as little as 20 km of the thrust front; and (2) time lags between the signals increase with distance away from the deformation front. No lag time was observed between the first appearance of a new clast composition and the arrival of gravel front when the thrust front was within a few tens of metres from the depositional site. In contrast, the time lag was 0.5-1 Myr when the thrust front was about 5-6 km away and it increased to 〉 1 Myr when the deformation front was about 8 km away. At the most extreme position, when the thrust front was 15-20 km away, the gravel front never reached the study area. © 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Description: We present new 3D seismic and well data from the Ebro Margin, NW Mediterranean Sea, to shed new light on the processes that formed the Messinian Erosion Surfaces (MES) of the Valencia Trough (Mediterranean Sea). We combine these data with backstripping techniques to provide a minimum estimate of the Messinian sea level fall in the EBRO Margin, as well as coupled isostasy and river incision and transport modeling to offer new constraints on the evolution of the adjacent subaerial Ebro Basin. Four major seismic units are identified on the Cenozoic Ebro Margin, based on the seismic data, including two major prograding megasequences that are separated by a major unconfirmity: the MES. The 3D seismic data provide an unprecedented view of the MES and display characteristic features of subaerial incision, including a drainage network with tributaries of at least five different orders, terraces and meandering rivers. The Messinian landscape presents a characteristic stepped-like profile that allows the margin to be subdivided in three different regions roughly parallel to the coastline. No major tectonic control exists on the boundaries between these regions. The boundary between the two most distal regions marks the location of a relatively stable base level, and this is used in backstripping analysis to estimate the magnitude of sea level drop associated with the Messinian Salinity Crisis on the Ebro Margin. The MES on the Ebro Margin is dominated by a major fluvial system, that we identify here as the Messinian Ebro River. The 3D seismic data, onshore geology and modeling results indicate that the Ebro River drained the Ebro Basin well in advance of the Messinian. © 2010 The Authors. Basin Research © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists.