ALBERT

Description: Three distinct, spatially separated crustal terranes have been recognised in the Shackleton Range, East Antarctica: the Southern, Eastern and Northern Terranes. Mafic gneisses from the Southern Terrane provide geochemical evidence for a within-plate, probably back-arc origin of their protoliths. A plume-distal ridge origin in an incipient ocean basin is the favoured interpretation for the emplacement site of these rocks at c. 1850 Ma, which, together with a few ocean island basalts, were subsequently incorporated into an accretionary continental arc/supra-subduction zone tectonic setting. Magmatic underplating resulted in partial melting of the lower crust, which caused high-temperature granulite-facies metamorphism in the Southern Terrane at c. 1710-1680 Ma. Mafic and felsic gneisses there are characterised by isotopically depleted, positive Nd and Hf initials and model ages between 2100 and 2000 Ma. They may be explained as juvenile additions to the crust towards the end of the Palaeoproterozoic. These juvenile rocks occur in a narrow, c. 150 km long E-W trending belt, inferred to trace a suture that is associated with a large Palaeoproterozoic accretionary orogenic system. The Southern Terrane contains many features that are similar to the Australo-Antarctic Mawson Continent and may be its furthermost extension into East Antarctica. The Eastern Terrane is characterised by metagranitoids that formed in a continental volcanic arc setting during a late Mesoproterozoic orogeny at c. 1060 Ma. Subsequently, the rocks experienced high-temperature metamorphism during Pan-African collisional tectonics at 600 Ma. Isotopically depleted zircon grains yielded Hf model ages of 1600-1400 Ma, which are identical to Nd model ages obtained from juvenile metagranitoids. Most likely, these rocks trace the suture related to the amalgamation of the Indo-Antarctic and West Gondwana continental blocks at ~600 Ma. The Eastern Terrane is interpreted as the southernmost extension of the Pan-African Mozambique/Maud Belt in East Antarctica and, based on Hf isotope data, may also represent a link to the Ellsworth-Whitmore Mountains block in West Antarctica and the Namaqua-Natal Province of southern Africa. Geochemical evidence indicates that the majority of the protoliths of the mafic gneisses in the Northern Terrane formed as oceanic island basalts in a within-plate setting. Subsequently the rocks were incorporated into a subduction zone environment and, finally, accreted to a continental margin during Pan-African collisional tectonics. Felsic gneisses there provide evidence for a within-plate and volcanic arc/collisional origin. Emplacement of granitoids occurred at c. 530 Ma and high-temperature, high-pressure metamorphism took place at 510-500 Ma. Enriched Hf and Nd initials and Palaeoproterozoic model ages for most samples indicate that no juvenile material was added to the crust of the Northern Terrane during the Pan-African Orogeny but recycling of older crust or mixing of crustal components of different age must have occurred. Isotopically depleted mafic gneisses, which are spatially associated with eclogite-facies pyroxenites, yielded late Mesoproterozoic Nd model ages. These rocks occur in a narrow, at least 100 km long, E-W trending belt that separates alkaline ocean island metabasalts and within-plate metagranitoids from volcanic arc metabasalts and volcanic arc/syn-collisional metagranitoids in the Northern Terrane. This belt is interpreted to trace the late Neoproterozoic/early Cambrian Pan-African collisional suture between the Australo-Antarctic and the combined Indo-Antarctic/West Gondwana continental blocks that formed during the final amalgamation of Gondwana.

Description: The behavior of a water table (WT) is important in understanding groundwater dynamics. Results are presented of a disproportionate response of a WT in two distinct transient pressure wave mechanisms that occurred during rainfall events of the 2000–2001 summer season and in two different hillslope zones in the Weatherley research catchment of South Africa. The first mechanism was a groundwater ridging pressure wave, which frequently occurred at the low-lying wetland zone and when the capillary fringe was close to the ground surface. Results from this zone indicated that groundwater ridging WT responses were caused by rainfall events that had a threshold total rainfall of 10 mm, and the magnitude of the responses had a linear relationship with the peak rainfall intensities. The mechanism, which exhibited the characteristics of the Lisse effect (pneumatically pressurized WT response), occurred at an elevated zone of the catchment, where bedrock is overlain by a shallow soil profile and perched groundwater. This second mechanism was particularly evident during a rainfall event that occurred in the early part of the season. During this event, a peak rainfall intensity of 228 mm/h generated a pressure wave from the ground surface toward the WT, where it disproportionately elevated the hydraulic head in the groundwater by 106 cm of H 2 O at the toeslope and without groundwater recharge via the infiltration profile. A laboratory experiment was performed and verified that the second mechanism was the Lisse effect and that, as in the groundwater ridging, the capillary fringe played a significant role.

Description: The characterization and monitoring of buildings is an issue that has attracted the interest of many sectors over the last two decades. With the increasing use of permanent, continuous, and real-time networks, ambient vibrations can provide a simple tool for the identification of dynamic building parameters. This study is focused on the long-term variation of frequency and damping in several buildings, using the Random Decrement Technique (RDT). RDT provides a fast, robust, and accurate long-term analysis and improves the reliability of frequency and damping measurements for structural health monitoring. This reveals particularly useful information for finding out precisely how far changes in modal parameters can be related to changes in physical properties. This paper highlights the reversible changes of the structure’s dynamic parameters, correlated with external forces, such as temperature and exposure to the sun. Contrasting behaviors are observed, including correlation and anticorrelation with temperature variations.

Description: We tested a small-scale experiment that is dedicated to the study of the wave separation algorithm and to the velocity variations monitoring problem itself. It handles the case in which velocity variations at depth are hidden by near-surface velocity fluctuations. Using an acquisition system that combines an array of sources and an array of receivers, coupled with controlled velocity variations, we tested the ability of beam-forming techniques to track velocity variations separately for body waves and surface waves. After wave separation through double beam forming, the arrival time variations of the different waves were measured through the phase difference between the extracted wavelets. Finally, a method was tested to estimate near-surface velocity variations using surface waves or shallow reflection and compute a correction to isolate target velocity variations at depth.