Quaternary Science Advances最新文献

Ethiopia is currently emphasizing the construction of micro dams to enhance agricultural productivity and assure food security. The Upper Guder Dam, situated in the West Shoa Zone, Central Ethiopia, is one such project. However, the dam faces challenges due to complex geological and structural conditions, including leakage and slope instability. Hence, this study focuses on addressing the abutment slope stability and watertightness condition of this dam. Accordingly, the study employed discontinuity surveying, Seismic Refraction Tomography (SRT), Rock Quality Designation (RQD), and Lugeon testing to assess the water tightness. Additionally, kinematic analysis and the Limit Equilibrium Method (LEM) were used to evaluate abutment slope stability. Results from surface geological mapping and core drilling showed that the dam site is constituted by quaternary soil, tuff, and basalt. The Lugeon test results indicate that the left abutment of the dam is susceptible to leakage down to a depth of 40 m, which suggests that the permeable zone extends deeper than the results revealed by the SRT. Furthermore, this test demonstrated that the dam's right and central foundations are susceptible to leakage to the drilled depths. The SRT revealed that the central foundation, right, and left abutments of the dam are susceptible to leakage to the depth of 35 m, 30 m, and 34 m, respectively. Moreover, the kinematic analysis revealed that a section of the left abutment of the dam is susceptible to wedge mode of failure due to the intersection of JS1 and JS2. The LEM modeling of the right abutment of the dam also depicted that this section of the dam is unstable under saturated conditions which illustrates the importance of precipitation as the major slope destabilizing factor in the study area. Based on the study findings, this study recommended the use of curtain grouting to address the water tightness issue and slope angle reduction to mitigate the slope instability problem.

Understanding regional climatic trends is crucial for taking appropriate actions to mitigate the impacts of climate change and managing water resources effectively. This study aims to investigate the dissimilarities and similarities among various climate stations in Bangladesh from 1981 to 2021. Fuzzy C-means (FCM) and K-means clustering techniques were employed to identify regions with comparable rainfall patterns. Moreover, the innovative trend analysis (ITA) and the Mann-Kendall (MK) test family were utilized to analyze rainfall trends. The results indicate that both K-means and FCM methods successfully detected two rainfall regions in Bangladesh with distinct patterns. The ITA curve analysis revealed that out of the 29 stations, 13 had a non-monotonic increasing trend having no monotonic increasing trend, 8 had a non-monotonic decreasing trend, and 8 exhibited a monotonic decreasing trend. Additionally, the MK tests employed in the study showed predominantly negative trends across Bangladesh. The majority of stations (65.51%) fell into Cluster 1, while the remaining 34.48% were in Cluster 2. In terms of ITA analysis, 17.24% of stations exhibited a monotonic decrease, while there were no stations with a monotonic increase. However, 37.93% of stations showed a non-monotonic increase, and 44.83% displayed a non-monotonic decrease. These identified regions can provide valuable insights for water resource management, disaster risk reduction, and agricultural planning. Moreover, detailed rainfall analysis can help policymakers and scientists develop sustainable and effective regional-scale policies for managing the country's flood and drought situations, ultimately supporting agricultural development and environmental planning.

Slope failure is a prominent and recurring geohazard in numerous parts of Ethiopia, including Adama City, which is located in the Northern Main Ethiopian Rift (NMER). The city is surrounded by two ridges oriented in the NNE-SSW direction, which are susceptible to slope instability. Thus, this study is aimed at modeling slope stability along these two ridges using Finite Element Method (FEM) and Limit Equilibrium Method (LEM). The modeling was carried out on slopes of multifaceted geometry composed of eluvium soil, pumice, and moderately to highly-weathered ignimbrites. Critical slope sections were identified using satellite imagery and field manifestations such as slope toe condition and slope face tilting. Their geometries were then inferred from detailed geological cross-sections based on field data. Input parameters for the modeling, such as cohesion, friction angle, and elastic modulus, were calculated via Back Analysis using the Hoek-Brown criterion while unit weight and Poisson ratio were determined from empirical equations. For soil formations, the parameters were determined via standard laboratory experiments. The modeling was then carried out under different conditions, including dry, saturated, static, and dynamic conditions. Results from both LEM and FEM models revealed that three of the four analyzed slope segments were unstable under dynamic and saturated conditions, highlighting the influence and importance of precipitation and seismicity as triggering variables. Results from both methods tend to agree when the critical slip surface passes through a single geological material in both models. However, notable differences arise when the slip surface involves multiple geological materials. Under such conditions, LEM tends to yield higher FOS values compared to FEM. The results also showed that all unstable slopes were associated with the NNE-SSW striking fault of the study area, as inferred from failure surfaces generated from both models and field data. The study concluded that unstable slopes pose a serious risk to nearby residents and infrastructure, and as a remedy, it designed and recommended coupled benching and slope flattening.

This research focuses on analyzing paleosols, major and trace element geochemistry, organic carbon levels, and geo-archaeological aspects of Quaternary deposits investigated in two sedimentary successions located in the east-central Barind region of NW Bangladesh. Several factors that influence the paleosol development can be used to decipher the paleoenvironment and paleoclimatic conditions of the study area. Sedimentary succession of the studied sections have been grouped into two broad categories i.e., Gray unit/Newer Alluvium (NA) of Late Holocene and Red unit/Older Alluvium (OA) of Early Pleistocene age. Some geoarchaeological evidences have been found at the bottom of the gray unit and the top of the red unit in Durgadaha (DD) section indicating the existence of paleo-settlement at about ∼1300 years BP. The age is determined by the relative dating of several artifacts found at the paleo-settlement surface. Interpretation of several field characteristics and geochemical parameters i.e., clayeyness, salinization, base loss, calcification, leaching (Ba/Sr), aeolian input (Zr/Al), CIA, CIW, CIA-K, etc. revealed that the paleosols in gray unit are weakly developed; whereas, paleosols in red unit are relatively moderate, strong to very strongly developed. In the red unit, the MAP and MAT range from 1000 ± 181 mm to 1478 ± 181 mm and 9° ± 4.4°–14° ± 4.4 °C respectively. On the other hand, MAT ranges from 23.1° ± 0.6 °C to 28.3° ± 0.6 °C in gray unit paleosols. Depending on the depositional pattern and estimated MAT, five short-term climatic cycles (i.e., alternating phases of dry and wet) have been recognized in gray/newer alluvium units during the last 1300 years. The demise of paleo settlement (1300 years BP) due to the abrupt climatic change towards a dry and cooler phase where the MAT was estimated as 23.1° ± 0.6° which is at least 3 °C lower than the present. This study also revealed that the estimated MAP and MAT are more analogous to paleoclimatic records of the Asian regions.

The present study aims to investigate the palaeoenvironmental changes around Sattal Lake, Kumaun Lesser Himalaya spanning the last 1670 years. Based on multi proxy analysis (i.e., grain size, mineral magnetism, clay mineralogy, Total Organic Carbon (TOC) and carbon isotopes), supported by a robust radiocarbon chronology, three major environmental phases were identified. Warm, wet phases occurred between 1,150–650 cal yr BP and 260 cal yr BP to the present. These phases coincide closely with the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) and modern warming, respectively. These warm/wet events were due to elevated precipitation, resulting in high lake levels and an expansion of the lake margin, which were marked by lower δ¹³C values, comparatively higher sand concentration, TOC values and magnetic susceptibility (χ_lf). The inference of a modern warm phase is supported by high resolution instrumental data. The MCA, which is marked by elevated amounts of coarse grained (sand) detrital material, is inferred to be an interval of strengthened of monsoonal intensity, which correlates with available monsoon records from various continental paleoclimate archives. Following the MCA a cold and dry phase was observed to occur between 610 and 260 cal yr BP, corresponding to the Little Ice Age (LIA). The LIA, which was characterized by high silt and clay concentration, high δ¹³C, low TOC and reduced magnetic susceptibility (χ_lf), is inferred to represent an interval of low lake levels, likely reflecting an episode of weakened monsoonal intensity.

This paper focuses on the transient response of the upper Alaknanda River basin and landslide vulnerability analysis of tectonically active segments located between the Trans Himadri Fault (THF) and Main Central Thrust (MCT) in the higher central Himalayan domain. We applied the power law functions of the conventional bedrock incision proxies to decode erosionally balanced tectonic processes. The channel concavity and slope of the upper Alaknanda basin have been logarithmically evaluated to understand the balance between erosion/incision and tectonic events. Further, tectonically balanced erosional events along the trunk and tributary stream dynamics have been estimated using the Chi (χ) function law. The results of χ suggest a disequilibrium state of the trunk and tributary stream concerning steady state condition. Furthermore, the landform and longitudinal river profile have been analyzed to understand differential uplift/incision and impact of erosion in river profile between THF and MCT. Furthermore, we applied a geospatial technique for landslide susceptibility analysis. Our results show that approximately 94.45% of the basin area is highly vulnerable and has the potential for future landslides and glacial avalanches. Furthermore, we claim that this study is extremely helpful to identify the locations of future geohazards (landslide, avalanche, cloudburst etc.) and their impact on the downstream areas where population density is very high.

Changes in bottom and pore water oxygenation over glacial – interglacial cycles have influenced the ocean's capacity to store particulate organic carbon regardless of its source, either the marine primary productivity or the continent-to-ocean transfer of terrestrial organic matter. In the Philippine Sea, east off Taiwan, despite being currently oligotrophic, the enhanced East Asian Winter Monsoon during the Last Glacial Maximum and the Heinrich Stadial 1 might have altered the nutrient budget in surface waters by providing nutrients from the Eurasian loess dust and deepening the vertical mixing, bringing nutrients from the nutrient-enriched Kuroshio Current subsurface waters to the surface. During the deglaciation, previous studies also suggest an overall weakening of the marine biological pump during the Heinrich Stadial 1, and the rise in sea level is expected to have led to a global significant decline in the ability of continents to bury their particulate organic carbon in marine sediments. However, changes in the continent-ocean transfer of terrestrial organic matter and on the marine biological pump around Taiwan remain poorly constrained.

In the present study, we have thus aimed to reconstruct bottom – pore water oxygenation, past marine primary productivity and continental-ocean transfer of terrestrial particulate organic carbon to the ocean since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, in order to better constrain the ability of marine sediments to capture atmospheric carbon over the past 20,000 years. To this end, sediment core MD18-3523 has been recovered from a levee of Hoping Canyon, north-east of Taiwan, in the Ryukyu forearc basin. The reconstructions were made possible by the application of multivariate statistics and transfer functions on benthic foraminiferal assemblages, by the measurement of total organic carbon concentration and by the investigation of chemical element ratios obtained from X-ray fluorescence (XRF).

We observed a transition across the Bølling–Allerød and the Younger Dryas from suboxic-dysoxic bottom – pore waters during Heinrich Stadial 1 to oxic-suboxic during the Holocene, and revealed an increase in marine primary productivity during Heinrich Stadial 1 in all probability due to intensified East Asian Winter Monsoon winds. We have also identified periods of enhanced terrestrial particulate organic carbon transfer to the ocean driven by short-lived extreme events, most likely typhoons, during the Bølling–Allerød, at the beginning of the Early Holocene and the end of the Late Holocene, when the typhoon dynamics affecting Taiwan were intensified. Overall, these findings suggest an enhanced marine biological pump during the Heinrich Stadial 1 and an efficient carbon turbidity pump during the Bølling–Allerød, the Early and Late Holocene, contrasting with the western coast of Taiwan.

Repeated freeze-thaw (F&T) cycles substantially harm the durability of rocks, heightening the potential for landslides, rockslides, and avalanches. The current work investigates the effect of the F&T cycle on rock mass (biotite schist) samples. For this purpose, 32 rock samples were prepared and gathered from eight distinct locations in the northwest Himalayan region. For each sample, petrographical analysis and laboratory testing such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and Brazilian tensile strength (BTS) are investigated at repeated (0^th, 10th, 20th, and 30th) F&T cycles. Additionally, machine learning (ML) sequential models such as recurrent neural networks (RNN), gated recurrent units (GRU), and bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) are constructed to estimate the UCS and BTS under F&T conditions. Petrographical results show no change in the mineral indices, while there is a noticeable increase in aspect ratio but a significant decline in mean grain size with each successive 10th cycle, suggesting sample damage. The study also provides a comprehensive assessment of the ML models' performance, highlighting the Bi-LSTM model's superior accuracy among all models in terms of R² (0.9850) and RMSLE (0.0100) during the TR stage and R² (0.9020) and RMSLE (0.0170) during the TS stage for UCS prediction. Similarly, BTS prediction also shows superior precision, recording an R² (0.7543) and RMSLE (0.0345) during TR and R² (0.7404) and RMSLE (0.0213) during TS stages. The present study also explores the heatmap, line diagram, regression analysis, 2D kernel density plot, Taylor diagram, and DDR criterion for evaluating the model performance more clearly.

In this study, we investigated the past hydroclimate and its controlling factors over East Asia by reconstructing hydroclimate variability during the middle-to-late Holocene using rainfall-driven sedimentary features in the Gaho paleolake, Hapcheon County on the southern Korean Peninsula. Based on radiocarbon dates, median grain sizes, and elemental ratios of strontium (Sr), titanium (Ti), and zirconium (Zr) measured by high-resolution X-ray fluorescence core scanning, we tested potential indicators of past heavy rainfall. During the past 7000 years, temporal changes in median grain size and elemental ratios (Sr/Ti and Zr/Ti) were found to be similar to those in the Asian monsoonal precipitation index and sea surface temperature (SST) in the western North Pacific region, suggesting that periods with increased elemental ratios may have been influenced by intensified regional rainfall events and higher SSTs. During the past 2000 years, time series of Sr/Ti and Zr/Ti ratios in the paleolake sediments appeared to covary with a megadrought period (AD 1593–1698; 357-252 cal BP), flooding events in the 1500s, and the collapse of ancient nations in Korea and other parts of East Asia. This similarity between sedimentary records and historical events suggests considerable potential for the dating of elemental ratios in lake sediments as high-resolution analogs of past hydrological events to support historical records.

Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 4 and 3 were significant periods encompassing some 50,000 years, including at least two techno-cultural entities: the Howiesons Poort (HP) and post-HP. Exploring subsistence and environmental changes during these periods may help us understand broader aspects of behavioural and occupational patterns over MIS 4 and 3. In this paper, we report on taphonomic analyses of a sample of early HP, late HP and post-HP fauna from Klasies River main site cave 1A. We use these and other faunal data to examine the links between subsistence behaviour and the environment during the HP and post-HP. The results of our analyses indicate that percussion marks are abundant in the HP, with percussion mark frequencies more prevalent in the later HP than the early HP indicating that humans were the primary accumulators of fauna in the HP. Other taphonomic data such as fracture patterns, burning and trampling marks also suggests that human activity was more prevalent in the HP than the post-HP. In contrast, in the post-HP, the prevalence of zoogenic marks on small mammal remains, and comparisons to actualistic assemblages indicate that carnivores probably contributed significantly to the post-HP assemblage. In all the samples investigated, crania dominate skeletal-part profiles. This could be a result of taphonomic bias, or it could indicate that foraging likely occurred relatively close to the site. Analyses of carcass-part utility show that marrow-extraction may have been a key subsistence strategy in the HP. In the post-HP, bone density-mediated attrition had a significant effect on fauna making it challenging to ascertain subsistence patterns, but preliminary analysis may also suggest marrow extraction in combination with other strategies.

Post-depositional taphonomic marks such as manganese staining suggest that post-HP and late HP deposits were significantly more affected by moisture than the early HP deposits. Previous investigations of large mammal data point to more closed environments in the early HP, while our data indicate that the environment in the late HP and post-HP was largely similar. In comparing our data to previously analysed micromammal proxy data, we show that major environmental changes at KRM occurred after the shift to post-HP lithic technology. However, the taphonomic data suggests a close relationship between changing subsistence strategies and the MIS4/3 transition.