surface rupture of the 2005 kashmir pakistan earthquake and its active tectonic implications to provide a detailed record of a relatively rare thrust surface rupture and examine its active tectonic implications we have conducted field mapping of the surface rupture associated with the 2005 m w 7 6 kashmir earthquake despite the difficulty arising from massive earthquake induced landslides along the surface rupture we found that typical pressure ridges and warps extend northwestward for a distance of 70 km with a northeast side up vertical separation of up to 7 m neither the main frontal thrust nor the main boundary thrust is responsible for the earthquake but three active faults or fault segments within the sub himalaya collectively called the balakot bagh fault compose the causative fault although the fault exhibits substantial geomorphic expression of repeated similar surface ruptures only a part of it had been mapped as active before the earthquake the location of the hypocenter suggests that the rupture was initiated at a deep portion of the northern central segment boundary and propagated bilaterally to eventually break all three segments our obtained surface rupture traces and the along strike slip distribution are both in good agreement with results of prompt analyses of satellite images indicating that space geodesy can greatly aid in time consuming field mapping of surface ruptures assuming that the extensive fill terrace in the meizoseismal area was abandoned during 10 30 ka we tentatively estimate the earthquake recurrence interval and shortening rate on the balakot bagh fault to be 1000 3300 yr and 1 4 4 1 mm yr respectively these estimates indicate that the balakot bagh fault is not a main player of himalayan contraction accommodation graphic 1 selected field photographs and arcgis files of the mapped surface rupture traces and measured vertical separations are available in the electronic supplement to this article 1 embed inline graphic 1 gif

cirrus mammatus properties derived from an extended remote sensing dataset abstract the first quantitative and statistical evaluation of cirrus mammatus clouds based on wavelet analysis of remote sensing data is made by analyzing the university of utah facility for atmospheric remote sensing fars 10 yr high cloud dataset first a case study of cirrus mammata combining a high resolution lidar system and a w band doppler radar is presented yielding an assessment of the thermodynamic environment and dynamic mechanisms then 25 cirrus mammatus cases selected from the fars lidar dataset are used to disclose their characteristic environmental conditions and vertical and length scales the results show that cirrus mammata occur in the transition zone from moist cloudy to dry air layers with weak wind shear which suggests that cloud induced thermal structures play a key role in their formation their maximum vertical and horizontal length scales vary from 0 3 to 1 1 km and 0 5 to 8 0 km respectively it is also found that small scale structures develop between the large scale

the oldest handaxes in europe fact or artefact abstract hominin presence is well documented in a number of early pleistocene and early middle pleistocene european localities however the evidence currently available indicates that acheulean handaxes spread in the fluvial basins of western europe during mis 11 400 kyr ago associated with homo heidelbergensis although a number of early middle pleistocene acheulean assemblages have been dated from mis 16 onwards for this reason the magnetostratigraphic dating in southeast spain of two archaeological localities the open air site of solana del zamborino sz and the rock shelter site of cueva negra del estrecho del quipar eq that put back the appearance of handaxes to the early middle pleistocene limit scott and gibert 2009 is of particular interest as the new ages suggest that h heidelbergensis was a contemporary of h antecessor that had the ability to produce levallois debitage and to control fire during the early middle pleistocene transition however we have detected a number of errors in the interpretation of the archaeological assemblage from the first site as well as striking discrepancies with the original faunal lists published for both localities with several large mammal species that are omitted or arbitrarily changed to make the assemblages consistent with the new ages deduced from magnetostratigraphy for this reason we suggest that 1 the finding of reverse polarity in the sediments sampled for paleomagnetism in sz may simply record one of the polarity reversals that took place during the brunhes chron although the use by scott and gibert 2009 of a composite stratigraphic column precludes correlating these levels with a specific reversal and 2 the fauna and tools of eq correspond to the late middle pleistocene sedimentary infillings of this karst site while the samples taken for paleomagnetism belong to a previous sedimentary cycle during the matuyama chron such interpretations would be in better agreement with the age estimates provided by biostratigraphy and also with the currently accepted chronology for the appearance of acheulean industries in western europe

monument creek debris flow 1984 implications for formation of rapids on the colorado river in grand canyon national park a recent debris flow in monument creek illustrates the nature of debris flows in small tributaries and their hydrologic effects on the colorado river in grand canyon national park a debris avalanche originated in the permian esplanade sandstone of the supai group during intense rainfall on july 27 1984 and fell 600 m into monument creek forming a 7 m high barrier across the channel the subsequent debris flow traveled 4 5 km to the colorado river and achieved velocities of 3 4 to 4 0 m s and a peak discharge of 100 to 120 m 3 s the flow consisted of a main pulse followed by subsequent pulses of debris flow or hyperconcentrated flow the main pulse moved boulders as large as 2 7 m in diameter and deposition at the mouth of monument creek enlarged the fan surface and significantly constricted the colorado river most of the major rapids on the colorado river in grand canyon national park appear to be maintained by episodic debris flows

on the spatial relationship between landslides and causative factors on lantau island hong kong abstract this paper presents a statistical approach to study the spatial relationship between landslides and their causative factors at the regional level the approach is based on digital databases and incorporates such methods as statistics spatial pattern analysis and interactive mapping firstly the authors propose an object oriented conceptual model for describing a landslide event and a combined database of landslides and environmental factors is constructed by integrating the various databases within such a conceptual framework the statistical histogram spatial overlay and dynamic mapping methods are linked together to interactively evaluate the spatial pattern of the relationship between landslides and their causative factors a case study of an extreme event in 1993 on lantau island indicates that rainfall intensity and the migration of the center of the rainstorm greatly influence the occurrence of landslides on lantau island a regional difference in the relationship between landslides and topography is identified most of the landslides in the middle and western parts of the island occurred on slopes with slope angles of 25 35 while in the eastern part the corresponding range is 30 35 overlaying landslide data with land cover reveals that a large number of landslides occurred in the bareland and shrub covered area and in the transition zones between different vegetation types the proposed approach can be used not only to analyze the general characteristics of such a relationship but also to depict its spatial distribution and variation thereby providing a sound basis for regional landslide prediction

the hattian bala rock avalanche and associated landslides triggered by the kashmir earthquake of 8 october 2005 the kashmir earthquake of the 8 october killed an estimated 87 350 people 25 500 through co seismic landslides the largest landslide associated with the earthquake was the 68 106 m3 hattian bala rock avalanche that destroyed a village and killed around 1000 people the deposit blocks the valley to a depth of 130 m impounding a lake that reached the dam crest in april 2007 an outburst flood now threatens a major settlement 3 km downstream a series of space images reveals landslide clusters in the rock avalanche source area prior to the earthquake the images also reveal a large slow moving landslide with its toe in the lake failure of this landslide may induce dam failure through overtopping and scour eighty five landslides in the hattian bala catchment predate the shaking of 8 october 2005 a further 73 are co seismic with the main shock and 21 postdate it in the period up to october 2006 landslide magnitude frequency distribution plots derived from satellite images allow an assessment of the contribution of seismically triggered events as compared to background rates of activity

structural evolution and asymmetric uplift of the nanga parbat syntaxis pakistan himalya the nanga parbat syntaxis in the nw himalaya is a still growing crustal scale north trending antiformal structure in the core of which indian plate gneisses have been uplifted from beneath the overthrust rocks of the kohistan island arc isotopic and fission track geochronology show that uplift rates within the syntaxis have increased to present day rates of 6 mm yr uplift has been accommodated by a combination of initial northwest verging thrusting on the western margin of the syntaxis followed by crustal scale folding within the syntaxis and latterly by dextral reverse faulting on the western margin this thrusting folding and faulting is the effect of deformation at the north western lateral tips of the main himalayan thrusts where they interfere with the south southeast verging thrusts of the northwest himalaya

lichen dating of coseismic landslide hazards in alpine mountains abstract studies of rockfalls and block slides provide insight about seismic shaking hazards in alpine mountains subject to earthquakes large samples of the longest axis of the largest lichen on each block can be used to identify regional landslide events lichen size distributions for many sites cluster consistenly at the same sizes the coseismic rockfall lichenometry model can be used to 1 date and locate prehistorical earthquakes 2 document regional frequency of earthquakes and 3 describe regional patterns of seismic shaking determination of colonization time great growth phase and especially uniform phase rates of lichen growth are essential for dating regional landslide events rocks that tumble downhill during historical earthquakes allow accurate calibration of the growth rate for rhizocarpon subgenus rhizocarpon these plentiful fresh substrates are dated to their day of formation an initial calibration of uniform growth rate based on historical and tree ring dated landslides was fine tuned by assigning earthquake dates to mean values of lichen size peaks for regional rockfall events that increase in abundance towards epicenters of historical earthquakes calibration for each new site is unnecessary in the southern alps of new zealand and in the sierra nevada of california because several species of yellow rhizocarpons within each climatic region have constant growth rates that are independent of altitude or substrate lithology

double bright band observations with high resolution vertically pointing radar lidar and profilers on 11 may 2010 an elevated temperature inversion associated with an approaching warm front produced two melting layers simultaneously which resulted in two distinct bright bands as viewed from the er 2 doppler radar system a vertically pointing coherent x band radar located in greenbelt md due to the high temporal resolution of this radar system an increase in altitude of the melting layer of approximately 1 2 km in the time span of 4 min was captured the double bright band feature remained evident for approximately 17 min until the lower atmosphere warmed enough to dissipate the lower melting layer this case shows the relatively rapid evolution of freezing levels in response to an advancing warm front over a 2 h time period and the descent of an elevated warm air mass with time although observations of double bright bands are somewhat rare the ability to identify this phenomenon is important for rainfall estimation from spaceborne sensors because algorithms employing the restriction of a radar bright band to a constant height especially when sampling across frontal systems will limit the ability to accurately estimate rainfall

the importance of earthquake induced landslides to long term slope erosion and slope failure hazards in seismically active regions abstract this paper describes a general method for determining the amount of earthquake induced landsliding that occurs in a seismically active region over time this determination can be used as a quantitative measure of the long term hazard from seismically triggered landslides as well as a measure of the importance of this process to regional slope erosion rates and landscape evolution the method uses data from historical earthquakes to relate total volume of landslide material dislodged by an earthquake to the magnitude m and seismic moment m0 of the earthquake from worldwide data a linear regression relation between landslide volume v and m0 is determined as v m0 1018 9 0 13 where v is measured in m3 and m0 is in dyn cm to determine the amount of earthquake generated landsliding over time this relation is combined with data on seismic moment release for a particular region which may be derived from either earthquake history or fault slip data the form of the m0 v relation allows the rate of production of earthquake induced landslides over time to be determined from total rate of seismic moment release without regard to the distribution of individual events thus simplifying and generalizing the determination application of the method to twelve seismically active regions with areas ranging from 13 275 to 2 308 000 km2 shows that erosion rates from earthquake induced landslides vary significantly from region to region of the regions studied the highest rates were determined for the island of hawaii new zealand western new guinea and the san francisco bay region of california significantly lower rates were determined for iran tibet the sierra nevada great basin region of california and central japan for the time period from 715 ad to the present intermediate rates were determined for peru southern california onshore california turkey and central japan for the time period from 1586 ad to the present to determine the relative long term importance of seismically triggered landslides these erosion rates are compared to erosion rates calculated for other slope processes and to rates calculated from fluvial sediment discharge comparisons with other slope processes indicate that earthquake induced landslides are the predominant agents of slope erosion on the island of hawaii in the san francisco bay region and in western new guinea for hawaii the san francisco bay region and sierra nevada great basin region of california the erosion rates calculated for earthquake induced landslides also exceed the regional erosion rates calculated from fluvial sediment discharge

landslides triggered by earthquakes and their relations with faults and mountain slope geometry an example from ecuador abstract a large number of landslides occurred during two seismic events respectively 6 9 and 6 1 msw on 5 march 1987 in the ecuadorian andes these landslides have been mapped digitized and coregistered with topography at 1 50 000 scale geometry of coseismic and holocene faulting has been assessed integrating field and geophysical data landslide distribution and holocene tectonic features have been compared with earthquake foci geological deposits slope area inclination and orientation and vegetation cover the macro seismic field deduced by landslide distribution is ellipse shaped with the major axis striking nne and coinciding with the trend of the coseismic and holocene faults landslide distribution also shows a correlation with respect to the dip direction of these faults and the orientation of mountain slopes slopes parallel to the coseismic fault planes sloping towards wnw are almost unaffected by landsliding while this increases on the slopes at high angle to the fault plane and lying along its strike if these results could be confirmed in other areas a method of reconstruction of geometry of seismogenetic faults from topographic effects appears feasible

landslides triggered by the 8 october 2005 kashmir earthquake abstract the 8 october 2005 kashmir earthquake triggered several thousand landslides these were mainly rock falls and debris falls although translational rock and debris slides also occurred in addition a sturzstrom debris avalanche comprising 80 million m3 buried four villages and blocked streams to create two lakes although landsliding occurred throughout the region covering an area of 7500 km2 the failures were highly concentrated associated with six geomorphic geologic anthropogenic settings including natural failures in 1 highly fractured carbonate rocks comprising the lowest beds in the hanging wall of the likely earthquake fault 2 tertiary siliciclastic rocks along antecedent drainages that traverse the hazara kashmir syntaxis 3 steep 50 slopes comprising precambrian and lower paleozoic rocks 4 very steep 50 lower slopes of fluvially undercut quaternary valley fills and 5 ridges and spur crests the sixth setting was associated with road construction extensive fissuring in many of the valley slopes together with the freshly mobilized landslide debris constitutes a potential hazard in the coming snowmelt and monsoon seasons this study supports the view that earthquake triggered landslides are highly concentrated in specific zones associated with the lithology structure geomorphology topography and human presence

remote sensing techniques for landslide studies and hazard zonation in europe abstract an inventory is presented of researches concerning the use of remote sensing for landslide studies and hazard zonation as mainly carried out in the countries belonging to the european community an overview is given of the applicability of remote sensing in the following phases of landslide studies 1 1 detection and classification of landslides special emphasis is given to the types of imagery required at different scales of analysis 2 2 monitoring the activity of existing landslides using g p s photogrammetrical techniques and radar interferometry 3 3 analysis and prediction in space and time of slope failures the different factors required in a landslide hazard study are evaluated and the optimum remote sensing imagery for obtaining each of these factors is indicated examples are given of research work carried out in these three phases from ec countries finally an evaluation is given of the aspects of uncertainty associated with the use of remote sensing data and conclusions are given as to the incorporation of remote sensing techniques within the overall framework of techniques

redefining medlicott wadia s main boundary fault from jhelum to yamuna an active fault strand of the main boundary thrust in northwest himalaya abstract the mbt demarcates a tectonic boundary between the tertiary sub himalaya and the pre tertiary lesser himalaya south of the mbt another tectonically important fault extends from muzaffarabad and riasi in jammu kashmir to bilaspur and nahan in himachal medlicott and wadia had designated this fault the main boundary fault mbf in simla hills and jammu region respectively in between these two areas later workers gave local area names to the mbf as the riasi thrust in jammu palampur thrust in kangra bilaspur thrust in simla hills and nahan thrust in sirmur we have reviewed and established the tectonostratigraphic framework and physical continuity of the lower tertiary belt and the mbf the lower tertiary belt lying south of the mbt has characteristic tectonostratigraphic setting with discontinuous bodies of stromatolite bearing proterozoic limestone overlain with depositional contact by the paleocene lower part middle eocene marine subathu patala formation which in turn overlain by the upper oligocene lower miocene non marine dharamsala murree formation to avoid confusion with the mbt we designate collectively the mbf and related faults as the medlicott wadia thrust mwt the mwt extends east of hazara kashmir syntaxis to river yamuna covering a distance of 700 km further east of yamuna the lower tertiary belt pinches out and the mwt merges with the sensuo stricto mbt the proterozoic limestone represents the basement over which the lower tertiary sediments were deposited the limestone basement with its cover was detached by the mwt exhuming to the surface and thrusting over largely the siwalik group the reactivated balakot bagh fault causative fault for the 2005 kashmir earthquake extends southeast with right step to the riasi thrust the riasi thrust shows evidence of reactivation and active tectonic activity in jammu region it extends further east to the palampur thrust in kangra reentrant which lies within the 1905 kangra earthquake rupture zone the bilaspur thrust continuation of the palampur thrust shows active faulting south of simla hills between sataun and yamuna river these observations indicate that the mwt represents a southern strand of the sensuo stricto mbt and shows active faulting in some segments

hydrothermal activity and its paleoecological implications in the latest miocene to middle pleistocene lacustrine environments of the baza basin betic cordillera se spain the continental sedimentary record of the baza basin guadix baza depression betic cordillera se spain shows six sedimentary units of lacustrine origin deposited from the latest miocene to the middle pleistocene depending on the interval considered the lacustrine deposits are mainly composed of marls carbonates or gypsiferous evaporites showing lithological mineralogical and geochemical features i e magnesium strontium and sulfur contents celestine deposits and travertine growths that are evidence of intense tectonically induced hydrothermal activity according to the high concentrations of strontium and sulfur as well as the abundance of travertines and magnesium clays the supply of hot waters was greater during the zanclean the gelasian and the calabrian as a result of tectonic activity hydrothermal activity has continued until the present time and is responsible of the hot springs that are nowadays active in the guadix baza depression the paleoenvironmental consequences of these sublacustrine hot springs were that during some intervals the lakes maintained a relatively permanent water table not subject to periodic desiccations in the dry season and warmer temperatures throughout the year this resulted in a high level of organic productivity especially for the calabrian which allowed the development of a rich and well diversified mammalian community similar to those of modern african savannas with tree patches in this mild environment the permanent water sheet favored the presence of drought intolerant megaherbivores such as the giant extinct hippo hippopotamus antiquus the high standing crop biomass of ungulates resulted in the availability of abundant carcasses for scavengers such as hyenas and hominins which explains the very high densities of skeletal remains preserved in the sediments distributed along the lake surroundings

wavelet analysis of dynamical processes in cirrus vertical air velocity observations obtained from the nasa dc 8 on 21 april 1996 are analyzed using wavelet and spectral analysis methods wavelet analysis yielded a very useful characterization of the complex dynamical structures encountered above below and within the cirrus clouds observed on this flight intermittent small groups of apparent gravity waves were found at length scales ranging from 2 km to greater than 40 km within the cloud patches of convective cells were also found the hierarchy of dynamical structures was well discriminated by the analysis

role of debris flows in long term landscape denudation in the central appalachians of virginia four major storms that triggered debris flows in the virginia west virginia appalachians provide new insights into the role of high magnitude low frequency floods in longterm denudation and landscape evolution in mountainous terrain storm denudation in the blue ridge mountain drainage basins is approximately an order of magnitude greater compared to basins located in the mountains of the valley and ridge province this difference is probably the result of higher storm rainfall from the blue ridge storms radiocarbon dating of debris flow deposits in the blue ridge indicates a debris flow return interval of not more than 2 4 k y in mountainous river basins this finding combined with measurements of basin denudation suggests that approximately half of the long term denudation from mechanical load occurs episodically by debris flow processes although floods of moderate magnitude are largely responsible for mobilizing sediment in lowgradient streams our data suggest that high magnitude low frequency events are the most significant component in delivering coarse grained regolith from mountainous hollows and channels to the lowland floodplains

turbulence characteristics in an elevated shear layer over owens valley abstract characteristics of turbulence in the lower and middle troposphere over owens valley have been examined using aircraft in situ measurements obtained from the terrain induced rotor experiment the two events analyzed in this study are characterized by a deep turbulent layer from the valley floor up to the midtroposphere associated with the interaction between trapped waves and an elevated shear layer kelvin helmholtz kh instability develops above the mountaintop level and often along the wave crests where the richardson number is reduced the turbulence induced by kh instability is characterized by a progressive downscale energy cascade a well defined inertial subrange up to 1 km and large eddies with vertical to horizontal aspect ratios less than unity the turbulence below the mountaintop level is largely shear induced associated with wave steepening and breaking and is more isotropic evaluation of structure functions indicates that while the turbulence energy cascade is predominately dow

palaeoecological and biostratigraphical implications of the microvertebrates of qesem cave in israel abstract microvertebrates are generally well suited for drawing inferences on past environmental conditions because they are closely bound to the areas in which they lived in this paper we discuss palaeoecological implications of two microvertebrate concentrations in the middle pleistocene site qesem cave in israel the ecological preferences of the nearest living relatives of the microvertebrate taxa recorded in concentration 1 squares l n 13 15 and 2 squares g h 16 17 at qesem cave allow us to infer a mosaic of open palaeoenvironment with sparse vegetation shrubland mediterranean forest rocky areas and riverbanks additionally we infer palaeoclimate from the bioclimatic distribution of extant species using the coexistence approach to our knowledge this is the first time the approach has been applied to microfaunal assemblages these data suggest cooler and slightly drier winters and somewhat lower seasonality than at present around qesem cave the differences are more pronounced for the time covered by concentration 2 than concentration 1 among microvertebrates micromammals are most suitable for biostratigraphic purposes with the exception of rattus cf haasi and the myomimus judaicus setzeri group the small mammal fauna of qesem cave comprises only taxa that live today in the levant r haasi and m judaicus have been found in israel in the early and middle pleistocene and their latest known record was from the acheulian site of oumm qatafa their presence in qesem cave extends the previously known stratigraphic range of these species the absence of r haasi in mousterian sites is thus consistent with the pre mousterian age of qesem cave morphometric data on molars of guenther s vole show that the lineage segment preserved in concentration 2 is more primitive than in concentration 1 indicating that the former concentration is older the evolutionary level of the sample from qesem concentration 1 is similar to tabun d boundary of acheulo yabrudian cultural complex and mousterian and that from qesem concentration 2 similar to tabun eb acheulo yabrudian

rectilinear evolution in arvicoline rodents and numerical dating of iberian early pleistocene sites abstract lozano fernandez et al 2013a have recently published a method intended for numerical dating of early pleistocene sites which is based on the assumption of uniform constant rate increase through time of mean lower molar tooth length of water voles mimomys savini in a number of levels sampled in the stratigraphic sequence of atapuerca td site they suggest that the regression equation obtained in this local section for site chronology on tooth size could be useful for estimating the numerical age of other localities from southwestern europe however in our opinion this biostratigraphic approach has severe conceptual and methodological problems which discourage its use as a chronometric tool these problems include that 1 the logic behind their approach represents a fallacy of hasty generalization because the results obtained for a local section are generalized to all possible stratigraphic sequences 2 the study is based on tooth measurements from a limited set of samples taken in a single locality which are represented by small numbers of specimens cover a short time span and have a high level of age uncertainty 3 the samples analyzed show small statistically non significant differences between their mean tooth length values 4 the approach assumes a linear straight orthoevolutionary model of change at constant monotonic rate for the apparent trend to increasing tooth size in the m savini lineage 5 these changes are better described in the atapuerca td section by a random walk or even by a series of independent events than by a model of rectilinear change and 6 the application of this methodology to other localities such as the orce sites which preserve the oldest evidence of human presence in europe would mean that an equation adjusted within a restricted chronological range 1 01 0 8 ma is used for extrapolating the ages of sites that are clearly older 1 4 ma

revisiting the esr chronology of the early pleistocene hominin occupation at vallparadis barcelona spain abstract esr dating was applied to fossil teeth and optically bleached quartz grain samples from two units of the sequence at vallparadis barcelona spain weighted mean esr age estimates of 858 87 ka and 849 48 ka were obtained for evt 7 which includes the archaeological level 10 and evt 8 respectively these results are in good agreement with the existing magneto biostratigraphic framework that constrain these deposits between 780 and 990 ka and indicate that vallparadis evt 7 has a chronology very close to that of atapuerca gran dolina td 6 spain

impacts of the chi chi earthquake on subsequent rainfall induced landslides in central taiwan abstract the influence of the chi chi earthquake on subsequent rainfall induced landslides was evaluated by comparing the occurrence of landslides in the choushui river watershed through eight spot images that covered the period from 1996 to 2001 the chi chi earthquake not only triggered serious coseismic landslides itself but also extensively disturbed surface strata around the epicentral area after surface strata have been highly disturbed heavy rainfalls in 2000 and 2001 have triggered more landslides than the earthquake itself compared with the data obtained from images before the earthquake it is obvious that the density of rainfall induced landslides increased significantly after the earthquake and the places where landslides occurred changed as well although typhoon herb in 1996 brought more precipitation than typhoon toraji in 2001 only 9 77 km 2 landslides were induced by herb while 48 8 km 2 landslides almost five times larger than those caused by herb were triggered by toraji besides landslides induced by herb were mainly distributed in mid slope areas with slopes of 20 30 after the chi chi earthquake the rainfall induced landslides occurred mainly in places with slopes between 40 and 50

himalayan seismic hazard the devastating earthquake in bhuj on 26 january 2001 highlighted the high earthquake risk in the indian region of gujarat in their perspective bilham et al warn that major earthquakes may be expected in another part of india the himalayan arc an analysis of historic earthquakes suggests that several major earthquakes are overdue in this region but that recent low activity has focused attention away from the himalayan arc projections from earlier earthquakes suggest that just one of the possibly overdue himalayan earthquakes may lead to 200 000 predictable fatalities

monitoring landslides from optical remotely sensed imagery the case history of tessina landslide italy collecting information on landslide occurrence and activity over wide areas is a crucial task for landslide hazard assessment field techniques despite being very precise are usually not sufficient to achieve this goal since they mostly provide pointbased measurements mainly because of its synoptic view and its capability for repetitive observations optical visible infrared remotely sensed imagery acquired at different dates and at high spatial resolution can be considered as an effective complementary tool for field techniques to derive such information an image processing method to map and monitor landslide activity using multitemporal optical imagery is proposed the method entails automatic change detection of suitably pre processed geometrically registered and radiometrically normalised sequential images followed by thresholding into landslide related change pixels subsequent filtering based on the degree of rectangularity of regions can also be considered to eliminate pixel clusters corresponding to man made land use changes the application of this method is illustrated in the complex tessina landslide in the eastern italian alps it has focused on discriminating the effects of a major reactivation that occurred in 1992 hence inferring the dynamics of the landslide at that time although the method has been devised for optical remote sensing imagery in general in the absence of high resolution satellite imagery covering that period digital images derived by scanning existing aerial photograph diapositives at 1 m pixel size have been used the method is able to classify image pixels according to landslide activity conditions d 2003 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

on the limits of using combined u series esr method to date fossil teeth from two early pleistocene archaeological sites of the orce area guadix baza basin spain abstract article history received 6 june 2011available online 9 february 2012keywords combined u series esr dating methodfossil teethfuente nueva 3barranco leonorceearly pleistocene the combined u series electron spin resonance esr dating method was applied to nine teeth from twoearly pleistocene archaeological sites located in the orce area guadix baza basin southern spain fuentenueva 3 fn 3 and barranco leon bl the combination of biostratigraphy and magnetostratigraphy placesboth sites between the olduvai and jaramillo subchrons 1 78 1 07 ma our results highlight the dif culty of dating such old sites and point out the limits of the combined u series esr dating method based on the us model we identi ed several sources of uncertainties that may lead toinaccurate age estimates seven samples could not be dated because the dental tissues had 230 th 234 u ac tivity ratios higher than equilibrium indicating that uranium had probably leached from these tissues it washowever possible to calculate numerical estimates for two of the teeth both from fn 3 one yielded a middlepleistocene age that seems to be strongly underestimated the other provided an age of 1 19 0 21 ma inagreement with data obtained from independent methods the latter result gives encouragement thatthere are samples that can be used for routine dating of old sites 2012 university of washington published by elsevier inc all rights reserved

dynamical structure and turbulence in cirrus clouds aircraft observations during fire abstract aircraft data collected during the first international satellite cloud climatology project regional experiment fire i are used to examine dynamical processes operating in cirrus cloud systems observed on 19 and 28 october 1986 measurements from lagrangian spiral soundings and constant altitude flight legs are analyzed comparisons are made with observations in clear air each cirrus case contained a statically stable layer a conditionally unstable or neutrally stratified layer ice pseudoadiabatic in which convection was prevalent and a neutral layer in which convection was intermittent the analysis indicates that a mixture of phenomena occurred including small scale convective cells gravity waves 2 9 km quasi two dimensional waves 10 20 km and larger two dimensional mesoscale waves 100 km the intermediate scale waves observed both in clear air and in the cloud systems likely played an important role in the development of the cloud systems given the magnitude of the associ

observations of kelvin helmholtz instability at a cloud base with the middle and upper atmosphere mu and weather radars 1 using the very high frequency 46 5 mhz middle and upper atmosphere radar mur ka band 35 ghz and x band 9 8 ghz weather radars a kelvin helmholtz kh instability occurring at a cloud base and its impact on modulating cloud bottom altitudes are described by a case study on 8 october 2008 at the shigaraki mu observatory japan 34 85 n 136 10 e kh braids were monitored by the mur along the slope of a cloud base gradually rising with time around an altitude of 5 0 km the kh braids had a horizontal wavelength of about 3 6 km and maximum crest to trough amplitude of about 1 6 km nearly monochromatic and out of phase vertical air motion oscillations exceeding 3 m s 1 with a period of 3 min 20 s were measured by the mur above and below the cloud base the axes of the billows were at right angles of the wind and wind shear both oriented east north east at their altitude the isotropy of the radar echoes and the large variance of doppler velocity in the kh billows including the braids indicate the presence of strong turbulence at the bragg 3 2 m scale after the passage of the cloud system the kh waves rapidly damped and the vertical scale of the kh braids progressively decreased down to about 100 m before their disappearance the radar observations suggest that the interface between clear air and cloud was conducive to the presence of the dynamical shear instability by reducing static stability and then the richardson number near the cloud base downward cloudy protuberances detected by the ka band radar had vertical and horizontal scales of about 0 6 1 1 and 3 2 km respectively and were clearly associated with the downward air motions observed oscillations of the reflectivity weighted doppler velocity measured by the x band radar indicate that falling ice particles underwent the vertical wind motions generated by the kh instability to form the protuberances the protuberances at the cloud base might be either kh billow clouds or perhaps some sort of mamma reflectivity weighted particle fall velocity computed from doppler velocities measured by the x band radar and the mur showed an average value of 1 3 ms 1 within the cloud and in the protuberance environment

gis based landslide susceptibility mapping for the 2005 kashmir earthquake region abstract the m w 7 6 october 8 2005 kashmir earthquake triggered several thousand landslides throughout the himalaya of northern pakistan and india these were concentrated in six different geomorphic geologic anthropogenic settings a spatial database which included 2252 landslides was developed and analyzed using aster satellite imagery and geographical information system gis technology a multi criterion evaluation was applied to determine the significance of event controlling parameters in triggering the landslides the parameters included lithology faults slope gradient slope aspect elevation land cover rivers and roads the results showed four classes of landslide susceptibility furthermore they indicated that lithology had the strongest influence on landsliding particularly when the rock is highly fractured such as in shale slate clastic sediments and limestone and dolomite moreover the proximity of the landslides to faults rivers and roads was also an important factor in helping to initiate failures in addition landslides occurred particularly in moderate elevations on south facing slopes shrub land grassland and also agricultural land were highly susceptible to failures while forested slopes had few landslides one third of the study area was highly or very highly susceptible to future landsliding and requires immediate mitigation action the rest of the region had a low or moderate susceptibility to landsliding and remains relatively stable this study supports the view that 1 earthquake triggered landslides are concentrated in specific zones associated with event controlling parameters and 2 in the western himalaya deforestation and road construction contributed significantly to landsliding during and shortly after earthquakes

spatiotemporal landslide detection for the 2005 kashmir earthquake region abstract various scientists forecasted long term major slope failures after the 8 october 2005 7 6 mw earthquake in the northern parts of pakistan along the balakot bagh fault line the earthquake destabilized numerous slopes by creating a large number of tension cracks which may lead together with the monsoonal climatic conditions to increased landslide activity to test these forecasts an area of 36 km2 was selected in which changes in landslide activity area and types were quantified after each monsoon season for the following consecutive three years on screen stereo interpretations of high spatial resolution satellite imagery were carried out together with field investigations to identify landslide types and to quantify their changes in the area the landslide inventory showed that 158 landslides were triggered along the balakot bagh fault line the most abundant type of active landslide was translational which was mainly concentrated along the fault line in the muzaffarabad formation landslide activity was very high for a period of two years at maximum after which the majority of the slopes gained a state of stability in contrast to the predictions of long term extensive landslide activity slopes started re vegetating and landslide activity decreased within two years after the earthquake

quantifying geomorphic evolution of earthquake triggered landslides and their relation to active normal faults an example from the gulf of corinth greece abstract photogrammetric analysis of aerial photographs is used to investigate morphological changes in two large landslides located adjacent to the active marathias normal fault along the gulf of corinth greece this e w trending fault intersects at almost right angles a series of west verging and east dipping thrust faults and has a clear geomorphic expression the fault s structural signature such as the trace length displacement segmentation and scarp freshness resembles other normal faults within the gulf of corinth along this fault we mapped a series of landslides that are mainly concentrated at the near tip areas two of them are hosted in the damage zone formed by the intersecting normal and reverse faults the marathias and sergoula landslides show a significant geomorphic evolution on aerial photographs from 1945 to 1991 evolution of landslides in the study area appears to be correlated with two earthquake clusters that drive mass wasting in the order of 10 6 m 3 significant drainage adjustment and triggering of post landslide river incision we infer the following process sequence for these presumably earthquake triggered landslides in the region eroded material in marathias landslide and reactivation of movement within the main body of the sergoula landslide were observed in 1969 aerial photographs both landslides are deep seated rotational rockslides obstruction or abandonment of channels due to the landslides establishes river incision and a dramatic increase of the rate of fan delta progradation in the order of 1 m yr these large landslides are related to strong m 6 5 earthquakes concentrated along faults and their reactivation period is almost a century based on seismological or paleoseismological analyses

the influence of debris flows on channels and valley floors in the oregon coast range u s a debris flows are one of the most important processes which influence the morphology of channels and valley floors in the oregon coast range debris flows that initiate in bedrock hollows at heads of first order basins erode the long accumulated sediment and organic debris from the floors of headwater first and second order channels this material is deposited on valley floors in the form of fans levees and terraces in channels deposits of debris flows control the distribution of boulders the stochastic nature of sediment supply to alluvial channels by debris flows promotes cycling between channel aggradation which results in a gravel bed morphology and channel degradation which results in a mixed bedrock and boulder bed morphology temporal and spatial variability of channel bed morphology is expected in other landscapes where debris flows are an important process

early human occupation of iberia the chronological and palaeoclimatic inferences from vallparadis barcelona spain abstract vallparadis is one of the best calibrated and most accurately dated archaeological sites from the european early pleistocene chronological analyses combined with palaeomagnetism esr u series and osl and the biochronology of macro and micromammals are fully consistent and situate the site just above the upper limit of the jaramillo subchron in this article we compare the mandibular first molar m1 of individual adult specimens of mimomys savini recovered from level 10 evt7 at vallparadis with specimens from the stratigraphic sequence at gran dolina atapuerca fuente nueva 3 and barranco leon d orce this comparison allows us to chronostratigraphically relate level 10 at vallparadis with level td5 at gran dolina and to fix the former s chronology to around 0 98 0 95 ma mis 27 and therefore prior to level td6 in which fossil remains of homo antecessor were recovered the chronology of vallparadis and the set of contemporary palaeoclimatic proxies regarding the iberian peninsula strengthen the hypothesis that hominins continuously populated europe at least in iberia throughout the late early pleistocene between the jaramillo subchron and the matuyama brunhes boundary by overcoming the climatic fluctuations and changes to the landscape that occurred during this period

mesoscale and microscale structure of cirrus clouds three case studies abstract the structure and composition of three basic cirrus cloud types are examined through coordinated aircraft and ground based polarization lidar and radar measurements the cloud systems consist of a multilayered orographic cirrus a 6 km deep cirrostratus and a group of fibrous cirrus bands at the tropopause the data reveal the presence of mesoscale generating regions with horizontal dimensions ranging from 15 km in narrow cloud bands up to 100 km in cirrostratus these generating regions appear to be composed of complexes of much smaller convective structures presumably on the 1 km scale of cirrus uncinus cells and so are termed mesoscale uncinus complexes muc accumulations of ice particles within cirrus commonly referred to as precipitation trails are associated with generating regions at or near cloud tops but are also created by the local production of ice crystals within embedded convective impulses supercooled cloud droplets large enough to be detected by aircraft probes 5 m