surface track discontinuity of tropical cyclones crossing taiwan a statistical study surface tracks of some cross taiwan tropical cyclones were discontinuous as a result of the blockage of the north northeast south southwest oriented central mountain range cmr this paper tries to identify the variables that may be used to diagnose track continuity in advance the track records of 131 westbound crosstaiwan tropical cyclones between 1897 and 2009 are examined it is found that the track continuity of awestboundcross taiwantropicalcyclonedependsmostlyuponthelandfalllocation ylf theapproaching direction ang and the maximum wind vmx of the cyclone according to the empirical probability of track continuity estimated from the data the dependence on ylf which is nonlinear and remarkably asymmetric with respect to the midpoint of the east coast may be well approximated by a quadratic function of ylf the nonlinearity and asymmetry can be interpreted in terms of the length scale of the cmr and the north south antisymmetry of the cyclonic flow the estimated dependence of track continuity on cyclone intensity and size may be approximated by a linear function of vmx the estimated dependence of track continuity on ang may be approximated by a single term of the modified variable dir 5jang 2 110j where 110 is the direction in degrees perpendicular to the cmr s long axis usingthe64tracksbetween1944and1996asthetrainingsample alogisticregressionequationmodel built in terms of ylf ylf square dir and vmx gives an overall accuracy score of 89 as to the probability estimates of individual tracks 49 of the 64 tracks have estimated probabilities outside the 0 5 2 0 127 0 5 1 0 127 rms error range and are correctly classified a prediction test using another set of 67 tracks not included in the model training sample scores a success rate of 82 as to the probability predictions for individual tracks 49 of the 67 tracks have predicted probabilities outside the rms error range and are correctly predicted these results confirm the appropriateness of the model and moreover demonstrate that the three parameters ylf dir and vmx primarily control the surface track continuity of a westbound tropical cyclone crossing taiwan

the inland eyewall reintensification of typhoon fanapi 2010 documented from an observational perspective using multiple doppler radar and surface measurements abstractthis study documents observational changes in the eyewall of typhoon fanapi 2010 after landfall in taiwan the observations indicate that fanapi s eye and eyewall disappeared on the eastern side of taiwan s central mountain range cmr after landfall but reemerged on the western side of cmr the cyclonic circulation increasing wind speed a low level low pressure and high temperature zone the associated updrafts and downdrafts and surface pressure and rainfall measurements all support the existence of a reintensified eyewall the storm slowed down during the redeveloping stage thus prolonging the rainfall duration over taiwan on the western side of cmr a northwest southeast oriented rainband formed at an earlier stage possibly due to the large scale interaction between fanapi s remnant flow and the environment however the subsequent reintensification might be attributed to the interaction between the circulation and topography this is supported by the finding that adjacent to cmr stron

the concentric eyewall cycle of hurricane gilbert abstract hurricane gilbert of 1988 formed an outer eyewall as it intensified rapidly toward a record minimum pressure of 888 hpa in the western caribbean the outer eyewall strengthened and contracted while the inner eyewall showed some signs of weakening before landfall on the yucatan peninsula remarkably both eyewalls survived passage over land but the storm was much weaker when it entered the gulf of mexico although the primary cause of weakening was passage over land the effect of the contracting outer eyewall may have contributed later the outer eyewall completely replaced the inner eyewall subsequently it contracted steadily but slowly as gilbert maintained nearly constant intensity over the cooler waters of the gulf before final landfall on the mainland of mexico

eyewall contraction breakdown and reformation in a landfalling typhoon 1 the interesting eyewall evolution of typhoon zeb before during and after its landfall at luzon was documented from both the satellite observation and numerical simulation it is proposed that the terrain plays a critical role in leading to such evolution first the eyewall contraction just before landfall a following breakdown and then the eyewall reformation after the storm returned to the ocean further studies of the physical mechanisms responsible for such eyewall evolution shall improve both our understanding of and the skill in predicting the structure and intensity changes of tropical cyclones in general and landfalling ones in particular

the multiple vortex nature of tropical cyclogenesis abstract this study explores the extent to which potential vorticity pv generation and superposition were relevant on a variety of scales during the genesis of tropical storm allison allison formed close to shore and the combination of continuous doppler radar satellite aircraft and surface observations allows for the examination of tropical cyclogenesis in great detail preceding allison s genesis pv superposition on the large scale created an environment where decreased vertical shear and increased instability surface fluxes and low level cyclonic vorticity coexisted this presented a favorable environment for meso scale pv production by widespread convection and led to the formation of surface based meso scale vortices termed convective burst vortices cbvs the cbvs seemed to form in association with intense bursts of convection and rotated around each other within the meso circulation field one cbv eventually superposed with a mesoscale convective vortex mcv resulting in a mor

sensitivity of typhoon track to asymmetric latent heating rainfall induced by taiwan topography a numerical study of typhoon fanapi 2010 1 typhoon fanapi 2010 traveled westward across the central mountain range of taiwan on 19 september and its rainfall shifted from a symmetric to an asymmetric pattern with convection mostly to the south and southeast meanwhile the storm slowed down from 22 to 14 km h 1 for 12 h upon leaving taiwan and led to heavy rainfall 800 mm and serious flooding over the low lying southwestern plains through simulation and sensitivity tests using the cloud resolving storm simulator at 3 km grid size this study shows that the sudden and temporary speed reduction was caused by the asymmetric latent heating lh not the environmental flow specifically over a 9 h period the model storm moved westward at 16 km h 1 in the control run but increasingly faster and more toward the northwest when the moisture and thus the lh effect and its asymmetry is gradually reduced steering flow analysis and estimation using model results suggest an eastward motion vector of about 8 km h 1 consistent with the observation is produced by the asymmetric lh effect when the effects from the vertical wind shear and beta drift are both taken into account this result is further supported by the diagnosis on storm motion based on potential vorticity tendency although important such feedback to typhoon track from rainfall asymmetry that is induced by the blocking effect of topography have not been reported or studied

is the ventersdorp rift system of southern africa related to a continental collision between the kaapvaal and zimbabwe cratons at 2 64 ga ago abstract rocks of the ventersdorp supergroup were deposited in a system of northeast trending grabens on the kaapvaal craton approximately 2 64 ga ago contemporary with a continental collision between the kaapvaal and zimbabwe cratons we suggest that it was this collision that initiated the ventersdorp rifting individual grabens strike at high angles toward the continental collision zone now exposed in the limpopo province where late orogenic left lateral strike slip faulting and anatectic granites are recognized we relate the ventersdorp rift province to extension in the kaapvaal craton associated with the collision and see some analogy with such rifts as the shansi and baikal systems associated with the current india asia continental collision

a numerical study of the effect of island terrain on tropical cyclones abstract a triply nested movable mesh model was used to study the behavior of tropical cyclones encountering island mountain ranges the integration domain consisted of a 37 wide and 45 long channel with an innermost mesh resolution of 1 6 the storms used for this study were embedded in easterly flows of 5 and 10 m s 1 initially realistic distributions of island topography at 1 6 resolution were inserted into the model domain for the region of the caribbean including the islands of cuba hispaniola and puerto rico the island of taiwan and the region of luzon in the northern philippines it was found that the islands affected the basic flow as well as the wind field directly associated with the storm system the combination of these effects caused changes in the track and translational speed of the storm in particular in the case of the 5 m s 1 easterly flow the storm accelerated and veered to the north well before reaching taiwan for the other island distributions the northward deflecti

thermodynamic recovery of the pressure and temperature fields over complex terrain using wind fields derived by multiple doppler radar synthesis abstracta new thermodynamic retrieval scheme is developed by which one can use the wind fields synthesized from multiple doppler radars to derive the three dimensional thermodynamic fields over com

the role of vortical hot towers in the formation of tropical cyclone diana 1984 abstract a high resolution 3 km horizontal grid spacing near cloud resolving numerical simulation of the formation of hurricane diana 1984 is used to examine the contribution of deep convective processes to tropical cyclone formation this study is focused on the 3 km horizontal grid spacing simulation because this simulation was previously found to furnish an accurate forecast of the later stages of the observed storm life cycle the numerical simulation reveals the presence of vortical hot towers or cores of deep cumulonimbus convection possessing strong vertical vorticity that arise from buoyancy induced stretching of local absolute vertical vorticity in a vorticity rich prehurricane environment at near cloud resolving scales these vortical hot towers are the preferred mode of convection they are demonstrated to be the most important influence to the formation of the tropical storm via a two stage evolutionary process i preconditioning of the local environment via diabatic production of mul

evolution of the surface wind field in an intensifying tropical cyclone abstract the surface wind field in a developing tropical cyclone agnes 1972 was analyzed over a 1660 km radius for four days using conventional surface data as the storm evolved from a disorganized depression to a hurricane the transition to hurricane intensity was characterized by a wavelike disturbance propagating inward at 15 m s 1 from the outermost radii to the storm core over a 36 hour period this propagating disturbance was clearly visible in the radial and vertical motion fields as a surge of inflow and upward motion rapid intensification of the storm began within hours after the leading edge of the surge reached the storm center the analysis of consecutive 12 hour periods without compositing of data from nonsynoptic times was essential for identification of this feature the surge had the same asymmetry as the upper level outflow channel indicating the possible involvement of the outflow layer in its initiation no clear evidence of an external forcing mechanism for the surge such as th

precambrian crustal evolution and continental drift one of the major questions of precambrian research is whether present day plate tectonic models can be applied to the evolution of the ancient continental crust or whether the tectonic style suggests a unidirectional and therefore non uniformitarian development in response to gradual changes in the global thermal regime through time

the influence of island topography on typhoon track deflection abstracthigh resolution simulations for typhoon krosa 2007 and a set of idealized experiments are conducted using a full physics model to investigate the eminent deflection of typhoon track prior to its landfall over mountainous island topography the terrain height of taiwan plays the most important role in typhoon krosa s looping motion at its landfall while the surface properties details in the topographic shape of taiwan and the cloud microphysics are shown to be secondary to the track deflection a simulation with 3 km resolution and realistic model settings reproduces the observed krosa s track while that with 9 km resolution fails suggesting that high resolution to better resolve the typhoon terrain interactions is important for the prediction and simulation of typhoon track deflection prior to landfall results from idealized experiments with model configurations mimicking those of supertyphoon krosa show that vortices approaching the northern and central topography are significantly deflec

a dynamical model of lithosphere extension and sedimentary basin formation convection in the upper mantle can give rise to normal stresses on the base of the continental lithosphere that may cause localized elevation of its surface and extensional deviatoric stresses this possibility is investigated assuming homogeneous biaxial strain in a continental lithosphere whose strength is governed by a combination of brittle failure and power law creep in the crust and by brittle power law or dorn law behavior in the mantle for a given geotherm and for rheologies based on current laboratory data the lithosphere responds to convection induced uplift in one of three ways depending primarily on the magnitude of the driving stresses these regimes are as follows 1 when the driving stress exceeds a threshold value the resulting strain rates are high enough greater than about 3 10 16 s 1 that the lithosphere strains almost isothermally its effective rheology is strain thinning and it undergoes accelerating extension the magnitude of the dynamic uplift required to produce the threshold value of the driving stress depends on the geotherm characterized here by the moho temperature and varies from about 1 km for a moho temperature of 700 c to around 3 km for a moho temperature of 550 c an uncertainty of at least 100 c is attached to these temperatures owing to the inaccuracies in extrapolating laboratory data to geological strain rates 2 at stress levels due to less than about half of the critical uplift extensional strain is negligible 3 at intermediate stress levels moderate uplift produces extension that is bounded by strength increases due to cooling of the ductile portion of the lithosphere during extension

mechanism of subsidence of ancient cratonic rift basins cratonic basins commonly occur over ancient rift zones these inactive rift basins are recognizable by a positive linear bouguer gravity anomaly that may correspond to the axial gravity high found in modern rift valleys many of these basins undergo discrete periods of increased subsidence rates or reactivations long after the mass excess responsible for the linear gravity high was emplaced furthermore the reactivation of many cratonic basins occurs simultaneously with large scale compressional tectonics it is suggested that the driving force for subsidence is the isostatically uncompensated ancient mass excess the subsidence of these basins is modelled by a lithospheric flexure model with a nonlinear maxwell viscoelastic rheology solutions to this model indicate that basins may experience a low subsidence rate throughout geologic time the subsidence of a basin will stop only when isostatic compensation of the mass excess is achieved since ancient rift mass excesses may be uncompensated over long geologic time intervals the early thermal and structural evolution of rifts may not significantly influence later basin subsidence the models suggest that basins may be reactivated by any mechanism which lowers the effective viscosity of the lithospheric material allowing the uncompensated basin to settle toward an isostatic compensation depth faster than normal since viscosity is a strong function of temperature reactivation by a world wide increase in heat flow is suggested as a possible mechanism for the synchroneity of basin subsidence throughout a continent an increase of 15 in the geothermal gradient for example from 16 5 18 9 k km will cause about a 5 increase in subsidence this increase in heat flow however seems unlikely of producing by itself the magnitude of basin subsidence during a reactivation phase that is observed in the geologic record where up to 100 increase in subsidence might occur since the rheology of the lithosphere is nonlinear effective viscosity is also a strong nonlinear function of stress the presence of a regional compressive stress during periods of tectonism of 1 1 108 pa about 2 8 of the buckling strength of the lithosphere produces a short period of reactivated subsidence 105 yr during the reactivated subsidence the newly imposed regional stress relaxes sufficiently in the lower lithosphere to restore the effective viscosity to values similar to that before reactivation this suggests that reactivated subsidence caused by regional compression can be maintained as long as the stress level remains high in the lower lithosphere this may be accomplished by an intermittent application of the regional stress over time

a numerical investigation of the eyewall evolution in a landfalling typhoon abstract an interesting eyewall evolution occurred in typhoon zeb 1998 when it devastated luzon the eyewall of zeb contracted before landfall and broke down and weakened after landfall then a much larger new eyewall formed and strengthened as it left luzon and reentered the ocean the fifth generation pennsylvania state university ncar mesoscale model mm5 with four nested domains was used to perform numerical experiments to understand the effects of terrain and land surface variation on the observed eyewall evolution results show that the presence of luzon plays a critical role in the observed eyewall evolution quite different from the conventional concentric eyewall replacement the eyewall replacement that occurred in typhoon zeb was triggered by the mesoscale landmass and terrain variation with a horizontal scale similar to the core of the typhoon in typhoon zeb the original eyewall contracted and broke down because of enhanced surface friction after landfall the outer eyewall was triggered

a numerical study of the track deflection of supertyphoon haitang 2005 prior to its landfall in taiwan abstract a series of numerical simulations are conducted using the advanced research version of the weather research and forecasting model with a 4 km fine mesh to examine the physical processes responsible for the significant track deflection and looping motion before the landfall of supertyphoon haitang 2005 in taiwan which poses a unique scientific and forecasting issue in the control experiment a low level northerly jet induced by the channeling effect forms in the western quadrant of the approaching storm where the inner core circulation is constrained by the presence of taiwan s terrain because of the channeling effect the strongest winds of the storm are shifted to the western portion of the eyewall the northerly advection flow averaged asymmetric winds within 100 km radius results in a sharp southward turn of the westward moving storm the time series of the advection flow shows that the advection wind vectors rotate cyclonically in time and well match the motion of the simulated vortex

on the geographic asymmetry of typhoon translation speed across the mountainous island of taiwan abstractthis paper examines the effect of topographically phase locked convection on the motion of typhoons across the island of taiwan data for 84 typhoons that reached taiwan s eastern coast from 1960 to 2010 are analyzed with motions compared to the long term average overland translation speed for 61 continuous track typhoons among all cases 77 of the slow moving tropical cyclones tcs made landfall on the northern end of taiwan s eastern coast while 60 of the fast storms had southeastern coastal landfalls this geographic asymmetry with respect to typhoon translation speeds widened after landfall as the slow movers typically decelerated during the overland period whereas the faster tcs sped up in particular the average overland duration was 16 h for the slow class compared to only 3 h for the fast moving typhoons the combination of slower translation with longer duration for the northern class of tcs led to large rainfall on the southwestern slope of the island s central mountain range we

interaction of typhoons with the taiwan orography part ii continuous and discontinuous tracks across the island abstract numerical model simulations of west moving tropical cyclones approaching and crossing the taiwan orography are shown to contain many of the observed surface features vortices tend to track continuously around the northern end of the island due to the deflection of the deep layer mean flow and the vortex circulation is modified less because the higher winds to the right of the center do not have a strong interaction with the barrier discontinuous tracks predominate for vortices approaching the central southern portions of the taiwan orography severe distortions of the inner core circulation occur and the surface pressure and surface wind centers become decoupled and may be dissipated at different rates numerical sensitivity studies demonstrate that more intense and rapidly moving vortices are more like to cross directly over the barrier and thus maintain a continuous track in one special case of a weak but fast moving vortex approaching the southern end the model simulates the existence of

the north china basin an example of a cenozoic rifted intraplate basin the north china basin was a stable continental region that has undergone several distinct phases of rifting and subsidence during the mesozoic and cenozoic eras the last major phase featuring block faulting rapid subsidence and widespread calc alkaline basaltic volcanism began during early tertiary time this intraplate rifting appears to be the result of an approximately 30 extension and thinning of the lithosphere beneath the northeastern china by the late tertiary period active rifting had slowed and postrift thermal subsidence had begun this regional extension and subsidence resulted in the present day north china basin a large saucer shaped oil producing basin with thinner crust and lower upper mantle p and s wave velocities than the surrounding regions during the quaternary period however the subsidence rate increased in the north china basin the frequent occurrence of destructive earthquakes and observations of relatively high heat flow suggest that the quaternary tectonic activity differs from the late tertiary simple thermal subsidence pattern and may indicate a new phase of rifting

evolution of the pannonian basin system 1 tectonics the carpathian arc formed during cretaceous to miocene time by continental collision between europe and smaller continental fragments following southward and westward subduction of ocean floor during the last stages of thrusting in the outer carpathians a set of discrete basins formed behind the carpathian loop these basins are regions of middle to late miocene extension and are connected to each other and to areas of coeval shortening in the outer carpathian thrust belt by a system of strike slip faults sinistral northeast trending and dextral northwest trending sets of conjugate shears reflect overall east west extension of the intra carpathian region during middle to late miocene time palinspastic reconstruction of the basins indicates about 100 50 km of east west extension across the intra carpathian region during this time we interpret the vienna basin which is superimposed partly on the flysch nappes of the outer west carpathians as the result of thin skinned extensional tectonics above a shallow detachment surface within the crust extension of upper crustal rocks above this detachment was probably accomodated by thrusting of the outermost nappes of the west carpathians over the european platform extension of basins farther inside the carpathian loop probably involved rocks at deeper crustal levels and within the upper mantle the most internally situated basins formed by extensional processes that involved the entire lithosphere thus the depth to which extension occurred seems to be closely related to the proximity of each basin to the active thrust front in the carpathians this can be related to the geometry of the subduction zone extension within the intra carpathian basins began first in the northernmost basins and migrated southward and eastward over a ten million year period palinspastic reconstruction of the basins at three different times during the miocene 17 5 16 5 and 13 0 ma predicts eastward migration of the zone of thrusting and shortening within the carpathian mountains to accomodate the synchronous eastward and southward migration of areas of extension from these reconstructions about 120 60 km of east west shortening is predicted across the outer east carpathians from about 17 5 ma until present both predictions are in good agreement with the timing and magnitude of shortening in the carpathian thrust belt as determined directly from rocks within the belt from this we infer a close relationship for middle to late miocene extension of the intra carpathian region and middle to late miocene crustal shortening within the outer carpathians during middle and late miocene time deformation of the pannonian fragment was dominated by extensional and wrench tectonics except along a narrow zone in the outer carpathian thrust belt middle and late miocene thrusting in the carpathians is interpreted as the result of simple shear caused by relative motion between europe and the overriding pannonian fragment at the subduction boundary rather than of regional compression of lithospheric rocks at depth the initiation of extensional tectonics within the intra carpathian region in middle miocene time can be related to reorganization of major fragment boundaries of the eastern european alpine system

pre transvaal wrench tectonics along the northern margin of the witwatersrand basin south africa abstract the pre transvaal tectonic history of the northern margin of the witwatersrand basin is re evaluated in terms of wrench fault tectonics three major east northeast trending left lateral wrench fault systems are recognized the sugarbush rietfontein and kromdraai systems they are characterized by pull apart basins e g bezuidenhout valley and kromdraai grabens narrow slivers of displaced stratigraphy e g langermanskop rietfontein block and marginal convex upward thrusts changes in fault orientation result in areas of compression passing laterally into areas of extension over short distances splays terminate individual fault systems regions of wrench fault overlap are characterized by fold domains e g west rand syncline east rand basin with folds characteristically trending nw se the left lateral strike slip system appears to be of craton wide scale and probably extends at least as far as the barberton greenstone belt the wrench system appears to have come into existence during witwatersrand times but experienced its major movement during middle ventersdorp times the left lateral strike slip system is believed to be related to rifting along the ventersdorp trough and to right lateral faulting along the southwestern margin of the witwatersrand basin these tectonics occurred prior to a post transvaal period of folding and thrusting related to the emplacement of the vredefort dome the latter is responsible for the penetrative regional cleavage and bedding sub parallel faults throughout the area concerned the structural model proposed here has implications for the existence of possible outliers of mineralized upper witwatersrand stratigraphy

convectively generated potential vorticity in rainbands and formation of the secondary eyewall in hurricane rita of 2005 abstracteyewall replacements in mature tropical cyclones usually cause intensity fluctuations one reason for eyewall replacements remaining a forecasting challenge is the lack of understanding of how secondary eyewalls form this study uses high resolution full physics model forecast fields of hurricanes katrina and rita 2005 to better understand potential vorticity pv generation in the rainbands and the role that convectively generated pv played in the formation of a secondary eyewall in hurricane rita previous studies have focused on dynamic processes in the inner core and or the effects of certain specified pv distributions however the initial development of a concentric pv ring in the rainband region has not been fully addressed katrina and rita were extensively observed by three research aircraft during the hurricane rainband and intensity change experiment rainex which was designed to study the interaction of the rainbands and the inner core rita developed a secondary eyewall and went

convective contribution to the genesis of hurricane ophelia 2005 abstract the convection occurring in the tropical depression that became hurricane ophelia 2005 was investigated just prior to tropical storm formation doppler radar showed a deep wide intense convective cell of a type that has been previously thought to occur in intensifying tropical depressions but has not heretofore been documented in detail the updraft of the cell was 10 km wide 17 km deep had updrafts of 10 20 m s 1 throughout its mid to upper levels and contained a cyclonic vorticity maximum the massive convective updraft was maintained by strong positive buoyancy which was maximum at about the 10 km level probably aided by latent heat of freezing evaporative cooling and precipitation drag occurred in the rain shower of the cell but were insufficient to produce a strong downdraft or gust front outflow to force the updraft the convective updraft was fed by a layer of strong inflow that was several kilometers deep wind induced turbulence just above the ocean surface enriched the equi

a numerical investigation of the convective systems in the vicinity of southern taiwan associated with typhoon fanapi 2010 formation mechanism of double rainfall peaks the westbound typhoon fanapi 2010 brought 872 mm daily rainfall over the coastal plain in southern taiwan which is comparable to the extreme rainfall of 1080 mm over the southern central mountain range cmr in this study the weather research and forecast model was used to investigate the formation mechanism of the two rainfall peaks and the associated dynamics of the convective systems in the vicinity of southern taiwan as the vortex that deflects somewhat southward near landfall moves over the cmr the vortex slows down significantly during westward departure and induces strong near coastal convergence at lower levels with the westerly to southwesterly outer flow the associated intense latent heating of the near coastal rainfall greatly contributes to positive potential vorticity pv with enhanced vorticity stretching near the convex eyewall when the vortex becomes more asymmetric and longitudinally elongated the positive pv tendency near the coast is induced not only by vertical differential diabatic heating ddh but also by the longitudinal ddh mainly associated with positive vorticity tilting the longitudinal ddh indeed dominates all other processes in the pv generation inside the eyewall further offshore which is vital to the maintenance of the eyewall with the strong banded convergence and is special to typical intense cyclones over the open ocean the formation of the double intense rainfall peaks cannot occur without a precise departing track near the southwest coast in association with the slowdown of the vortex core when the cmr height is significantly reduced or latent heating is deactivated after landfall

interaction of typhoons with the taiwan orography part i upstream track deflections abstract a combined observational and numerical modeling approach is used to study the upstream track deflections of westward moving tropical cyclones approaching the mountainous terrain of taiwan although the standard deviations are large the mean track deflections are larger and have a different orientation for storms approaching the southern end of the island from those approaching the northern end the deflections tend to be larger for weaker and slower moving storms two distinct regions of upstream track deflections that are detected in the observations are explored in a sensitivity study with a 45 km horizontal resolution and 16 layer numerical model as the outer circulation of the tropical cyclone begins to interact with the mountain barrier the zonal decelerations and southward track deflections are explained by an enhanced blocking and deflection of the environmental flow advecting the cyclone the larger effect for southern approaching storms compared to northern storms is because the stron

development of rift basins illustrated by the structural evolution of the oseberg feature block 30 6 offshore norway the mesozoic tilted fault block in norwegian north sea block 30 6 containing the giant oseberg oil and gas field is used to illustrate basin development during the jurassic and cretaceous there is seismic evidence for an early rifting phase in the northern viking graben on which the jurassic cretaceous rifting phase early bathonian to berriasian is overprinted the oseberg structure is representative of other fault blocks bordering the northern viking graben axis planar normal faults and listric faults which were restricted to the rifting phase dominate both fault types exhibit syn fault sedimentation listric faulting is recognized on seismic sections by the differential tilting reverse drag antithetic faulting and a wedge shaped syn rift reflector package the initiation of rifting is dated by baselap onto pre rift reflectors and cessation is dated by an unconformity beneath the generally onlapping post rift sediments steeply dipping planar normal faults often active along previously established fault zones played a significant part in the post rift development of the basin the last movement on planar normal faults in the oseberg fault scarp becomes younger away from the rift axis and this produced the complex fault scarp visible on many seismic lines the topography defined by the post rift unconformity is a composite surface which formed in response to subsidence processes it is not the result of orogenic events such as the kimmerian 9orogeny9 footwall uplift associated with planar normal faults caused local unconformities in complex fault scarps and on fault block crests

the himalayan arc large scale continental subduction oroclinal bending and back arc spreading abstract palaeomagnetic results from the himalayan arc and southern tibet compared with simulated apparent polar wander paths for the indian plate show a consistent pattern of rotations of the himalayan arc relative to the indian shield varying gradually from 45 clockwise in the northwestern himalaya to slightly counterclockwise in the lhasa region this pattern is consistent with continental underthrusting of greater india beneath the tibetan plateau since the early miocene over at least 650 km at the longitude of western nepal and oroclinal bending since the latest miocene available palaeomagnetic observations support the steady state model for the formation of the himalayan arc with refinements as follows 1 collision between greater india s northern boundary and southern asia occurred at equatorial latitudes with progressive suturing from palaeocene in the northwestern himalaya until early eocene in the eastern himalaya 2 continuing convergence and indentation of greater india into southern asia over about 2000 km up to the early miocene resulted in southeastward extrusion of indochina and 3 neogene counterclockwise rotational underthrusting of greater india along the main central thrust with pliocene quaternary oroclinal bending of the himalayan arc

transform faulting extension and subduction in the carpathian pannonian region the carpathian arc formed during the cretaceous to miocene continental collision of europe with a smaller continental fragment following southward and westward subduction of an oceanic terrane during and after the last stages of thrusting in the outer carpathians a set of discrete basins opened up inside the carpathian loop these basins are regions of local extension which appear to be associated with strike slip faults in general northeast and northwest trending sets of conjugate shears reflect east west extension of the intra carpathian region during the middle and late miocene palinspastic reconstruction of the basins indicates approximately 75 to 100 km of extension comparable to the magnitude of synchronous crustal shortening in the east carpathians extension may have occurred to accommodate continued westward a type subduction after plate convergence was prohibited by geometrical constraints and suggests that in this region miocene subduction is driven by forces acting on the downgoing plate

a vortical hot tower route to tropical cyclogenesis abstract a nonhydrostatic cloud model is used to examine the thermomechanics of tropical cyclogenesis under realistic meteorological conditions observations motivate the focus on the problem of how a midtropospheric cyclonic vortex a frequent by product of mesoscale convective systems during summertime conditions over tropical oceans may be transformed into a surface concentrated warm core tropical depression as a first step the vortex transformation is studied in the absence of vertical wind shear or zonal flow within the cyclonic vorticity rich environment of the mesoscale convective vortex mcv embryo the simulations demonstrate that small scale cumulonimbus towers possessing intense cyclonic vorticity in their cores vortical hot towers vhts emerge as the preferred coherent structures the vhts acquire their vertical vorticity through a combination of tilting of mcv horizontal vorticity and stretching of mcv and vht generated vertical vorticity horizontally localized and exhibiting conve

a variational multiple doppler radar three dimensional wind synthesis method and its impacts on thermodynamic retrieval abstract a multiple doppler radar synthesis method is developed to recover the three dimensional wind field in this method the solutions are obtained by variationally adjusting the winds to satisfy a series of constraints in weak formats among them the primary ones are multiple radar radial velocity observations the anelastic continuity equation the vertical vorticity equation the background wind and spatial smoothness terms the retrieved wind products are at two time levels and can be readily applied to deduce the information about the pressure and temperature through the use of the thermodynamic retrieval algorithm in which the temporal derivatives of the wind fields are required experiments using model simulated data are conducted from which two major findings are obtained first the wind field along and near the radar baseline can still be recovered this is a major advantage over the traditional approach therefore the proposed method is capable of providing uninterrupted observations o

an early proterozoic three stage rift system kaapvaal craton south africa abstract a three stage model that constitutes a fully evolved rift system is proposed for a number of superimposed early proterozoic basins on the kaapvaal craton based on interpreted depositional systems and syndepositional tectonics this model consists of three superimposed basins 1 1 a pre graben stage that influenced the dominion group witwatersrand supergroup and klipriviersberg group of the ventersdorp supergroup 2 2 graben development that superimposed the platberg group bothaville and allanridge formations of the ventersdorp supergroup 3 3 post graben thermal subsidence that superimposed the black reef quartzite formation and the chuniespoort ghaap group of the transvaal supergroup oblique collision of the kaapvaal craton and zimbabwe craton is interpreted to have generated stresses that initiated the three stage system at different time intervals compressional deviatoric stress appears to have replaced tensional stress and kept the system in operation tectonically the system is analogous to the baikal rift system and the pannonian basin system while the general configuration of the superimposed basins is comparable to the north sea basin or the north china basin

on a tectonic mechanism for regional sealevel variations abstract no satisfactory tectonic explanations have yet been offered for the apparent sealevel fluctuations of about 1 cm 1000 years and a magnitude of up to a few hundred meters that have been proposed by vail et al 1 we propose a mechanism that does appear to be able to explain these changes if horizontal stresses of the order of a few kilobars occur in the lithosphere and if changes in these stress fields occur on geological time scales the proposed model is one of an interaction between these stresses and the deflections of the lithosphere caused by sedimentary loading apparent sealevel changes of up to 100 m can be produced at the flanks of the sedimentary basins by this interaction the mechanism is most effective for young margins that are subject to rapid sediment loading by its nature the tectonic model can explain contemporaneous fluctuations in apparent sealevel in neighbouring depositional environments in principle it implies the possibility of regional correlations in different basinal settings

concentric eye walls secondary wind maxima and the evolution of the hurricane vortex abstract research aircraft observations in recent hurricanes support the model of shapiro and willoughby 1982 for the tropical cyclone s response to circularly symmetric convective heat sources convective rings in both nature and the numerical model the tangential wind commonly increases rapidly just inside the radius of maximum wind and decreases inside the eye near the central axis of the vortex thus both secondary outer wind maxima and eyewall wind maxima often contract as they intensify this response is independent of the horizontal spatial scale of the maximum an outer maximum is frequently observed to constrict about a pre existing eye and replace it this chain of events often coincides with a weakening or at least a pause in intensification of the vortex as a whole the concentric eye phenomenon is a common but by no means universal feature of tropical cyclones it is most frequently observed in intense highly symmetric systems

mesoscale observations of the genesis of hurricane dolly 1996 abstract recent numerical studies of tropical cyclone genesis suggest a new paradigm for how the surface vortex is established based on a highly nonaxisymmetric mechanism involving the interaction of low level cyclonic circulations generated by deep cumulonimbus convection a reexamination of mesoscale observations during the genesis of hurricane guillermo 1991 confirms the presence of multiple cyclonic circulations more recently airborne doppler radar wind observations during the genesis of atlantic hurricane dolly 1996 also reveal multiple lower to middle tropospheric mesoscale cyclonic circulations during sequential 15 20 min compositing periods a particularly well organized but initially weak mean tangential wind of 7 m s 1 low level cyclonic vortex embedded within the pre dolly tropical disturbance is observed coincident with deep vertically penetrating cumulonimbus convection the earliest observations of this vortex show the peak circulation near 2 km height with a mean diameter of 30 4

physical characteristics and evolutionary trends of continental rifts rifts may be defined as zones beneath which the entire lithosphere has ruptured in extension they are widespread and occur in a variety of tectonic settings and range up to 2 600 m y in age the object of this review is to highlight characteristic features of modern and ancient rifts to emphasize differences and similarities in order to help characterize evolutionary trends to identify physical conditions favorable for initiation as well as termination of rifting and to provide constraints for future modeling studies of rifting rifts are characterized on the basis of their structural geomorphic magmatic and geophysical features and the diverse character of these features and their evolutionary trends through time are discussed mechanisms of rifting are critically examined in terms of the physical characteristics and evolutionary trends of rifts and it is concluded that while simple models can give valuable insight into specific processes of rifting individual rifts can rarely if ever be characterized by well defined trends predicted by these models more data are required to clearly define evolutionary trends and the models require development to incorporate the effects of lithospheric heterogeneities and complex geologic histories

tropical cyclone eye thermodynamics in intense tropical cyclones sea level pressures at the center are 50 100 hpa lower than outside the vortex but only 10 30 hpa of the total pressure fall occurs inside the eye between the eyewall and the center warming by dry subsidence accounts for this fraction of the total hydrostatic pressure fall convection in the eyewall causes the warming by doing work on the eye to force the thermally indirect subsidence soundings inside hurricane eyes show warm and dry air aloft separated by an inversion from cloudy air below dewpoint depressions at the inversion level typically 850 500 hpa are 10 30 k rather than the 100 k that would occur if the air descended from tropopause level without dilution by the surrounding cloud the observed temperature and dewpoint distribution above the inversion can however be derived by 100 hpa of undilute dry subsidence from an initial sounding that is somewhat more stable than a moist adiabat it is hypothesized that the air above the inversion has remained in the eye since it was enclosed when the eyewall formed and that it has subsided at most a few kilometers the cause of the subsidence is the enclosed air s being drawn downward toward the inversion level as the air below it flows outward into the eyewall shrinkage of the eye s volume is more than adequate to supply the volume lost as dry air is incorporated into the eyewall or converted to moist air by turbulent mixing across the eye boundary the moist air below the inversion is in thermodynamic contact with the sea surface its moisture derives from evaporation of seawater inside the eye frictional inflow of moist air under the eyewall and from moist downdrafts induced as condensate mixes into the eye the moist air s residence time in the eye is much shorter than that of the dry air above the inversion the height of the inversion is determined by the balance between evaporation inflow and inward mixing on one hand and loss to the eyewall updrafts on the other

tectonic subsidence flexure and global changes of sea level tectonic models for the evolution of passive continental margins predict that following rifting sediments should progressively onlap basement at the edge of a margin as the lithosphere cools and increases its flexural rigidity with age the pattern of modelled onlap is strikingly similar to that used by vail and colleagues to estimate sea level rise through geological time this similarity suggests that major portions of stratigraphical sequences at margins may have a tectonic rather than eustatic control the patterns of onlap used by vail and colleagues may be widespread however because several widely separated passive margins rifted at similar times but they are unlikely to be worldwide

hurricane intensity and eyewall replacement observations made during the historic 2005 hurricane season document a case of eyewall replacement clouds outside the hurricane eyewall coalesce to form a new eyewall at a greater radius from the storm center and the old eyewall dies the winds in the new eyewall are initially weaker than those in the original eyewall but as the new eyewall contracts the storm reintensifies understanding this replacement mechanism is vital to forecasting variations in hurricane intensity processes in the moat region between the new and old eyewall have been particularly unclear aircraft data now show that the moat becomes dynamically similar to the eye and thus is converted into a region inimical to survival of the inner eyewall we suggest that targeting aircraft to key parts of the storm to gain crucial input to high resolution numerical models can lead to improvements in forecasting hurricane intensity

graben hydrocarbon occurrences and structural style major hydrocarbon occurrences types of traps and structural styles have been synthesized from the sirte basin the suez and viking grabens and from other normal faulted regions hydrocarbons occur in a stacked succession of one or more basins pregraben graben fill and interior sag preservation of pregraben accumulations depends on late initiation of crustal arching and limitation of uplift to the graben shoulders furthermore a stable pregraben tectonic environment is required to ensure internal continuity of subsequent fault block closures hydrocarbon traps in the pregraben and graben fill sediments are primarily dependent on the multidirectional orientation of normal faults tilting of fault blocks and in many cases flexing or erosion parallel with block edges the fault pattern is dominated by longitudinal faults subparallel with the graben axis and secondarily by oblique faults the direction and degree of block rotation are influenced by fault profile planar or listric degree of extension fault pattern doglegs junctions terminations downwarping of the subsequent sag basin and isostatic adjustments between large blocks fold closures result from the upward termination of faults into forced folds which may be accentuated by drag during renewed faulting passive drape and differential compaction extend he folds to shallower depths because they form along block edges the flexures have trends that mimic the multidirectional fault patterns truncation traps are usually developed from the erosional retreat of fault scarps and they can also mimic the fault patterns where the sedimentary succession is complete an interior sag basin is superimposed across the graben its lower part is structured mostly by drape and differential compaction across the underlying graben fault blocks and fault block topography the upper part is usually an unsegmented syncline and hydrocarbon traps at this level include depositional buildups reefs turbidite mounds and salt diapirs or other structures caused by superimposed deformation unrelated to graben tectonics

two distinct regimes in the kinematic and thermodynamic structure of the hurricane eye and eyewall abstract using aircraft flight level data the present work demonstrates that the kinematic and thermodynamic distributions within the eye and eyewall of strong hurricanes are observed to evolve between two distinct regimes in the first regime angular velocity is greatest within the eyewall and relatively depressed within the eye in the second regime radial profiles of angular velocity are nearly monotonic with maxima found at the eye center considering sequential profiles within individual hurricanes the authors find that the evolution of the kinematic distribution is often marked by a transition from the first regime to the second the transition can occur in less than 1 h also noted during the transition are dramatic changes in the thermodynamic structure of the hurricane prior to the transition regime 1 the eye is typically very warm and dry and the equivalent potential temperature is often elevated within the eyewall and relatively depressed within the eye after the transition regime 2

an application of the immersed boundary method for recovering the three dimensional wind fields over complex terrain using multiple doppler radar data abstractthis study develops an extension of a variational based multiple doppler radar synthesis method to construct the three dimensional wind field over complex topography the immersed boundary method ibm is implemented to take into account the influence imposed by a nonflat surface the ibm has the merit of providing realistic topographic forcing without the need to change the cartesian grid configuration into a terrain following coordinate system both dirichlet and neumann boundary conditions for the wind fields can be incorporated the wind fields above the terrain are obtained by variationally adjusting the solutions to satisfy a series of weak constraints which include the multiple radar radial velocity observations anelastic continuity equation vertical vorticity equation background wind and spatial smoothness terms experiments using model simulated data reveal that the flow structures over complex orography can be successfully retrieved using radial velocity measurements from multiple d

effects of terrain on the surface structure of typhoons over taiwan abstract the island of taiwan is situated in the main path of western north pacific typhoons its dominant central mountain range cmr with a hoizontal scale comparable to the radius of a typhoon often produces significant distortions in the typhoon circulation a 20 year dataset from 22 surface stations is used to describe the effects of the taiwan terrain on the surface structure of typhoons empirical orthogonal function analysis on the pressure field is used to identify the primary structure modes the first mode is a uniform sign anomaly pattern portraying the decrease in pressure as a typhoon is approaching the second mode represents the strong terrain induced west east pressure gradient that is normal to the main axis of the cmr the third mode results mainly from the west cast pressure gradient arising from the relative location of the typhoon center to the east or west of taiwan but it also contains a weak south north pressure gradient that can he attributed to the terrain a regression tech

control parameters for the influence of a mesoscale mountain range on cyclone track continuity and deflection abstract in this study prospective control parameters are identified for diagnosing the continuity and deflection of cyclone tracks across a mesoscale mountain range based on idealized simulations of a westward moving cyclone it was found that the cyclone track becomes a discontinuous continuous track and the cyclone experiences more less deflection with a combination of small large values of vmax nh u nh r ly u flx and vmax fr and large small value of h lx the symbols are defined as follows vmax the maximum tangential wind n the brunt vaisala frequency h the mountain height u the basic wind speed r the radius of vmax f the coriolis parameter and lx and ly the horizontal scales of the mountain in x and y directions respectively a conceptual model is proposed to explain track deflection and continuity for a westward moving cyclone encountering idealized topography representative of the central mountain range of taiwan with weak orographic blocking a cyclone crosses over the mount

micromorphology of soils and palaeosoils in belgium an inventory and meta analysis abstract a study of the literature dealing with micromorphology of belgian soils and palaeosoils is presented most soils in belgium developed in quaternary covers sandy in the north becoming more silty towards the south and mixed with more or less important amounts of substrate material in addition azonal soils occur in the recent dunes the marine polders and the alluvial areas the main pedogenic micromorphological characteristics are bioturbation clay illuviation features in the more silty materials and spodic features in the more sandy materials glauconite plays an important role in pedogenesis throughout most profiles features related to a sub recent pedogenic environment are recognised pointing to polygenetic soil formation impact of periglacial conditions is often visible bog ores in alluvial plains have a complex mineralogical composition and microfabric buried palaeosoils and soil sediments are discussed separately according to their age whereas polygenetic soils are treated together with the recent soils according to their geographic position for some areas e g the polders the sandy area of flanders and the pays de gaume in the southernmost part of belgium only little micromorphological information is available most soils studied were situated under natural vegetation studies of cultivated soils are rather rare

polygonal eyewalls asymmetric eye contraction and potential vorticity mixing in hurricanes hurricane eyewalls are often observed to be nearly circular structures but they are occasionally observed to take on distinctly polygonal shapes the shapes range from triangles to hexagons and while they are often incomplete straight line segments can be identified other observations implicate the existence of intense mesovortices within or near the eye region is there a relation between polygonal eyewalls and hurricane mesovortices are these phenomena just curiosities of the hurricane s inner core circulation or are they snapshots of an intrinsic mixing process within or near the eye that serves to determine the circulation and thermal structure of the eye as a first step toward understanding the asymmetric vorticity dynamics of the hurricane s eye and eyewall region these issues are examined within the framework of an unforced barotropic nondivergent model polygonal eyewalls are shown to form as a result of barotropic instability near the radius of maximum winds after reviewing linear theory simulations with a high resolution pseudospectral numerical model are presented to follow the instabilities into their nonlinear regime when the instabilities grow to finite amplitude the vorticity of the eyewall region pools into discrete areas creating the appearance of polygonal eyewalls the circulations associated with these pools of vorticity suggest a connection to hurricane mesovortices at later times the vorticity is ultimately rearranged into a nearly monopolar circular vortex while the evolution of the finescale vorticity field is sensitive to the initial condition the macroscopic end states are found to be similar in fact the gross characteristics of the numerically simulated end states are predicted analytically using a generalization of the minimum enstrophy hypothesis in an effort to remove some of the weaknesses of the minimum enstrophy approach a maximum entropy argument developed previously for rectilinear shear flows is extended to the vortex problem and end state solutions in the limiting case of tertiary mixing are obtained implications of these ideas for real hurricanes are discussed