Rock mechanical characteristics and landscape evolutionary mechanism of the slit-type Danxia landform on the Chinese Loess Plateau

Since 2015,the newly discovered slit-type Danxia landform on the Chinese Loess Plateau has become a hot topic in the field of geomorphology worldwide.However,the relationships among its formation,evolutionary mechanism,and mechanical characteristics of its strata and rocks are not clear.In this paper,the Ganquan canyon group is used as the research object.Basic physical and mechanical indices of sandstone in the Ganquan canyon group were measured through field investigation and indoor experiments,and the deterioration trends for the mechanical parameters of sandstone in this area under the action of infiltration,acid dry-wet cycles,and freeze-thaw cycles were revealed.Lastly,the formation and evolutionary mechanism of the slit-type Danxia landform were discussed.The results showed that:(1)The sandstone in the canyon group had a low cementation degree and weak cohesive force,which was easily weakened under the action of water,resulting in a decrease in compressive strength and elastic modulus.(2)Acidic dry-wet cycles caused the mineral composition of the sandstone to be dissolved,and the micropores continued to grow and develop until new cracks were produced.Macroscopically,the compressive strength and elastic modulus of sandstone were greatly reduced,and this damage was cumulative and staged.The greater the acidity,the greater the damage.(3)As the number of freeze-thaw cycles increased,the uniaxial compressive strength and elastic modulus of the sandstone decreased continuously.During the freeze-thaw cycle process,the growth and development of cracks were primarily in fracture mode and usually developed along parallel bedding positions.(4)The interaction of tectonic activity and lithology with different weathering processes was a key factor in the formation and evolution of the slit-type Danxia landform.In conclusion,the intricate process of weathering influenced by historical climatic fluctuations has been pivotal in shaping the topography of Danxia landform.

Influence of lithospheric thickness distribution on oil and gas basins,China seas and adjacent areas

The distribution of oil and gas resources is intricately connected to the underlying structure of the lithosphere.Therefore,investigating the characteristics of lithospheric thickness and its correlation with oil and gas basins is highly important.This research utilizes recently enhanced geological–geophysical data,including topographic,geoid,rock layer thickness,variable rock layer density,and interface depth data.Employing the principles of lithospheric isostasy and heat conduction,we compute the laterally varying lithospheric thickness in the China seas and adjacent areas.From these results,two pivotal parameters for different types of oil and gas basins were statistically analyzed:the minimum lithospheric thickness and the relative fluctuation in lithospheric thickness.A semiquantitative analysis was used to explore the connection between these parameters and the hydrocarbon abundance within the oil and gas basins.This study unveils distinct variations in lithospheric thickness among basins,with oil and gas rich basins exhibiting a thicker lithosphere in the superimposed basins of central China and a thinner lithosphere in the rift basins of eastern China.Notably,the relative fluctuations in lithospheric thickness in basins demonstrate significant disparities:basins rich in oil and gas often exhibit greater thickness fluctuations.Additionally,in the offshore basins of China,a conspicuous negative linear correlation is observed between the minimum lithospheric thickness and the relative fluctuation in lithospheric thickness.This study posits that deep-seated thermal upwelling results in lithospheric undulations and extensional thinning in oil and gas basins.Concurrently,sustained deep-seated heat influences sedimentary materials in basins,creating favorable conditions for oil and gas generation.The insights derived from this study contribute to a quantitative understanding of the intricate relationships between deep lithospheric structures and oil and gas basins.These findings provide valuable guidance for future oil and gas exploration in the studied areas.

Integrated gravity and magnetic study on patterns of petroleum basin occurrence in the China seas and adjacent areas

The China seas and adjacent areas contain numerous petroleum basins.One of the main challenges for future oil and gas exploration is to identify the inherent patterns of petroleum basin distribution.The formation and evolution of petroleum basins along with the migration and accumulation of oil and gas are often closely related to the tectonic environment.The gravity and magnetic fields with high lateral resolution and wide coverage provide important data for regional tectonic research.Based on the gravity data in the Global Satellite Gravity Anomaly Database(V31.1)and magnetic data from the Earth Magnetic Anomaly Grid(2-arc-minute resolution)(V2),this study uses integrated gravity and magnetic field technique to obtain integrated gravity and magnetic field result for the China seas and adjacent areas,and then adopts the normalized vertical derivative of the total horizontal derivative technique to conduct partition.Finally,it identifies the relationship between the partition characteristics and tectonics as well as the patterns of petroleum basin occurrence.The research shows that the partition of gravity and magnetic field integrated result has a good correlation with the Neo-Cathaysian tectonic system and tectonic units.The petroleum basins are characterized according to three blocks arranged from north to south and four zones arranged from east to west.The north-south block structure causes the uneven distribution of oil and gas resources in the mainland area and the differences in the hydrocarbon-bearing strata.Petroleum basins are more abundant in the north than in the south.The ages of the main oil-and gas-bearing strata are“Paleozoic–Mesozoic,Paleozoic–Mesozoic–Cenozoic,and Paleozoic–Mesozoic”,in order from north to south.The difference in the overall type of oil and gas resources in all basins is controlled by the east–west zonation.From east to west,the oil and gas resource type exhibits a wave-like pattern of“oil and gas,gas,oil and gas,gas”.The vertical distribution is characterized by an upper oil(Mesozoic–Cenozoic)and lower gas(Mesozoic–Paleozoic)structure.Within the study area,the Paleozoic marine strata should be the main strata of future natural gas exploration.

Study on the distribution characteristics of faults and their control over petroliferous basins in the China seas and its adjacent areas

As one of the main controlling factors of oil and gas accumulation,faults are closely related to the distribution of oil and gas reservoirs.Studying how faults control petroliferous basins is particularly important.In this work,we investigated the plane positions of major faults in the China seas and its adjacent areas using the normalized vertical derivative of the total horizontal derivative(NVDR-THDR)of the Bouguer gravity anomaly,the fusion results of gravity and magnetic anomalies,and the residual Bouguer gravity anomaly.The apparent depths of major faults in the China seas and its adjacent areas were inverted using the Tilt-Euler method based on the Bouguer gravity anomaly.The results show that the strikes of the faults in the China seas and its adjacent areas are mainly NE and NW,followed by EW,and near-SN.Among them,the lengths of most ultra-crustal faults are in the range of 1000–3000 km,and their apparent depths lie between 10 km and 40 km.The lengths of crustal faults lie between 300 km and 1000 km,and their apparent depths are between 0 km and 20 km.According to the plane positions and apparent depths of the faults,we put forward the concept of fault influence factor for the first time.Based on this factor,the key areas for oil and gas exploration were found as follows:the east of South North China Basin in the intracontinental rift basins;the southeast region of East China Sea Shelf Basin,the Taixinan and Qiongdongnan basins in the continental margin rift basins;Zhongjiannan Basin in the strike-slip pull-apart basins;the Liyue,Beikang,and the Nanweixi basins in the rifted continental basins.This work provides valuable insights into oil and gas exploration,mineral resource exploration,and deep geological structure research in the China seas and its adjacent areas.

Influence of the Moho surface distribution on the oil and gas basins in China seas and adjacent areas

Owing to the strategic significance of national oil and gas resources,their exploration and production must be prioritized in China.Oil and gas resources are closely related to deep crustal structures,and Moho characteristics influence oil and gas distribution.Therefore,it is important to study the relationship between the variation of the Moho surface depth undulation and hydrocarbon basins for the future prediction of their locations.The Moho depth in the study area can be inverted using the Moho depth control information,the Moho gravity anomaly,and the variable density distribution calculated by the infinite plate.Based on these results,the influences of Moho characteristics on petroleum basins were studied.We found that the Moho surface depth undulation deviation and crustal thickness undulation deviation in the hydrocarbon-rich basins are large,and the horizontal gradient deviation of the Moho surface shows a positive linear relationship with oil and gas resources in the basin.The oil-bearing mechanism of the Moho basin is further discussed herein.The Moho uplift area and the slope zone correspond to the distribution of oil and gas fields.The tensile stress produced by the Moho uplift can form tensile fractures or cause tensile fractures on the surface,further developing into a fault or depression basin that receives deposits.The organic matter can become oil and natural gas under suitable chemical and structural conditions.Under the action of groundwater or other dynamic forces,oil and natural gas are gradually transported to the uplift or the buried hill in the depression zone,and oil and gas fields are formed under the condition of good caprock.The research results can provide new insights into the relationship between deep structures and oil and gas basins as well as assist in the strategic planning of oil and gas exploration activities.

Intelligent identification of landslides in loess areas based on the improved YOLO algorithm:a case study of loess landslides in Baoji City

Loess landslides are one of the geological hazards prevalent in mountainous areas of Loess Plateau,seriously threatening people's lives and property safety.Accurate identification of landslides is a prerequisite for reducing the risk of landslide hazards.Traditional landslide interpretation methods often have the disadvantage of being laborious and difficult to use on a large scale compared with the recently developed deep learning-based landslide detection methods.In this study,we propose an improved deep learning model,landslide detectionyou only look once(LD-YOLO),based on the existing you only look once(YOLO)model for the intelligent identification of old and new landslides in loess areas.Specifically,remote sensing images of landslides in Baoji City,Shaanxi Province,China are acquired from the Google Earth Engine platform.The landslide images of Baoji City(excluding Qianyang County)are used to establish a loess landslide dataset for training the model.The landslide data of Qianyang County is used to verify the detection performance of the model.The focal and efficient IoU(Focal-EIoU)loss function and efficient channel attention(ECA)mechanism are incorporated into the 7th version of YOLO(YOLOv7)model to construct the LD-YOLO model,which makes it more suitable for the landslide detection task.The experiments yielded an improved LD-YOLO model with average precision of 92.05%,precision of 92.31%,recall of 90.28%,and F1-score of 91.28%for loess landslide detection.The landslides in Qianyang County were divided into two test sets,new landslides and old landslides,which were used to test the detection performance of LD-YOLO for both types of landslides.The results show that LD-YOLO detects old landslides with a detection precision of 82.75%and a recall of 80%.When detecting new landslides,the detection precision is 94.29%and the recall is 91.67%.It indicates that our proposed LD-YOLO model has strong detection performance for both new and old landslides in loess areas.Through a proposed solution that can realize the accurate detection of landslides in loess areas,this paper provides a valuable reference for the application of deep learning methods in landslide identification.

Identification of the Caroline Plate boundary:constraints from magnetic anomaly

The Caroline Plate is located among the Pacific Plate,the Philippine Sea Plate,and the India Australia Plate,and plays a key role in controlling the spreading direction of the Philippine Sea Plate.The Caroline Submarine Plateau(or Caroline Ridge)and the Eauripik Rise on the south formed a remarkable T-shaped large igneous rock province,which covered the northern boundary between the Caroline Plate and the Pacific Plate.However,relationship between these tectonic units and magma evolution remains unclear.Based on magnetic data from the Earth Magnetic Anomaly Grid(2-arc-minute resolution)(V2),the normalized vertical derivative of the total horizontal derivative(NVDR-THDR)technique was used to study the boundary of the Caroline Plate.Results show that the northern boundary is a transform fault that runs 1400 km long in approximately 28 km wide along the N8°in E-W direction.The eastern boundary is an NNW-SSE trending fault zone and subduction zone with a width of tens to hundreds of kilometers;and the north of N4°is a fracture zone of dense faults.The southeastern boundary may be the Lyra Trough.The area between the southwestern part of the Caroline Plate and the Ayu Trough is occupied by a wide shear zone up to 100 km wide in nearly S-N trending in general.The Eauripik transform fault(ETF)in the center of the Caroline Plate and the fault zones in the east and west basins are mostly semi-parallel sinistral NNW-SSE–trending faults,which together with the eastern boundary Mussau Trench(MT)sinistral fault,the northern Caroline transform fault(CTF),and the southern shear zone of the western boundary,indicates the sinistral characteristics of the Caroline Plate.The Caroline hotspot erupted in the Pacific Plate near the CTF and formed the west Caroline Ridge,and then joined with the Caroline transform fault at the N8°.A large amount of magma erupted along the CTF,by which the east Caroline Ridge was formed.At the same time,a large amount of magma developed southward via the eastern branch of the ETF,forming the northern segment of the Eauripik Rise.Therefore,the magmatic activity of the T-shaped large igneous province is obviously related to the fault structure of the boundary faults between the Caroline Plate and Pacific Plate,and the active faults within the Caroline Plate.

A Simplified Numerical Approach for the Prediction of Rainfall-Induced Retrogressive Landslides

Retrogressive landslides are common geological phenomena in mountainous areas and on onshore and offshore slopes. The impact of retrogressive landslides is different from that of other landslide types due to the phenomenon of retrogression. The hazards caused by retrogressive landslides may be increased because retrogressive landslides usually affect housing, facilities, and infrastructure located far from the original slopes. Additionally, substantial geomorphic evidence shows that the abundant supply of loose sediment in the source area of a debris flow is usually provided by retrogressive landslides that are triggered by the undercutting of water. Moreover, according to historic case studies, some large landslides are the evolution result of retrogressive landslides. Hence the ability to understand and predict the evolution of retrogressive landslides is crucial for the purpose of hazard mitigation. This paper discusses the phenomenon of a retrogressive landslide by using a model experiment and suggests a reasonably simplified numerical approach for the prediction of rainfall-induced retrogressive landslides. The simplified numerical approach, which combines the finite element method for seepage analysis, the shear strength reduction finite element method, and the analysis criterion for the retrogression and accumulation effect, is presented and used to predict the characteristics of a retrogressive landslide. The results show that this numerical approach is capable of reasonably predicting the characteristics of retrogressive landslides under rainfall infiltration, particularly the magnitude of each landslide, the position of the slip surface, and the development processes of the retrogressive landslide. Therefore, this approach is expected to be a practical method for the mitigation of damage caused by rainfall-induced retrogressive landslides.

Research on quality changes and influencing factors of groundwater in the Guanzhong Basin

This paper studies the distribution features, the chemical elements beyond standards and the influencing factors of shallow groundwater quality in the Guanzhong Basin through the data monitored in the last twenty years. The final purpose is to comprehensively evaluate the divisions of groundwater quality in the Guanzhong Basin. Results show that, the groundwater quality is in good shape, and suitable for drinking. Drinking accounts for 16.02% of the total, most of which are distributed in the lubotan of Weibei. Some come from loess plateau of Qian-Liquan County and some are generated by the industrial pollution of Xingping City. Materials exceeding standards include chloride, sulfate, three nitrogen, fluoride, manganese, iron, hexavalent chromium and so on. The main factors influencing the quality of shallow groundwater include groundwater exploitation, natural background value of special components and precipitation, among which the groundwater exploitation poses the greatest impact. The depth of water is positively correlated with the concentration of sulfate, nitrate and total hardness.

Detection, Estimation and Compensation of Ionospheric Effect on SAR Interferogram Using Azimuth Shift

An increasing interest in the use of low frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR)systems,e.g.,L-and P-bands,makes the research of the ionospheric effects on SAR interferograms become urgent and significant.As the most pronounced signature in interferograms,the ionosphere-induced azimuth streak was thoroughly investigated in this study through processing of the 19 L-band Advanced Land-Observing Satellite(ALOS)Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar(PALSAR)images over the Chongqing City,China.The investigations show that the visible ionosphere-induced stripe-shape azimuth shifts with the invariable direction of 26°E,113°N are observed in some interferometric pairs.Relating these anomalous azimuth shifts to the International GNSS Service(IGS)final ionospheric products shows that the detected ionosphere-contaminated SAR images display the relatively large ionospheric variation with time during SAR satellite travelled through the study area,indicating a somewhat correlation between them.After detecting the ionosphere-contaminated interferograms,we estimated the Ionospheric Phase Streak(IPS)based on an approximate linear relationship between IPS and azimuth shift,and then removed them from the original interferograms.The corrected results show that ionospheric phase patterns are largely removed from the ionosphere-contaminated interferograms.The investigation indicates that the direction of the IPS keeps approximately constant in space and time,which provides the potential chance to develop methods to correct the ionospheric effect.Furthermore,this study once more proves that the ionospheric effect on SAR interferogram can be detected,estimated and corrected from azimuth shifts.

Compression failure conditions of concrete-granite combined body with different roughness interface

Bedrock and concrete lining are typical composite structures in the engineering field and the stability of the geological body and engineering body is directly connected to the mechanical properties of the composite body.Under this background,the study provides the transverse isotropic equivalent model of concrete-granite double-layer composite based on the notion of strain energy equivalence.Assuming that the strength failure of concrete and granite meets the Mohr-Coulomb criterion,then the strength failure model of the combined body considering the joint roughness coefficient(JRC)is derived,and the influences of JRC,the height ratio of concrete to granite,and confining pressure on the strength failure characteristics of the combined body are emphatically analyzed.Finally,the model applicability is illustrated by the uniaxial and triaxial compression tests on concrete monomer,granite monomer and concretegranite composite samples(CGCSs)with different JRCs.The results revealed that the compressive strength of the composite is closer to the concrete with lower strength in the combined body under different confining pressures.Adding interface roughness causes to raise the compressive strength of the composite due to interfacial adhesion between concrete and granite,and a slowing growth trend is observed in compressive strength as roughness.The model can provide a certain reference for the stability design and evaluation of engineering rock mass.

Characteristics and dynamics of the Ganqiuchi rock avalanche triggered by a paleo-earthquake in the Northern Qinling Mountains

Analyzing large prehistoric rock avalanches provides significant data for evaluating the disaster posed by these relatively infrequent but destructive geological events. This paper attempts to study the characteristics and dynamics of the Ganqiuchi granitic rock avalanche, in the middle of the northern margin of Qinling Mountains, 30 km to the south of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China. In plane view, this rock avalanche is characterized by source area, accumulation area and dammed lake area. Based on previous studies, historical records and regional geological data, the major trigger of the Ganqiuchi rock avalanche is considered to be a strong paleo-earthquake with tremendous energy. The in situ deposit block size distributions of the intact rock mass and the debris deposits are presented and analyzed by using a simple model for estimating the number of fragmentation cycles that the blocks underwent. The results show that the primary controlling factor of the fragmentation process is the pre-existing fractures, and there is a relationship between the potential energy and the fragmentation energy: the latter is approximately 20% of the former. Based on the dynamic discrete element technique, the study proposes a four-stage model for the dynamic course of the Ganqiuchi rock avalanche:(1) failing;(2) highspeed sliding;(3) collision with obstacles;(4) decelerated sliding, which has implication for hazard assessment of the potential rock avalanches in China and other countries with similar geological setting.

Landslide hazards mapping using uncertain Na?ve Bayesian classification method

Landslide hazard mapping is a fundamental tool for disaster management activities in Loess terrains. Aiming at major issues with these landslide hazard assessment methods based on Naive Bayesian classification technique, which is difficult in quantifying those uncertain triggering factors, the main purpose of this work is to evaluate the predictive power of landslide spatial models based on uncertain Naive Bayesian classification method in Baota district of Yan＇an city in Shaanxi province, China. Firstly, thematic maps representing various factors that are related to landslide activity were generated. Secondly, by using field data and GIS techniques, a landslide hazard map was performed. To improve the accuracy of the resulting landslide hazard map, the strategies were designed, which quantified the uncertain triggering factor to design landslide spatial models based on uncertain Naive Bayesian classification method named NBU algorithm. The accuracies of the area under relative operating characteristics curves（AUC） in NBU and Naive Bayesian algorithm are 87.29% and 82.47% respectively. Thus, NBU algorithm can be used efficiently for landslide hazard analysis and might be widely used for the prediction of various spatial events based on uncertain classification technique.

A review of methods for mitigating ionospheric artifacts in differential SAR interferometry

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar(InSAR)has been widely used to measure ground displacements related to geophysical and anthropic activities over the past three decades.Satellite SAR systems use microwave signals that interact with the ionosphere when they travel through it during the imaging processes.In this context,ionospheric variations can significantly contaminate SAR imagery,which in turn affects spaceborne InSAR measurements.This bias also leads to a decrease in the coherence and accuracy of InSAR measurements,especially for the low-frequency SAR systems.In this paper,we give an overview of the latest methods for mitigating the ionospheric contributions in InSAR,including Faraday rotation method,azimuth shift method,and range split-spectrum method,and only focus on the single pair of InSAR interferograms.The current challenges and future perspectives are outlined at the end of this paper.

Application of Transient Electromagnetic Method with Multi-Radiation Field Sources in Deep Edge Mineral Resources Exploration

In recent years,in order to meet the practical needs of deep edge mine detection with large depth and high precision,transient electromagnetic method(TEM)near emission source detection mode has become an international advanced method(Xue et al.,2020).

A Comparative Study of Ionospheric Correction on SAR Interferometry—A Case Study of L’Aquila Earthquake

Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry(InSAR)has shown its potential on seismic deformation monitoring since it can achieve the accuracy of centimeter level or even the millimeter level.However,the irregular varieties of ionosphere can induce the additional phase delay on SAR interferometry,restricting its further application in high-precision deformation monitoring.Although several methods have been proposed to correct the ionospheric phase delay on SAR interferometry,the performances of them haven't been evaluated and compared.In this study,three commonly used methods,including polynomial fitting,azimuth offset and split-spectrum are applied to L'Aquila Earthquake to correct the ionospheric phase delay on two Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar(PALSAR)onboard the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-1(ALOS-1)images.The result indicates that these three methods can effectively correct the ionospheric phase delay error for SAR interferometry,where the standard deviations of the ionosphere-corrected results have decreased by almost a factor of 1.8 times for polynomial fitting method,4.2 times for azimuth offset method and 2.5 times for split-spectrum method,compared to those of the original phase.Furthermore,the result of the sliding distribution inversion of the seismic fault shows the best performance for split-spectrum method.

ArcGIS-based evaluation of geo-hazards at Yaozhou County,Shaanxi,China

In conventional susceptibility evaluation of geo-hazards,there are some limits,such as unreasonable division of evaluated region,difficulty in quantifying evaluation indicators,time-consuming calculation.To address these problems,we try to employ the software ArcGIS to evaluate geo-hazards susceptibility.The study area of Yaozhou County is automatically divided into 3562 units.Based on the spatial overlay analysis function of ArcGIS,quantitative evaluation of geo-hazards susceptibility is implemented in the study area,and the geo-hazards susceptibility zoning is mapped.It is observed that the evaluation results match well with field investigations.

Pseudo-Magnetotelluric 2D Inversion Technology of Magnetic-Source Transient Electromagnetics

Based on the fact that it is diffi cult to implement optimum inversion using 2D and 3D forward modeling with magnetic-source transient electromagnetics(TEM),this paper explores a novel approach to the implementation of 2D magnetic-source TEM inversion.In particular,we converted magnetic-source TEM data into magnetotelluric(MT)data and then used a 2D MT inversion method to implement a 2D magnetic-source TEM inversion interpretation.First,we studied the similarity between magnetic-source TEM waves and MT waves and between magnetic-source TEM all-time apparent resistivity and MT Cagniard apparent resistivity.Then,we selected an optimal time-frequency transformation coeffi cient to implement rapid time-frequency transformation of all-time TEM apparent resistivity to MT Cagniard apparent resistivity.Afterward,we conducted 1D pseudo-MT inversions of magnetic-source 1D TEM theoretical models.The 1D inversion results demonstrated that the diff erence between the inversion parameters and model parameters was small,while the MT 1D inversion method could be used to conduct magnetic 1D TEM inversion within a certain margin of error.We further conducted 2D pseudo-MT inversions of 3D magnetic-source TEM theoretical models,and the 2D inversion results indicated that selecting a joint 2D pseudo-MT transverse-electric(TE)and transverse-magnetic(TM)inversion method based on measuring the line above a 3D anomalous body can help to accurately implement a 2D inversion interpretation of the 3D TEM response.

A Numerical Calculation Algorithm of the Inclination Function Based on the Representation of SO(3) Group

In the determination of the Earth gravity field in satellite geodesy, the inclination functions represent the projection of data observed along the orbital plane of a satellite orbit into the sphere in the terrestial reference frame. The inclination functions in this work is studied from a group theoretical perspective. The inclination functions are proved to generate a representation of the SO(3) group. An orthogonal relation of the inclination functions is derived and some recurrence relations for the inclination functions are given, based on which an algorithm to calculate the inclination functions is proposed.