GEOFIZIČKA ISTRAŽIVANJA POTENCIJALNOGA KLIZIŠTA U PODRUČJU MAYOON, DISTRIKT HUNZA, GILGIT-BALTISTAN, PAKISTAN

The Mayoon landslide in the Hunza District is a slowly developed, non-catastrophic landslide that has gained its importance in the last few years after its rapid activation and fast slip rate. The area is characterized by high earthquake hazards (zone 3 with a peak ground acceleration value of 2.4–3.2 m/s2) by the Building Code of Pakistan due to frequent earth quakes. The past high earthquake activity in the area has displaced the foliated rocks towards the south and is responsible for opening the bedrock joints. The head and body of the landslide are covered by unconsolidated material and have fractures of varying lengths and widths. The non-invasive geophysical techniques, including Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electrical Resistivity Soundings (ERS), are deployed to evaluate the Mayoon landslide subsurface. The subsurface is interpreted into a two-layer model. Bright reflectors and highly variable resistivity characterize the top layer (Layer-1). This layer is associated with a loose, highly heterogeneous, fragmented material deposited under glacial settings over the existing bedrock. Hyperbolic reflections and intermediate resistivity characterize the bottom layer (Layer-2). This layer is associated with foliated metamorphic bedrock. The hyperbolic reflections show faults/fractures within the bedrock. The extension of these fractures/faults with depth is uncertain due to decay in the GPR signal with depth. The intermediate resistivity shows the bedrock is weathered and foliated. Reflections within Layer-1 have disrupted directly above the fractures/faults suggesting a possible movement. A bright reflection between the two layers highlights the presence of the debonded surface. Loose material within Layer-1 coupled with debonding possesses a significant hazard to generate a landslide under unfavourable conditions, such as an intense rainstorm or earthquake activity.Klizište Mayoon u distriktu Hunza pripada skupini sporo razvijajućih, nekatastrofičnih klizišta. Važnost mu je porasla u nekoliko zadnjih godina nakon što se klizanje znatno ubrzalo. Cijelo područje obilježeno je visokim potresnim rizikom (zona 3, s najvećim ubrzanjem tla 2,4 – 3,2 m/s2), a u skladu s pakistanskim propisima o gradnji. Snažni potresi u prošlosti pomaknuli su blokove metamorfnih stijena prema jugu i uzrokovali otvaranje brojnih pukotina u stijenama podine. Čelo i tijelo klizišta prekriveno je nekonsolidiranim materijalom te ima pukotine različitih širina i dužina. Prostor klizišta istražen je neinvazivnim geofizičkim tehnikama poput georadara i mjerenja električne otpornosti. Podzemlje je prikazano dvoslojnim modelom. Prvi sloj (1) predstavljen je snažnim reflektorom i vrlo promjenjivom otpornošću. Sastavljen je od rastresitih, vrlo heterogenih, fragmentiranih materijala taloženih tijekom glacijala preko stijenske podine. Ispod je drugi sloj (2) obilježen hiperboličkim refleksima te umjerenom otpornošću i pruža se unutar folijacijskih, metamorfnih stijena. Oblik refleksa upozorava na rasjede i pukotine podine, no oni se teško prate s povećanjem dubine. Otpornost također upućuje na trošenje i folijaciju. Refleksi u sloju 1 prekidaju se iznad rasjeda i pukotina upozoravajući na moguće gibanje. Snažni refleksi između dvaju slojeva naglašavaju postojanje granice između njih. Rastresiti materijal u sloju 1, zajedno s postojanjem takve granice, predstavlja znatan rizik nastanka klizišta, posebice u rizičnim uvjetima poput olujnoga pljuska ili potresa

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Characterizing Seismo-stratigraphic and Structural Framework of Late Cretaceous-Recent succession of offshore Indus Pakistan

Regional seismic reflection profiles and deep exploratory wells have been used to characterize the subsurface structural trends and seismo-stratigraphic architecture of the sedimentary successions in offshore Indus Pakistan. To improve the data quality, we have reprocessed the seismic data by applying signal processing scheme to enhance the reflection continuity for obtaining better results. Synthetic seismograms have been used to identify and tie the seismic reflections to the well data. The seismic data revealed tectonically controlled, distinct episodes of normal faulting representing rifting during Mesozoic and transpression at Late Eocene time. A SW-NE oriented anticlinal type push up structure is observed resulted from the basement reactivation and recent transpression along Indian Plate margin. The structural growth of this particular pushup geometry was computed. Six mappable seismic sequences have been identified on seismic records. In general, geological formations are at shallow depths towards northwest due to basement blocks uplift. A paleoshelf is also identified on seismic records overlain by Cretaceous sediments, which is indicative of Indian-African Plates rifting at Jurassic time. The seismic interpretation reveals that the structural styles and stratigraphy of the region were significantly affected by the northward drift of the Indian Plate, post-rifting, and sedimentation along its western margin during Middle Cenozoic. A considerable structural growth along the push up geometry indicates present day transpression in the margin sediments. The present comprehensive interpretation can help in understanding the complex structures in passive continental margins worldwide that display similar characteristics but are considered to be dominated by rifting and drifting tectonics

Geophysical and Geochemical Characterization of Solidwaste Dumpsite: A Case Study of Chowa Gujar, Peshawar (Part of Indus Basin)

Open and non-engineered dumping is a typical method for solid waste disposal in most cities of Pakistan. This practice of waste dumping poses a serious threat to the surrounding ecosystem and human population due to the release and transport of decomposed organic matter, i.e., leachate from dumpsite into the groundwater. The present study was conducted over a non-engineered and open dumpsite (Chowa Gujar), located in the outskirts of the highly populated city of Peshawar by using integrated geophysical techniques such as electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and geochemical techniques. The main goal was to delineate the characterization and depth of buried waste, to map the subsurface extension of contaminant plumes towards agricultural land and groundwater table and the concentration of heavy metals (HMs) in dump and agricultural soil. Geophysical results showed that the thickness of buried waste (predominantly composed of domestic waste) was around 4 m and the leachate plumes have percolated to the adjacent agricultural land. A range of heavy metals (mg/kg) such as Cr (20.5–26.6), Cd (2.6–5.7), Pb (0.35–21.25), Ni (2.5–53.05), Cu (29–68.3), Zn (45.7–77), and Co (18.9–23.2) have been found in the agricultural land adjacent to the dumpsite. The findings demonstrated that combined use of ERT and GPR successfully characterize the buried waste and spread of pollutant plumes spatially and vertically from Chowa Gujar dumpsite. The anomalous geophysical signatures were confirmed by geochemical characterization. The movement of leachate plumes towards agricultural land and groundwater table and the concentration of HMs in soil show that Chowa Gujar dumpsite is a potential source of contamination not only to the surrounding population but also to the agricultural land, surface (Bara River), and subsurface water bodies. In the study region, there is an urgency to take remediation and mitigation measures to reduce the level of pollution created by the dumpsite

Geophysical and Geochemical Characterization of Solidwaste Dumpsite: A Case Study of Chowa Gujar, Peshawar (Part of Indus Basin)

Open and non-engineered dumping is a typical method for solid waste disposal in most cities of Pakistan. This practice of waste dumping poses a serious threat to the surrounding ecosystem and human population due to the release and transport of decomposed organic matter, i.e., leachate from dumpsite into the groundwater. The present study was conducted over a non-engineered and open dumpsite (Chowa Gujar), located in the outskirts of the highly populated city of Peshawar by using integrated geophysical techniques such as electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and geochemical techniques. The main goal was to delineate the characterization and depth of buried waste, to map the subsurface extension of contaminant plumes towards agricultural land and groundwater table and the concentration of heavy metals (HMs) in dump and agricultural soil. Geophysical results showed that the thickness of buried waste (predominantly composed of domestic waste) was around 4 m and the leachate plumes have percolated to the adjacent agricultural land. A range of heavy metals (mg/kg) such as Cr (20.5–26.6), Cd (2.6–5.7), Pb (0.35–21.25), Ni (2.5–53.05), Cu (29–68.3), Zn (45.7–77), and Co (18.9–23.2) have been found in the agricultural land adjacent to the dumpsite. The findings demonstrated that combined use of ERT and GPR successfully characterize the buried waste and spread of pollutant plumes spatially and vertically from Chowa Gujar dumpsite. The anomalous geophysical signatures were confirmed by geochemical characterization. The movement of leachate plumes towards agricultural land and groundwater table and the concentration of HMs in soil show that Chowa Gujar dumpsite is a potential source of contamination not only to the surrounding population but also to the agricultural land, surface (Bara River), and subsurface water bodies. In the study region, there is an urgency to take remediation and mitigation measures to reduce the level of pollution created by the dumpsite

Microwave Irradiation and Glutamic Acid-Assisted Phytotreatment of Textile and Surgical Industrial Wastewater by Sorghum

We investigated how different doses of microwave irradiation (MR) affect seed germination in Sorghum, including the level of remediation against textile and surgical wastewater (WW) by modulating biochemical and morpho-physiological mechanisms under glutamic acid (GA) application. The experiment was conducted to determine the impact of foliar-applied GA on Sorghum under wastewater conditions. Plants were treated with or without microwave irradiation (30 s, 2.45 GHz), GA (5 and 10 mM), and wastewater (0, 25, 50, and 100). Growth and photosynthetic pigments were significantly decreased in plants only treated with various concentrations of WW. GA significantly improved the plant growth characteristics both in MR-treated and -untreated plants compared with respective controls. HMs stress increased electrolyte leakage (EL), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and malondialdehyde (MDA) content; however, the GA chelation significantly improved the antioxidant enzymes activities such as ascorbate oxidase (APX), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT) both in MR-treated and -untreated plants under WW stress compared with respective controls. The results suggested that the MR-treated plants accumulate higher levels of HMs under GA addition in comparison to the WW-only-treated and MR-untreated plants. The maximum increase in Cd accumulation was observed in the range of 14–629% in the roots, 15–2964% in the stems, and 26–4020% in the leaves; the accumulation of Cu was 18–2757% in the roots, 15–4506% in the stems, and 23–4605% in the leaves; and the accumulation of Pb was 13–4122% in the roots, 21–3588% in the stems, and 21–4990% in the leaves under 10 mM GA and MR-treated plants. These findings confirmed that MR-treated sorghum plants had a higher capacity for HMs uptake under GA and could be used as a potential candidate for wastewater treatment