Identification of the area immediately affected by outburst flood of the Laguna Navarrete, Province of Neuquén (36°30′S-71°W)

Considering the high concentration of rock avalanches in the northern part of the Neuquén province of Argentina (36°-38°S and 70°-71°W) and their association with lacustrine basins forming natural dams, their catastrophic collapse seems not to be such a common process as could be expected for these cases. The present work depicts the area immediately affected by the outburst flood corresponding to the Navarrete dam catastrophic collapse (175 × 106 m3), through a sedimentological analysis, generated since the arroyo Colorado was blocked due to a rock avalanche deposit during not well constrained postglacial times. The outburst flood dispersion is initially inferred based on morphological criteria and then determined from a sedimentological analysis of its matrix. Furthermore, the matrix is compared to that of the fluvial terraces, which have been sampled along the arroyo Colorado. This comparison shows that even though differences among them are not so significant through most of the study area, matrix frequency starts to be distinctive from the most distant point of sampling.Fil:Penna, I.M. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina.Fil:Folguera, A. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina

Measuring Black Hole Spin using X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy

I review the current status of X-ray reflection (a.k.a. broad iron line) based black hole spin measurements. This is a powerful technique that allows us to measure robust black hole spins across the mass range, from the stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries to the supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. After describing the basic assumptions of this approach, I lay out the detailed methodology focusing on "best practices" that have been found necessary to obtain robust results. Reflecting my own biases, this review is slanted towards a discussion of supermassive black hole (SMBH) spin in active galactic nuclei (AGN). Pulling together all of the available XMM-Newton and Suzaku results from the literature that satisfy objective quality control criteria, it is clear that a large fraction of SMBHs are rapidly-spinning, although there are tentative hints of a more slowly spinning population at high (M>5*10^7Msun) and low (M<2*10^6Msun) mass. I also engage in a brief review of the spins of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries. In general, reflection-based and continuum-fitting based spin measures are in agreement, although there remain two objects (GROJ1655-40 and 4U1543-475) for which that is not true. I end this review by discussing the exciting frontier of relativistic reverberation, particularly the discovery of broad iron line reverberation in XMM-Newton data for the Seyfert galaxies NGC4151, NGC7314 and MCG-5-23-16. As well as confirming the basic paradigm of relativistic disk reflection, this detection of reverberation demonstrates that future large-area X-ray observatories such as LOFT will make tremendous progress in studies of strong gravity using relativistic reverberation in AGN.Comment: 19 pages. To appear in proceedings of the ISSI-Bern workshop on "The Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (8-12 Oct 2012). Revised version adds a missing source to Table 1 and Fig.6 (IRAS13224-3809) and corrects the referencing of the discovery of soft lags in 1H0707-495 (which were in fact first reported in Fabian et al. 2009

Identification of the area immediately affected by outburst flood of the Laguna Navarrete, Province of Neuquén (36°30′S-71°W)

Considering the high concentration of rock avalanches in the northern part of the Neuquén province of Argentina (36°-38°S and 70°-71°W) and their association with lacustrine basins forming natural dams, their catastrophic collapse seems not to be such a common process as could be expected for these cases. The present work depicts the area immediately affected by the outburst flood corresponding to the Navarrete dam catastrophic collapse (175 × 106 m3), through a sedimentological analysis, generated since the arroyo Colorado was blocked due to a rock avalanche deposit during not well constrained postglacial times. The outburst flood dispersion is initially inferred based on morphological criteria and then determined from a sedimentological analysis of its matrix. Furthermore, the matrix is compared to that of the fluvial terraces, which have been sampled along the arroyo Colorado. This comparison shows that even though differences among them are not so significant through most of the study area, matrix frequency starts to be distinctive from the most distant point of sampling.Fil:Penna, I.M. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina.Fil:Folguera, A. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina

Analysis of past and future dam formation and failure in the Santa Cruz River (San Juan province, Argentina)

Around 11.5 * 106 m3 of rock detached from the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz valley (San Juan province, Argentina) in the first fortnight of January 2005. The rockslide?debris avalanche blocked the course, resulting in the development of a lake with maximum length of around 3.5 km. The increase in the inflow rate from 47,000?74,000 m3/d between April and October to 304,000 m3/d between late October and the first fortnight of November, accelerated the growing rate of the lake. On 12 November 2005 the dam failed, releasing 24.6 * 106 m3 of water. The resulting outburst flood caused damages mainly on infrastructure, and affected the facilities of a hydropower dam which was under construction 250 km downstream from the source area. In this work we describe causes and consequences of the natural dam formation and failure, and we dynamically model the 2005 rockslide?debris avalanche with DAN3D. Additionally, as a volume ~ 24 * 106 m3of rocks still remain unstable in the slope, we use the results of the back analysis to forecast the formation of a future natural dam. We analyzed two potential scenarios: a partial slope failure of 6.5 * 106 m3 and a worst case where all the unstable volume remaining in the slope fails. The spreading of those potential events shows that a new blockage of the Santa Cruz River is likely to occur. According to their modeled morphometry and the contributing watershed upstream the blockage area, as the one of 2005, the dams would also be unstable. This study shows the importance of back and forward analysis that can be carried out to obtain critical information for land use planning, hazards mitigation, and emergency management

Permafrost controls the displacement rates of large unstable rock-slopes in subarctic environments

International audienceDetermining the link between permafrost and the displacement rates of large unstable rock-slopes (LURSs) is fundamental for understanding future hazard scenarios and establishing appropriate management strategies. From an inventory of >500 LURSs in Norway, we investigate the controls of those with available information on their displacement rates (299 LURSs), presenting the first statistical evidence of permafrost as the main driver of displacement rates of LURSs. The probability for a LURS to displace if permafrost is present now or was during the Little Ice Age (LIA) is around 2.1 times higher than if permafrost was already absent during the LIA. This probability is 1.5 times higher for LURSs with current permafrost than for LURSs with permafrost during the LIA that has since melted. Therefore, our findings enrich the classical conception that warming of permafrost increases displacement rates of LURSs, by showing that the complete thawing of permafrost can result in a decrease in displacement rate or even a complete halt of displacement

Gran Torino: graduation studio TU Eindhoven and Politecnico di Torino, 2014-2015

This publication results from a year-lasting (2014-2015) collaboration between the Polytechnic University of Turin and Eindhoven Technical University’s Chair of Rational Architecture, guided by Professor Christian Rapp together with Haike Apelt as Dutch Supervisors and Professor Silvia Malcovati as Italian Supervisor

An ILS-based algorithm to solve a large-scale real heterogeneous fleet VRP with multi-trips and docking constraints

Distribution planning is crucial for most companies since goods are rarely produced and consumed at the same place. Distribution costs, in addition, can be an important component of the final cost of the products. In this paper, we study a VRP variant inspired on a real case of a large distribution company. In particular, we consider a VRP with a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles that are allowed to perform multiple trips. The problem also includes docking constraints in which some vehicles are unable to serve some particular customers, and a realistic objective function with vehicles’ fixed and distance-based costs and a cost per customer visited. We design a trajectory search heuristic called GILS-VND that combines Iterated Local Search (ILS), Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) and Variable Neighborhood Descent (VND) procedures. This method obtains competitive solutions and improves the company solutions leading to significant savings in transportation costs.This work has been partially supported by CNPq (grants 552289/2011-6 and 306458/2010-1), FAPEMIG (grants PPM CEX 497-13, APQ-04611-10), CAPES and Science Without Borders (grant 202380/2012-2 and 202381/2012-9), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (TRA2013-48180-C3-P) and the Ibero-American Programme for Science, Technology and Development (CYTED2010-511RT0419)