Mammalian Fauna From The Fullerton Gravel Pit (Ogallala Group, Late Miocene), Morton County, Kansas

The Fullerton Gravel Pit, Morton County, Kansas is one of many sites in western Kansas at which the Ogallala Group crops out. The Ogallala Group was deposited primarily by streams flowing from the Rocky Mountains. Evidence of water transport is observable at the Fullerton Gravel Pit through the presence of allochthonous clasts, cross-bedding, pebble alignment, and fossil breakage and subsequent rounding. Fluvial mechanisms also played an important role in the distribution of fossil material. When the fossils from the Fullerton Gravel Pit are placed in Voorhies Groups, it appears that a majority of them were removed from suspension gradually and transported through traction. This interaction created a distinct bias in the accumulation of specific specimens at the site. The identity of the mammalian taxa recovered from the Fullerton Gravel Pit was determined by comparison with previously identified specimens, as well as previously utilized comparative techniques. Camels are the majority of identifiable elements at the site. In particular, the medium-sized camel, Hemiauchenia is best represented. The canid, Osteoborus, proboscideans, such as gomphotherids, and perissodactyls, predominantly horses, are also present. Conspicuous by its absence, Teleoceras, a common Miocene rhinoceros, has yet to be discovered. The absence of Teleoceras may in part be due to channel velocity and depth. The presence of the canid Osteoborus restricts the Fullerton Gravel Pit to the Hemphillian age. The biochronologic range of the camels, Aepycamelus, Protolabis, and Procamelus end in the early Hemphillian, providing evidence restricting the Fullerton Gravel Pit to an early Hemphillian age. Of the horse species found at the site, only Neohipparion trampasense partitions the Hemphillian, being confined to the late Barstovian to early Hemphillian. The biostratigraphic range of these genera results in an assignment of the Fullerton Gravel Pit to an early Hemphillian age. Within the Equidae, hypsodont dentition and muzzle width indicate that horses were grazers. However, the varying degree of hypsodonty in the Camelidae indicates they were more diverse. Whereas, Hemiauchenia, exploited a grazing niche; others such as Procamelus occupied a browsing niche. Tooth condition and the percent δ13C reinforce the interpretations obtained for camel feeding. Grazing and browsing niches are supported in a savanna-grassland environment. Grasses would have sustained the grazers, and intermittent trees and brush the browsers. This interpretation of the Fullerton Gravel Pit is in agreement with analyses describing the spread of the savanna-grassland landscape across North America during the Miocene. A number of factors influence fossil distribution at the Fullerton Gravel Pit. Niche specialization, fluvial filtering, and an evolving landscape each accounts for the abundance of camel material, as well as the distribution of other taxa

Predicting Rainfall-induced Movements of Slides in Stiff Clays

A physically-based numerical method is presented for displacements hazard analyses, at large-scale, in the case of landslides characterized by movements along pre-existing slip surfaces induced by rainfall-triggered pore pressure fluctuations. The method comprises a transient seepage finite element analysis and a kinematic model. With reference to the latter, the rates of displacement are assumed to be of the viscous type and are related to the factors of safety along the slip surface computed performing time-dependent limit equilibrium analyses. Monitoring data from an active slide in Central Italy are then used both for calibrating the models, by means of an inverse analysis procedure that minimizes the errors between numerically computed results and available observations, and for validating the results of the calibrated models. Subsequently, the calibrated and validated models are used to predict the response of the slope to different rainfall scenarios. The proposed method has been named “R-u-F-v prediction.

Integrating local pore water pressure monitoring in territorial early warning systems for weather-induced landslides

AbstractA methodology designed to integrate widespread meteorological monitoring and pore water pressure measurements is proposed. The procedure is tested in 30 hydrological basins highly susceptible to weather-induced landslides in Norway. The following data are used: a catalog of 125 weather-induced landslides in soils registered between January 2013 and June 2017, widespread meteorological monitoring data employed in a territorial warning model, and pore water pressure measurements retrieved from boreholes installed for a variety of geotechnical projects. The territorial warning model is initially applied to identify the warning events and the correspondent warning level in the test areas over the analysis period. Afterwards, a method for assessing the territorial warning events by analyzing the trends of the monitored pore water pressures is proposed. Finally, an augmented territorial warning model is calibrated and validated using statistical indicators widely adopted in literature. The analysis of the results reveals a satisfactory correspondence between days with landslides and the warning levels provided by the augmented territorial warning model. A final comparison between the results of the model calibration and the model validation highlighted the consistency of the model performance, once the three model parameters are adequately set

FraneItalia: a catalog of recent Italian landslides

Abstract Background In Italy landslides are widespread natural phenomena causing a significant number of fatalities and huge economic losses throughout the country every year. Information on the spatial and temporal distribution of landslides at national scale is critical for developing landslide susceptibility, hazard and risk maps, as well as, more generally, for decision making in landslide risk management. Description The paper presents, after a brief review on global and national landslide databases, a new geo-referenced catalog of recent landslides affecting the Italian territory. The catalog, called Franeitalia, includes both fatal landslide events and events that did not produce physical harm to people. It has been developed consulting online news sources from 2010 onwards. The following seven steps have been performed to define and populate the catalog: i) selection of news sources; ii) identification of effective search keywords; iii) collection of relevant news articles; iv) identification of landslide categories; v) definition of catalog fields; vi) information mining from news articles; vii) geo-referencing of the events. Landslide events are classified considering two numerosity categories and three consequence categories. The numerosity categories are: single landslide events (SLE), for records only reporting one landslide; and areal landslide events (ALE), for records referring to multiple landslides triggered by the same cause in the same geographic area. Both SLEs and ALEs are divided in three consequence classes according to whether the event produced victims and/or missing people (C1, very severe), injured persons and/or evacuations (C2, severe), or did not cause any physical harm to people (C3, minor). Information on the landslide events collected in the catalog always includes: data on the location of the event, day of occurrence of the landslide (s), source (s) of information, and number of landslides in case of areal events. Additional information may include: onset and duration of the landslide event, landslide characteristics, phase of activity, details on the consequences. Conclusions Reports and statistics on the landslides included in the catalog are presented highlighting: the main figures of the landslide inventory, currently spanning from the 2010 to 2017 and including 8931 landslides; and time-dependent national and regional trends, with a focus on the consequences induced by the events. The paper also compares and discusses the figures in relation to other catalogs reporting recent landslides that occurred in the Italian territory

Black Carbon and Organic Components in the Atmosphere of Southern Italy: Comparing Emissions from Different Sources and Production Processes of Carbonaceous Particles

Initial measurements of black carbon (BC) content at both 880 and 370 nm, obtained in two sites in southern Italy by an aethalometer, have been analyzed. The sites are located in the same region (Basilicata), but are affected by different emission sources. In one case the main source of BC is related to vehicular traffic from a nearby freeway. Data were collected, although not continuously, during 2008, 2009 and 2010. In the second case, a fresh crude-oil pre-treatment plant continuously burns petroleum-derived products, thus contributing to emissions of both carbonaceous matter and its organic component. The corresponding data-set was collected in the period January–April 2011. At the first site, two daily peaks were found for the BC content, typical of vehicles emissions, with maximum values ranging from 2000 ng/m3 to 4700 ng/m3 found during weekdays. This behavior disappears at the weekend or when polluted air-masses from north-east Europe are transported over the measurement site. At the second site, two daily peaks were never found, suggesting that crude oil chemical processes were the main source of the emissions. In this case, the maximum BC values ranged between 1000–8000 ng/m3, depending on the processes occurring at the fresh crude-oil pre-treatment plant. Moreover, the estimated level of BC at 370 nm was higher than that of BC at 880 nm in all months, expect for April, indicating a clear organic component in atmospheric aerosols. Finally, based on a best-fit procedure applied to the seven wavelengths’ absorption coefficients, aerosols with different spectroscopic properties have been detected at these two sites

Ensemble Kalman Methods: A Mean Field Perspective

This paper provides a unifying mean field based framework for the derivation and analysis of ensemble Kalman methods. Both state estimation and parameter estimation problems are considered, and formulations in both discrete and continuous time are employed. For state estimation problems both the control and filtering approaches are studied; analogously, for parameter estimation (inverse) problems the optimization and Bayesian perspectives are both studied. The approach taken unifies a wide-ranging literature in the field, provides a framework for analysis of ensemble Kalman methods, and suggests open problems

Physical and optical properties of atmospheric aerosols by in-situ and radiometric measurements

Physical and optical properties of atmospheric aerosols collected by using a high resolution (1.5 nm) spectroradiometer (spectral range 400–800 nm), a 13-stage Dekati Low Pressure Impactor (size range 30 nm–10 μm), and an AE31 Aethalometer (7 wavelenghts from 370 nm to 950 nm), have been examined in a semi-rural site in Southwest Italy (Tito Scalo, 40°35' N, 15°41' E, 750 m a.s.l.). In particular, daily averaged values of AOD and Ångström turbidity parameters from radiometric data together with mass-size distributions from impactor data and Black Carbon (BC) concentrations have been analyzed from May to October 2008. Furthermore, by inverting direct solar radiances, aerosol columnar number and volume size distributions have been obtained for the same period. The comparison of different observation methods, allowed to verify if, and in what conditions, changes in aerosol properties measured at ground are representative of columnar properties variations. Agreement between columnar and in-situ measurements has been obtained in case of anthropogenic aerosol loading, while in case of Saharan dust intrusions some discrepancies have been found when dust particles were located at high layers in the atmosphere (4–8 km) thus affecting columnar properties more than surface ones. For anthropogenic aerosols, a good correlation has been confirmed through the comparison of fine aerosol fraction contribution as measured by radiometer, impactor and aethalometer, suggesting that, in this case, the particles are more homogeneously distributed over the lower layers of atmosphere and columnar aerosol optical properties are dominated by surface measured component

A new algorithm for brown and black carbon identification and organic carbon detection in fine atmospheric aerosols by a multi-wavelength Aethalometer

A novel approach for the analysis of aerosol absorption coefficient measurements is presented. A 7-wavelenghts aethalometer has been employed to identify brown carbon (BrC) and black carbon (BC) and to detect organic carbon (OC) in fine atmospheric aerosols (PM2.5). The Magee Aethalometer estimates the BC content in atmospheric particulate by measuring the light attenuation in the aerosols accumulated on a quartz filter, at the standard wavelength λ = 0.88 μm. The known Magee algorithm is based on the hypothesis of a mass absorption coefficient inversely proportional to the wavelength. The new algorithm has been developed and applied to the whole spectral range; it verifies the spectral absorption behavior and, thus, it distinguishes between black and brown carbon. Moreover, it allows also to correct the absorption estimation at the UV wavelength commonly used to qualitatively detect the presence of mixed hydrocarbons. The algorithm has been applied to data collected in Agri Valley, located in Southern Italy, where torched crude oil undergoes a pre-treatment process. The Magee Aethalometer has been set to measure Aerosol absorption coefficients τaer (λ, t) every 5 min. Wavelength dependence of τaer (λ, t) has been analyzed by a best-fit technique and, excluding UV-wavelengths, both the absorption Angstrom coefficient α and the BC (or BrC) concentration have been determined. Finally, daily histograms of α provide information on optical properties of carbonaceous aerosol, while the extrapolation at UV-wavelengths gives information on the presence of semivolatile organic carbon (OC) particles