Devonian core complex exhumation and Cenozoic decollements as alternatives to the Ellesmerian Orogeny

Poster presentation at ARCEx Annual Conference 2018, Longyearbyen, Svalbard, 09.10. - 11.10.18. https://arcex.no/arcex-2018/. The Ellesmerian Orogeny (Piepjohn et al., 2000) is a short-lived contractional–transpressional event that occurred in the Late Devonian–Mississippian, i.e., after Devonian collapse of the Caledonides and prior to Carboniferous rifting. Thus far, this episode of contraction–transpression was required to explain the presence of undeformed Carboniferous–Permian sedimentary rocks on top of folded Upper Devonian strata in central Spitsbergen. The orogen is poorly constrained in other parts of the Arctic due to the lack/poor exposure of Devonian–Carboniferous sedimentary rocks (Rippington et al., 2010). We present an alternative model involving core complex exhumation through continuous, decreasing, Devonian–Carboniferous extension during the collapse of the Caledonides, and (partial) strain decoupling during Cenozoic transpression in Svalbard

Impact of Timanian thrusts on the Phanerozoic tectonic history of Svalbard

Presentation at "Friday seminar" at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, 13.09.2019.Despite more than a century of investigation, the relationship between basement rocks throughout the Svalbard Archipelago is still a mystery. Though these rocks display similar geochronological ages, they show significantly different metamorphic grades and structures. Thus far, Svalbard was believed to be composed of three terranes of rocks formed hundreds–thousands of kilometers apart and accreted in the mid-Paleozoic. New evidence from seismic, gravimetric, aeromagnetic, seismological, bathymetric, and field data show that these terranes might have already been accreted in the late Neoproterozoic. Notably, the data show that at least three–four, crustal-scale, WNW–ESE-striking thrust systems crosscut Spitsbergen and merge with Timanian thrusts in the northern Barents Sea and northwestern Russia. These thrusts were reactivated as sinistral-reverse oblique-slip faults and partly folded during the Caledonian and Eurekan orogenies, and reactivated as sinistral-normal faults during Devonian–Mississippian extensional collapse, thus offsetting N–S-trending Caledonian grain and post-Caledonian basins. The presence of these faults explains the juxtaposition of basement rocks of seemingly different origin throughout the Svalbard Archipelago, the distribution of Mississippian rocks and Early Cretaceous intrusions along a WNW–ESE-trending axis in central Spitsbergen, the west vergence of Cenozoic folds in Devonian rocks in central–northern Spitsbergen (previously ascribed to Late Devonian Ellesmerian contraction), the arch shape of the Cenozoic West Spitsbergen Fold-and-Thrust Belt in Brøggerhalvøya, and the strike and location of transform faults west of Spitsbergen. Further implications of this work might be that the tectonic plates constituting present-day Norwegian Arctic regions (Laurentia and Baltica) have retained their current geometry and alignment for the past 600 Ma, that the Timanian Orogeny and associated WNW–ESE-striking faults extend from northwestern Russia to Svalbard, and, possibly, to Greenland and Arctic Canada, and that the transport of Svalbard from next to Greenland in the early Cenozoic to its present position (ca. 400 km southwards) might have been accommodated exclusively by break-up and displacement along transform faults (strike-slip movements), and by top-SSW thrusting and folding (horizontal shortening) along inherited Timanian grain instead of dextral strike-slip movement along the De Geer Zone

Wearable Sensor Data Based Human Activity Recognition using Machine Learning: A new approach

Recent years have witnessed the rapid development of human activity recognition (HAR) based on wearable sensor data. One can find many practical applications in this area, especially in the field of health care. Many machine learning algorithms such as Decision Trees, Support Vector Machine, Naive Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbor, and Multilayer Perceptron are successfully used in HAR. Although these methods are fast and easy for implementation, they still have some limitations due to poor performance in a number of situations. In this paper, we propose a novel method based on the ensemble learning to boost the performance of these machine learning methods for HAR

The Billefjorden Fault Zone north of Spitsbergen: a major terrane boundary?

The Billefjorden Fault Zone is a major terrane boundary in the Norwegian Arctic. The fault separates basement rocks of Svalbard’s north-eastern and north-western terranes that recorded discrete Precambrian tectonothermal histories and were accreted, intensely deformed and metamorphosed during the Caledonian Orogeny. Although the fault represents a major, crustal-scale tectonic boundary, its north-ward extent is not well constrained. The present short contribution addresses this issue and presents new seismic mapping of structures and rock units north of Wijdefjorden, where the Billefjorden Fault Zone may continue. This study shows that there is no evidence for major faulting of the top-basement reflection, and therefore, that the Billefjorden Fault Zone may die out within Wijdefjorden–Austfjorden, step ≥ 20 km laterally, or be invisible on the presented seismic data. Seismic data also suggest that Caledonian basement rocks in Ny-Friesland (north-eastern terrane) are not significantly different from basement rocks below the Devonian Graben in Andrée Land (north-western terrane). Potential implica-tions include the absence of a major terrane boundary in northern Spitsbergen

Development of improved thermoelectric mater- ials for spacecraft applications final summary report, 29 jun. 1964 - 29 jun. 1965

Thermoelectric materials for spacecraft applications - optimization of bismuth-antimony alloys and ag-sb-fe-te-se system alloys for thermoelectric cooling in space environmen

From widespread Mississippian to localized Pennsylvanian extension in central Spitsbergen, Svalbard

In the Devonian–Carboniferous, a rapid succession of clustered extensional and contractional tectonic events is thought to have affected sedimentary rocks in central Spitsbergen, Svalbard. These events include Caledonian post-orogenic extensional collapse associated with the formation of thick Early–Middle Devonian basins, Late Devonian–Mississippian Ellesmerian contraction, and Early–Middle Pennsylvanian rifting, which resulted in the deposition of thick sedimentary units in Carboniferous basins like the Billefjorden Trough. The clustering of these varied tectonic settings sometimes makes it difficult to resolve the tectono-sedimentary history of individual stratigraphic units. Notably, the context of deposition of Mississippian clastic and coal-bearing sedimentary rocks of the Billefjorden Group is still debated, especially in central Spitsbergen. We present field evidence (e.g., growth strata and slickensides) from the northern part of the Billefjorden Trough, in Odellfjellet, suggesting that tilted Mississippian sedimentary strata of the Billefjorden Group deposited during active (Late/latest?) Mississippian extension. WNW–ESE-striking basin-oblique faults showing Mississippian growth strata systematically die out upwards within Mississippian to lowermost Pennsylvanian strata, thus suggesting a period of widespread WNW–ESE-directed extension in the Mississippian and an episode of localized extension in Early–Middle Pennsylvanian times. In addition, the presence of abundant basin-oblique faults in basement rocks adjacent to the Billefjorden Trough suggests that the formation of Mississippian normal faults was partly controlled by reactivation of preexisting Neoproterozoic (Timanian?) basement-seated fault zones. We propose that these preexisting faults reactivated as transverse or accommodation cross faults in or near the crest of transverse folds reflecting differential displacement along the Billefjorden Fault Zone. In Cenozoic times, a few margin-oblique faults (e.g., the Overgangshytta fault) may have mildly reactivated as oblique thrusts during transpression–contraction, but shallow-dipping, bedding-parallel, duplex-shaped décollements in shales of the Billefjorden Group possibly prevented substantial movement along these faults.</p

Industrial Internet of Things, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence in the Smart Factory: a survey and perspective

International audienceThanks to the rapid development and applications of advanced technologies, we are experiencing the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, which is a revolution towards smart manufacturing. The wide use of cyber physical systems and Internet of Things leads to the era of Big Data in industrial manufacturing. Artificial Intelligence algorithms emerge as powerful analytics tools to process and analyze the Big Data. These advanced technologies result in the introduction of a new concept in the Industry 4.0: the smart Factory. In order to fully understand this new concept in the context of the Industry 4.0, this paper provides a survey on the key components of a smart factory and the link between them, including the Industrial Internet of Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. Several studies and techniques that are used to enable smart manufacturing are reviewed. Finally, we discuss some perspectives for further researches

Finite energy Dirac-Born-Infeld monopoles and string junctions

It is shown that the world volume field theory of a single D3-brane in a supergravity D3-brane background admits finite energy, and non-singular, Abelian monopoles and dyons preserving 1/2 or 1/4 of the N=4 supersymmetry and saturating a Bogomolnyi-type bound. The 1/4 supersymmetric solitons provide a world volume realization of string-junction dyons. We also discuss the dual M-theory realization of the 1/2 supersymmetric dyons as finite tension self-dual strings on the M5-brane, and of the 1/4 supersymmetric dyons as their intersections

Longitudinal Assessment of Dementia Measures in Down Syndrome

Introduction: Early detection of dementia symptoms is critical in Down syndrome (DS) but complicated by clinical assessment barriers. The current study aimed to characterize cognitive and behavioral impairment using longitudinal trajectories comparing several measures of cognitive and behavioral functioning. Methods: Measures included global cognitive status (Severe Impairment Battery [SIB]), motor praxis (Brief Praxis Test [BPT]), and clinical dementia informant ratings (Dementia Questionnaire for People with Learning Disabilities [DLD]). One-year reliability was assessed using a two-way mixed effect, consistency, single measurement intraclass correlation among non-demented participants. Longitudinal assessment of SIB, BPT, and DLD was completed using linear mixed effect models. Results: One‐year reliability (n = 52; 21 male) was moderate for DLD (0.69 to 0.75) and good for SIB (0.87) and BPT (0.80). Longitudinal analysis (n = 72) revealed significant age by diagnosis interactions for SIB (F(2, 115.02) = 6.06, P = .003), BPT (F(2, 85.59) = 4.56, P = .013), and DLD (F(2, 103.56) = 4.48, P = .014). SIB progression (PR) had a faster decline in performance versus no‐dementia (ND) (t(159) = −2.87; P = .013). Dementia had a faster decline in BPT performance versus ND (t(112) = −2.46; P = .041). PR showed quickly progressing scores compared to ND (t(128) = −2.86; P = .014). Discussion: Current measures demonstrated moderate to good reliability. Longitudinal analysis revealed that SIB, BPT, and DLD changed with age depending on diagnostic progression; no change rates were dependent on baseline cognition, indicating usefulness across a variety of severity levels in DS

A Search for Energy Minimized Sequences of Proteins

In this paper, we present numerical evidence that supports the notion of minimization in the sequence space of proteins for a target conformation. We use the conformations of the real proteins in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) and present computationally efficient methods to identify the sequences with minimum energy. We use edge-weighted connectivity graph for ranking the residue sites with reduced amino acid alphabet and then use continuous optimization to obtain the energy-minimizing sequences. Our methods enable the computation of a lower bound as well as a tight upper bound for the energy of a given conformation. We validate our results by using three different inter-residue energy matrices for five proteins from protein data bank (PDB), and by comparing our energy-minimizing sequences with 80 million diverse sequences that are generated based on different considerations in each case. When we submitted some of our chosen energy-minimizing sequences to Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), we obtained some sequences from non-redundant protein sequence database that are similar to ours with an E-value of the order of 10-7. In summary, we conclude that proteins show a trend towards minimizing energy in the sequence space but do not seem to adopt the global energy-minimizing sequence. The reason for this could be either that the existing energy matrices are not able to accurately represent the inter-residue interactions in the context of the protein environment or that Nature does not push the optimization in the sequence space, once it is able to perform the function