Studies on Schumann Resonance Phenomena and Some Recent Advancements

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - Discrete spectra of frequencies at 8, 14, 20, 26, … Hz are generated by electromagnetic emission from lightning sources and can be regarded as excitation of AC...     

RS & GIS-based landslide susceptibility mapping of the Balason River basin,Darjeeling Himalaya,using logistic regression (LR) model

The present study deals with the preparation of a landslide susceptibility map of the Balason River basin, Darjeeling Himalaya, using a logistic regression model based on Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing. The landslide inventory map was prepared with a total of 295 landslide locations extracted from various satellite images and intensive field survey. Topographical maps, satellite images, geological, geomorphological, soil, rainfall and seismic data were collected, processed and constructed into a spatial database in a GIS environment. The chosen landslide-conditioning factors were altitude, slope aspect, slope angle, slope curvature, geology, geomorphology, soil, land use/land cover, normalised differential vegetation index, drainage density, lineament number density, distance from lineament, distance to drainage, stream power index, topographic wetted index, rainfall and peak ground acceleration. The produced landslide susceptibility map satisfied the decision rules and ?2 Log likelihood, Cox &; Snell R-Square and Nagelkerke R-Square values proved that all the independent variables were statistically significant. The receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the prediction accuracy of the landslide probability map was 96.10%. The proposed LR method can be used in other hazard/disaster studies and decision-making.     

Automatic Delineation of Structural Boundaries using Curvature Analysis of Bouguer Gravity Data in Parts of Northwest Himalaya

Curvature describes about the bending of surface by which a surface deviates from flat plane or a curve deviates from straight. The Himalaya has numerous geodynamic features with complex geological setup and extreme undulating topography. In this context, interpretation of gravity data has been used for enhancing important features to delineate structural trend for understanding thrust-fault locations and crustal structural setup in north-west Himalaya. Gravity data interpretation not only help to study varying lateral changes in density with lithological changes but also properties of gradients to interpret sub-surface structure and edges of the geological features. Attempt has been made to interpret various curvatures analysis like maximum, minimum, most-positive and most-negative curvatures using Bouguer gravity data to estimate the automatic thrust-fault locations in Dehradun-Badrinath area falling in the north-western part of Himalaya, India.     

Application of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for flood risk assessment: a case study in Malda district of West Bengal,India

A field experiment was conducted from 2 May 2010 to 1 May 2012 in the Gurbantunggut Desert, the second largest desert in China, to investigate saltation activity and its threshold velocity, and their relations with atmospheric and soil conditions. The results showed that saltation activity occurred more frequently during 08:00–20:00 Local Standard Time in spring and summer, with air temperatures between 20.0 and 29.0 °C, water vapor pressures between 0.6 and 0.9 kPa, soil temperatures between 25.0 and 30.0 °C, and a soil moisture lower than 0.04 m³/m³. At 2 m height, the saltation threshold velocity varied between 11.1 and 13.9 m/s, with a mean of 12.5 m/s. Threshold velocity showed clear seasonal variations in the following sequence: spring (11.7 m/s) < autumn (12.7 m/s) < summer (13.6 m/s). Affected by soil conditions, aeolian sand transport was weak, with an average annual aeolian sand that transported across a section (1.0 m × 2.0 m) of less than 6.0 kg.     

A numerical method for the solution of the nonlinear turbulent one-dimensional free surface flow equations

Free surface flow of an incompressible fluid over a shallow plane/undulating horizontal bed is characteristically turbulent due to disturbances generated by the bed resistance and other causes. The governing equations of such flows in one dimension, for finite amplitude of surface elevation over the bed, are the Continuity Equation and a highly nonlinear Momentum Equation of order three. The method developed in this paper introduces the “discharge” variable q = η U, where η = elevation of the free surface above the bed level, and U = average stream-wise forward velocity. By this substitution, the continuity equation becomes a linear first-order PDE and the momentum equation is transformed after introduction of a small approximation in the fifth term. Next, it is shown by an invertibility argument that q can be a function of η: q = F(η), rendering the momentum equation as a first order, second degree ODE for F(η), that can be be integrated by the Runge-Kutta method. The continuity equation then takes the form of a first order evolutionary PDE that can be integrated by a Lax-Wendroff type of scheme for the temporal evolution of the surface elevation η. The method is implemented for two particular cases: when the initial elevation is triangular with vertical angle of 120 ^° and when it has a sinusoidal form. The computations exhibit the physically interesting feature that the frontal portion of the propagating wave undergoes a sharp jump followed by tumbling over as a breaker. Compared to other discretization methods, the application of the Runge-Kutta and an extended version of the Lax-Wendroff scheme is much easier.     

Probing Statistical Isotropy of Cosmological Radio Sources using Square Kilometre Array

There currently exist many observations which are not consistent with the cosmological principle. We review these observations with a particular emphasis on those relevant for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). In particular, several different data sets indicate a preferred direction pointing approximately towards the Virgo cluster. We also observe a hemispherical anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) temperature fluctuations. Although these inconsistencies may be attributed to systematic effects, there remains the possibility that they indicate new physics and various theories have been proposed to explain them. One possibility, which we discuss in this review, is the generation of perturbation modes during the early pre-inflationary epoch, when the Universe may not obey the cosmological principle. Better measurements will provide better constraints on these theories. In particular, we propose measurement of the dipole in number counts, sky brightness, polarized flux and polarization orientations of radio sources. We also suggest test of alignment of linear polarizations of sources as a function of their relative separation. Finally we propose measurement of hemispherical anisotropy or equivalently dipole modulation in radio sources.     

Classification of glacial lakes using integrated approach of DFPS technique and gradient analysis using Sentinel 2A data

It is important to identify and locate glacial lakes for assessing any potential hazard. This study presents a combination of semi-automatic method Double-Window Flexible Pace Search (DFPS) and edge detection technique to identify glacial lakes using Sentinel 2A satellite data. Initially, Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) has been used to identify water and non-water areas, while DFPS and Edge detection technique has been used to identify an optimum threshold value to distinguish between water and shadow areas. The optimal threshold from DFPS process is 0.21, while threshold value of gradient magnitude using edge detection process is 0.318. The number of glacial lakes identified using the above algorithm is in close agreement with previously published results on glacial lakes in Gangotri glacier using different techniques. Thus, a combination of DFPS and edge detection process has successfully segregated glacial lakes from other features present in Gangotri glacier.     

Spatio‐temporal prediction of land surface temperature using semantic kriging

Spatio‐temporal prediction and forecasting of land surface temperature (LST) are relevant. However, several factors limit their usage, such as missing pixels, line drops, and cloud cover in satellite images. Being measured close to the Earth's surface, LST is mainly influenced by the land use/land cover (LULC) distribution of the terrain. This article presents a spatio‐temporal interpolation method which semantically models LULC information for the analysis of LST. The proposed spatio‐temporal semantic kriging (ST‐SemK) approach is presented in two variants: non‐separable ST‐SemK (ST‐SemK_NSep) and separable ST‐SemK (ST‐SemK_Sep). Empirical studies have been carried out with derived Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite images of LST for two spatial regions: Kolkata, India and Dallas, Texas, U.S. It has been observed that semantically enhanced spatio‐temporal modeling by ST‐SemK yields more accurate prediction results than spatio‐temporal ordinary kriging and other existing methods.     

Lithology-dependent seismic anisotropic amplitude variation with offset correction in transversely isotropic media

Analysis of amplitude variation with offset is an essential step for reservoir characterization. For an accurate reservoir characterization, the amplitude obtained with an isotropic assumption of the reservoir must be corrected for the anisotropic effects. The objective is seismic anisotropic amplitude correction in an effective medium, and, to this end, values and signs of anisotropic parameter differences (Δδ and Δε) across the reflection interfaces are needed. These parameters can be identified by seismic and well log data. A new technique for anisotropic amplitude correction was developed to modify amplitude changes in seismic data in transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry. The results show that characteristics of pre-stack seismic data, that is, amplitude variation with offset gradient, can be potentially related to the sign of anisotropic parameter differences (Δδ and Δε) between two layers of the reflection boundary. The proposed methodology is designed to attain a proper fit between modelled and observed amplitude variation with offset responses, after anisotropic correction, for all possible lithofacies at the reservoir boundary. We first estimate anisotropic parameters, that is, δ and ε, away from the wells through Backus averaging of elastic properties resulted from the first pass of isotropic pre-stack seismic inversion, on input data with no amplitude correction. Next, we estimate the anisotropic parameter differences at reflection interfaces (values and signs of Δδ and Δε). We then generate seismic angle gather data after anisotropic amplitude correction using Rüger's equation for the P-P reflection coefficient. The second pass of isotropic pre-stack seismic inversion is then performed on the amplitude-corrected data, and elastic properties are estimated. Final outcome demonstrates how introduced methodology helps to reduce the uncertainty of elastic property prediction. Pre-stack seismic inversion on amplitude-corrected seismic data results in more accurate elastic property prediction than what can be obtained from non-corrected data. Moreover, a new anisotropy attribute (ν) is presented for improvement of lithology identification.