Sidescan sonar survey of a dumping site in the Mecklenburg Bight (south-western Baltic Sea)

Two dumping test sites of dredged sediment (glacial till, mixed sediment with sand) in the south-western Baltic Sea were repeatedly investigated with sidescan sonar. The first survey was conducted before dumping, the second survey 1 week after dumping, and eight more surveys were run during the following three and a half years. Sidescan mosaics were calculated from raw data. Comparing the mosaics, it becomes obvious that the initial strong microrelief of the dumping sites vanishes with time. The heaps of dumped material were eroded. Coarse material remains at the surface, fine material fills in the gaps between the heaps. Fine sediment structures (filaments and aureoles) created by the dumping process, and elongated traces of dumped material outside the dumping places disappeared with time.     

Glacial–interglacial changes in the accumulation rates of major biogenic components in Southern Indian Ocean sediments

In this study we compare major biogenic components (opal-A, carbonate, and organic carbon) and authigenic uranium accumulation rates from the southeastern Indian Ocean for both Holocene and glacial periods. Integrated accumulation rates across the whole Indian sector of the Southern Ocean indicate that the burial of organic carbon which is held approximately constant, contrasts with lower biogenic silica and carbonate burial rates during glacial intervals. In addition, higher glacial accumulation rates of authigenic uranium are found in the sediments of the Polar Front Zone (PFZ) and the Sub-Antarctic zone (SAZ) than anywhere in the modern Southern Ocean. This suggests more reducing conditions in the PFZ and SAZ during the last glacial maximum. The simplest explanation of a northward shift of the PFZ cannot explain such changes. Glacial sediment burial changes result probably from deep water decrease in oxygen levels and increase in CO₂ due to combination of two processes: (1) hydrologic changes and (2) continuous organic carbon export fluxes to the seafloor. Such shifts in chemical conditions could have enhanced the dissolution of carbonates and better preserved the organic carbon in sediments, leading in significant changes of biogenic silica/C_org and CaCO₃/C_org flux ratios.     

基于随机场理论的吹填土土性参数空间变异性

根据围海造陆工程吹填场地大量勘察资料,通过采用土层剖面随机场理论与曲线极限法相关距离计算方法,考虑相关距离与土层厚度对土性参数空间变异性的影响,把土性参数的点变异性与空间变异性联系起来,对吹填淤泥与原状淤泥组成的双层软土土性参数的变异性进行了分析。结果表明:吹填淤泥与原状淤泥相关距离的区间估计分别为0.45～0.53 m、0.65～0.71 m,为勘察工作钻孔取样竖向间距选取提供参考;随机场理论计算出的土性参数的空间变异系数比点变异系数小得多,在理论上更合理;吹填淤泥土性参数的点变异性、空间变异性均比原状淤泥大,空间变异性对岩土工程可靠性设计土性参数准确选取的影响更为显著,实际工程中更应考虑土性参数的空间变异性。     

Glacial ice impacts: Part I: Wave-driven motion and small glacial ice feature impacts

Glacial ice features in the northern and central Barents Sea may threaten ships and offshore structures. Particularly, small glacial ice features, which are difficult to detect and manage by concurrent technologies, are of concern. Additionally, small glacial ice features are more susceptible to wave-driven oscillatory motions, which increases their pre-impact kinetic energy and may damage ships and offshore structures. This paper is part of three related papers. An initial paper (Monteban et al., 2020) studied glacial ice features’ drift, size distribution and encounter frequencies with an offshore structure in the Barents Sea. The following two papers (Paper I and Paper II) further performed glacial ice impact studies, including impact motion analysis (Paper I) and structural damage assessment (Paper II). This paper (Paper I) studies the wave-driven motion of small glacial ice features and their subsequent impact with a given offshore structure. The aim here is to develop a numerical model that is capable of efficiently calculating the relative motion between the ice feature and structure and to sample a sufficient amount of impact events from which statistical information can be obtained. The statistical information entails the distributions of the impact location and associated impact velocities. Given the distributions of the impact velocities at different locations, we can quantify the kinetic energy for related impact scenarios for a further structural damage assessment in Paper II (Yu et al., 2020).In Paper I, a numerical model that separately calculates the wave-driven oscillatory motion and the mean drift motion of small glacial ice features is proposed, implemented and validated. Practical and fit-for-purpose hydrodynamic simplifications are made to simulate and sample sufficient impact events. The numerical model has been favourably validated against existing numerical results and experimental data. A case study is presented where a 10 m wide glacial ice feature is drifting under the influence of surface waves towards an offshore structure. The case study shows that if an impact happens, the overall impact location and impact velocity can be best fitted by the Normal and Weibull distributions, respectively. Additionally, the impact velocity increases with impact height. Moreover, the impact velocity increases and the impact range is more dispersed in a higher sea state. It is also important to notice that the approaches and methods proposed in this paper adhere to and reflect the general requirements stated in ISO19906 (2019) and NORSOK N-003 (2017) for estimating the design kinetic energy for glacial ice impacts.