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At least 217 records · Page 12

Routing and Infrastructure simulation for Shared Electric vehicles (RISE)

FERIS is an agent-based model that simulates the activity of a fleet of electric taxis in a metropolitan area. Agent activities include serving trips, rebalancing to anticipate future demand, and relocating to charge. The modeling framework allows researchers to study the impact of different routing algorithms, battery range, and charging infrastructure on fleet performance, energy consumption, environmental impact, and cost of service.

Bauer, Gordon↗

Sea-level rise and archaeological site destruction: An example from the southeastern United States using DINAA (Digital Index of North American Archaeology)

The impact of changing climate on terrestrial and underwater archaeological sites, historic buildings, and cultural landscapes can be examined through quantitatively-based analyses encompassing large data samples and broad geographic and temporal scales. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) is a multi-institutional collaboration that allows researchers online access to linked heritage data from multiple sources and data sets. The effects of sea-level rise and concomitant human population relocation is examined using a sample from nine states encompassing much of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the southeastern United States. A 1 m rise in sea-level will result in the loss of over >13,000 recorded historic and prehistoric archaeological sites, as well as over 1000 locations currently eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), encompassing archaeological sites, standing structures, and other cultural properties. These numbers increase substantially with each additional 1 m rise in sea level, with >32,000 archaeological sites and >2400 NRHP properties lost should a 5 m rise occur. Many more unrecorded archaeological and historic sites will also be lost as large areas of the landscape are flooded. The displacement of millions of people due to rising seas will cause additional impacts where these populations resettle. Sea level rise will thus result in the loss of much of the record of human habitation of the coastal margin in the Southeast within the next one to two centuries, and the numbers indicate the magnitude of the impact on the archaeological record globally. Construction of large linked data sets is essential to developing procedures for sampling, triage, and mitigation of these impacts.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Progression of herpesvirus infection remodels mitochondrial organization and metabolism

Viruses target mitochondria to promote their replication, and infection-induced stress during the progression of infection leads to the regulation of antiviral defenses and mitochondrial metabolism which are opposed by counteracting viral factors. The precise structural and functional changes that underlie how mitochondria react to the infection remain largely unclear. Here we show extensive transcriptional remodeling of protein-encoding host genes involved in the respiratory chain, apoptosis, and structural organization of mitochondria as herpes simplex virus type 1 lytic infection proceeds from early to late stages of infection. High-resolution microscopy and interaction analyses unveiled infection-induced emergence of rough, thin, and elongated mitochondria relocalized to the perinuclear area, a significant increase in the number and clustering of endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria contact sites, and thickening and shortening of mitochondrial cristae. Finally, metabolic analyses demonstrated that reactivation of ATP production is accompanied by increased mitochondrial Ca 2+ content and proton leakage as the infection proceeds. Overall, the significant structural and functional changes in the mitochondria triggered by the viral invasion are tightly connected to the progression of the virus infection.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

EGS Collab Experiment 1: Microseismic Monitoring

The U.S. Department of Energy's Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) Collab project aims to improve our understanding of hydraulic stimulations in crystalline rock for enhanced geothermal energy production through execution of intensely monitored meso-scale experiments. The first experiment is being performed at the 4850 ft level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), approximately 1.5 km below the surface at Lead, South Dakota. Here we report on microseismic monitoring of repeated stimulation experiments and subsequent flow tests between two boreholes in the Poorman Formation. Stimulations were performed at several locations in the designated injection borehole at flow rates from 0.1 to 5 L/min over temporal durations from minutes to hours. Microseismic monitoring was performed using a dense 3D sensor array including two cemented hydrophone strings with 12 sensors at 1.75 m spacing accompanied by 18 3-C accelerometers, deployed in 6 monitoring boreholes, completely surrounding the stimulation region. Continuous records were obtained over a two-month period using a novel dual recording system consisting of a conventional 96 channel exploration seismograph and a high-performance 64 channel digitizer sampling sensors at 4 and 100 kHz respectively. Using a standard STA/LTA triggering algorithm, we detected thousands of microseismic events with recorded energy in a frequency range generally above 3 kHz and up to 40 kHz. The locations of these events are consistent with creation of a hydraulic fracture and additional reactivation of pre-existing structures. Using manual pick refinement and double-difference relocation we are able to track the fracture growth to high precision. We estimate the times and locations of the fracture intersecting a monitoring and the production borehole using microseismic events. They are in excellent agreement with independent measurements using distributed temperature sensing, in-situ strain observations and measurements of conductivity changes. This submission includes a microearthquake catalog, raw event files, a subset of the continuous microseismic monitoring data collected during stimulations and flow test activity on 05/22/2018, 05/23/2018, 05/24/2018, 05/25/2018, 06/25/2018, 07/19/2018, 07/20/2018, 12/7/2018, 12/20/2018, and 12/21/2018 (in binary format), and a binary file interpreter to read the continuous microseismic monitoring data. A Stanford Geothermal Workshop paper is also included to describe microseismic monitoring activities at SURF during these periods.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

EGS Collab Experiment 1: In-situ observation of pre-, co- and post-seismic shear slip preceding hydraulic fracturing

Understanding the initiation and arrest of earthquakes is one of the long-standing challenges of seismology. Here we report on direct observations of borehole displacement by a meter-sized shear rupture induced by pressurization of metamorphic rock at 1.5 km depth. We observed the acceleration of sliding, followed by fast co-seismic slip and a transient afterslip phase. Total displacements were about 7, 5.5 and 9.5 micrometers, respectively for the observed pre-slip, co-seismic slip and afterslip. The observed pre-slip lasted about 0.4 seconds. Co-seismic slip was recorded by the 1 kHz displacement recording and a 12-component array of 3-C accelerometers sampled at 100 kHz. The observed afterslip is consistent with analytical models of arrest in a velocity-strengthening region and subsequent stress relaxation. The observed slip vector agrees with the activation of a bedding plane within the phyllite, which is corroborated by relocated seismic events that were observed during the later stages of the injection experiment. This submission includes the pressure and deformation data recorded by the SIMFIP probe during the first injection at the 164 ft (50 m) notch of borehole E1-I. The injection was performed on on 05/22/2018 as part of Experiment 1 of the EGS Collab project. This data accompanies a manuscript submitted to GRL, linked in this submission.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Utah FORGE 5-2419: Seismicity-Permeability Relationships Probed via Nonlinear Acoustic Imaging - 2024 Annual Workshop Presentation

This is a presentation on Seismicity-Permeability Relationships Probed via Nonlinear Acoustic Imaging by Pennsylvania State University, presented by Derek Elsworth. This video slide presentation discussed controls and acoustic signatures of aseismic through seismic evolution of relocation-stability-permeability on fractures in shear-reactivation as a precursor to, and a key predictor of, seismic moment magnitude of prospective triggered-seismicity. This presentation was featured in the Utah FORGE R&D Annual Workshop on August 13, 2024.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Encapsulation and retention of 225 Ac, 223 Ra, 227 Th, and decay daughters in zircon-type gadolinium vanadate nanoparticles

Abstract Unwanted targeting of healthy organs caused by the relocation of radionuclides from the target site has been one of the limiting factors in the widespread application of targeted alpha therapy in patient regimens. GdVO 4 nanoparticles (NPs) were developed as platforms to encapsulate α -emitting radionuclides 223 Ra, 225 Ac, and 227 Th, and retain their decay daughters at the target site. Polycrystalline GdVO 4 NPs with different morphologies and a zircon-type tetragonal crystal structure were obtained by precipitation of GdCl 3 and Na 3 VO 4 in aqueous media at room temperature. The ability of GdVO 4 crystals to host multivalent ions was initially assessed using La, Cs, Bi, Ba, and Pb as surrogates of the radionuclides under investigation. A decrease in Ba encapsulation was obtained after increasing the concentration of surrogate ions, whereas the encapsulation of La cations in GdVO 4 NPs was quantitative (∼100%). Retention of radionuclides was assessed in vitro by dialyzing the radioactive GdVO 4 NPs against deionized water. While 227 Th was quantitatively encapsulated (100%), a partial encapsulation of 223 Ra (∼75%) and 225 Ac (>60%) was observed in GdVO 4 NPs. The maximum leakage of 221 Fr (1st decay daughter of 225 Ac) was 55.4 ± 3.6%, whereas for 223 Ra (1st decay daughter of 227 Th) the maximum leakage was 73.0 ± 4.0%. These results show the potential of GdVO 4 NPs as platforms of α -emitting radionuclides for their application in targeted alpha therapy.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Lg-Wave Cross Correlation and Epicentral Double-Difference Location in and near China

In this paper, we perform epicentral relocations for a broad area using cross-correlation measurements made on Lg waves recorded at regional distances on a sparse station network. Using a two-step procedure (pairwise locations and cluster locations), we obtain final locations for 5623 events—3689 for all of China from 1985 to 2005 and 1934 for the Wenchuan area from May to August 2008. These high-quality locations comprise 20% of a starting catalog for all of China and 25% of a catalog for Wenchuan. Of the 1934 events located for Wenchuan, 1662 (86%) were newly detected. The final locations explain the residuals 89 times better than the catalog locations for all of China (3.7302–0.0417 s) and 32 times better than the catalog locations for Wenchuan (0.8413–0.0267 s). The average semimajor axes of the 95% confidence ellipses are 420 m for all of China and 370 m for Wenchuan. The average azimuthal gaps are 205° for all of China and 266° for Wenchuan. 98% of the station distances for all of China are over 200 km. The mean and maximum station distances are 898 and 2174 km. The robustness of our location estimates and various trade-offs and sensitivities is explored with different inversion parameters for the location, such as starting locations for iterative solutions and which singular values to include. Finally, our results provide order-of-magnitude improvements in locations for event clusters, using waveforms from a very sparse far-regional network for which data are openly available.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Microseismic Focal Mechanisms and Implications for Changes in Stress during the 2014 Newberry EGS Stimulation

We adapt the relative polarity method from Shelly et al. (2016) to compute focal mechanisms for microearthquakes associated with the 2014 hydroshearing stimulation at the Newberry volcano geothermal site. We focus the analysis on events relocated by Aguiar and Myers (2018), who report that six event clusters predominantly comprise the 2014 sequence. Data quality allows focal mechanism analysis for four of the six event clusters. We use Hardebeck and Shearer (2002, 2003; hereafter HASH) to compute focal mechanisms based on first–motion polarities and S/P amplitude ratios. We manually determine P– and S–wave polarities for a well–recorded reference event in each cluster, then use waveform cross correlation to determine whether recordings of other events in the cluster are the same or reversed polarity at each network station. Here, most waveform polarities are consistent with the affiliated reference event, indicating similar focal mechanisms within each cluster. The deeper clusters are east–west–striking normal faults, whereas the shallower clusters, close to the top of the open–hole section of the borehole, are strike slip with east–west motion. Regional studies and prestimulation borehole breakouts find the maximum stress direction is vertical and maximum horizontal stress is approximately north–south. Fault geometry and focal mechanisms of microseismicity during the stimulation suggest that increased pressure from fluid injection predominantly caused changes in horizontal stress, consistent with predictions from numerical studies of stress change caused by fluid injection. At shallow depths, where previous studies suggest the difference between vertical and horizontal stress is lowest, injection appears to have rotated the direction of maximum stress from vertical to horizontal, resulting in strike–slip motion. At greater depth, vertical stress continued to be the dominant direction during the stimulation, but fault orientation indicates either reactivation of pre–existing fractures or rotation of the direction of maximum horizontal stress from approximately north–south to east–west.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Seismic Characterization of the Nevada National Security Site Using Joint Body Wave, Surface Wave, and Gravity Inversion

As a part of the series of Source Physics Experiments (SPE) conducted on the Nevada National Security Site in southern Nevada, we have developed a local–to–regional scale seismic velocity model of the site and surrounding area. Accurate earth models are critical for modeling sources like the SPE to investigate the role of earth structure on the propagation and scattering of seismic waves. We combine seismic body waves, surface waves, and gravity data in a joint inversion procedure to solve for the optimal 3D seismic compressional and shear–wave velocity structures and earthquake locations subject to model smoothness constraints. Earthquakes, which are relocated as part of the inversion, provide P – and S –body–wave absolute and differential travel times. Active source experiments in the region augment this dataset with P –body–wave absolute times and surface–wave dispersion data. Dense ground–based gravity observations and surface–wave dispersion derived from ambient noise in the region fill in many areas where body–wave data are sparse. In general, the top 1–2 km of the surface is relatively poorly sampled by the body waves alone. However, the addition of gravity and surface waves to the body–wave dataset greatly enhances structural resolvability in the near surface. Here, we discuss the methodology we developed for simultaneous inversion of these disparate data types and briefly describe results of the inversion in the context of previous work in the region.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Complex Fault Geometry of the 2020 M ww 6.5 Monte Cristo Range, Nevada, Earthquake Sequence

On 15 May 2020 an M ww 6.5 earthquake occurred beneath the Monte Cristo Range in the Mina Deflection region of western Nevada. Rapid deployment of eight temporary seismic stations enabled detailed analysis of its productive and slowly decaying aftershock sequence (p=0.8), which included ~18,000 autodetected events in 3.5 months. Double-difference, waveform-based relative relocation of 16,714 earthquakes reveals a complex network of faults, many of which cross the inferred 35-km-long east–northeast-striking, left-lateral mainshock rupture. Seismicity aligns with left-lateral, right-lateral, and normal mechanism moment tensors of 128 of the largest earthquakes. The mainshock occurred near the middle of the aftershock zone at the intersection of two distinct zones of seismicity. In the western section, numerous subparallel, shallow, north-northeast-striking faults form a broad flower-structure-like fault mesh that coalesces at depth into a near-vertical, left-lateral fault. We infer the near-vertical fault to be a region of significant slip in the mainshock and an eastward extension of the left-lateral Candelaria fault. Near the mainshock hypocenter, seismicity occurs on a northeast-striking, west-dipping structure that extends north from the eastern Columbus Salt Marsh normal fault. Together, these two intersecting structures bound the Columbus Salt Marsh tectonic basin. East of this intersection and the mainshock hypocenter, seismicity occurs in a narrow, near-vertical, east-northeast-striking fault zone through to its eastern terminus. At the eastern end, the aftershock zone broadens and extends northwest toward the southern extension of the northwest-striking, right-lateral Petrified Springs fault system. The eastern section hosts significantly fewer aftershocks than the western section, but has more moment release. We infer that shallow aftershocks throughout the system highlight fault-fracture meshes that connect mapped fault systems at depth. Here, comparing earthquake data with surface ruptures and a simple geodetic fault model sheds light on the complexity of this recent M 6.5 Walker Lane earthquake.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Seismic Monitoring near Ithaca, New York, Reveals Nonuniform Distribution of Microseismicity in an Intraplate Region

Abstract Cornell University intends to use a deep direct-use geothermal system to heat its Ithaca, New York, campus. In preparation for this project, the Cornell Seismic Network has been monitoring the background seismicity in this intraplate region since 2019. From January 2020 to June 2023, 95 events were detected within 20 km of the proposed geothermal well site, with local magnitudes ranging from −1.02 to 0.56. None of these events appear in regional or national catalogs. Events locate in a narrow geographic band, with one-fourth exhibiting multimodal hypocentral probability peaks both near the surface and at 1–4 km depth. We relocate events with a joint hypocenter and 1D velocity model inversion, in addition to a fully nonlinear method, and then compare observations with synthetic waveforms. Together, these approaches provide strong evidence for >95% of events locating at the surface or within the 3-km-thick sedimentary sequence. We explore how anthropogenic activity and regional topographic stress may contribute to frequent surficial events. This information is critical for characterizing the background microseismicity for comparison during future geothermal operations. Ithaca’s geology of Paleozoic sediments overlying Precambrian crystalline basement is typical of many continental interiors, so these results also provide insight into intraplate microseismicity patterns.

Geochemistry & Geophysics↗

Basement Fault Activation before Larger Earthquakes in Oklahoma and Kansas

Oklahoma and Kansas experienced unprecedented seismic activity over the past decade due to earthquakes associated with unconventional hydrocarbon development. The modest natural seismicity and incomplete knowledge of the fault network in the region made it difficult to anticipate the locations of earthquakes with larger magnitudes (M w ≥ 4). Here, we show that monitoring of microearthquakes at regional scale using a pretrained neural phase picker and an earthquake relocation algorithm can illuminate unknown fault structures, and deliver information that can be synthesized for earthquake forecasting. We found that 80% of the larger earthquakes that occurred in the past decade could have been anticipated based on the spatial extent of the seismicity clusters that were formed before these earthquakes occurred. We also found that once a seismicity cluster with a length scale enough to host a larger earthquake was formed, there was a ~5% chance that it would host one or more larger earthquakes within a year. This probability is nearly an order of magnitude higher than one based on Gutenberg–Richter statistics and preceding seismicity. Applying our approach in practice can provide critical information on seismic hazards for risk management and regulatory decision making.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Systems Level Regulation of Rhythmic Growth Rate and Biomass Accumulation in Grasses

Objectives: Several breakthroughs have been recently made in our understanding of plant growth and biomass accumulation. It was found that plant growth is rhythmically controlled throughout the day by the circadian clock through a complex interplay of light and phytohormone signaling pathways. While plants such as the C4 energy crop sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) and possibly the C3 grass Brachypodium distachyon also exhibit daily rhythms in growth rate, the molecular details of its regulation remain to be explored. A better understanding of diurnally regulated growth behavior in grasses may lead to species-specific mechanisms highly relevant to future strategies to optimize energy crop biomass yield. Here we propose to devise a systems approach to identify, in parallel, regulatory hubs associated with rhythmic growth in C3 and C4 plants. We propose to use rhythmicity in daily growth patterns to drive the discovery of regulatory network modules controlling biomass accumulation. Description: The project is divided in three main parts: 1) Performing time-lapse imaging and growth measurement in B. distachyon and S. bicolor to determine growth rate dynamic during the day/night cycle. Identifying growth-associated genes whose expression patterns follow the observed growth dynamics using deep sequencing technology, 2) identifying regulators of these genes by screening for DNA-binding proteins interacting with the growth-associated gene promoters identified in Aim 1. Screens will be performed using a validated yeast-one hybrid strategy paired with a specifically designed B. distachyon and S. bicolor transcription factor libraries (1000 clones each), and 3) Selecting 50 potential growth regulators from the screen for downstream characterization. The selection will be made by using a sytems biology approach by calculating the connectivity between growth rate, rhythmic gene expression profiles and TF expression profile and determine which TF is likely part of a hub and a potential regulator of plant growth. We will confirme the 50 DNA-protein interactions using transient transcriptional assays in B. distachyon and S. bicolor, and perform further testing in vivo by measuring growth parameters in transgenic loss- or gain-of-function lines for the selected transcription factors (25 B. distachyon and 3 S. bicolor lines). In 2016 the Principal Investigator relocated the laboratory to The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) where the project has continued with an end date of 08/31/17. Accomplishments: We successfully collected large datasets of gene expression form the model grass Brachypodium. We used and developed bioinformatics analysis tools to investigate the structure, dynamics and robustness of circadian regulated gene expression in Brachypodium. Relevant Discoveries: We were able to determine that the endogenous circadian clock appears to play a much more subdued role in growth regulation in Brachypodium, that has been demonstrated in either Arabidopsis, or crop plants like Rice, Corn and Soybean. This led to our conclusion that Brachypodium unfortunately is unlikely to serve as an informative model for understanding how growth regulation in plants is under the control of circadian network circuitry. However, we were able to leverage our datasets in Brachypodium to inform us and reinforce a large collaborative study on gene networks governing cell wall deposition in Arabidopsis. This led to a major and highly cited publication relevant to improving biomass production.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

The MELTSPREAD Code for Modeling of Ex-Vessel Core Debris Spreading Behavior, Code Manual – Version3-beta

MELTSPREAD3 is a transient one-dimensional computer code that has been developed to predict the gravity-driven flow and freezing behavior of molten reactor core materials (corium) in containment geometries. Predictions can be made for corium flowing across surfaces under either dry or wet cavity conditions. The spreading surfaces that can be selected are steel, concrete, a user-specified material (e.g., a ceramic), or an arbitrary combination thereof. The corium can have a wide range of compositions of reactor core materials that includes distinct oxide phases (predominantly Zr, and steel oxides) plus metallic phases (predominantly Zr and steel). The code requires input that describes the containment geometry, melt “pour” conditions, and cavity atmospheric conditions (i.e., pressure, temperature, and cavity flooding information). For cases in which the cavity contains a preexisting water layer at the time of RPV failure, melt jet breakup and particle bed formation can be calculated mechanistically given the time-dependent melt pour conditions (input data) as well as the heatup and boiloff of water in the melt impingement zone (calculated). For core debris impacting either the containment floor or previously spread material, the code calculates the transient hydrodynamics and heat transfer which determine the spreading and freezing behavior of the melt. The code predicts conditions at the end of the spreading stage, including melt relocation distance, depth and material composition profiles, substrate ablation profile, and wall heatup. Code output can be used as input to other models such as CORQUENCH that evaluate long term core-concrete interaction behavior following the transient spreading stage. MELTSPREAD3 was originally developed to investigate BWR Mark I liner vulnerability, but has been substantially upgraded and applied to other reactor designs (e.g., the EPR), and more recently to the plant accidents at Fukushima Daiichi. The most recent round of improvements that are documented in this report have been specifically implemented to support industry in developing Severe Accident Water Management (SAWM) strategies for Boiling Water Reactors.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

FY2017 Report on NISC Measurements and Detector Simulations

FY17 work focused on automation, both of the measurement analysis and comparison of simulations. The experimental apparatus was relocated and weeks of continuous measurements of the spontaneous fission source 252 Cf was performed. Programs were developed to automate the conversion of measurements into ROOT data framework files with a simple terminal input. The complete analysis of the measurement (which includes energy calibration and the identification of correlated counts) can now be completed with a documented process which involves one simple execution line as well. Finally, the hurdles of slow MCNP simulations resulting in low simulation statistics have been overcome with the generation of multi-run suites which make use of the highperformance computing resources at LANL. Preliminary comparisons of measurements and simulations have been performed and will be the focus of FY18 work.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Electrodeless, Non-Invasive X-Ray Flux Monitor

Flux monitoring is a must at modern x-ray light sources for alignment, measurement feedback and calibration. Dedicated x-ray flux monitors occupy space, absorb part of the beam and cannot be easily relocated. At the same time numerous x-ray beamline elements (vacuum windows, monochromators, refractive lenses, zone plates to name a few) inevitably absorb portion of the x-ray beam which is proportional to incoming flux. At present there are no devices which can measure flux non-invasively based on this parasitic absorption

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗