vol.45

No.1

一日の生活イメージ

Coastal erosion in Senegal


No.2

体験学習イメージ

Kushiro coal mine is a famous submarine coal mine in the eastern part of Hokkaido district in Japan. Figure shows that an excavated new longwall mining face in 2002, which is 330 meters in depth under the sea floor and minus 350 meters in elevation, exposes an old adit with wooden supports excavated between 1955 and 1965 that is filled by deformed coal rich layers such as folding. The layers under the invert at the adit have upheaved to the roof of the adit. Other old adits often fill their spaces with ground water. A plan of study tunnel in the mine will be considered to clarify the mechanism of their strange phenomena.

(Photographed by Yoshihisa ICHIHARA)


No.3

英語学習イメージ

Kakinohana river (Kakinohanahijya), located at Tamaki village south of Okinawa island. This natural spring selected one of the Japanese 100 fine natural water in 1985 by the Environment Agency, is situated about 300m down along stone pavement path south of village. This spring water gush out from Ryukyu Limestone which deposited in Pleistocene age, have supported the life of people in village. Family and others visit this place for relaxation and good landscape mainly in summer season.


No.4

英語学習イメージ

A large and devastating earthquake, Chi-chi earthquake, occurred in central Taiwan on September 21st. This earthquake caused by the slide of the Chelongpu fault. The new waterfall with 5-meter vertical offset was formed in the Tachia River. The left under photograph show the site just after the earthquake and the upper one show present situation. Chinshui Shale at Pliocene, partially including sandstone and mudstone, was weathered on that area. Collapsed Pifeng bridge over the fault has been rebuilt in the way that remained part and new part of bridge have been connected. But the bridge is not straight horizontally due to the fault displacement.

(Photograph by Dr. Weiren Lin)


No.5

英語学習イメージ

A scenic photo along Tan-Lu fault zone in the east of Heifei city, Anhui prefecture, China.
Tan-Lu (Tancheng-Lujiang) fault is a major fault, which extends more than 2,400km from the north bank of downstream area of Chang Jiang river to the northwest China through Shandong peninsula with direction of north-northeast.
The location of this photo is a southern part of Tan-Lu fault, about 130km west-southwest from Nanjing city. Landslide scars are found sporadically in this region. Their occurrence coincides with outcrops of fracture zone of limestone (right in the photo, near view) and granite (middle in the photo, distant view). On the other hand, smoke rises up from the back side of rock-fill dam (left in the photo). This smoke results from rich clay mining in this fault fracture zone. The power lines (upper in the photo) run from here to coal thermal power plants in Heifei city.

(Photographed by Kazuo KOSAKA)


No.6

英語学習イメージ

The cover of this issue was photographed during the field trip of the 2004 Fall Convention of the Japanese Association of Groundwater Hydrology held in Kumamoto November 2004. Groundwater in the Kumamoto region is recharged in the Kikuchi Plateau lying next to the foot of the Aso Caldera and the middle Shirakawa River Basin. The water-bearing stratum in the region consists of the deposit of Aso pyroclastic flow and Togawa lava. Togawa lava (lower left photo) is especially porous and cranny, and forms a major groundwater flow path to Lake Ezuko (upper photo) where 400,000 tons of water springs daily. The waterworks department of the local government takes the water from the stratum. The lower right photo shows a swimming pool utilizing the abundant supply of water in the area.

(Photographed by Isao SHIOZAKI)