[Practicing veterinarians' perception of bovine ringworm as herd health problem]. / Trichophytie als Bestandsproblem in der Wahrnehmung praktizierender Tierärzte.

OBJECTIVE: Bovine ringworm (tinea) is generally described as a disease occurring regularly in cattle. Actual data are rare, whereas the disease is regularly reported in case reports. To eradicate bovine ringworm, perception as well as measures, including hygiene and disinfection, are required. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In a course for continuing education, 378 practicing veterinarians were asked in a questionnaire to state their view on bovine ringworm. RESULTS: The majority of the participants stated that ringworm was not satisfactorily perceived as an animal health problem and that the zoonotic potential was underestimated. A majority of participants agreed to diagnose ringworm on farms regularly and stated that they were involved in treating the disease. The participating veterinarians felt, however, that perception of ringworm by the farms themselves was inadequate. Vaccination was generally judged as being helpful. CONCLUSIONS: Generally, practising veterinarians feel that bovine ringworm is being perceived as less important by farms than by themselves. It is to be concluded that more information and offers regarding the treatment for ringworm could contribute to more effective engagement in the disease.

Porosity, permeability and 3D fracture network characterisation of dolomite reservoir rock samples.

With fractured rocks making up an important part of hydrocarbon reservoirs worldwide, detailed analysis of fractures and fracture networks is essential. However, common analyses on drill core and plug samples taken from such reservoirs (including hand specimen analysis, thin section analysis and laboratory porosity and permeability determination) however suffer from various problems, such as having a limited resolution, providing only 2D and no internal structure information, being destructive on the samples and/or not being representative for full fracture networks. In this paper, we therefore explore the use of an additional method - non-destructive 3D X-ray micro-Computed Tomography (µCT) - to obtain more information on such fractured samples. Seven plug-sized samples were selected from narrowly fractured rocks of the Hauptdolomit formation, taken from wellbores in the Vienna basin, Austria. These samples span a range of different fault rocks in a fault zone interpretation, from damage zone to fault core. We process the 3D µCT data in this study by a Hessian-based fracture filtering routine and can successfully extract porosity, fracture aperture, fracture density and fracture orientations - in bulk as well as locally. Additionally, thin sections made from selected plug samples provide 2D information with a much higher detail than the µCT data. Finally, gas- and water permeability measurements under confining pressure provide an important link (at least in order of magnitude) towards more realistic reservoir conditions. This study shows that 3D µCT can be applied efficiently on plug-sized samples of naturally fractured rocks, and that although there are limitations, several important parameters can be extracted. µCT can therefore be a useful addition to studies on such reservoir rocks, and provide valuable input for modelling and simulations. Also permeability experiments under confining pressure provide important additional insights. Combining these and other methods can therefore be a powerful approach in microstructural analysis of reservoir rocks, especially when applying the concepts that we present (on a small set of samples) in a larger study, in an automated and standardised manner.

Dilatant shear band formation and diagenesis in calcareous, arkosic sandstones, Vienna Basin (Austria).

The present study examines deformation bands in calcareous arkosic sands. The investigated units can be considered as an equivalent to the Matzen field in the Vienna Basin (Austria), which is one of the most productive oil reservoirs in central Europe. The outcrop exposes carbonate-free and carbonatic sediments of Badenian age separated by a normal fault. Carbonatic sediments in the hanging wall of the normal fault develop dilation bands with minor shear displacements (< 2 mm), whereas carbonate-free sediments in the footwall develop cataclastic shear bands with up to 70 cm displacement. The cataclastic shear bands show a permeability reduction up to 3 orders of magnitude and strong baffling effects in the vadose zone. Carbonatic dilation bands show a permeability reduction of 1-2 orders of magnitude and no baffling structures. We distinguished two types of deformation bands in the carbonatic units, which differ in deformation mechanisms, distribution and composition. Full-cemented bands form as dilation bands with an intense syn-kinematic calcite cementation, whereas the younger loose-cemented bands are dilatant shear bands cemented by patchy calcite and clay minerals. All analyzed bands are characterized by a porosity and permeability reduction caused by grain fracturing and cementation. The changed petrophysical properties and especially the porosity evolution are closely related to diagenetic processes driven by varying pore fluids in different diagenetic environments. The deformation band evolution and sealing capacity is controlled by the initial host rock composition.

Deformation bands evolving from dilation to cementation bands in a hydrocarbon reservoir (Vienna Basin, Austria).

In this study we analyzed five core samples from a hydrocarbon reservoir, the Matzen Field in the Vienna Basin (Austria). Deformation bands occur as single bands or as strands of several bands. In contrast to most published examples of deformation bands in terrigeneous sandstones, the reduction of porosity is predominantly caused by the precipitation of Fe-rich dolomite cement within the bands, and only subordinately by cataclasis of detrital grains. The chemical composition of this dolomite cement (10-12 wt% FeO) differs from detrital dolomite grains in the host rock (<2 wt% FeO). This observation in combination with stable isotope data suggests that the cement is not derived from the detrital grains, but precipitated from a fluid from an external, non-meteoric source. After an initial increase of porosity by dilation, disaggregation and fragmentation of detrital grains, a Fe-rich carbonate fluid crystallized within the bands, thereby reducing the porosity relative to the host sediment. The retention of pyrite cement by these cementation bands as well as the different degree of oil staining on either side of the bands demonstrate that these cementation bands act as effective barriers to the migration of fluids and should be considered in reservoir models.

The impact of ellipsoidal particle shape on pebble breakage in gravel.

We have studied the influence of particle shape and consequently loading configuration on the breakage load of fluvial pebbles. Unfortunately, physical strength tests on pebbles, i.e., point-load tests, can only be conducted under one specific stable loading configuration. Therefore, the physical uniaxial strength tests performed in this study were extended by a two-dimensional finite-element stress analysis, which is capable of investigating those scenarios that are not possible in physical tests. Breakage load, equivalent to that measured in unidirectional physical tests, was determined from the results of the stress analysis by a maximum tensile stress-based failure criterion. Using this assumption, allows the determination of breakage load for a range of different kind of synthetic loading configurations and its comparison with the natural breakage load distribution of the physical strength tests. The results of numerical modelling indicated that the configuration that required the least breakage load corresponded with the minor principal axis of the ellipsoidal pebbles. In addition, most of the simulated gravel-hosted loading configurations exceeded the natural breakage load distribution of fluvial pebbles obtained from the physical strength tests.

Preferential cataclastic grain size reduction of feldspar in deformation bands in poorly consolidated arkosic sands.

This study presents microstructural as well as bulk and mineral chemical investigations of deformation bands in uncemented, friable arkosic sands of Miocene age (Vienna Basin, Austria). Our microstructural study indicates grain size reduction by grain flaking in deformation bands with small offsets (0.5-8 cm), and dominant intragranular fracturing and cataclasis of altered feldspar grains at larger displacements (up to 60 cm). Relative to quartz, the sericitized feldspar grains are preferably fractured and abraded, which additionally leads to an enrichment of mainly phyllosilicates by mechanical expulsion from feldspar. Both cataclasis of quartz and feldspar grains and enrichment of phyllosilicates result in grain size reduction within the deformation bands. The measured reduction in porosity of up to 20% is in some cases associated with a permeability reduction, reflected in the retention of iron-oxide rich fluids along deformation bands. These deformation bands formed at very shallow burial depths in unconsolidated sediments indicate that fault sealing may occur in the absence of chemical alteration of the deformation bands and lead to a compartmentalization of a groundwater or hydrocarbon reservoir.

Displacement-length scaling of brittle faults in ductile shear.

Within a low-grade ductile shear zone, we investigated exceptionally well exposed brittle faults, which accumulated antithetic slip and rotated into the shearing direction. The foliation planes of the mylonitic host rock intersect the faults approximately at their centre and exhibit ductile reverse drag. Three types of brittle faults can be distinguished: (i) Faults developing on pre-existing K-feldspar/mica veins that are oblique to the shear direction. These faults have triclinic flanking structures. (ii) Wing cracks opening as mode I fractures at the tips of the triclinic flanking structures, perpendicular to the shear direction. These cracks are reactivated as faults with antithetic shear, extend from the parent K-feldspar/mica veins and form a complex linked flanking structure system. (iii) Joints forming perpendicular to the shearing direction are deformed to form monoclinic flanking structures. Triclinic and monoclinic flanking structures record elliptical displacement-distance profiles with steep displacement gradients at the fault tips by ductile flow in the host rocks, resulting in reverse drag of the foliation planes. These structures record one of the greatest maximum displacement/length ratios reported from natural fault structures. These exceptionally high ratios can be explained by localized antithetic displacement along brittle slip surfaces, which did not propagate during their rotation during surrounding ductile flow.

Monoclinic and triclinic 3D flanking structures around elliptical cracks.

We use the Eshelby solution modified for a viscous fluid to model the evolution of three-dimensional flanking structures in monoclinic shear zones. Shearing of an elliptical crack strongly elongated perpendicular to the flow direction produces a cylindrical flanking structure which is reproducible with 2D plane strain models. In contrast, a circular or even narrow, slit-shaped crack exhibits a reduced magnitude of the velocity jump across the crack and results in smaller offset and a narrower zone of deflection than predicted with 2D-models. Even more significant deviations are observed if the crack axes are oriented at an oblique angle to the principal flow directions, where the velocity jump is oblique to the resolved shear direction and is modified during progressive deformation. The resulting triclinic geometry represents a rare example of triclinic structures developing in monoclinic flow and may be used to estimate the flow kinematics of the shear zone.