Hydrologic responses to earthquakes and their mechanisms have been widely studied. Some responses have been attributed to increases in the vertical permeability. However, basic questions remain: How do increases in the vertical permeability occur? How frequently do they occur? Is there a quantitative measure for detecting the occurrence of aquitard breaching? We try to answer these questions by examining data from a dense network of ∼50 monitoring stations of clustered wells in a sedimentary basin near the epicenter of the 1999 M7.6 Chi-Chi earthquake in western Taiwan. While most stations show evidence that confined aquifers remained confined after the earthquake, about 10% of the stations show evidence of coseismic breaching of aquitards, creating vertical permeability as high as that of aquifers. The water levels in wells without evidence of coseismic breaching of aquitards show tidal responses similar to that of a confined aquifer before and after the earthquake. Those wells with evidence of coseismic breaching of aquitards, on the other hand, show distinctly different postseismic tidal response. Furthermore, the postseismic tidal response of different aquifers became strikingly similar, suggesting that the aquifers became hydraulically connected and the connection was maintained many months thereafter. Breaching of aquitards by large earthquakes has significant implications for a number of societal issues such as the safety of water resources, the security of underground waste repositories, and the production of oil and gas. The method demonstrated here may be used for detecting the occurrence of aquitard breaching by large earthquakes in other seismically active areas.

With the rapid development of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) in biomedical applications, their biocompatibility and cytotoxicity need to be evaluated properly. Recently, it has been demonstrated that inflammasome activation may be a vital contributing factor for the development of biological responses induced by ENMs. Among the inflammasome family, NLRP3 inflammasome has received the most attention because it directly interacts with ENMs to cause the inflammatory effects. However, the pathways that link ENMs to NLRP3 inflammasome have not been thoroughly summarized. Thus, we reviewed recent findings on the role of major ENMs properties in modulating NLRP3 inflammasome activation, both in vitro and in vivo, to provide a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms. In addition, the interactions between ENMs and NLRP3 inflammasome activation are summarized, which may advance our understanding of safer designs of nanomaterials and ENM-induced adverse health effects.

The response of unconfined aquifers to Earth's solid tides (Earth tides) has been used to study a number of hydrogeological, environmental, and ecological processes. The traditional interpretation of such responses has been based on a model that assumes free flow of groundwater to the water table, even though capillary effects have long been recognized to influence the response of coastal aquifers to ocean tides. Here we study the capillary effect on the response of unconfined aquifers to Earth tides, using a numerical procedure that couples groundwater flow and poroelastic strain in both the saturated and the unsaturated zones. We show that when the water table rises to the surface and the capillary zone disappears, the predicted tidal response is identical to that predicted by the traditional model. But when the capillary zone is present when the water table falls below the surface, the predicted amplitude ratio and phase shift depart notably from those predicted by the traditional model. We apply the model to a field case where large seasonal changes of tidal response have been documented. We show that the large seasonal changes in the tidal response may be due to the change of the water table from a capillary-affected state to a capillary-free state when the water table rises annually to the ground surface. Thus, the omission of the capillary effects in the interpretation of the response of unconfined aquifers to Earth tides may lead to incorrect inference of subsurface processes and properties.