DMS and SO2 at Baring Head, New Zealand: Implications for the Yield of SO2 from DMS

Atmospheric dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) concentrations were measured at Baring Head, New Zealandduring February and March 2000. Anti-correlated DMS and SO₂ diurnalcycles, consistent with the photochemical production of SO₂ from DMS, were observed in clean southerly air off the ocean. The data is used to infer a yield of SO₂ from DMS oxidation. The estimated yields are highly dependent on assumptions about the DMS oxidation rate. Fitting the measured data in a photochemical box model using model-generated OH levels and the Hynes et al. (1986) DMS + OH rate constant suggests that theSO₂ yield is 50–100%, similar to current estimates for the tropical Pacific.However, the observed amplitude of the DMS diurnal cycle suggests that the oxidation rate is higher than that used by the model, and therefore, that theSO₂ yield is lower in the range of 20–40%.     

Paleoecology of a Middle Wisconsin Deposit from Southern California

Analysis of a buried deposit in the Diamond Valley of southern California has revealed well-preserved pollen, wood, and diatom remains. Accelerator mass spectrometry dates of 41,200±2100 and 41,490±1380 ¹⁴C yr B.P. place this deposit in marine isotope stage 3. Diatoms suggest a shallow lacustrine environment. Pollen data suggest that several plant communities were present near the site, with grassland, scrub, chaparral, forest, and riparian communities represented. Comparison with modern pollen suggests similarities with montane forests in the nearby San Bernardino and San Jacinto ranges, indicating vegetation lowering by at least 900 m elevation and temperatures 4°–5°C cooler than today. An increase in high-elevation conifer pollen documents climatic cooling near the profile top. Early-profile diatoms are typical of warm water with high alkalinity and conductivity, whereas later diatoms suggest a higher flow regime and input of cooler water into the system. We suggest that the sequence is part of the cooling phase of an interstadial Dansgaard–Oeschger cycle. Records of the middle Wisconsin period are rare in southern California, but the Diamond Valley site is similar to records from Tulare Lake in the San Joaquin Valley and the ODP Site 893A record from Santa Barbara Basin. It is probable that the Diamond Valley assemblage is a local expression of a vegetation type widespread in the ranges and basins of southwestern California during the middle Wisconsin.     

The ups and downs of “Tectonic Quiescence”—recognizing differential subsidence in the epicontinental sea of the Oxfordian in the Swiss Jura Mountains

Recent studies in northern Switzerland have shown that epicontinental areas thought to have been tectonically stable during the Mesozoic were not necessarily as rigid as presumed. By comparing Oxfordian facies boundaries and depocenters in their palinspastic position with known faults in the basement, a direct relationship between the two can be demonstrated. Previously, the lack of obvious synsedimentary tectonic features has lulled scientists into believing that the realm of the Swiss Jura was tectonically stable during the Mesozoic. However, it can be shown that facies and sedimentary structures are largely influenced by tectonics. Subsurface data provide evidence for the presence of Paleozoic troughs in the basement which, apparently, were prone to reactivation during the Pan-European stress-field reorganization taking place in the Late Jurassic. This led to differential subsidence along pre-existing lineaments within the study area, which can be recognized in the distribution of Oxfordian epicontinental basins and their coeval shallow-water counterparts. Eustatic sea-level fluctuations played an important role in the development of shallow-water facies patterns, but a subordinate role in the control of accommodation space in basins.

While tectonic activity is often recorded in the sedimentary record in the form of platform break-ups and associated sedimentary debris, more subtle indicators may be overlooked or even misinterpreted. Sedimentary structures and isopach maps, as well as subsurface data in the study area suggest that subtle synsedimentary tectonic movements led to the formation of two shallow, diachronous epicontinental basins during the Late Jurassic. It becomes possible to recognize and differentiate the combined effects of local and regional tectonism, eustasy and sedimentation.     

Common-Reflection-Surface Stack for Converted Waves

The finite-offset (FO) common-reflection-surface (CRS) stack has been shown to be able to handle not only P-P or S-S but also arbitrarily converted reflections. It can provide different stack sections such as common-offset (CO), common-midpoint (CMP) and common-shot (CS) sections with significantly increased signal-to-noise ratio from the multi-coverage pre-stack seismic data in a data-driven way. It is our purpose in this paper to demonstrate the performance of the FO CRS stack on data involving converted waves in inhomogeneous layered media. In order to do this we apply the FO CRS stack for common-offset to a synthetic seismic data set involving P-P as well as P-S converted primary reflections. We show that the FO CRS stack yields convincing improvement of the image quality in the presence of noisy data and successfully extracts kinematic wavefield attributes useful for further analyses. The extracted emergence angle information is used to achieve a complete separation of the wavefield into its P-P and P-S wave components, given the FO CRS stacked horizontal and vertical component sections.     

Rates of deformation of an extensional growth fault/raft system (offshore Congo, West African margin) from combined accommodation measurements and 3-D restoration

The aim of this paper is to quantify the evolution in time and space of the accommodation (space available for sedimentation) in the case of a growth fault structure resulting from gravity‐induced extension comprising a listric fault/raft system located along the West African margin. To achieve this, use was made of an original approach combining two complementary techniques (accommodation variation measurements and 3‐D restoration) in order to quantify vertical and horizontal displacement related to deformation, using a data set made up of a 3‐D seismic survey and well logs. We applied sequence stratigraphic principles to (i) define a detailed stratigraphic framework for the Albo‐Cenomanian and (ii) measure subsidence rates from accommodation variations. 3‐D restoration was used to (iii) reconstruct the evolution of the 3‐D geometry of the fault system. The rates of horizontal displacement of structural units were measured and linked to successive stages in the growth of the fault system. Subsidence of the structural units exhibits three scales of variation: (1) long‐term variation (10 Ma) of c. 80 m Ma^?1 for a total subsidence of about 1400 m, compatible with the general subsidence of a passive margin, and (2) short‐term variations (1–5 Ma) corresponding to two periods of rapid subsidence (about 150–250 m Ma^?1) alternating with periods of moderate subsidence rate (around 30 m Ma^?1). These variations are linked to the development of the fault system during the Albian (with downbuilding of the raft and development of the initial basin located in between). During the Cenomanian, the development of the graben located between the lower raft and the initial basin did not seem to affect the vertical displacements. (3) High‐frequency variations (at the scale of genetic unit sets) range between ?50 and 250 m for periods of 0.2–2 Ma. Accommodation variations governed these cycles of progradation/retrogradation rather than sediment flux variations. In addition, the nine wells display a highly consistent pattern of variation in accommodation. This suggests that the genetic unit sets were controlled at a larger scale than the studied system (larger than 20 km in wavelength), for example, by eustatic variations. Translation rates are between 3 and 30 times higher than subsidence rates. Therefore, in terms of amplitude, the main parameter controlling the space available for sedimentation is the structural development of the fault system, that is to say, the seaward translation of the raft units, itself resulting from a regional gravity‐driven extension.     

Seismic evidence for deep low-velocity anomalies in the transition zone beneath West Antarctica

We present a three-dimensional (3D) SV-wave velocity model of the upper mantle beneath the Antarctic plate constrained by fundamental and higher mode Rayleigh waves recorded at regional distances. The good agreement between our results and previous surface wave studies in the uppermost 200 km of the mantle confirms that despite strong differences in data processing, modern surface wave tomographic techniques allow to produce consistent velocity models, even at regional scale. At greater depths the higher mode information present in our data set allows us to improve the resolution compared to previous regional surface wave studies in Antarctica that were all restricted to the analysis of the fundamental mode. This paper is therefore mostly devoted to the discussion of the deeper part of the model. Our seismic model displays broad domains of anomalously low seismic velocities in the asthenosphere. Moreover, we show that some of these broad, low-velocity regions can be more deeply rooted. The most remarkable new features of our model are vertical low-velocity structures extending from the asthenosphere down to the transition zone beneath the volcanic region of Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica and a portion of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge close to the Balleny Islands hotspot. A deep low-velocity anomaly may also exist beneath the Ross Sea hotspot. These vertical structures cannot be explained by vertical smearing of shallow seismic anomalies and synthetic tests show that they are compatible with a structure narrower than 200 km which would have been horizontally smoothed by the tomographic inversion. These deep low-velocity anomalies may favor the existence of several distinct mantle plumes, instead of a large single one, as the origin of volcanism in and around West Antarctica. These hypothetical deep plumes could feed large regions of low seismic velocities in the asthenosphere.     

Data Assimilation (4D-VAR) for Shallow-Water Flow: The Case of the Chicoutimi River

This is a web presentation of the work presented at the 10th Annual Conference of the CFD Society of Canada, “CFD 2002”, at the University of Windsor on June 9-11, 2002. This discussion paper presents the four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4D-VAR) technique as a tool to forecast floods. This discussion will be limited to hydrological forecast. We assume that the weather, here a large rainstorm, had already been forecasted by the meteorological services. In the 4D-VAR technique, we need to minimize, in the sense of Lagrange, a cost function which measures the difference between the forecast and the observations. The physical equations acts as a set of constraints. Here, the model is the shallow-water equations modified to include sediment transport. The minimum was found by using the steepest descent algorithm. This is made possible because the gradient of the cost function can be calculated analytically by using the adjoint equations of the model. To illustrate the 4D-VAR technique, the bypass of a simple theoretical dam as well as the more complex overflowing of the Chicoutimi River at the Chute-Garneau dam (during the 1996 flood) are investigated.