Comet Ikeya-Zhang rises for the NAM

A possible naked-eye comet that may have been important in early cometary theory is announced by D J Asher , M E Bailey , A Christou , J McFarland , M F Muir and P P Rafferty .
Early indications sugest that Comet C/2002 (Ikeya-Zhang), discovered on 1 February 2002, may brighten to naked-eye visibility in late March 2002. It has also been suggested that it may be identical to one of the brighter comets of the 16th or 17th centuries, namely C/1532 R1 or C/1661 C1. The first of these, observed for more than 100 days towards the end of 1532, played an important role in the development of cometary theory. The second, although identified by Halley as having an orbit similar to that of the comet C/1532 R1, was not seen on its predicted return in 1788/1789 and so was presumably unrelated. Here we present long-term orbital integrations of C/2002 C1 which suggest that it orginated from the Oort cloud, and will be ejected again, within ˜0.3 Myr. There is a chance of 10–20% that it will end its life by falling into the Sun during a Halley-type phase of cometary evolution. The discovery of Ikeya-Zhang so closeto perigee by two amateur astonomers highlights the need for surveys covering both hemispheres to discover long-period and intermediate-period comets on Earth-crossing orbits.     

Associations Between Rural Land Uses and Ground Water Quality in the Ogallala Aquifer, Northwest Texas

Recent nitrate, chloride, and bromide concentrations were studied in the Ogallala Aquifer of northwest Texas. The study included 361 wells with a median depth of 92 m in a rural area dominated by agricultural activity and oil and gas production. Only five observations surpassed the 44.3 mg/L standard for nitrate (10 mg/L NO₃-N). Four other observations, and one from the preceding set, exceeded the secondary standard of 250 mg/L for chloride. Maximum concentrations were 91.2 mg/L, 1530 mg/L, and 0.70 mg/L for nitrate, chloride, and bromide, respectively. Chloride/bromide ratios covered a broad range, from 30.4 to 10930, but medians were < 160 for each of two years analyzed. There were statistically significant correlations between nitrate and chloride, and chloride and well depth. Results of this study suggest that agricultural activity has locally impacted ground water in north-west Texas. Regionally, low aquifer recharge rates have curtailed ground water contamination from potentially adverse land uses.     

Transport and Housing Security in the Klang Valley, Malaysia

This paper explores links between transport and housing security issues for the urban poor using the example of the Klang Valley in Malaysia. The interface between these issues is identified as a gap in the literature, including policy debates, on both housing and transport. A number of linkages are shown to be important and likely to be relevant in many cities of the South, especially those with rapid motorisation and large numbers of "squatters". A simple framework for understanding these linkages is presented. Key examples include displacement to make way for transport infrastructure and the impact on transport problems for the poor of policies affecting the location of urban poor housing, including relocation sites and transit accommodation. The case study of the Klang Valley is used to illustrate and test the relevance of a focus on this issue and the utility of the conceptual framework. Some policy implications of the investigation and case study are suggested.     

Hydrologic and geomorphic processes in the Colville River delta, Alaska

The Colville basin drains the North Slope of Alaska and is one of several large Arctic river systems located within permafrost. The timing and style of fluvial processes in the earth's permafrost regions differ from those occurring in midlatitude settings. Moreover, in comparison to temperate-zone systems, rivers located entirely within permafrost perform most of their work during relatively short periods of time. This paper examines river ice hydrology and the resulting geomorphic processes that occur within the Colville delta, Alaska. Fluvial processes and landform development within the Colville delta occur after the flood-pulse is initiated by the breakup of river ice. During this 4-month period, the geomorphic processes are largely influenced by the movement of ice. The flood-pulse and accompanying river ice influences erosional and depositional processes and results in unique styles of sediment transport, deposition, and riverbank erosion.     

Practical VTI approximations: a systematic anatomy

Transverse isotropy (TI) with a vertical symmetry axis (VTI) often provides an appropriate earth model for prestack imaging of steep-dip reflection seismic data. Exact P-wave and SV-wave phase velocities in VTI media are described by complicated equations requiring four independent parameters. Estimating appropriate multiparameter earth models can be difficult and time-consuming, so it is often useful to replace the exact VTI equations with simpler approximations requiring fewer parameters. The accuracy limits of different previously published VTI approximations are not always clear, nor is it always obvious how these different approximations relate to each other. Here I present a systematic framework for deriving a variety of useful VTI approximations. I develop first a sequence of well-defined approximations to the exact P-wave and SV-wave phase velocities. In doing so, I show how the useful but physically questionable heuristic of setting shear velocities identically to zero can be replaced with a more precise and quantifiable approximation. The key here to deriving accurate approximations is to replace the stiffness a₁₃ with an appropriate factorization in terms of velocity parameters. Two different specific parameter choices lead to the P-wave approximations of Alkhalifah (Geophysics 63 (1998) 623) and Schoenberg and de Hoop (Geophysics 65 (2000) 919), but there are actually an infinite number of reasonable parametrizations possible. Further approximations then lead to a variety of other useful phase velocity expressions, including those of Thomsen (Geophysics 51 (1986) 1954), Dellinger et al. (Journal of Seismic Exploration 2 (1993) 23), Harlan (Stanford Exploration Project Report 89 (1995) 145), and Stopin (Stopin, A., 2001. Comparison of v(θ) equations in TI medium. 9th International Workshop on Seismic Anisotropy). Each P-wave phase velocity approximation derived this way can be paired naturally with a corresponding SV-wave approximation. Each P-wave or SV-wave phase velocity approximation can then be converted into an equivalent dispersion relation in terms of horizontal and vertical slownesses. A simple heuristic substitution also allows each phase velocity approximation to be converted into an explicit group velocity approximation. From these, in turn, travel time or moveout approximations can also be derived. The group velocity and travel time approximations derived this way include ones previously used by Byun et al. (Geophysics 54 (1989) 1564), Dellinger et al. (Journal of Seismic Exploration 2 (1993) 23), Tsvankin and Thomsen (Geophysics 59 (1994) 1290), Harlan (89 (1995) 145), and Zhang and Uren (Zhang, F. and Uren, N., 2001. Approximate explicit ray velocity functions and travel times for P-waves in TI media. 71st Annual International Meeting, Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Expanded Abstracts, 106–109).     

Dark skies action

Helen Walker and Paul Murdin report on the Royal Astronomical Society's involvement in government action to protect dark skies.