Liquid Immiscibility of Boninite in Xiangcheng, Southwestern China, and Its implication to Genetic Relationship between Boninite and Komatiitic Basalt

Boninitic rocks and associated high-magnesian basalt and high-iron tholeiite in the Xiangcheng area constitute the basal horizon of the arc volcanic sequence in the Triassic Yidun Island-Arc, southwestern China. The boninite occurs as pillow, massive and ocellar lavas; the last one possesses well-developed globular structure and alternates with the former two. The boninite is characterized by the absence of phenocrysts of olivine and low-Ca pyroxenes and by low CaO/Al2O3 ratios (<0.67) and high Cr (>1000 ppm) and Ni (>250 ppm). The normalized abundance patterns (NAP) of trace elements to primitive mantle are similar to the NAP of low-Ca modern boninites and SHMB in the Archaean and Proterozoic.As a mechanism of ocellar texture, liquid immiscibility in boninite is supported by the following lines of evidence: (a) sharp contact between ocelli and matrix, (b) constant volumetric ratios of ocelli/matrix and common coalescence of ocelli in ocellar rocks, (c) identical micro-spinifex textures and mineral asse     

Influence of natural heterogeneity on the efficiency of chemical floods in source zones

Several technologies for cleaning up DNAPLs in source zones rely on solubilizing contaminants or destroying them in situ. Typically, these approaches employ an injection/withdrawal system to recirculate this treatment fluids. Our interest is in examining factors that influence delivery efficiency. Although many factors can affect this efficiency, this study looks at the combined influence of density-driven flow and porous media heterogeneities. The analysis is based on a series of numerical simulations of hypothetical chemical floods (e.g., potassium permanganate), which are highly resolved in space and time with a scale that is typical of field installations. Results indicate that the characteristics of convective mixing, i.e., natural, forced, and mixed convection, greatly affect delivery efficiency and patterns of mass transport. The ratio of the Grashof number (Gr) and Reynolds number (Re) proved useful in interpreting the patterns of flooding in a homogeneous porous medium. When higher-permeability layers are included in the domain, they act as conduits, effectively expediting the transport of treatment chemicals from injection to recovery wells. These large fluxes of chemicals in the high-permeability layers produce significant flooding inefficiencies. The problem is less severe in heterogeneous medium where the connectivity through the treatment zone is less well developed. Overall, this paper illustrates that density effects and high-permeability pathways need to be considered in designing chemical floods.     

Performance Analysis of the χMD Matrix Solver Package for MODFLOW-USG

The χMD matrix solver package is incorporated into USGS groundwater modeling software, such as MODFLOW-NWT, MODFLOW-USG, and MT3D. The solver is used to solve matrices assembled through numerical discretization of the groundwater flow equation, and solute transport equations. χMD has demonstrated its higher robustness, faster execution speed, and more efficient memory usage compared to the existing solvers for many types of groundwater flow problems. χMD uses preconditioned iterative Krylov-subspace methods and consists of preconditioning and acceleration modules. Because the solver package uses a variety of preconditioning features including level-based incomplete lower-upper (ILU) factorization method with a drop tolerance scheme, users must choose optimal preconditioning parameters to improve execution speed and robustness. In order to examine how the preconditioning parameters, ILU factorization level, and drop tolerance values affect the overall performance of the matrix solver, we evaluated five different groundwater model applications using MODFLOW-USG that include different numerical complexities. For those five cases, the number of discretization nodes varied from 10,000 cells to 730,300 cells. From the analysis, we found that the preconditioning parameters greatly affect execution times and memory usage of the preconditioning and acceleration procedures. In addition, a combination of the ILU level between five to seven and the drop tolerance value between 10⁻² and 10⁻³ usually resulted in shorter overall execution time. Our study suggests that the users can elicit higher performance and robustness of the χMD matrix solver using this combination of the parameters and enhance computational efficiency of solving groundwater and solute transport problems.     

NATURE OF PRECIPITATION AND ACTIVITY OF CUMULUS CONVECTION DURING THE 1991 MEIYU SEASON OF CHANGJIANG-HUAIHE RIVER BASIN

Seasonal variability regarding the nature of precipitation and the activity of cumulus convectionduring the 1991 Meiyu season of Changjiang-Huaihe River Basin(Jianghuai)has been investigatedby calculating apparent heat source/apparent moisture sink and analyzing TBB(cloud-topblackbody radiation temperature)data.It is found that three periods of strong ascending motionduring the Meiyu season lead to three episodes of heavy rain,and the latent heat due to theprecipitation is of the sole heat source of the atmosphere.The nature of precipitation showsdistinct seasonal variability,from frontal precipitation of the first episode to the extremely strongconvective precipitation of the third episode.TBB field of East Asia may well reflect not only theintensity of convection and rainfall,but also the movement of rain belt and convection belt.In thewhole Meiyu season.convection belt mainly stays in Jianghuai.but may shift within the domain ofEast Asia.Its locating in Jianghuai or not determines the maintenance or break of Meiyu.In thethird episode,the narrow convection belt over Jianghuai is mainly caused by southwest monsoonwhich takes moist and convective atmosphere from tropical ocean.     

DISTRIBUTION OF AEROSOL EXTINCTION IN THE LOWER TROPOSPHERE BY MICRO-PULSE LIDAR OBSERVATION

The profiles of aerosol extinction coefficients are investigated by micro-pulse lidar(MPL)combined with the meteorological data in the lower troposphere at Meteorological ResearchInstitute(MRI).Japan.Larger extinction values of aerosol are demonstrated in the nocturnalstable air layer with larger Richardson number,and light wind velocities are favorable for aerosolconcentrating in the planetary boundary layer(PBL).But aerosol extinction coefficients showlarger values over the altitudes of 2.0 to 5.0km where correspond to higher relative humidity(RH).The tops of PBL identified by the aerosol extinction profiles almost agree with ones byradiosonde data.The diurnal variations of aerosol extinction profiles are clearly displayed,intensive aerosol layers usually are formed over the period of mid-morning to 1400 Loeal Time(LT).then elapse in the cloudless late afternoon and nighttime.Thermal eonvection or turbulenttransport from the surfaee probably dominates these temporal and spatial changes of aerosoldistribution.     

What's Next Now That the Boom in Contaminant Hydrogeology Has Busted?

This paper shows how important the historical contaminant boom, 1975 to 2005, has been to hydrogeology. Its role in this respect has never been well documented or appreciated. We use text mining and machine learning to extract information describing research trends in subsurface hydrology (SH), groundwater plus the vadose zone. The analysis, using articles from Water Resources Research (WRR) and Environmental Science and Technology, shows how SH grew from a small niche area within broader hydrologic sciences in the 1960s to become the dominant area of research by 1995. Subsequently, the performance of SH has declined, as other areas of hydrologic sciences have emerged. These patterns reflect the growth and decline of research related to contaminant topics in SH. Thus, the decline is economic—less money leads to less research. The boom in contaminant hydrogeology was effectively a 1000-year flood of money for SH. It let us outcompete the non-SH areas for a while. From 1991 to 2000, SH research in WRR was dominated by papers on contaminant-related themes. More recently, these themes and all other areas of SH except one have declined significantly in WRR. All major topics related to non-SH areas are growing except one. This evidence points to a continuing decline in competitiveness of basic research in SH. The fact that critical problems or social needs for research still exist has not changed this basic trend. The focus of research has clearly shifted away from SH to areas of hydrology associated with climate change, water cycle modeling and similar themes.     

Opaque Minerals in LL3.0-6 Chondrites I: Mineralogy of Ti-oxides and ~(53)Mn-~(53)Cr Systematics of Ilmenite

We conducted a systematic study of oxide minerals in LL3.0-6 chondrites, and found ilmenite, rutile, perovskite and an unknown Al-Ti-Zr-oxide. Ilmenite is low in abundance, but is present in the chondrules and matrix of all the samples that we studied. The MnO content of ilmenite in LL3.0-3.3 is lower than that in LL3.5-6. The low concentration of MnO in the former is due to crystallization from chondrules melts at high temperatures. On the other hand, ilmenite composition in LL3.5-6 reflects thermal metamorphism. Therefore, ilmenite is indicative of petrologic type. We also made the first measurements of the 53Mn-53Cr systematics of ilmenite in ordinary chondrites. The age for ilmenite in Y790256 (LL6) is determined to be about 2 Ma older than angrites. This may represent the metamorphic age of the LL chondrites.