Mechanisms of collapse of the cretaceous helvetiafjellet formation at Kvalvågen,eastern Spitsbergen

Coastal cliffs at Kvalvågen, eastern Spitsbergen, expose palaeolandslide blocks and related slope failure features that record local collapse of an otherwise undisturbed succession of paralic sediments. The collapse occurred along a shallow sloping shelf at the edge of an epicontinental sea in the Early Cretaceous. The event was coincident with a rise in relative sea level along a coast that had just previously experienced a major paralic regression across a muddy marine environment. The low relief environment in which the slope failure structures formed, as well as the timing of the collapse raise questions regarding the cause of the topographic instability and the possible influence of sea level changes or tectonic activity. These outcrops have been previously interpreted as the collapse of a deltaic system triggered by local seismic activity or collapse of a shelf break in the headwall regions of submarine canyons. This paper presents new structural and stratigraphic data that refine and adjust the previous interpretations through the evaluation of a variety of possible mechanisms for collapse based on the new data. Our data suggest that active delta deposition was not occurring at Kvalvågen at the time of collapse and that the collapse was likely due to allogenic forcing. Despite the possible influence of pore fluids and rheological controls on the collapse, we find that the geometry and kinematics of landslide slip planes, synsedimentary folds, and other slope failure related features require over-steepened topography and that these are most consistent with westward-directed collapse off of a north striking escarpment with elevated topography on the east side. Fault exposures, a large contrast in palaeo-elevation, and liquifaction features support previous interpretations of a tectonic cause for the collapse and suggest that this topographic feature may have been a fault or fold scarp. This study demonstrates the importance of combining stratigraphic and sedimentological data with structural data and kinematic analysis in the interpretation of sedimentary processes.     

Are Workers Attracted to Social Interaction Opportunities? A Study of Face-to-Face Contact Opportunities by Occupation and Industry

The spatial structure of a region is known to affect the degree of face-to-face interaction opportunities for a city’s residents. These interaction opportunities are important building blocks in aspects of economic production. To date, though, there is scant empirical evidence linking interaction opportunities to worker locations. In this article, using a spatial measure of social interaction potential (SIP), we seek to discover whether, and by how much, opportunities for interaction differ at home and work locations for workers within different industry and occupation groups in U.S. metropolitan areas. Based on the time-geographic concept of joint accessibility, SIP is sensitive to population and employment densities, as well as travel times associated with worker commutes in a region. We compare SIP at the census tract level of geography both within and between Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) nationally and test SIP distributions by occupation and industrial categories using nonparametric Kruskal–Wallis and Dunn tests. The study finds that several categories of higher skill and creative workers live and work in higher SIP areas. These findings provide evidence in support of theories of knowledge creation that rely on spontaneous face-to-face interaction and also indicate the effect of lifestyle preferences in location choices for highly skilled and arts workers.     

Probing young massive clusters with laser guide star adaptive optics

We use laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS/AO) on the 10 m Keck II telescope to obtain high spatial resolution images of young massive clusters (YMCs) in NGC1569 and M82. These data probe YMC structure and the relation of the YMCs to the ambient field star population. The higher resolution of Keck LGS/AO relative to Hubble Space Telescope/NICMOS in the near-infrared enables us to examine whether YMCs are monolithic or hierarchical assemblies. The new integral-field spectrometer OSIRIS operating behind LGS/AO can trace the distribution of massive evolved stars within a cluster and reveal the nature of mass segregation.     

A multi-directional ground filtering algorithm for airborne LIDAR

Automatic ground filtering for Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) data is a critical process for Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and three-dimensional urban model generation. Although researchers have developed many methods to separate bare ground from other urban features, the problem has not been fully solved due to the similar characteristics possessed by ground and non-ground objects, especially on abrupt surfaces. Current methods can be grouped into two major categories: neighborhood-based approaches and directional filtering. In this study, following the direction of the second branch, we propose a new Multi-directional Ground Filtering (MGF) algorithm to incorporate a two-dimensional neighborhood in the directional scanning so as to prevent the errors introduced by the sensitivity to directions. Besides this, the MGF algorithm explores the utility of identifying pattern varieties in different directions across an image. The authors conducted a comprehensive test of the performance on fifteen study sites and compared our results to eight other publicized methods based on the Kappa coefficients calculated from the error matrices reported by ISPRS. Overall, the MGF filter produces a promising performance in both urban and forest areas. The size and shape of non-ground objects do not pose significant influence on the performance of the MGF algorithm. The fact that MGF algorithm is robust to two commonly required parameters, slope and elevation difference thresholds, has added practical merits to be adopted in different landscapes.     

An evaluation of solar radiation pressure strategies for the GPS constellation

The subtle effects of different Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite force models are becoming apparent now that mature processing strategies are reaching new levels of accuracy and precision. For this paper, we tested several approaches to solar radiation pressure (SRP) modeling that are commonly used by International GNSS Service (IGS) analysis centers. These include the GPS Solar Pressure Model (GSPM; Bar-Sever and Kuang in The Interplanetary Network Progress Report 42-160, 2005) and variants of the so-called DYB model (Springer et al. in Adv Space Res 23:673–676, 1999). Our results show that currently observed differences between GPS orbit solutions from the various IGS analysis centers are in large part explained by differences between their respective approaches to modeling SRP. DYB-based strategies typically generate orbit solutions that have the smallest differences with respect to the IGS final combined solution, largely because the DYB approach is most commonly used by the contributing analysis centers. However, various internal and external metrics, including ambiguity resolution statistics and satellite laser ranging observations, support continued use of the GSPM-based approach for precise orbit determination of the GPS constellation, at least when using the GIPSY-OASIS software.     

The spatial evolution of stellar structures in the Large Magellanic Cloud

We present an analysis of the spatial distribution of various stellar populations within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We combine mid-infrared selected young stellar objects, optically selected samples with mean ages between ∼9 and ∼1000 Myr and existing stellar cluster catalogues to investigate how stellar structures form and evolve within the LMC. For the analysis we use Fractured Minimum Spanning Trees, the statistical Q parameter and the two-point correlation function. Restricting our analysis to young massive (OB) stars, we confirm our results obtained for M33, namely that the luminosity function of the groups is well described by a power law with index −2, and that there is no characteristic length-scale of star-forming regions. We find that stars in the LMC are born with a large amount of substructure, consistent with a two-dimensional fractal distribution with dimension     and evolve towards a uniform distribution on a time-scale of ∼175 Myr. This is comparable to the crossing time of the galaxy, and we suggest that stellar structure, regardless of spatial scale, will be eliminated in a crossing time. This may explain the smooth distribution of stars in massive/dense young clusters in the Galaxy, while other, less massive, clusters still display large amounts of structure at similar ages. By comparing the stellar and star cluster distributions and evolving time-scales, we show that infant mortality of clusters (or 'popping clusters') has a negligible influence on the galactic structure. Finally, we quantify the influence of the elongation, differential extinction and contamination of a population on the measured Q value.     

New results on the ages of star clusters in region B of M82

The post-starburst region B in M82 and its massive star cluster component have been the focus of multiple studies, with reports that there is a large population of coeval clusters of age ～1 Gyr, which were created with a Gaussian initial mass distribution. This is in disagreement with other studies of young star clusters, which invariably find a featureless power-law mass distribution. Here, we present Gemini-North optical spectra of seven star clusters in M82-B and show that their ages are all between 10 and 300 Myr (a factor of 3–100 younger than previous photometric results) and that their extinctions range between near zero and 4 mag (A _V ). Using new HST ACS-HRC U-band observations we age date an additional ～30 clusters whose ages/extinctions agree well with those determined from spectroscopy. Completeness tests show that the reported ‘turn-over’ in the luminosity/mass distributions is most likely an artefact, due to the resolved nature of the clusters. We also show that the radial velocities of the clusters are inconsistent with them belonging to a bound region.