The Bear Brook Watershed in Maine: Multi-decadal whole-watershed experimental acidification

The Bear Brook Watershed in Maine (BBWM) is a long-term research site established to study the response of forest ecosystem function to environmental disturbances of chronic acidic deposition and ecosystem nitrogen enrichment. Starting in 1989, the West Bear (treated) watershed received bimonthly applications of ammonium sulfate [(NH₄)₂SO₄] fertilizer from above the canopy, whereas East Bear (reference) received ambient deposition. The treatments were stopped in 2016, marking the beginning of the recovery phase. Research at the site has focused on soils, streams, and vegetation. Here, we describe data collected over three decades at the BBWM—input and stream output nutrient fluxes, quantitative soil pits and soil chemistry, and soil temperature and moisture.     

Influence of Inelastic Collisions with Hydrogen Atoms on Non-LTE Oxygen Abundance Determinations

We present the results of our modeling of the O I line formation under non-LTE conditions in the atmospheres of FG stars. The statistical equilibrium of O I has been calculated using Barklem’s quantum-mechanical rates of inelastic collisions with hydrogen atoms. We have determined the non-LTE oxygen abundance from atomic O I lines for the Sun and 46 FG stars in a wide metallicity range, ?2.6 < [Fe/H] < 0.2. The application of accurate atomic data has led to an increase in the departures from LTE and a decrease in the oxygen abundance compared to the use of Drawin’s theoretical approximation. The change in the non-LTE abundance from the infrared O I 7771-5 Å triplet lines is 0.11 dex for solar atmospheric parameters and diminishes in absolute value with decreasing metallicity. We have revised the [O/Fe]–[Fe/H] relationship derived by us previously. The change in [O/Fe] is small in the [Fe/H] range from ?1.5 to 0.2. For stars with [Fe/H] < ?1 the [O/Fe] ratio has increased so that [O/Fe] = 0.60 at [Fe/H] = ?0.8 and rises to [O/Fe] = 0.75 at [Fe/H] = ?2.6.     

Geology and the Allied liberation of Normandy: highlights to help mark the 75th anniversary of D‐Day, 6 June 1944

During the Second World War, the Allied invasion of the French coast of Normandy on D‐Day, 6 June 1944, was the greatest amphibious assault in world history. An article in Geology Today (v.11, for 1995, pp.58–63) marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, on 8 May 1945, by describing how British military geologists had participated in planning for D‐Day and in the NW Europe campaign that followed it. The work of these geologists provides a classic case history, revealing that ‘military geology’ has many potential applications. Geological factors influenced site selection for temporary airfields, predictions of trafficability for the Normandy beaches, the development of potable water supplies, and quarrying for road metal—and more besides. This new article helps to mark the 75th anniversary of D‐Day by further details of how geologists and geology contributed to Allied victory.     

Deep-water sediment transport patterns and basin floor topography in early rift basins: Plio-Pleistocene syn-rift of the Corinth Rift,Greece

Our current understanding on sedimentary deep-water environments is mainly built of information obtained from tectonic settings such as passive margins and foreland basins. More observations from extensional settings are particularly needed in order to better constrain the role of active tectonics in controlling sediment pathways, depositional style and stratigraphic stacking patterns. This study focuses on the evolution of a Plio-Pleistocene deep-water sedimentary system (Rethi-Dendro Formation) and its relation to structural activity in the Amphithea fault block in the Corinth Rift, Greece. The Corinth Rift is an active extensional basin in the early stages of rift evolution, providing perfect opportunities for the study of early deep-water syn-rift deposits that are usually eroded from the rift shoulders due to erosion in mature basins like the Red Sea, North Sea and the Atlantic rifted margin. The depocentre is located at the exit of a structurally controlled sediment fairway, approximately 15 km from its main sediment source and 12 km basinwards from the basin margin coastline. Fieldwork, augmented by digital outcrop techniques (LiDAR and photogrammetry) and clast-count compositional analysis allowed identification of 16 stratigraphic units that are grouped into six types of depositional elements: A—mudstone-dominated sheets, B—conglomerate-dominated lobes, C—conglomerate channel belts and sandstone sheets, D—sandstone channel belts, E—sandstone-dominated broad shallow lobes, F—sandstone-dominated sheets with broad shallow channels. The formation represents an axial system sourced by a hinterland-fed Mavro delta, with minor contributions from a transverse system of conglomerate-dominated lobes sourced from intrabasinal highs. The results of clast compositional analysis enable precise attribution for the different sediment sources to the deep-water system and their link to other stratigraphic units in the area. Structures in the Amphithea fault block played a major role in controlling the location and orientation of sedimentary systems by modifying basin-floor gradients due to a combination of hangingwall tilt, displacement of faults internal to the depocentre and folding on top of blind growing faults. Fault activity also promoted large-scale subaqueous landslides and eventual uplift of the whole fault block.     

Subsurface flow measurements using passive flux meters in variably-saturated cold-regions landscapes

To date, passive flux meters have predominantly been applied in temperate environments for tracking the movement of contaminants in groundwater. This study applies these instruments to reduce uncertainty in (typically instantaneous) flux measurements made in a low-gradient, wetland dominated, discontinuous permafrost environment. This method supports improved estimation of unsaturated and over-winter subsurface flows which are very difficult to quantify using hydraulic gradient-based approaches. Improved subsurface flow estimates can play a key role in understanding the water budget of this landscape.     

Creating an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum from a giant impact

The giant impact hypothesis is the dominant theory explaining the formation of our Moon. However, the inability to produce an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum has cast a shadow on its validity. Computer-generated impacts have been successful in producing virtual systems that possess many of the observed physical properties. However, addressing the isotopic similarities between the Earth and Moon coupled with correct angular momentum has proven to be challenging. Equilibration and evection resonance have been proposed as means of reconciling the models. In the summer of 2013, the Royal Society called a meeting solely to discuss the formation of the Moon. In this meeting, evection resonance and equilibration were both questioned as viable means of removing the deficiencies from giant impact models. The main concerns were that models were multi-staged and too complex. We present here initial impact conditions that produce an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum. This is done in a single-staged simulation. The initial parameters are straightforward and the results evolve solely from the impact. This was accomplished by colliding two roughly half-Earth-sized impactors, rotating in approximately the same plane in a high-energy, off-centered impact, where both impactors spin into the collision.     

Statistical Characteristics of Meteoroid Parameters in the Earth’s Atmosphere

Statistical characteristics of meteoroids with kinetic energy from 0.1 to 440 kt TNT are estimated based on NASA satellite observations made in 1994–2016. The distributions of the number of falling meteoroids are constructed and analyzed based on the values of their initial kinetic energy, initial velocity, initial mass, altitude, geographic coordinates of the maximum total radiated energy region, and the year of the fall. Correlation dependences “mass–initial kinetic energy,” “maximum total radiated energy region altitude–initial kinetic energy,” and “maximum total radiated energy region altitude–initial velocity (the square of the initial velocity)” are constructed.     

Revisiting the existence of an effective stress for wet granular soils with micromechanics

A possible effective stress variable for wet granular materials is numerically investigated based on an adapted discrete element method (DEM) model for an ideal three‐phase system. The DEM simulations consider granular materials made of nearly monodisperse spherical particles, in the pendular regime with the pore fluid mixture consisting of distinct water menisci bridging particle pairs. The contact force‐related stress contribution to the total stresses is isolated and tested as the effective stress candidate for dense or loose systems. It is first recalled that this contact stress tensor is indeed an adequate effective stress that describes stress limit states of wet samples with the same Mohr‐Coulomb criterion associated with their dry counterparts. As for constitutive relationships, it is demonstrated that the contact stress tensor used in conjunction with dry constitutive relations does describe the strains of wet samples during an initial strain regime but not beyond. Outside this so‐called quasi‐static strain regime, whose extent is much greater for dense than loose materials, dramatic changes in the contact network prevent macroscale contact stress‐strain relationships to apply in the same manner to dry and unsaturated conditions. The presented numerical results also reveal unexpected constitutive bifurcations for the loose material, related to stick‐slip macrobehavior.     

Analytical study of the swing-by maneuver in an elliptical system

The objective of the present paper is to derive a set of analytical equations that describe a swing-by maneuver realized in a system of primaries that are in elliptical orbits. The goal is to calculate the variations of energy, velocity and angular momentum as a function of the usual basic parameters that describe the swing-by maneuver, as done before for the case of circular orbits. In elliptical orbits the velocity of the secondary body is no longer constant, as in the circular case, but it varies with the position of the secondary body in its orbit. As a consequence, the variations of energy, velocity and angular momentum become functions of the magnitude and the angle between the velocity vector of the secondary body and the line connecting the primaries. The “patched-conics” approach is used to obtain these equations. The configurations that result in maximum gains and losses of energy for the spacecraft are shown next, and a comparison between the results obtained using the analytical equations and numerical simulations are made to validate the method developed here.     

Determination of Supermassive Black Hole Spins Based on the Standard Shakura–Sunyaev Accretion Disk Model and Polarimetric Observations

Based on spectropolarimetry for 47 type 1 active galactic nuclei observed with the 6-m BTA telescope, we have estimated the spins of the supermassive black holes at the centers of these galaxies. We have determined the spins based on the standard Shakura–Sunyaev accretion disk model. About 70% of the investigated active galactic nuclei are shown to have Kerr supermassive black holes with a dimensionless spin greater than 0.9.