The Acheron rock avalanche, Canterbury, New Zealand—morphology and dynamics

The 1100-year-old Acheron rock avalanche deposit lies in an active tectonic setting in Canterbury, New Zealand, and has a volume of ten million cubic metres and a runout distance 3.5 km. The deposit comprises intensely fragmented greywacke rock, and the processes of intense rock fragmentation during runout are postulated to have generated an isotropic dispersive stress. Dynamic simulation shows that the runout can be explained as a flow of dry granular material with a normal coefficient of friction, if the presence of an isotropic dispersive stress within the moving rock debris throughout the runout is assumed. The dispersive stress distribution required to model the rock avalanche runout and match velocities calculated from run-up traces is closely similar to that used to simulate the runout of the much larger Falling Mountain rock avalanche in a similar lithologic and tectonic setting. Both events thus behaved in a fundamentally similar fashion.     

MIPAS-Transall Observations of the Variability of CLONO2 during the Arctic Winter of 1994/95

In the winter of 1994/95 the German Transall research aircraft performed 5 campaigns in the European Arctic with 22 flights altogether. An extensive dataset of HNO3, ClONO2 and O3 column amounts was obtained by MIPAS-FT (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding - Flugzeug Transall) onboard the aircraft. In this paper we present the variability of the ClONO2 reservoir gas in the course of the winter. We include groundbased FTIR measurements of HF, HCl and ClONO2 to discuss the airborne observations with regard to the partitioning of inorganic chlorine.From mid-December until the end of January, MIPAS measured a stable ClONO2 collar with constantly low column amounts inside the polar vortex and maxima at the edge. This observation reflected widespread conversion of ClONO2 to reactive chlorine inside the vortex for at least six weeks. In good accordance, the ground stations measured low in-vortex HCl and ClONO2 column amounts and conversion of HCl into ClONO2 in the region of the ClONO2 maxima. In the first week of February the ClONO2 amounts started to increase in the edge region as well as inside the vortex. Between March 21 and 27, just one week after the last cold period, MIPAS observed exclusively high ClONO2 column amounts inside the vortex, indicating fast deactivation of active chlorine. In the same period the ground stations measured an excess of ClONO2 over HCl. Further, the high ClONO2 implies that the polar vortex was renoxified in March. Lower ClONO2 values, observed inside the vortex on the flights of April 5 and 8, and an increased HCl/ClONO2 ratio, measured from ground, marked the starting redistribution within the chlorine reservoir species to the photochemically more stable HCl.In February, March and April, MIPAS observed mixing of ClONO2-rich air masses with midlatitude air at the vortex edge. A very clear event happened on March 27. On this flight a distinct ClONO2 minimum was measured at the vortex edge, which was closely correlated with a filament of midlatitude air observed by OLEX (Ozone Lidar EXperiment) onboard the Transall.     

The geotechnical properties and behaviour of a pro-glacial lake clay, and its cementitious stabilization

The Tees Laminated Clay forms a continuous deposit around the Tees estuary in north east England and was deposited in a proglacial lake which occupied the Teesside area during late Devensian times, disappearing about 13 000 years ago. It overlies till, with which it has a sharp contact and reaches a maximum thickness in parts of central Middlesbrough of just over 9 m. The laminations consist of alternating thin layers of clay and silt, and represent seasonal increments of sediment. Kaolinite and illite, with lesser amounts of chlorite, dominate the mineral composition. Quartz tends to account for less than 35%. The notable carbonate content may be diagenetic in origin. The birefringence ratio of the clay minerals indicates a medium degree of particle orientation which suggests a partially flocculated fabric.This laminated clay has a high plasticity. However, the liquid and plastic limits of the silty layers differ significantly from those of the clay layers or the bulk samples. The clay fraction has a greater influence on these limits than the silty fraction. In addition, the linear shrinkage, liquidity indices and consistency indices of the silty layers differ appreciably from those of the clay layers and the bulk samples. The laminated clay is inactive. The orientation of the laminations in relation to the direction of maximum principal stress influences the shear strength, the lowest strengths being developed when these orientations are between 30° and 60°. The stress paths, anisotropic ratios and values of Af indicate that the Tees Laminated Clay is normally consolidated or lightly overconsolidated. The McLamore–Gray concept possibly can be applied to the anisotropic strength behaviour.Tees Laminated Clay can give rise to problems during construction operations since it can lose strength significantly on remoulding. Accordingly, these soils were treated with cementitious materials to determine the extent to which their engineering behaviour was enhanced by the addition of such materials. © Rapid Science Ltd. 1998     

Effective collision strengths for fine-structure forbidden transitions among the 2s22p3 levels of Ne iv

Effective collision strengths for electron-impact excitation of the N-like ion Ne  iv are calculated in the close-coupling approximation using the multichannel R-matrix method. Specific attention is given to the 10 astrophysically important fine-structure forbidden transitions among the ⁴S^o, ²D^o and ²P^o levels in the 2s²2p³ ground-state configuration. The expansion of the total wavefunction incorporates the lowest 11 LS eigenstates of Ne  iv , consisting of eight n  = 2 terms with configurations 2s²2p³, 2s2p⁴ and 2p⁵, together with three n  = 3 states of configuration 2s²2p²3s. We present in graphical form the effective collision strengths obtained by thermally averaging the collision strengths over a Maxwellian distribution of velocities, for all 10 fine-structure transitions, over the range of electron temperatures log T (K) = 3.6 to log T (K) = 6.1 (the range appropriate for astrophysical applications). Comparisons are made with the earlier, less sophisticated close-coupling calculation of Giles, and excellent agreement is found in the limited temperature region where a comparison is possible [log T (K) = 3.7 to log T (K) = 4.3]. At higher temperatures the present data are the only reliable results currently available.     

The Parkes Southern Pulsar Survey — III. Timing of long-period pulsars

The Parkes survey of the entire southern sky for millisecond and other low-luminosity pulsars has now been completed. The survey system and initial results were described by Manchester et al. and the final results and population studies are described by Lyne et al. A total of 298 pulsars were detected, including 101 new discoveries of which 17 were millisecond pulsars. Here we report on timing observations at Parkes and Jodrell Bank of the 84 long-period (non-millisecond) pulsars discovered in the survey, including timing solutions for 78 of them. Pulse profiles and arrival times were obtained at several different frequencies over intervals of more than a year, yielding a position, period, period derivative and dispersion measure for each pulsar. Pulse profiles at frequencies near 400 MHz and 600 or 1400 MHz are presented for most of the observed pulsars. Significant timing noise was detected for five pulsars and a glitch was observed in the period of PSR J1123–6259.     

New seismic data support Cenozoic rifting in George VI Sound, Antarctic Peninsula

New multifold seismic-reflection and wide-angle reflection/refraction data across George VI Sound, Antarctic Peninsula, show the presence of graben and horst structures indicating an extensional origin. The data suggest that rocks of an accretionary complex and fore-arc basin underlie the Sound and are in faulted contact along its eastern boundary with volcanic and plutonic rocks of the associated Mesozoic arc of western Palmer Land. A cover of possible syn- and postglacial Cenozoic deposits drapes the structures. The combination of new seismic, synthetic-aperture radar and previously acquired data suggests subduction-related rifting in the Sound was segmented, with opening in the south predominately by normal extension whilst in the north, dextral transtension predominated.     

On the use of radiosonde humidity observations in mid-latitude NWP

Summary We compare radiosonde observations of relative humidity with NWP versions of the Meteorological Office Unified Model, and attempt to understand the causes of the systematic differences seen. The differences are found to have a different structure in cyclonic and anticyclonic situations over the UK. In cyclonic situations the mid-tropospheric temperature and humidity differences could be due to model biases, consistent with the conservation of energy; the latent heating from precipitation of the model's excess moisture would remove the model's cold bias. There is also some evidence for observational bias. Wetting of the sonde sensor in cloud can cause a moist bias at higher levels. The Väisala RS80 sonde also appears to have a dry bias near saturation.The Unified Model has a parameterisation for stratiform cloud which calculates the fractional cloud cover in a gridbox from the box-average relative humidity, allowing for sub-grid-scale variability within the box. This scheme has been tuned to give reasonable cloud amounts with the model's relative humidities. The cloud amounts implied (by the scheme) for radiosonde relative humidities are systematically less than the observed cloud. So assimilation of the observed humidities can significantly degrade analyses and predictions of cloud. Bias corrections for the radiosonde humidities have been calculated to compensate for this.Experiments have been performed to test the effect of the bias correction on the assimilation and prediction of cloud and precipation. With the control system, cloud cover and precipitation spins-up during the forecast period; the bias correction improves this. A large improvement was also found when the relationship between the temperature and humidity assimilation was changed; it is better to assume that temperature and relative humidity errors are uncorrelated, rather than temperature and specific humidity.With 16 Figures     

Water uptake by two river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) clones in a discharge site plantation in the Western Australian wheatbelt

The heat-pulse technique was used to estimate year-long water uptake in a discharge zone plantation of 9-year-old clonal Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh. near Wubin, Western Australia. Water uptake matched rainfall closely during weter months but exceeded rainfall as the dry season progressed. Average annual water uptake (1148 mm) exceeded rainfall (432 mm) by about 2.7 fold and approached 56% of pan evaporation for the area. The data suggest that at least 37% (i.e. (1/2.7) × 100) of the lower catchment discharge zone should be planted to prevent the rise of groundwater.

Water uptake varied with soil environment, season and genotype. Upslope trees used more water than did downslope trees. Water uptake was higher in E. camaldulensis clone M80 than in clone M66 until late spring. The difference reversed as summer progressed. Both clones, however, have the potential to dry out the landscape when potential evapotranspiration exceeds rainfall. This variation in water uptake within the species indicates the potential for manipulating plantation uptake by matching tree characteristics to site characteristics.

Controlled experiments on the heat-pulse technique indicated accuracy errors of approximately 10%. This, combined with the ability to obtain long-term, continuous data and the superior logistics of use of the heat-pulse technique, suggests that results obtained by it would be much more reliable than those achieved by the ventilated chamber technique.     

A note on the physical properties of the chalk

The Chalk is one of the most extensively distributed series in England. It is essentially a soft limestone principally consisting of the remains of marine organisms, deposited in shallow water.The Upper Chalk of Kent, in particular, is characterized by a high porosity and relatively low dry density. The porosity and dry density of the Lower Chalk of Yorkshire and the Middle Chalk of Norfolk are lower and higher respectively, because of the higher content of interstitial secondary calcite. Porosity is not a significant factor as far as the gross permeability of the Chalk is concerned.The Upper Chalk of Kent is moderately weak, when tested in unconfined compression, whilst the Lower and Middle Chalk are moderately strong. All three groups of Chalk suffer a substantial reduction in strength when saturated, in the case of the Upper Chalk the loss in strength is dramatic. The indirect tensile strength is usually less than one twentieth that of the unconfined compressive strength. When subjected to undrained triaxial tests the Upper Chalk first underwent brittle failure at lower confining pressures but above 4.9 MN/m² significant plastic deformation occurred leading to barrel-shaped failures.Young's modulus is not a simple constant but varies with stress, increasing somewhat with increasing stress in the Chalk from Yorkshire and Norfolk. This did not happen in the Upper Chalk since plastic deformation began much earlier.