Carbonyl sulfide emissions from biomass burning in the tropics

Carbonyl sulfide emissions from biomass burning have been studied during field experiments conducted both in an African savanna area (Ivory Coast) and rice fields, central highland pine forest and savanna areas in Viet-Nam. During these experiments CO₂, CO and C₂H₂ or CH₄ have also been also monitored. COS values range from 0.6 ppbv outside the fires to 73 ppbv in the plumes. Significant correlations have been observed between concentrations of COS and CO (R ²=0.92,n=25) and COS and C₂H₂ (R ²=0.79,n=26) indicating a COS production during the smoldering combustion. COS/CO₂ emission factors (COS/CO₂) during field experiments ranged from 1.2 to 61×10^–6 (11.4×10^–6 mean value). COS emission by biomass burning was estimated to be up to 0.05 Tg S/yr in tropics and up to 0.07 Tg S/yr on a global basis, contributing thus about 10% to the global COS flux. Based on the S/C ratio measured in the dry plant biomass and the COS/CO₂ emission factor, COS can account for only about 7% of the sulfur emitted in the atmosphere by biomass burning.     

Impact of storms on mixed carbonate and siliciclastic shelves: insights from combined diffusive and fluid-flow transport stratigraphic forward model

A quantitative stratigraphic model of mixed carbonate/siliciclastic continental shelves is presented to investigate the relationships between depositional processes and stratigraphic responses at long‐term, large spatial scales. A diffusion model is combined with a fluid‐flow approach to simulate both long‐term factors, i.e. the processes controlling large‐scale architecture, and short‐term processes, i.e. sediment redistribution by storms. Any net sediment accumulation is the result of the succession of a storm and a fair‐weather period. Sediments are mobilized by waves and advected by low‐frequency currents during storm events. Sediments are then reworked and redistributed downslope by diffusive processes during fair‐weather period. The results are successful in capturing several major characteristics of both modern and ancient depositional systems (geometry, differential preservation, net accumulation rates). The study highlights the importance of waves and unidirectional currents. Depositional geometry and shelf morphology depend on the balance between available sediment supply (generated in situ or detrital) and the transport energy, which is related to the style of sediment transport (diffusive or advective), and to the magnitude and frequency of storms.     

A model of ocean-crust accretion for the Superior province, Canada

One of the keys to understanding the origin of Archaean greenstone belts lies in the geological relationships between mafic and ultramafic greenstones, felsic to intermediate volcanic rocks and terrigenous sediments. Traditional models for greenstone belt evolution have been based on in-situ stratigraphic relationships. Most of these models, for example an oceanic island-arc developed on oceanic basement, back-arc basins, and the recently popular plume model, predict concordant stratigraphic relationships among the various greenstone belt lithologies. However, rather than being depositional in nature, several authors have indicated that many of the relationships between the different lithologies in greenstone belts are in fact tectonic, suggesting an allochthonous origin for most greenstone sequences. All of these latter models make analogies to Phanerozoic tectonic processes involving accretion of oceanic materials with volcanism related to both plate subduction and rifting.

In this paper, we have evaluated the geological relationships between volcanic rocks and sediments in three regions in the Superior province, where the accretion of oceanic material can be documented, and direct comparisons are made to geological processes in Phanerozoic accretionary complexes. In the Malartic area in the southeastern Abitibi Subprovince, 3 to 4 km thick slices of komatiite and tholeiite, with intercalated terrigenous sediment, are tectonically imbricated and are overlain by calc-alkaline volcanics which postdate tectonic stacking. In both the Larder Lake region of the southwestern Abitibi belt and in the Beardmore-Geraldton belt, at the south-eastern limit of the Wabigoon belt, slices of iron-rich tholeiite and chemical sediments of an oceanic origin are tectonically imbricated with terrigenous sediment.

The Malartic-Val d'Or area is considered to be an example of accretion of an Archaean oceanic plateau, while the Larder Lake and the Beardmore-Geraldton regions are potentially typical of accretion of normal oceanic crust in an arc-environment. Phanerozoic accretion of oceanic crust is accompanied by a step-back in subduction, and in this paper we suggest that oceanic crust accretion may have been the principal mechanism by which the locus of subduction migrated towards the south of the Superior province. Asthenospheric upwelling associated with the isolated sinking plate may have been responsible for widespread late-magmatism. This scenario requires that magmas be erupted through previously accreted volcanic, plutonic and sedimentary material. Furthermore, later ridge subduction will result in transpressional tectonics and eruption of mafic sequences over mature and immature volcano-plutonic sequences. The combined result of the plate tectonic scenario envisaged would result in the well-described “cyclic stratigraphy” of many granite greenstone sequences.     

An automatic audio-magnetotelluric equipment,controlled by microprocessor,for the telesurvellance of the volcano Momotombo (Nicaragua)

A campaign of audio-magnetotelluric soundings in the crater of Momotombo has shown that the structure of this volcano is suitable to a surveillance by this method; it has an only central activity, and the resistivity versus the depth decreases suddenly at least 100 times at about 270 m. So, this technical paper describes the equipment designed and built in order to measure every 2 hr the apparent resistivity in a given direction, at seven frequencies regularly spaced from 5 to 312 Hz. The data are preprocessed to fill only 32 bytes: they are

- on the one hand, printed locally for the close surveillance;

- on the other hand, transmitted by an ARGOS platform and received in Garchy via satellite for searching studies

     

加拿大魁北克水电站项目中结晶岩的水压致裂试验

自1997年以来,在加拿大地盾进行了250多次水压致裂试验,该试验是魁北克不同的水电站项目调查选址的一部分,所有项目都位于格伦维尔和超级地质省,那里的基岩由结晶质火成岩和变质岩组成。水压致裂试验是为了确定在水压条件下岩体渗透率的增加,进而定义隧洞衬砌承载的上限。对不同试验结果的研究表明,在深度小于150m时,大规模结晶岩的岩体性质相似。我们给出了来自闭合曲线和P-Q曲线图的最小应力统计数据的分析,并与投入使用的压力隧洞的渗漏相比较。所采用的解释方法也在最小主应力求解中扮演着关键角色。所以破裂和破裂重张压力的比值在分析结果中是一个重要的参数。     

Using Föhn conditions to characterize urban and regional sources of particles

Characterizations of urban and regional sources of particulate matter (PM) were performed in the Milan area (North of Italy) during Föhn and stagnant (non-Föhn) conditions. The measurements were performed at two different places: in an urban area North of Milan (Bresso) and in a regional area at the EMEP-GAW station in Ispra (about 65 km NW from Milan) during the winter periods of the years 2002–2007. Particle size distributions and chemical bulk analysis of aerosols are combined with single particle mass spectrometry to obtain information about the chemical content of the particles and their mixing state. Föhn conditions are characterized by extremely clean background air from which background aerosol is scavenged, and consequently local sources (here defined as sources between the sampling sites and the mountain range top about 100–150 km away depending on the wind direction) determine the aerosol properties.It was observed that during Föhn events the accumulation mode in the size range 50 nm < d < 300 nm practically disappears and that the size fraction below 50 nm dominates the total number distribution. The significant change in the number size distribution and the large decrease in PM10 mass during Föhn events are accompanied by a significant change in the chemical composition of the particles. Results from bulk chemical analysis showed high amounts of carbonaceous compounds and very low concentrations of ammonium nitrate (as indicator for secondary chemistry) during Föhn episodes, in contrast to stagnant conditions, when secondary components are dominating the aerosol composition. Single particle measurements confirm the high contribution of carbonaceous compounds in locally emitted particles.It was concluded that particles that originated in the urban area come mainly from combustion processes, especially direct traffic emissions, domestic heating and industrial activities, whereas the regionally emitted particles are different with much less traffic contribution.We estimate that under prevailing (non-Föhn) winter conditions, about 50–65% of the aerosol mass load in the city of Milan are caused by local emissions, and about 35–50% come from regional background. This finding suggests that in order to improve air quality in a big city like Milan, it is important to combine local traffic restriction interventions with other long-term regional scale air-quality-measures.     

Field study of dimethylsulfide oxibation in the boundary layer: Variations of dimethylsulfide,methanesulfonic acid,sulfur dioxide,non-sea-salt sulfate and aitken nuclei at a coastal site

Measurements of atmospheric dimethylsulfide (DMS) and its oxidation products, sulfur dioxide (SO₂), methanesulfonic acid (MSA) and non-sea-salt sulfate (nss-SO₄ ^2-) were monitored during the period June 9–26, 1989 at a coastal site in Brittany. As indicated by the radon (Rn-222) activities and the high concentrations of NOx the air masses, for most of the experiment, were continental in origin. The observed concentrations range from 1.9 to 65 nmol/m³ for DMS (n=157), 0.6 to 94.2 nmol/m³ for SO₂ (n=50), 0.6 to 11.6 nmol/m³ for MSA (n=44) and 42 to 350 nmol/m³ for nss-SO₄ ^2- (n=44). Aitken nuclei reached values as high as 4.5 × 10⁵ particles/m³. When continental conditions predominated, the measured SO₂ concentrations were lower than those expected from a consideration of the observed DMS concentrations and the existence of SO₂ background of the continental air masses. Similarly, compared to the MSA/DMS ratio in the marine atmosphere, higher concentrations of MSA were observed than those expected from the measured levels of DMS. The presence of enhanced levels of MSA was also endorsed by the observation that the measured mean MSA/nss-SO₄ ^2- ratio of 6±3% was similar to the mean value of 6.9% observed in the marine atmosphere. These above observations are in line with recent laboratory findings by Barnes et al. (1988), which show an increase of the MSA/DMS yield with a simultaneous decrease of the SO₂/DMS yield in the presence of NOx.     

A numerical investigation and geological discussion of the relationship between folding,kinking and faulting

The layer-parallel compression of a regular bilaminate consisting of layers with materials described by an incompressible power-law elastic model is considered. The average mechanical properties of this idealised multilayer are then represented by those of an equivalent anisotropic continuum with internal resistance to bending. Changes in material properties that accompany uniform finite shortening are accounted for. Interpretation of the internal instability analysis for such a continuum, introduced in the companion paper involves the use of a spectrum which at a given level of strain, scans all directions within the continuum for relative susceptibility to a heterogeneous simple shearing instability.Estimates of nonlinear material properties from reported experiments on the behaviour of various rocks in the time-independent deformation regime, and geometric parameters such as the volume fraction of each material and the number of confined layers are considered. The shapes of the resulting spectra may be used to predict natural conditions that will favour the initiation of repetitive buckle folds or more localized disturbances such as kink-bands and faults. Results suggest that for typical properties of sedimentary multilayers, kinking is strongly favoured over repetitive buckling where the weaker material occupies only a very small volume fraction of the multilayer. The effect of significant imperfections leading to slippage between layers is discussed.Finally, a simple classification of structure genesis is proposed in which the mechanical relationships between apparently diverse structures is illustrated.     

Slant Column Measurements of O3 and NO2 During the NDSC Intercomparison of Zenith-Sky UV-Visible Spectrometers in June 1996

In June 1996, 16 UV-visible sensors from 11 institutes measured spectra of the zenith sky for more than 10 days. Spectra were analysed in real-time to determine slant column amounts of O3 and NO2. Spectra of Hg lamps and lasers were measured, and the amount of NO2 in a cell was determined by each spectrometer. Some spectra were re-analysed after obvious errors were found. Slant columns were compared in two ways: by examining regression analyses against comparison instruments over the whole range of solar zenith angles; and by taking fractional differences from a comparison instrument at solar zenith angles between 85° and 91°. Regression identified which pairs of instruments were most consistent, and so which could be used as universal comparison instruments. For O3, regression slopes for the whole campaign agreed within 5% for most instruments despite the use of different cross-sections and wavelength intervals, whereas similar agreement was only achieved for NO2 when the same cross-sections and wavelength intervals were used and only one half-day's data was analysed. Mean fractional differences in NO2 from a comparison instrument fall within ±7% (1-sigma) for most instruments, with standard deviations of the mean differences averaging 4.5%. Mean differences in O3 fall within ±2.5% (1- sigma) for most instruments, with standard deviations of the mean differences averaging 2%. Measurements of NO2 in the cell had similar agreement to measurements of NO2 in the atmosphere, but for some instruments measurements with cell and atmosphere relative to a comparison instrument disagreed by more than the error bars.