Surface temperature differences between minerals in crystalline rocks: Implications for granular disaggregation of granites through thermal fatigue

Thermal expansion differences between minerals within rocks under insolation have previously been assumed to drive breakdown by means of granular disaggregation. However, there have been no definitive demonstrations of the efficacy of this weathering mechanism. Different surface temperatures between minerals should magnify thermal expansion differences, and thus subject adjacent minerals to repeated stresses that might cause breakdown through fatigue failure. This work confirms the existence of surface temperature differences between minerals in granitic rocks under simulated short-term temperature fluctuations so as to discriminate their potential for initiating granular disaggregation. The influence of colour, as a surrogate for albedo, and crystal size, as a function of thermal mass are specifically identified because of their ease of quantification. Four rock types with a range of these properties were examined, and subjected to repeated short-term temperature cycles by radiative heating and cooling under laboratory conditions. Results show that while albedo is the main control for overall and individual maximum temperatures, crystal size is the main factor controlling higher temperature differences between minerals. Thus, stones with large differences of mineral sizes can undergo magnified stresses due to thermal expansion differences.     

Growth, ionic and osmotic relations of an Allenrolfea occidentalis population in an inland salt playa of the Great Basin Desert

Variation in growth, physiology and ionic relations patterns of Allenrolfea occidentalis, a perennial halophyte of dry habitats, was studied under field conditions from May 1996 to November 1997. An A. occidentalis community has a characteristic soil pH of 7·3–8·3. During the two years, the population was exposed to great variations in soil salinity, from 29 to 146 dS m⁻¹, and soil moisture, ranging from drought (9·2%) to wet (19%). The salt concentrations were significantly higher in the surface soil layers than in the subsurface layers. Seasonal changes in dry weight are directly related to soil salinity stress. Allenrolfea occidentalis had greater growth and biomass production under saline conditions. Na⁺and Cl⁻ions were accumulated in plant tissues in much greater amounts than K⁺, Ca²⁺, and Mg²⁺. Soil salinities were significantly reduced at the end of the growing season. Water potentials of the shoots decreased significantly with increasing salinity. The plant (F_v/F_mratio) was more affected by salinity and irradiation levels during the summer period.     

RHESSI Microflares: II. Implications for Loop Structure and Evolution

We present simple analytic models which predict the peak X-ray emission measure and temperature attained in flares in which the chromospheric evaporation process takes place either in a single ‘monolithic’ loop or in a loop consisting of several filaments that are created successively as the energy release process proceeds in time. As possible mechanisms driving chromospheric evaporation we consider both classical heat conduction from the loop top and non-thermal electron beams. The model predictions are tested for a set of 18 well studied RHESSI microflares. The results suggest beam driven evaporation in filamented loops as being capable of accounting for the observed emission measures and temperatures though there are issues with the very high beam densities needed. On the other hand, estimates of the emission measures achieved by conductive evaporation which are derived by using the Rosner – Tucker – Vaiana (RTV) scaling law are much larger than the observed ones. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.     

Abundances of [WC] central stars and their planetary nebulaee

We review elemental abundances derived for planetary nebula (PN) WCcentral stars and for their nebulae. Uncertainties in the abundances of[WC] stars are still too large to enable an abundance sequenceto be constructed. In particular it is not clear why the hotter [WCE]stars have C and O abundances which are systematically lower than those oftheir supposed precursors, the [WCL] stars. This abundance differencecould be real or it may be due to unaccounted-for systematic effects inthe analyses. Hydrogen might not be present in [WC] star winds asoriginallysuggested, since broad pedestals observed at the base of nebular lines canplausibly be attributed to high velocity nebular components. It isrecommended that stellar abundance analyses should be carried out withnon-LTE model codes, although recombination line analyses can provideuseful insights. In particular, C II dielectronic recombinationlines provide a unique means to determine electron temperatures in cool[WC] star winds. We then compare the abundances found for PNe which have [WC] central starswith those that do not. Numerous abundance analyses of PNe have beenpublished, but comparisons based on non-uniform samples and methods arelikely to lack reliability. Nebular C/H ratios, which might be expected todistinguish between PNe around H-poor and H-rich stars, are rather similarfor the two groups, with only a small tendency towards larger values fornebulae around H-deficient stars. Nebular abundances should be obtainedwith photoionization models using the best-fitting non-LTE modelatmosphere for the central star as the input. Heavy-metal line blanketingstill needs to be taken into consideration when modeling the central star,as its omission can significantly affect the ionizing fluxes as well asthe abundance determinations. We discuss the discrepancies between nebularabundances derived from collisionally excited lines and thosederived from optical recombination lines, a phenomenon that may havelinks with the presence of H-deficient central stars.     

A Bayesian approach to inverse modelling of stratigraphy, part 2: Validation tests

A novel inverse modelling method is applied to the problem of constraining the environmental parameters (e.g. relative sea level, sediment supply) that control stratigraphic architecture. This technique links forward modelling of shallow-marine wave/storm-dominated stratigraphy to a combination of inverse methods formulated in a Bayesian framework. We present a number of examples in which relative sea-level and sediment-supply curves were inferred from synthetic vertical successions of grain size (e.g. wells) and synthetic thickness curves (e.g. seismically derived isopachs) extracted from a forward model simulation. These examples represent different scenarios that are designed to test the impact of data distribution, quantity and quality on the uncertainty of the inferred parameters. The inverse modelling approach successfully reproduces the gross stratigraphic architectures and relative sea level and sediment-supply histories of the synthetic forward model simulation, within the constraints of the modelled data quality. The relative importance of the forcing parameters can be evaluated by their sensitivity and impact on the inverted data. Of equal importance, the inverse results allow complete characterisation of the uncertainties inherent to the stratigraphic modelling tool and to the data quality, quantity and distribution. The numerical scheme also successfully deals with the problem of non-uniqueness of the solution of the inverse problem. These preliminary results suggest that the inverse method is a powerful tool in constraining stratigraphic architecture for hydrocarbon reservoir characterisation and modelling, and it may ultimately provide a process-based geological complement to standard geostatistical tools.     

Impact of Gas Adsorption Induced Coal Matrix Damage on the Evolution of Coal Permeability

It has been widely reported that coal permeability can change from reduction to enhancement due to gas adsorption even under the constant effective stress condition, which is apparently inconsistent with the classic theoretical solutions. This study addresses this inconsistency through explicit simulations of the dynamic interactions between coal matrix swelling/shrinking induced damage and fracture aperture alteration, and translations of these interactions to permeability evolution under the constant effective stress condition. We develop a coupled coal–gas interaction model that incorporates the material heterogeneity and damage evolution of coal, which allows us to couple the progressive development of damage zone with gas adsorption processes within the coal matrix. For the case of constant effective stress, coal permeability changes from reduction to enhancement while the damage zone within the coal matrix develops from the fracture wall to further inside the matrix. As the peak Langmuir strain is approached, the decrease of permeability halts and permeability increases with pressure. The transition of permeability reduction to permeability enhancement during gas adsorption, which may be closely related to the damage zone development in coal matrix, is controlled by coal heterogeneity, external boundary condition, and adsorption-induced swelling.     

Improved Determination of the Location of the Temperature Maximum in the Corona

The most used method to calculate the coronal electron temperature [\(T_{\mathrm{e}} (r)\)] from a coronal density distribution [\(n_{\mathrm{e}} (r)\)] is the scale-height method (SHM). We introduce a novel method that is a generalization of a method introduced by Alfvén (Ark. Mat. Astron. Fys. 27, 1, 1941) to calculate \(T_{\mathrm{e}}(r)\) for a corona in hydrostatic equilibrium: the “HST” method. All of the methods discussed here require given electron-density distributions [\(n_{\mathrm{e}} (r)\)] which can be derived from white-light (WL) eclipse observations. The new “DYN” method determines the unique solution of \(T_{\mathrm{e}}(r)\) for which \(T_{\mathrm{e}}(r \rightarrow \infty) \rightarrow 0\) when the solar corona expands radially as realized in hydrodynamical solar-wind models. The applications of the SHM method and DYN method give comparable distributions for \(T_{\mathrm{e}}(r)\). Both have a maximum [\(T_{\max}\)] whose value ranges between 1?–?3 MK. However, the peak of temperature is located at a different altitude in both cases. Close to the Sun where the expansion velocity is subsonic (\(r < 1.3\,\mathrm{R}_{\odot}\)) the DYN method gives the same results as the HST method. The effects of the other free parameters on the DYN temperature distribution are presented in the last part of this study. Our DYN method is a new tool to evaluate the range of altitudes where the heating rate is maximum in the solar corona when the electron-density distribution is obtained from WL coronal observations.     

Assessment of a Sr isotope vital effect (87Sr/86Sr) in marine taxa from Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas

 Data from Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas, confirms the hypothesis that there are no vital effects with the uptake of Sr isotopes (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) at the present mass spectrometer resolution [±2×10^-5 (2σ)]. Our data set contains analyses of 40 samples derived from 37 different calcareous taxa inhabiting a wide range of carbonate subenvironments (i.e., reefal, intertidal, supratidal, mangrove). The mean value of our analyses was 0.709179 with a standard deviation of 2.4×10^-5 (2σ) which was very close to the long-term uncertainty of the strontium isotope methodology [±2.0×10^-5 (2σ)] and to the widely reported ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr value of seawater, which clusters around 0.709175. Received: 14 October 1997 / Revision received: 20 March 1998     

The evolution of Cenozoic explosive volcanism: The Iceland Plume

This paper reviews original and published data on the abundance and composition of pyroclastics due to explosive discharges by volcanoes on the Iceland Plume. The pyroclastics were deposited in the Cenozoic sediments in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Norwegian-Greenland basin. The DSDP and ODP initial reports (70 deep wells), 100 geologic columns sampled during cruises of the R/Vs Akademik Kurchatov and Mikhail Lomonosov furnished the database from which we constructed stratigraphic and areal-maps of pyroclastics abundance and computed the distribution of the volumes and amounts of pyroclastic layers over the stratigraphic intervals of the Cenozoic sedimentary sequence. The distribution of these layers was found to be cyclic; the highest frequency occurred during the Quaternary. Basaltoid pyroclastics prevailed in the late Paleocene and Early Eocene. The Oligocene has typically subalkaline ankaramite pyroclastics. From the Miocene until the Quaternary the pyroclastics became bimodal (basalt-rhyolite) and high potassium rhyolite pyroclastics appeared. This evolution seems to have been caused by crystallization differentiation of basaltoid magmas in magma chambers that came into being in prespreading grabens where a thick (> 20 km) sequence of volcanic rocks accumulated to produce a dipping reflector.