A measurement of the transverse velocity of Q2237+0305

Determination of microlensing parameters in the gravitationally lensed quasar Q2237+0305 from the statistics of high-magnification events will require monitoring for more than 100 years (Wambsganss, Paczynski & Schneider). However, we show that the effective transverse velocity of the lensing galaxy can be determined on a more realistic time-scale through consideration of the distribution of light-curve derivatives. The 10 years of existing monitoring data for Q2237+0305 are analysed. These data display strong evidence for microlensing that is not associated with a high-magnification event. An upper limit of v _t<500 km s⁻¹ is obtained for the galactic transverse velocity, which is smaller than previously assumed values. The analysis suggests that the observed microlensing variation may be predominantly due to stellar proper motions. The statistical significance of the results obtained from our method will be increased by the addition of data points from current and future monitoring campaigns. However, reduced photometric errors will be more valuable than an increased sampling rate.     

Rebel with a cause? Iconography and public memory in the Southern United States

Recent years have witnessed debates in the American South between traditional white Southerners and African American Southerners over whether and how symbols from the region's two defining historical events – the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement – are displayed on the region's landscape. This paper examines the most contentious of these debates, the conflict over government sanction for flying the various flags of the Confederate States of America. This article first discusses the concepts of iconography and public memory, and then the role of Confederate flags in traditional white Southern iconography. We then examine four recent attempts in the states of Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, and within the chambers of the U.S. Senate to remove government sanction for flying Confederate flags. We conclude from these debates that while icons can act as centripetal forces binding a people together, they can also emerge as centrifugal forces, further splitting apart a region's population along major cultural and racial divisions.     

Strong tin enrichment in a pegmatite-forming melt

To investigate processes of magmatic tin enrichment and cassiterite deposition, we studied the abundances of major, trace, and volatile elements in a large number of rehomogenized silicate melt inclusions in quartz and topaz from a pegmatite body at the Ehrenfriedersdorf Sn–W deposit. This deposit is associated with evolved Variscan granites of the central Erzgebirge, southeast Germany. The melt inclusions are peraluminous; the molar aluminum saturation index (ASI) ranges from 1.15 to 2.0, and many inclusions are characterized by a very high content of fluxing components and volatiles. Some inclusions contain more than 20 wt% of H₂O, F, Cl, and P₂O₅, plus Li as well as very high levels of Sn. Some rare, highly evolved fractions of late-stage pegmatite-forming liquid at Ehrenfriedersdorf contained up to 7000 ppm Sn. The presence of hydrogen and methane in addition to water and carbon dioxide in the vapor phase of the melt inclusions suggests a very low oxygen fugacity for some fractions of magma. The extreme levels of tin, volatiles, and fluxing components in this magma had an important influence on processes of melt movement and cassiterite precipitation. Melts, like these, that are high in volatiles and alkalis (sum of Li₂O, Na₂O, K₂O, Rb₂O, and Cs₂O is >8 wt%) have low densities (≤1.8 g/cm³), low viscosities (<10 Pa.s at 700 °C), facilitate relatively rapid diffusion of ions through melts, and hence are excellent solvents for extracting and transporting ore-forming elements. Received: 1 February 1999 / Accepted: 19 January 2000     

Melt inclusions in pegmatite quartz: complete miscibility between silicate melts and hydrous fluids at low pressure

Fluorine-, boron- and phosphorus-rich pegmatites of the Variscan Ehrenfriedersdorf complex crystallized over a temperature range from about 700 to 500 °C at a pressure of about 1 kbar. Pegmatite quartz crystals continuously trapped two different types of melt inclusions during cooling and growth: a silicate-rich H₂O-poor melt and a silicate-poor H₂O-rich melt. Both melts were simultaneously trapped on the solvus boundaries of the silicate (+ fluorine + boron + phosphorus) − water system. The partially crystallized melt inclusions were rehomogenized at 1 kbar between 500 and 712 °C in steps of 50 °C by conventional rapid-quench hydrothermal experiments. Glasses of completely rehomogenized inclusions were analyzed for H₂O by Raman spectroscopy, and for major and some trace elements by EMP (electron microprobe). Both types of melt inclusions define a solvus boundary in an X_H2O–T pseudobinary system. At 500 °C, the silicate-rich melt contains about 2.5 wt% H₂O, and the conjugate water-rich melt about 47 wt% H₂O. The solvus closes rapidly with increasing temperature. At 650 °C, the water contents are about 10 and 32 wt%, respectively. Complete miscibility is attained at the critical point: 712 °C and 21.5 wt% H₂O. Many pegmatites show high concentrations of F, B, and P, this is particularly true for those pegmatites associated with highly evolved peraluminous granites. The presence of these elements dramatically reduces the critical pressure for fluid–melt systems. At shallow intrusion levels, at T ≥ 720 °C, water is infinitely soluble in a F-, B-, and P-rich melt. Simple cooling induces a separation into two coexisting melts, accompanied with strong element fractionation. On the water-rich side of the solvus, very volatile-rich melts are produced that have vastly different physical properties as compared to “normal” silicate melts. The density, viscosity, diffusivity, and mobility of such hyper-aqueous melts under these conditions are more comparable to an aqueous fluid. Received: 15 September 1999 / Accepted: 10 December 1999     

Soil Plug Effect Prediction and Pile Driveability Analysis for Large-Diameter Steel Piles in Ocean Engineering

Long steel piles with large diameters have been more widely used in the field of ocean engineering.Owing to the pile with a large diameter,soil plug development during pile driving has great influences on pile driveability and beating capacity.The response of soil plug developed inside the open-ended pipe pile during the dynamic condition of pile-driving is different from the response under the static condition of loading during service.This paper addresses the former aspect.A numerical procedure for soil plng effect prediction and pile driveability analysis is proposed and described.By taking into consideration of the pile dimension effect on side and tip resistance,this approach introduces a dimensional coefficient to the conventional static equilibrium equations for the plug differential unit and proposes an improved static equity method for the plug effect prediction.At the same time,this approach introduces a simplified model by use of one-dimensional stress wave equation to simulate the interaction between soft ping and pile inner wall.The proposed approach has been applied in practical engineering analyses.Results show that the calculated plug effect and pile driveability based on the proposed approach agree well with the observed data.     

Radium and radon radioisotopes in regional groundwater, intertidal groundwater, and seawater in the Adelaide Coastal Waters Study area: Implications for the evaluation of submarine groundwater discharge

The input of groundwater-borne nutrients to Adelaide's (South Australia) coastal zone is not well known but could contribute to the ongoing decline of seagrass in the area. As a component of the Adelaide Coastal Waters Study (ACWS), the potential for using the radium quartet (²²³Ra, ²²⁴Ra, ²²⁶Ra and ²²⁸Ra) and ²²²Rn to evaluate submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) was evaluated. Potential isotopic signatures for SGD were assessed by sampling groundwater from three regional aquifers potentially contributing SGD to the ACWS area. In addition, intertidal groundwater was sampled at two sand beach sites. In general, the regional groundwaters were enriched in long-lived Ra isotopes (²²⁶Ra and ²²⁸Ra) and in ²²²Rn relative to intertidal groundwater. Radium activity (but not ²²²Rn activity) was positively correlated to salinity in groundwater from one of the regional aquifers and in intertidal groundwater. Radium isotope ratios (²²³Ra/²²⁶Ra, ²²⁴Ra/²²⁶Ra and ²²⁸Ra/²²⁶Ra) were less variable than individual Ra isotope activities within potential SGD sources. Recirculated seawater (estimated from the intertidal groundwater samples with seawater-like salinities) also had distinctly higher Ra isotope ratios than the regional groundwaters. The activities for all radioisotopes were relatively low in seawater. The activity of the short-lived ²²³Ra and ²²⁴Ra were highest at the shoreline and declined exponentially with distance offshore. In contrast, ²²⁸Ra and ²²⁶Ra activities had a weak linear declining trend with distance offshore. Rn-222 activity was at or near background in all seawater samples. The pattern of enrichment in short-lived Ra isotopes and the lack of ²²²Rn in seawater suggest that seawater recirculation is the main contributor to SGD in the ACWS area. Preliminary modeling of the offshore flux of ²²⁸Ra and ²²⁶Ra suggest that the SGD flux to the ACWS area ranges between 0.2 and 3 · 10^− 3 m³ (m of shoreline)^− 1 s^− 1.     

Recent change of the global monsoon precipitation (1979–2008)

The global monsoon (GM) is a defining feature of the annual variation of Earth’s climate system. Quantifying and understanding the present-day monsoon precipitation change are crucial for prediction of its future and reflection of its past. Here we show that regional monsoons are coordinated not only by external solar forcing but also by internal feedback processes such as El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). From one monsoon year (May to the next April) to the next, most continental monsoon regions, separated by vast areas of arid trade winds and deserts, vary in a cohesive manner driven by ENSO. The ENSO has tighter regulation on the northern hemisphere summer monsoon (NHSM) than on the southern hemisphere summer monsoon (SHSM). More notably, the GM precipitation (GMP) has intensified over the past three decades mainly due to the significant upward trend in NHSM. The intensification of the GMP originates primarily from an enhanced east–west thermal contrast in the Pacific Ocean, which is coupled with a rising pressure in the subtropical eastern Pacific and decreasing pressure over the Indo-Pacific warm pool. While this mechanism tends to amplify both the NHSM and SHSM, the stronger (weaker) warming trend in the NH (SH) creates a hemispheric thermal contrast, which favors intensification of the NHSM but weakens the SHSM. The enhanced Pacific zonal thermal contrast is largely a result of natural variability, whilst the enhanced hemispherical thermal contrast is likely due to anthropogenic forcing. We found that the enhanced global summer monsoon not only amplifies the annual cycle of tropical climate but also promotes directly a “wet-gets-wetter” trend pattern and indirectly a “dry-gets-drier” trend pattern through coupling with deserts and trade winds. The mechanisms recognized in this study suggest a way forward for understanding past and future changes of the GM in terms of its driven mechanisms.     

Asian summer monsoon prediction in ECMWF System 4 and NCEP CFSv2 retrospective seasonal forecasts

The seasonal prediction skill of the Asian summer monsoon is assessed using retrospective predictions (1982–2009) from the ECMWF System 4 (SYS4) and NCEP CFS version 2 (CFSv2) seasonal prediction systems. In both SYS4 and CFSv2, a cold bias of sea-surface temperature (SST) is found over the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic, Indian Oceans and over a broad region in the Southern Hemisphere relative to observations. In contrast, a warm bias is found over the northern part of North Pacific and North Atlantic. Excessive precipitation is found along the ITCZ, equatorial Atlantic, equatorial Indian Ocean and the maritime continent. The southwest monsoon flow and the Somali Jet are stronger in SYS4, while the south-easterly trade winds over the tropical Indian Ocean, the Somali Jet and the subtropical northwestern Pacific high are weaker in CFSv2 relative to the reanalysis. In both systems, the prediction of SST, precipitation and low-level zonal wind has greatest skill in the tropical belt, especially over the central and eastern Pacific where the influence of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is dominant. Both modeling systems capture the global monsoon and the large-scale monsoon wind variability well, while at the same time performing poorly in simulating monsoon precipitation. The Asian monsoon prediction skill increases with the ENSO amplitude, although the models simulate an overly strong impact of ENSO on the monsoon. Overall, the monsoon predictive skill is lower than the ENSO skill in both modeling systems but both systems show greater predictive skill compared to persistence.     

The large-scale context for the TOGA Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment

Summary The TOGA Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) concentrated a variety of observational systems in the warm pool of the western equatorial Pacific for an Intensive Observation Period (IOP) November 1992 through February 1993. In this paper, aspects of the largescale variations of the tropical atmosphere and Pacific Ocean surrounding the observations of air-sea interaction in the Intensive Flux Array (IFA) during the IOP are described, with the objective of providing a context for the future analyses of these observations.The evolution of the 1991–1992 El Niño/Southern Oscillation event was unusual: Warm SST anomalies in the equatorial cold tongue region switched to colder than climatology in the last half of 1992, but waters warmer than 30°C remained displaced eastward just west of the dateline, coninuing to fuel anomalous convection there during the IOP. Fortunately, SST in the IFA remained warmer than 29°C during most of the IOP, and convective activity was observed over the IFA. The Southern Oscillation Index, which had relaxed to near zero prior to the experiment, decreased during the IOP, reflecting sea level presure changes associated with renewed westerly wind activity. In response to these westerly wind events, the warm pool migrated back into the central equatorial Pacific, leading to a reintensification of the ENSO warm SST anomalies east of the dateline.With 10 Figures     

New records of Late Neoproterozoic Acraman ejecta in the Officer Basin

New occurrences of the Acraman impact ejecta layer were recently discovered in two drillholes, Giles 1 and Murnaroo 1, in the eastern Officer Basin, South Australia, using acritarch biostratigraphy and lithostratigraphy to predict the position. Fractured crystals were also observed in palynological preparations from drillhole SCYW 1a on the Stuart Shelf. These discoveries improve stratigraphic control of Late Neoproterozoic successions, especially in the eastern Officer Basin and will allow a test of the hypothesis that the Acraman impact event caused a global catastrophe.