First Data on the Isotopic Age of Zircons from Rocks of the Roseta Ultramafic Massif,Southern Margin of the São Francisco Craton (Brazil)

Doklady Earth Sciences - The results of isotope U–Pb dating of zircons from lherzolite and vein olivine orthopyroxenite composing the Roseta ultramafic massif are presented. The zircons...     

Transport and retention of suspended particulate matter and bacteria in the Humber-Ouse Estuary, United Kingdom, and their relationship to hypoxia and anoxia

Data are presented on dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations and their relationship to salinity, suspended particulate matter (SPM), concentrations, and the turbidity maximum in the Humber-Ouse Estuary, United Kingdom, during summer 1995. Measurements in the upper Humber during March 1995 showed DO in the range 82% to 87% of saturation. Suspended particulate matter concentrations were <5000 mg l^?1 and salinity was in the range 0.5 to 12. In contrast, a pronounced DO sag occurred in the upper reaches of the Ouse during medium and spring tide, summer conditions. The DO minimum was essentially an anoxic level and was associated with the location of the turbidity maximum, at salinities between about 0.4 and 1.5. SPM concentrations at 1 m beneath the surface reached 25,000 mg l^?1 in the turbidity maximum, between about 20 km and 40 km from the tidal limit. Suspended particulate matter concentrations were much lower at neap tides, although dense suspensions of SPM (>60,000 mg l^?1) occurred within 1 m of the bed in the turbidity maximum region. A spring-neap record showed a dramatic and tidally controlled decrease in DO at very low salinities as the tides progressed from neaps to springs. An anchor station located down-channel of the turbidity maximum showed that about 95% of the variance in DO, which varied from 28% at low-water slack to 67% at high-water slack, could be explained in terms of salinity variation. At the up-channel margins of the turbidity maximum, DO increased from zero (anoxia) near high water to 60% near low water slack, in contrast to the behavior down-channel of the turbidity maximum. About 82% of the variance in DO could be explained in terms of salinity variations alone. Only 43% of the DO variance could be explained in terms of SPM alone. Up-channel of the turbidity maximum, SPM concentrations were relatively low (<3000 mg l^?1) and DO levels varied from 48% of saturation near high water to 83% near low water slack. About 76% of the variance in DO could be explained in terms of salinity variations alone. Within the turbidity maximum region, DO varied from <2% saturation on the early flood and late ebb and maximized around 7% at high water slack. About 63% of the variance in DO could be explained in terms of salinity variation alone. This increased to 70% when suspended particulate matter was taken into account. Only 29% of the DO variance could be explained in terms of suspended particulate matter alone. Because bacteria were likely to have been the cause of the observed reduction in DO, the numbers of bacteria, both free-living and attached to particles, were measured in the turbidity maximum region. Numbers of free-living bacteria were low and most of the bacteria were attached to sediment particles. There was a linear correlation between total bacterial number and suspended particulate matter concentration, suggesting that the strong DO demand was exerted locally as a result of bacterial activity associated with increased suspended particulate matter concentrations. An order of magnitude analysis of DO consumption within the Ouse’s turbidity maximum, based on the premise that DO depletion was directly related to suspended particulate matter concentrations and that DO addition was due to reaeration, indicates that complete deoxygenation could have occurred with an oxygen depletion rate of ～0.01 mg DO h^?1/g suspended particulate matter during the residence time of waters within the turbidity maximum (～7 d). This rate was sufficiently fast that anoxic to aerobic conditions were able to develop a spring-neap periodicity within the turbidity maximum, but too slow to generate substantial intratidal fluctuations in DO. This is in accordance with the observations, which show that relatively little of the intratidal variance in DO could be explained in terms of suspended particulate matter fluctuations, whereas most of the variance could be explained in terms of salinity, which behaved as a surrogate measure for the proximity of the turbidity maximum.     

Observations of the structure and evolution of solar flares with a soft X-ray telescope

132 soft X-ray flare events have been observed with The Aerospace Corporation/Marshall Space Flight Center S-056 X-ray telescope that was part of the ATM complement of instruments aboard Skylab. Analyses of these data are reported in this paper. The observations are summarized and a detailed discussion of the X-ray flare structures is presented. The data indicated that soft X-rays emitted by a flare come primarily from an intense well-defined core surrounded by a region of fainter, more diffuse emission. Loop structures are found to constitute a fundamental characteristic of flare cores and arcades of loops are found to play a more important role in the flare phenomena than previously thought. Size distributions of these core features are presented and a classification scheme describing the brightest flare X-ray features is proposed. The data show no correlations between the size of core features and: (1) the peak X-ray intensity, as indicated by detectors on the SOLRAD satellite; (2) the rise time of the X-ray flare event, or (3) the presence of a nonthermal X-ray component. An analysis of flare evolution indicates evidence for preliminary heating and energy release prior to the main phase of the flare. Core features are found to be remarkably stable and retain their shape throughout a flare. Most changes in the overall configuration seem to be the result of the appearance, disappearance or change in brightness of individual features, rather than the restructuring or re-orientation of these features. Brief comparisons with several theories are presented.     

The specific features of geophysical fields in the fault zones

Instrumental measurements of geophysical fields in several regions of the Earth’s crust with a complex structure and tectonics are analyzed. The observed geophysical fields include the electric field in the boundary layer of the atmosphere and in the subsurface crust, the ground magnetic field, and the fields formed by microseismic vibrations and natural radon emanation. It is shown that the fault zones are characterized by noticeably higher (compared to the middle segments of crustal blocks) variations in the geophysical fields, a stronger response to the faint external impacts in the form of lunisolar tides, and baric variations in the atmosphere, as well as by higher intensity relaxation processes. Energy transformations between the geophysical fields of different origins are observed predominantly in the fault regions.     

Asymmetry of compton scattering by relativistic electrons with an isotropic velocity distribution: Astrophysical implications

The angular distribution of low-frequency radiation after a single scattering by relativistic electrons with an isotropic velocity distribution differs markedly from the Rayleigh angular function. In particular, the scattering by an ensemble of ultrarelativistic electrons is described by the law p=1?cosα, where α is the scattering angle. Thus, photons are mostly scattered backward. We discuss some consequences of this fact for astrophysical problems. We show that a hot atmosphere of scattering electrons is more reflective than a cold one: the fraction of incident photons reflected after a single scattering can be larger than that in the former case by up to 50%. This must affect the photon exchange between cold accretion disks and hot coronae (or advective flows) near relativistic compact objects, as well as the rate of cooling (through multiple inverse-Compton scattering of the photons supplied from outside) of optically thick clouds of relativistic electrons in compact radio sources. Scattering asymmetry also causes the spatial diffusion of photons to proceed more slowly in a hot plasma than in a cold one, which affects the shapes of Comptonization spectra and the time delay in the detection of soft and hard radiation from variable X-ray sources.     

Automated co-registration of images from multiple bands of Liss-4 camera

Three multi-spectral bands of the Liss-4 camera of IRS-P6 satellite are physically separated in the focal plane in the along-track direction. The time separation of 2.1 s between the acquisition of first and last bands causes scan lines acquired by different bands to lie along different lines on the ground which are not parallel. Therefore, the raw images of multi-spectral bands need to be registered prior to any simple application like data visualization. This paper describes a method for co-registration of multiple bands of Liss-4 camera through photogrammetric means using the collinearity equations. A trajectory fit using the given ephemeris and attitude data, followed by direct georeferencing is being employed in this model. It is also augmented with a public domain DEM for the terrain dependent input to the model. Finer offsets after the application of this parametric technique are addressed by matching a small subsection of the bands (100×100 pixels) using an image-based method. Resampling is done by going back to original raw data when creating the product after refining image coordinates with the offsets. Two types of aligned products are defined in this paper and their operational flow is described. Datasets covering different types of terrain and also viewed with different geometries are studied with extensive number of points. The band-to-band registration (BBR) accuracies are reported. The algorithm described in this paper for co-registration of Liss-4 bands is an integral part of the software package Value Added Products generation System (VAPS) for operational generation of IRS-P6 data products.     

Fossil insect evidence for late pleistocene paleoenvironments of the lamb spring site,Colorado

The study of Quarternary insect fossils has shown their value as paleoenvironmental indicators, especially during times of rapid climatic change, and this method is now being introduced into North America archeological studies. Abundant insect fossils have been recovered from 13,000 year old detrital organic materials from silty clays at the Lamb Spring site, south of Denver, Colorado. The spring deposits also contain bones of extinct camel and mammoth, thought to have been modified by human hunters. The late Pleistocene insect fauna from Lamb Spring comprises 71 identified taxa from 6 orders and 14 families, principally beetles, providing substantial paleoenvironmental data. The beetle fauna is a mixture of grassland and mountain elements, and they appear to represent an environment similar to that found today in high mountain valleys, such as South Park, Colorado. Based on this fauna, mean summer temperatures at 13,140 B.P. were probably 10°C cooler than present.