Determination of Meteoroid Orbits and Spatial Fluxes by Using High-Resolution All-Sky CCD Cameras

By using high-resolution, low-scan-rate, all-sky CCD cameras, the SPanish Meteor Network (SPMN) is currently monitoring meteor and fireball activity on a year round basis. Here are presented just a sampling of the accurate trajectory, radiant and orbital data obtained for meteors imaged simultaneously from two SPMN stations during the continuous 2006–2007 coverage of meteor and fireball monitoring. Typical astrometric uncertainty is 1–2 arc min, while velocity determination errors are of the order of 0.1–0.5 km/s, which is dependent on the distance of each event to the station and its particular viewing geometry. The cameras have demonstrated excellent performance for detecting meteor outbursts. The recent development of automatic detection software is also providing real-time information on the global meteor activity. Finally, some examples of the all-sky CCD cameras applications for detecting unexpected meteor activity are given.     

Natural and anthropogenic C2 to C6 hydrocarbons in the central-eastern Venezuelan atmosphere during the rainy season

The levels of low molecular weight hydrocarbons were measured at pristine sites and rural locations affected by hydrocarbon emissions from oil and gas producing fields in Venezuela. At the clean sites, lower concentrations of C₂ to C₆ alkanes were observed, whereas, in comparison with remotes sites, very much higher levels were measured at the polluted sites. Alkenes present relatively high concentrations, with isoprene being the most abundant, all over the study region. The main sources of alkenes are likely to be natural, mainly from vegetation. The levels of alkanes recorded at the clean sites and the alkene levels found everywhere in the region are in agreement with the values reported for other clean sites in the tropics. The increase of ozone production capacity due to the anthropogenic emissions of alkanes from oil and gas fields was estimated. Due to the presence in the atmosphere of important amounts of naturally emitted isoprene, ethene and propene, which makes a substantial contribution to the reactivity of the hydrocarbon mixture, a small increase (<5%) was estimated to occur in the capacity of the ozone production at a regional scale during the rainy season.     

A hydraulic invariance‐based methodology for the implementation of storm‐water release restrictions in urban land use master plans

A hydraulic invariance (HI)‐based methodology was developed as a tool to support implementation of storm flow control measures into land use master plans (LUMPs) for urban catchments. The methodology is based on the use of simple hydrologic analysis to compare predevelopment and postdevelopment catchment flow release scenarios. Differently from previous literature examples, for which the parcel scale is usually considered for the analysis, HI was pursued assuming the LUMP areas of transformation as the basic units for assigning storm water control measures in the form of flow release restrictions. The methodology was applied to a case study catchment in the southern part of the City of Catania (Italy), for which the LUMP re‐design has been recently proposed. Simulations were run based on the use of the EPA‐Storm Water Management Model and allowed deriving flow release restrictions in order to achieve HI at the subcatchment level for design events of different return period.     

Love wave tomography in Italy from seismic ambient noise

We estimate Love wave empirical Green's functions from cross-correlations of ambient seismic noise to study the crust and uppermost mantle structure in Italy.Transverse-component ambient noise data from October 2005 through March 2007 recorded at 114 seismic stations from the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) national broadband network,the Mediterranean Very Broadband Seismographic Network (MedNet) and the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) yield more than 2 000 Love wave group velocity measurements using the multiple-filter analysis technique.In the short period band (5-20 s),the cross-correlations show clearly one-sided asymmetric feature due to non-uniform noise distribution and high local activities,and in the long period band (20 s) this feature becomes weak owing to more diffusive noise distribution.Based on these measurements,Love wave group velocity dispersion maps in the 8-34 s period band are constructed,then the SH wave velocity structures from the Love wave dispersions are inverted.The final results obtained from Love wave data are overall in good agreement with those from Rayleigh waves.Both Love and Rayleigh wave inversions all reveal that the Po plain basin is resolved with low velocity at shallow depth,and the Tyrrhenian sea is characterized with higher velocity below 8 km due to its thin oceanic crust.     

Age and origin of the lowlands of Mars

One of the many significant findings of the Mars Global Surveyor mission is the presence of hundreds of quasi-circular depressions (QCDs) observed from high-resolution MOLA topography data. Their presence has recently been interpreted to reflect a northern lowlands that archive some of the earliest recorded rocks on Mars, mostly below a veneer of Hesperian and Amazonian materials. Here we analyze these data, coupled with a recent synthesis of geologic, geophysical, geomorphic, topographic, and magnetic information. Such analysis allows us to suggest a potential plate tectonic phase during the recorded Early into Middle Noachian martian history that transitioned into a monoplate world with episodic magmatic-driven activity persisting to present. This working hypothesis is based on: (1) the observation that the basement of the northern plains is younger than the basement of the southern highlands, but older than the material exposures of the cratered highlands, suggesting different formational ages for each one of the three geologic-time units; (2) the observation that parts of the very ancient highland's crust are highly magnetized, thus suggesting that most if not all of the formation of the lowlands basement postdates the shut off of the martian dynamo, some 4 Gyr ago, and so allowing hundreds of millions of years for the shaping of the buried lowlands. Consequently, the role of endogenic processes in the earliest geological evolution of Mars (Early perhaps into Middle Noachian) requires reconsideration, since MOLA topographic and MGS magnetic data afford a temporal window sufficient for very early, non-primordial shaping of the northern lowlands' basement.     

On the Derivation of Input Parameters for Urban Canopy Models from Urban Morphological Datasets

Two techniques are analysed to derive mean street width and mean building width from morphological data of real cities: one based on a two-dimensional simplified morphology, and the other based on a three-dimensional regular simplified morphology. For each simplified morphology (two-dimensional and three-dimensional), the sky-view factors (street-to-sky) are computed and compared with the sky-view factors derived from the real morphology for selected districts of three European and two North American cities. The two-dimensional simplified morphology reproduces the real sky-view factors better than the three-dimensional morphology. Since many urban canopy parameterizations represent the city using simplified morphologies, this can be useful information for the derivation of input parameters for urban canopy parameterizations from real morphological data.     

Ordovician igneous and metamorphic units in southeastern Puna: New U–Pb and Sm–Nd data and implications for the evolution of northwestern Argentina

New field, petrological, geochemical, and geochronological data (U–Pb and Sm–Nd) for Ordovician rock units in the southeastern Puna, NW Argentina, indicate two lithostratigraphic units at the eastern–northeastern border of salar Centenario: (1) a bimodal volcanosedimentary sequence affected by low- to medium-grade metamorphism, comprising metasediments associated with basic and felsic metavolcanic rocks, dated 485 ± 5 Ma, and (2) a plutonic unit composed of syenogranites to quartz-rich leucogranites with U–Pb zircon ages between 462 ± 7 and 475 ± 5 Ma. Felsic metavolcanic and plutonic rocks are peraluminous and show similar geochemical differentiation trends. They also have similar Sm–Nd isotopic compositions (T_DM model ages of 1.54–1.78 Ga; ε_Nd(T) values ranging from −3.2 to −7.5) that suggest a common origin and derivation of the original magmas from older (Meso-Paleoproterozoic?) continental crust. Mafic rocks show ε_Nd(T) ranging from +2.3 to +2.5, indicating a depleted mantle source. The data presented here, combined with those in the literature, suggest Ordovician magmatism mainly recycles preexisting crust with minor additions of juvenile mantle-derived material.