Potential impacts of invasive Spartina alterniflora on spring bird communities at Chongming Dongtan,a Chinese wetland of international importance

Invasive smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora, hereafter Spartina) has been expanding rapidly in the estuarine wetlands at Chongming Dongtan (East China) at the expense of native sea-bulrush (Scirpus mariqueter, hereafter Scirpus) and common reed (Phragmites australis, hereafter Phragmites). To examine the potential impacts of the Spartina invasion on bird diversity, we compared the abundance and species richness of birds in habitats created by Spartina, Phragmites, Spartina mixed with Phragmites, Scirpus, and the bare intertidal zone at Chongming Dongtan in spring 2008. Most birds were recorded in the native habitats, with songbirds and breeding birds being most abundant in the Phragmites habitats, and waterbirds and migrants being most abundant in the Scirpus habitats and bare intertidal zone. Both species number and population densities of birds were lower in the exotic Spartina habitats than in the other four habitats. Although some songbirds and breeding birds used the Spartina-invaded habitats, and even preferred Spartina-invaded habitats to Scirpus habitats and bare intertidal zone, their densities were lower in the Spartina-invaded habitats than in the native Phragmites habitats. This might have resulted from the dense Spartina stands restricting bird movement and providing insufficient useable food for most birds. We conclude that the spread of exotic Spartina has negative impacts on local bird communities. Because Chongming Dongtan is an important stopover site for energy replenishment of shorebirds in the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, urgent measures are needed to control further spread of Spartina and to restore the native habitats for birds.     

地震分频AVO方法研究现状与展望

传统的AVO理论只考虑单界面两边的岩石物理特性,没有考虑地层厚度、其他波场以及油气藏中地震波的能量衰减和速度散射,在实际应用中还存在很多未解决的问题。实际地震波信息常常是地下多个砂泥岩薄互层的综合响应,每个薄层产生的地震反射信号经傅里叶变换后,在频率域都有一个与之相对应的特定频率成分,且这种频率成分在频率域是唯一的。将分频技术与AVO研究密切结合是有效解决薄互层气藏地震AVO识别的有效途径之一。简要介绍了AVO技术及传统AVO技术存在的问题,讨论了地震AVO与地震频率的关系,指出进行分频AVO分析的依据,并进一步讨论了时频分析方法。     

塔里木巴什托油气田巴楚组顶部油气层录井特征分析

详细分析了巴什托油气田BK2、BK3H、BK4H以及BK5H等6口井的地质录井资料,显示巴楚组顶部油气层自上而下见到的含油气级别一般为油斑、油迹、气测异常等,上好下差,油气主要集中于顶部油气层之顶上,反映出油气向上运移储集比较好。巴楚组及以上地层纵、横向上的稳定性较好,深度、厚度均变化不大,且以M4井为中心向各方向均呈现增厚—减薄有规律的交替变化。巴什托油气田巴楚组油藏具有较好的开采价值,但还应不断钻探寻找新的含油气构造,发现新的油气田。     

Characteristics and interpretation of the seismic signal of a field-scale landslide dam failure experiment

Outburst floods caused by breaches of landslide dams may cause serious damages and loss of lives in downstream areas; for this reason the study of the dynamic of the process is of particular interest for hazard and risk assessment. In this paper we report a field-scale landslide dam failure experiment conducted in Nantou County, in the central of Taiwan.The seismic signal generated during the dam failure was monitored using a broadband seismometer and the signal was used to study the dam failure process.We used the short-time Fourier transform(STFT) to obtain the time–frequency characteristics of the signal and analyzed the correlation between the power spectrum density(PSD) of the signal and the water level. The results indicate that the seismic signal generated during the process consisted of three components: a low-frequency band(0–1.5 Hz), an intermediate-frequency band(1.5–10 Hz) and a highfrequency band(10–45 Hz). We obtained the characteristics of each frequency band and the variations of the signal in various stages of the landslide dam failure process. We determined the cause for the signal changes in each frequency band and its relationship with the dam failure process. The PSD sediment flux estimation model was used to interpret the causes of variations in the signal energy before the dam failure and the clockwise hysteresis during the failure. Our results show that the seismic signal reflects the physical characteristics of the landslide dam failure process. The method and equipment used in this study may be used to monitor landslide dams and providing early warnings for dam failures.     

Effects of RapidEye imagery’s red-edge band and vegetation indices on land cover classification in an arid region

Land cover classification (LCC) in arid regions is of great significance to the assessment, prediction, and management of land desertification. Some studies have shown that the red-edge band of RapidEye images was effective for vegetation identification and could improve LCC accuracy. However, there has been no investigation of the effects of RapidEye images’ red-edge band and vegetation indices on LCC in arid regions where there are spectrally similar land covers mixed with very high or low vegetation coverage information and bare land. This study focused on a typical inland arid desert region located in Dunhuang Basin of northwestern China. First, five feature sets including or excluding the red-edge band and vegetation indices were constructed. Then, a land cover classification system involving plant communities was developed. Finally, random forest algorithm-based models with different feature sets were utilized for LCC. The conclusions drawn were as follows: 1) the red-edge band showed slight contribution to LCC accuracy; 2) vegetation indices had a significant positive effect on LCC; 3) simultaneous addition of the red-edge band and vegetation indices achieved a significant overall accuracy improvement (3.46% from 86.67%). In general, vegetation indices had larger effect than the red-edge band, and simultaneous addition of them significantly increased the accuracy of LCC in arid regions.     

A possible mechanism of formation of faculae

We propose a new heating mechanism of faculae. We think that the formation of faculae is a result of the Joule dissipation of the Hall current generated by the interaction of the convection field of granules in an active region and the inter-granular magnetic field. For a region to generate effectively Hall current, its characteristic length must be such that the magnetic Reynolds number is less than 1. The equation of energy balance in the facula region is

$\text{16σT}{}^3{}_{\mathrm{p}}\text{(T}{}_{\mathrm{l}}\text{? T}{}_{\mathrm{p}}\text{)}{}^{\mathrm{n}}\text{HP}{}_{\mathrm{s}}{}^{\mathrm{a}}\text{H}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{=}\text{Qn}{}_{\mathrm{s}}\text{m}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{u}{}_{\mathrm{x}}{}^2\text{(τ}{}^2{}_{\mathrm{in}}\text{ω}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{)}$

.For five observational models of faculae, we calculated the corresponding velocity fields, and the results are in basic agreement with the observed fields. The present mechanism explains the dependence of the facula brightness on the magnetic and velocity fields, the apparent distribution of the faculae on the solar disk and suggest a possible interpretation of the five structures of faculae.     

High-resolution photography of the solar chromosphere

A method is described for reconstructing the true geometry of a solar loop observed on the disk which takes account of tilt in its own plane. Reconstructions of three H loops yield small tilt angles (14°) and provide further evidence that H loops show a close correspondence to the field lines of a magnetic dipole. The method offers new opportunities for exploring the physics of individual solar loops.     

Distance law and formation of satellite systems

In the solar system satellite systems of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are typical ones. The distribution of the semi-major axis of satellite orbits in each system may be expressed by an empirical formula corresponding to the Titius-Bode law. We found that it can be written as a_n = B′ · Bⁿ, where B′ and B are constants. Values of B′ and B depend on formation conditions of each system. Satellites should be formed in the gas-satellitesimal disk around a planet and by aggregation of satellitesimals. The gas is the major component in the disk and its damping effect must play an important role in the process of aggregation of satellitesimals. It may be proved that radial small perturbation in the disk can cause the gravitational instability and the formation of gaseous rings with increased density, where satellitesimals can easy aggregat into satellites.