Rotating haloes and the microlensing MACHO mass estimate

We investigate the implications of a bulk rotational component of the Galactic halo velocity distribution for MACHO mass estimates. We find that for a rotating halo to yield a MACHO mass estimate significantly below that of the standard spherical case, its microlensing must be highly concentrated close to the Sun. We examine two classes of models fitting this criterion: a highly flattened 1/ r ² halo, and a spheroid-like population the density of which falls off as 1/ r ^3.5. The highly flattened 1/ r ² models can decrease the implied average MACHO mass only marginally, and the spheroid models not at all. Generally, rotational models cannot bring the MACHO mass implied by the current microlensing data down to the substellar range.     

The effective period and damping of a class of hysteretic structures

This paper presents the results of a numerical investigation in which the maximum response of six hysteretic systems is calculated for an ensemble of twelve earthquakes. Inelastic response spectra are constructed for a range of response ductility. An effective linear period and damping are calculated for each system and ductility by determining those parameters which minimize an RMS response spectrum error. Conclusions are presented concerning the effects of deterioration, stiffness degradation, cracking and ductility on the effective linear system parameters.     

The impact of discharges from seafood processing on southeastern estuaries

A study to determine the impact of seafood packing and processing effluents discharged to southeastern estuarine waters was conducted in July and August of 1979. The environmental impact of current seafood processing wastes on Georgia’s estuaries appears to be minimal when compared with the natural organic load. One large estuary demonstrated a high residual capacity to receive processing effluents without significant change. The BOD load from shrimp thawing, peeling, sorting, and cleaning operations at a large seafood processing plant was shown to be equivalent to the organic material generated by a 302 m² plot (57 ft×57 ft) of salt marsh. NH₄?N levels were greater than, but the same order of magnitude as, natural runoff from marsh land.     

Vestiges of an Iapetan rift basin in the New Jersey Highlands: implications for the Neoproterozoic Laurentian margin

Thin, discontinuous remnants of Neoproterozoic intracratonic rift-basin deposits of the Chestnut Hill Formation occur in the western New Jersey Highlands. These deposits form an important link between well-documented Iapetan rift-basins in both the northern and southern Appalachians. The close spatial relations of Chestnut Hill rocks to Paleozoic sedimentary rocks open the possibility that additional Iapetan rift-basins could be concealed beneath the rocks of the Valley and Ridge Province to the west indicating a much broader zone of rifting than has been previously proposed. The Chestnut Hill Formation is intermittently exposed along a 100 km-long band that extends northeast from Pennsylvania nearly to New York State. The lower part of the Chestnut Hill Formation is composed of interbedded lithic pebble- to boulder-conglomerate and feldspathic sandstone grading upward into interbedded phyllite, feldspathic and quartz sandstone, local paleosaprolite, quartz-pebble conglomerate, thin limestone lenses, volcanic, and volcaniclasic rocks, abundant bedded ironstone (hematite ore), and ultimately into diamictites that are interpreted as possible tilloids and containing rounded intra and extrabasinal clasts of the other lithologies. Extensive soft-sediment deformation, cross bedding, and clastic dikes are common in all but the lowest and upper facies. Banded hematite layers occur preferentially in fine-grained tuffs and tuffaceous sediments, but hematitization has affected most lithologies. Volcanic rocks consist of altered rhyolitic tuffs and lapilli tuffs that are interbedded with sediments. The Chestnut Hill Formation is interpreted to have been deposited in early alluvial, and later a complex of fluvial, lacustrine and deltaic environments. Provenance studies based upon petrographic and geochemical analysis of clastic rocks indicate that the sediments are predominantly immature and reflect derivation from local uplifted felsic basement sources in a rifted-margin tectonic setting. Low to moderate weathering of the source rocks is indicated by the geochemistry of most samples, as is the locally intense effect of hydrothermal alteration. Most occurrences of the Chestnut Hill Formation are associated with major faults that exhibit normal movement of apparent Neoproterozoic age. Rocks from the Morgan Hill fault near Easton, Pennsylvania display consistent normal shear sense and vary from low temperature S-C mylonites to breccia that contains deformed pieces of Chestnut Hill Formation.     

Effect of particle size distribution on the bio-cementation of coarse aggregates

The effect of grain size distribution on the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of bio-cemented granular columns is examined. Fine and coarse aggregates were mixed in various percentages to obtain five different grain size distributions. A four-phase percolation strategy was adopted where a bacterial suspension and a cementation solution (urea and calcium chloride) were percolated sequentially. The results show that a gap-graded particle size distribution can improve the UCS of bio-cemented coarser granular materials. A maximum UCS of approximately 575 kPa was achieved with a particle size distribution containing 75% coarse aggregate and 25% fine aggregate. Furthermore, the minimum UCS obtained has applications where mitigation of excessive bulging of stone/sand columns, and possible slumping that might occur during their installation, is needed. The finding also implies that the amount of biochemical treatments can be reduced by adding fine aggregate to coarse aggregate resulting in effective bio-cementation within the pore matrix of the coarse aggregate column as it could substantially reduce the cost associated with bio-cementation process. Scanning electron microscopy results confirm that adding fine aggregate to coarse aggregate provides more bridging contacts (connected by calcium carbonate precipitation) between coarse aggregate particles, and hence, the maximum UCS achieved was not necessarily associated with the maximum calcium carbonate precipitation.