Geophysical and geochemical observations on actively seeping hydrocarbon gases on the south-eastern Yellow Sea continental shelf

In the southeastern Yellow Sea, active seepage of hydrocarbon gases has been observed by high-resolution (3.5 kHz) seismic profiling both in 1987 and 2001, occurring through a large number of plumes from the topmost pre-Holocene sedimentary layer. It is strong enough to compensate for current speed, extending vertically up to the sea surface. The gas seepage often appears to be explosive to form craters and diapirs, although pockmarks are rare due to the redistribution of mobile palimpsest sands. In core-top seawater and sediments, the gases are characterized by high amounts of C₂, homogenous ¹³C₁ values and a large difference (19.7 on average) between ¹³C₁ (–55.2 to –53.6 PDB) and ¹³C₂ (–36.8 to –32.5 PDB) values. The gases are considered to be generated with a smaller amount of C₁ at the early thermal cracking stage of labile source materials, after which the C₂ gas is enriched in ¹³C by diffusion or biological alternation at the generation or accumulation site. The homogenous ¹³C₁ values may be one of the geochemical characteristics of gases acquired at depth which are less altered in the case of rapid diffusive gas migration to the seafloor.     

Ionospheric Joule dissipation as a damping mechanism for high latitude ULF pulsations: Observational evidence

On 9 January 1979 an SI-excited pulsation event was observed by the Scandinavian Magnetometer Array. The pulsation period shows a clear variation with latitude which suggests decoupled oscillations of individual magnetic field shells. The pulsation amplitudes exhibit an e-fold decay with the damping rate γ varying both in longitudinal and latitudinal directions. Assuming Joule heating in the ionosphere as the dominant damping mechanism (and thus γ ～ Σ^?1_p) approximate height-integrated Pedersen conductivity profiles were calculated which fit well with previously observed Σ_p distributions. This is interpreted as observational evidence for ionosopheric Joule dissipation as the major damping mechanism for high-latitude ULF-pulsations.     

Specific features of the relativistic electron flux dynamics during the recovery phase of a magnetic storm on April 6, 2000

The energy spectrum of electrons with energies of 0.8–6.0 MeV has been analyzed based on the data of the Express-A2 geostationary satellite and time variations in the fluxes of electrons with energies higher than 0.6 and 2 MeV (according to the GOES-10 satellite data) before and after a weak geomagnetic storm on April 9–10, 2002, which developed during the prolonged (about ten days) recovery phase of a strong magnetic storm on April 6, 2000. The effect of the secondary injection and acceleration caused by an intensification of substorm activity during a weak storm on the electron flux dynamics has been studied for the first time. The energy spectra and time variations in the electron flux dynamics before and after a weak storm have been described based on analytical solutions to the kinetic equation for the electron distribution function with regard to the stochastic acceleration and loss rates. It has been established that there were different acceleration and loss rates before and after the weak storm of April 9–10, 2000.     

Energetic protons from the solar flare of March 24, 1966

Ten to 100 meV protons from the solar flare of March 24, 1966 were observed on the University of California scintillation counter on OGO-I. The short rise and decay times observed in the count rates of the 32 channels of pulse-height analysis show that scattering of the protons by the interplanetary field was much less important in this event than in previously observed proton flares. A diffusion theory in which D = M _r is found to be inadequate to account for the time behavior of the count rates of this event. Small fluctuations of the otherwise smooth decay phase may be due to flare protons reflected from the back of a shock front, which passed the earth on March 23.     

Open source, spatial analysis, and activity-travel behaviour research: capabilities of the aspace package

This paper reports on recent experience with the development of aspace, an Open Source (OS) library for the geographic visualization and analysis of activity-travel behaviour. The paper begins with an overview of recent progress with respect to the convergence of Open Source technology, spatial analysis, and travel behaviour research. The remainder of the paper focuses on aspace; a collection of functions that, when combined with data describing the geographical location of daily activities, can be used to visualize and describe spatial properties of individual and household activity spaces. These properties include: size, orientation, shape, and the geographical dispersion of activity locations contained within the activity space. Several planar geometries are used to transform measurable spatial properties into intuitive objects for visualizing spatial patterns of activity participation. Experiments are conducted, using data from the first wave of the 2003 Toronto Travel Activity Panel Survey, to demonstrate the potential application of aspace for basic and applied policy-based research into activity-travel behaviour. The toolkit is distributed as a downloadable ‘package’ from the Open Source R Project for Statistical Computing.      

Stable isotope composition of subfossil Cerastoderma glaucum shells from the Szczecin Bay brackish deposits and its palaeogeographical implications (South Baltic Coast,Poland)

The environmental conditions of the Szczecin Bay, which existed prior to Szczecin Lagoon, have been reconstructed on the basis of the stable carbon and oxygen isotope (¹⁸O and ¹³C) analysis and radiocarbon dates obtained for subfossil shells of Cerastoderma (Cardium) glaucum. The shells in the collected core were well preserved in their life positions, representing a geochemical record of past temperature variation over the middle Holocene. Three major periods with different thermal conditions have been distinguished in the interval ~ 6000–4300 cal yr BP, when the important Littorina regional transgression took place. During the first period, 6000–5250 cal yr BP, water temperature decreased by 1.4°C, and then remained constant over the second period (5250–4750 cal yr BP). In contrast, during the third period (4750–4300 cal yr BP) both δ-values were highly variable and the mean summer temperature (March–November) increased by about 3.5°C. During first two periods, δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C were significantly correlated, indicating stability of the environmental conditions.     

Bootstrap based artificial neural network (BANN) analysis for hierarchical prediction of monthly runoff in Upper Damodar Valley Catchment

Estimation of runoff is a prerequisite for many applications involving conservation and management of water resources. This study is undertaken in the Upper Damodar Valley Catchment (UDVC) having a drainage area of 17513.08 km² for prediction of monthly runoff. Thirty one microwatersheds and 15 sub-watersheds were selected from a total of 716 microwatersheds in the catchment area for this study. The feasibility of using different soil attributes (particle size distribution, organic matter content and apparent density), topographic attributes (primary, secondary and compound), geomorphologic attributes (basin, relief and network indices) and vegetation attribute as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), on prediction of monthly runoff were explored in this study. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to minimize the data redundancy of the input variables. Ten significant input variables namely; watershed length (km), elongation ratio, bifurcation ratio, area ratio, coarse sand (%), fine sand (%), elevation (m), slope (°), profile curvature (rad/m) and NDVI were selected. The selected input variables were added in hierarchy with monthly rainfall (mm) as inputs for prediction of monthly runoff (mm) using Bootstrap based artificial neural networks (BANN). The performance of the models was tested using Spearman’s correlation coefficient (r), coefficient of efficiency (COE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE). Best performance was observed for model with monthly rainfall, slope, coarse sand, bifurcation ratio and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as inputs (r = 0.925 and COE = 0.839). Increase in number of input variables did not necessarily yield better performances of the BANN models. Selection of relevant inputs and their combinations were found to be key elements in determining the performance of BANN models. Annual runoff map was generated for all the microwatersheds utilizing the weights of the best performing BANN model. This study reveals that the specific combinations of soil, topography, geomorphology and vegetation inputs can be utilized for better prediction of monthly runoff.     

On the convective instability of finitely conducting viscous model chromosphere

The convective stability of a simple model chromosphere, consisting of protons, electrons and hydrogen atoms in the ground state, has been studied in the presence of a vertically upward uniform magnetic field to include the effects of FLR, Hall-currents, finite conductivity and ionization. The ionization in the chromosphere is collisional and the recombination is radiative. It is found that the Schwarzchild criterion should necessarily be satisfied for the stability together with the condition thatv > 2v ₀, where is kinematic viscosity andv ₀ is gyroviscosity. Some special cases have also been investigated.     

Hawking radiation of Kerr-de Sitter black holes using Hamilton-Jacobi method

Hawking radiation of Kerr-de Sitter black hole is investigated using Hamilton-Jacobi method. When the well-behaved Painleve coordinate system and Eddington coordinate are used, we get the correct result of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy before and after radiation but a direct computation will lead to a wrong result via Hamilton-Jacobi method. Our results show that the tunneling probability is related to the change of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and the derived emission spectrum deviates from the pure thermal but it is consistent with underlying unitary theory.