Statistical analysis of flash flood events for designing water harvesting systems in an extremely arid environment

A water harvesting system for research purposes has been established in the Lisan Peninsula of the Dead Sea in the middle of the Jordan Rift Valley, where no authorized guideline is available for designing water harvesting systems. Rainfall and runoff, which occurred as flash floods, were observed at the downstream end of a gorge with a 1.12 km² barren catchment area from October 2014 through July 2019. Due to the extremely arid environment, runoff from the catchment is ephemeral, and the flash flood events can be clearly distinguishable from each other. Thirteen flash flood events with a total runoff volume of more than 100 m³ were successfully recorded during the five rainy seasons. Pearson and Spearman correlations between duration, total rainfall depths at two points, total runoff volume, maximum runoff discharge, bulk runoff coefficient, total variation in runoff discharge and maximum variation in runoff discharge of each flash flood event were examined, revealing no straightforward relationship between rainfall and runoff. The performance of the conventional SCS runoff curve number method was also deficient in reproducing any rainfall–runoff relationship. Therefore, probability distribution fitting was performed for each random variable, focusing on the lognormal distribution with three parameters and the generalized extreme value distribution. The maximum goodness-of-fit estimation turns out to be a more rational and efficient method in obtaining the parameter values of those probability distributions rather than the standard maximum likelihood estimation, which has known disadvantages. Results support the design of the water harvesting system and provide quantitative information for designing and operating similar systems in the future.     

Diagenesis of Neogene diatoms and their importance as a source of petroleum in Japan

Abstract Various siliceous rocks are found in the Ohdoji, Akaishi and Maido Formations from the western Aomori basin, and the Yotsuzawa and Wadagawa Formations from the eastern Aomori basin of northern Honshu, Japan. These rocks are classified into diatomite, siliceous shale and chert.
Diatomite is composed of abundant amorphous silica and has porosity between 50 and 65%. Siliceous shale is composed of a large amount of quartz, and has porosity ranging from 25 to 35%. Chert is chiefly composed of cristobalite or quartz, and has porosity between 20 to 30%.
Average contents of total organic carbon, S₁ and S₂ generally increase from argillaceous rocks → diatomites → siliceous shales → cherts. Maturation of organic matter in these rocks is generally lower than that in average source rocks. Diatoms, which appeared in the late Cretaceous and became increasingly important in the Miocene, are the principal primary producers of organic matter in the marine environment during the Cenozoic. Excellent organic components and higher biological productivity show that diatoms might be the most important source of petroleum during the Neogene in Japan.
Proteins, carbohydrates and lipids in diatoms have been transformed into fulvic acids, humic acids and humin by polycondensation and polymerization. Later, these humin materials could be changed into insoluble kerogen under the effect of mild temperature and pressure. A part of the lipids would transform to geochemical fossils (biomarkers). Amorphous silica in cells of diatoms would change to low-cristobalite and low-quartz by the increase of geothermal temperature.     

Three-Dimensional Particle Acceleration in Electromagnetic Dominated Outflows with Background Plasma and Clump

The effect of background plasma on particle acceleration via Poynting fluxes is studied in 3D PIC simulation of electron-positron and electron-ion plasmas. When a strongly magnetized ejecta at the center expands to low-temperature electron-positron ambient plasma background and a low-density clump, electromagnetic wave front accelerates particles in the background and clump, and captures them in the Ponderomotive potential well. We do not observe any instability, and the momentum distributions of background and clump form a power law of slope close to −1.5 with a sharp peak in the middle. When an ejecta expands to the ion-electron interstellar medium (ISM), the acceleration via Poynting flux is severely damped due to the charge separation.     

Rationalization of building micro-dams equipped with fish passages in West African savannas

Micro-dams in West African savannas are investigated in conjunction with aquatic fauna and human activities at a community level. A study area is chosen in the Northern Region of Ghana. The micro-dams in the study area serve as habitats for fish, providing food and job opportunities for inhabitants, but their construction has sacrificed rice fields and fragmented migration routes of fish. A stochastic population dynamics model is developed to rigorously assess the effect of establishing fish passages between the fragmented habitats containing the micro-dams on the ichthyological fauna. Values of the model parameters are estimated from the literature and results of field surveys, in which ten fish species including cichlidae, clariidae, bagridae, schilbeidae, cyprinidae, and alistidae are reported to be present. A sustainability criterion is proposed to judge whether a set of model parameters realizes stationarity of the stochastic process representing the population dynamics. It is suggested that ichthyological fauna can be sustainable provided that the fishing activity is restricted to upstream migrating and fast growing species. More generally, building micro-dams in West African savannas will be much better justified when the dams are equipped with appropriately designed fish passages.     

Fine-scale chemostratigraphy of cross-sectioned hydrogenous ferromanganese nodules from the western North Pacific

A broad area densely covered by ferromanganese nodules was recently discovered around Minamitorishima (Marcus) Island, representing a high-potential metal resource, particularly for Co, Ni, Mo, and W. We studied 16 nodule samples from nodule fields around Minamitorishima Island. To define the fine-scale chemostratigraphy of the nodules, polished cross-sections of the samples were analyzed by microfocus X-ray fluorescence. Our results show that a general pattern of compositional variation was common throughout the growth history of the nodules in all the regions we studied. Chemical mapping clarified changes in the chemical signature and proportion of five lithological components throughout the growth history: Mn represented columnar δ-MnO₂; Fe represented layered amorphous FeOOH*xH₂O; Ti represented TiO₂*2H₂O intergrown with an amorphous FeOOH phase; P, Ca and Y represented particles of biogenic calcium phosphate; and Si, Al, K, Cu, and Ni represented pelagic sediment infills. We proposed a method for a creating a multi-dimensional compositional map of the fine-scale chemostratigraphy observed in the ferromanganese oxide layers on the basis of merging the mapped Mn, Fe, Ti, P, Si and Cu intensities. Multi-dimensional compositional mapping of the sampled nodules from the western North Pacific revealed two fundamental findings: (1) previously recognized first-order Fe–Mn layers, L0, L1, and L2, were further divided into two, three, and four sublayers, respectively, and (2) a delayed supply of material to be nuclei of nodule or a growth hiatus of Fe–Mn layer(s), leading to missing sublayers in the layers L0 and L2, regulated the nodule size. In contrast, layer L1, which does not have any missing sublayers, was commonly observed in the samples for this study and has been reported in studies of other regions in the western Pacific. We propose, therefore, that the layer L1 is a key facies for examining chemostratigraphic correlations with other areas of seafloor.     

Essential cellular modules for the proliferation of the primitive cell

Bacteria appeared early in the evolution of cellular life on planet Earth, and therefore the universally essential genes or biological pathways found across bacterial domains may represent fundamental genetic or cellular systems used in early life. The essential genes and the minimal gene set required to support bacterial life have recently been experimentally and computationally identified. It is, however,still hard to estimate the ancient genes present in primitive cells compared to the essential genes in contemporary bacteria, because we do not know how ancestral primitive cells lived and proliferated, and therefore cannot directly evaluate the essentiality of the genes in ancestral primitive cells. The cell wall is normally essential for bacterial proliferation and cellular division of walled bacterial cells is normally highly controlled by the essential FtsZ cell division machinery. But, bacteria are capable of reverting to their cell wall deficient ancestral form, called the "L-form". Unlike "normal" cells, L-forms divide by a simple physical mechanism based on the effects of membrane dynamics, suggesting a mode of primitive proliferation before the appearance of the cell wall. In this review, we summarize the experimental and computational investigations of minimal gene sets and discuss the minimal cellular modules required to support the proliferation of primitive cells, based on L-form proliferation.