Energetic Charged Particles Above Thunderclouds

The French government has committed to launch the satellite TARANIS to study transient coupling processes between the Earth’s atmosphere and near-Earth space. The prime objective of TARANIS is to detect energetic charged particles and hard radiation emanating from thunderclouds. The British Nobel prize winner C.T.R. Wilson predicted lightning discharges from the top of thunderclouds into space almost a century ago. However, new experiments have only recently confirmed energetic discharge processes which transfer energy from the top of thunderclouds into the upper atmosphere and near-Earth space; they are now denoted as transient luminous events, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes and relativistic electron beams. This meeting report builds on the current state of scientific knowledge on the physics of plasmas in the laboratory and naturally occurring plasmas in the Earth’s atmosphere to propose areas of future research. The report specifically reflects presentations delivered by the members of a novel Franco-British collaboration during a meeting at the French Embassy in London held in November 2011. The scientific subjects of the report tackle ionization processes leading to electrical discharge processes, observations of transient luminous events, electromagnetic emissions, energetic charged particles and their impact on the Earth’s atmosphere. The importance of future research in this area for science and society, and towards spacecraft protection, is emphasized.     

Age and nature of eclogites in the Huwan shear zone,and the multi-stage evolution of the Qinling-Dabie-Sulu orogen,central China

In situ LA-ICPMS U-Pb, trace element, and Hf isotope data in zircon demonstrate a Carboniferous age for eclogite-facies metamorphism in Siluro-Devonian protoliths in the Huwan shear zone, Dabie Mountains, Central China. This age contrasts with the more prevailing Triassic age for high- to ultrahigh pressure (HP to UHP) metamorphism in the Qinling-Dabie-Sulu orogen. Metamorphic zircon in two eclogite samples from Sujiahe is characterized by low Th/U ratios, small negative Eu anomalies, flat HREE patterns, and low ¹⁷⁶Lu/¹⁷⁷Hf ratios. These geochemical signatures suggest that the zircon crystallized in the presence of garnet and in the absence of plagioclase feldspar. Furthermore, temperatures of ~ 655 and ~ 638 °C, calculated using the Ti content of zircon, are consistent with their formation during eclogite-facies metamorphism. The weighted mean ²⁰⁶Pb/²³⁸U age of 309 ± 4 Ma (2δ) for this zircon improves previous age estimates for eclogite-facies metamorphism in the Huwan shear zone, ranging from 420 to 220 Ma. Metamorphic zircon from one eclogite sample from Hujiawan, most likely formed during prograde metamorphism, yields an equivalent age estimate of 312 ± 11 Ma. Magmatic zircon cores in the three samples yield ages for the magmatic protoliths of the eclogites ranging from 420 ± 7 to 406 ± 5 Ma, and post-dating the middle Paleozoic collision of the North China and the Qinling terrain. The zircon crystals in the three eclogite samples display a large variation of ε_Hf (t) values of ? 4.9 to 21.3. The metamorphic zircon overgrowths show the same range of ε_Hf (t) values as those of the inherited magmatic crystal interiors. This suggests that the metamorphic zircon overgrowths may have formed by dissolution-reprecipitation of pre-existing magmatic zircon thereby preserving their original Hf isotopic composition. The high ε_Hf (t) values suggest that the protoliths were derived from depleted mantle sources, most likely Paleotethyan oceanic crust; while the low ε_Hf (t) values are attributed to crustal contamination. Some eclogites in the Huwan shear zone have a distinctive signature of continental crust most probably derived from the Yangtze Craton. The coexistence of Paleozoic oceanic crust and Neoproterozoic continental crust with similar metamorphic ages in the Huwan shear zone implies that Paleozoic Paleotethyan oceanic crust was produced within a marginal basin of the northern Yangtze Craton. The opening of the Paleo-Tethyan ocean was slightly younger than the collision of the North China Craton and the Qinling terrain during the Late Paleozoic in the Qinling-Dabie-Sulu orogen. Subduction of the Paleo-Tethyan oceanic crust and associated continental basement resulted in the 309 ± 2 Ma (2σ) eclogite-facies metamorphism in the Huwan shear zone. The subsequent Triassic continent-continent collision led to the final coalescence of the Yangtze and Sino-Korean cratons. Amalgamation of the Yangtze and North China cratons was, therefore, a multistage process extending over at least 200 Ma.     

Cluster gets to grips with the magnetosphere

On 9 November 2001 RAS hosted the first UK meeting to discuss results from Cluster, itself the first mission to explore the Earth's magnetosphere with four identically instrumented spacecraft – and thus fully resolve the complex spatial and temporal variations of the plasmas that fill space around the Earth. Mike Hapgood reports.     

‘Telling a different tale’: literary, historical and meteorological readings of a Norfolk heatwave

Articulated initially by physical scientists, the idea of anthropogenic global climate change has been subject to increasingly diverse examinations in recent years. The idea has been appropriated by economists, worked with by engineers and, more recently, scrutinised by social scientists and humanities scholars. Underlying these examinations are different, yet rarely exposed, presumptions about what kind of ??thing?? climate is: a physical abstraction, a statistical construct, an imaginative idea. If the ontological status of climate is rarely made explicit it becomes difficult to know whether the different epistemologies used to reveal climates ?? and their changing properties ?? are appropriate. This study offers one way in which the different worlds inhabited by the idea of climate may be revealed. It does so by examining a heatwave: a powerful meteorological phenomenon one would think and one which scientific accounts of climate change tell us will become more frequent in the future. The heatwave in question occurred in July 1900 in the county of Norfolk, England. This heatwave inhabits three very different worlds: the imaginative world of L P Hartley in his novel The Go Between; the historical world of late Victorian Norfolk; and the digital world of the climate sciences. The traces of the heatwave left in these different worlds are varied and access to them is uneven. Constructing an adequate interpretation of this singular climatic event and its meaning is challenging. The study suggests that grasping the idea of climate may be harder than we think. Climates may be ineffable. Yet the approach to the study of climate illustrated here opens up new ways of thinking about the meaning and significance of climate change.     

The generation and redistribution of overland flow on a massive oxic soil in a eucalypt woodland within the semi-arid tropics of North Australia

There is a dearth of knowledge on the runoff processes of eucalypt woodland communities in the semi-arid tropics of Australia. The work was undertaken on a 100 m transect of a 0·8 degree hillslope typical of the ‘smooth plainlands’ of central-north Queensland. This paper introduces a new experimental design for measuring overland flow in such areas by way of a cascade system of unbounded runoff plots which allow the inputs and outputs between troughs to be calculated. Most storms generate overland flow. Time to overland flow ranges between 1 and 18 min where rain intensities are above 10mm hr⁻¹ and when the average detention storage of 3·6 mm is exceeded. The bare soil surfaces within the scattered grass understory control the runoff generation process through the temporal variability of field saturated hydraulic conductivity. The study demonstrated that overland flow is mainly redistributed over the freely-draining oxic soil. Some areas export more overland flow than they gain from upslope (runoff), others gain more overland flow than they export (runon). Over the study period only 2 per cent of total rain is transferred out of this 100 m transect as overland flow due to the short duration of storms, the relatively high soil permeability, and the low slope angle. The remainder adds to the large soil water store or deep drainage. The variability of runoff–runon over these ‘smooth plainlands’ highlights how results from bounded plots would be misleading in such areas.     

Fluxes of Sr into the headwaters of the Ganges

Himalayan weathering is recognized as an important agent in modifying sea water chemistry, but there are significant uncertainties in our understanding of Himalayan riverine fluxes. This paper examines causes of the variability, including that of the seasons, by analysis of downstream variations in Sr, ⁸⁷Sr, and major ions in the mainstream, in relation to the composition of tributary streams from subcatchments with differing geologic substrates.Water samples were collected over four periods spanning the premonsoon, monsoon, and postmonsoon seasons. Uncertainties in the relative fluxes have been estimated, using Monte Carlo techniques, from the short-term variability of mainstream chemistry and the scatter of tributary compositions. The results show marked seasonal variations in the relative inputs related to high monsoon rainfall in the High and Lesser Himalaya, contrasting with the major contribution from glacial melt waters from the Tibetan Sedimentary Series (TSS) at times of low rainfall. Much of the spread in previously published estimates of the sources of Sr in Himalayan rivers may result from these seasonal variations in Sr fluxes.The annual fluxes of Sr into the headwaters of the Ganges are derived from the three main tectonic units in the proportions 35 ± 1% from the TSS, 27 ± 3% from the High Himalayan Crystalline Series (HHCS), and 38 ± 8% from the Lesser Himalaya. The particularly elevated ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios characteristic of the HHCS and the Lesser Himalaya enhance their influence on seawater Sr-isotope composition. The TSS contributes 13 ± 1%, the HHCS 30 ± 3%, and the Lesser Himalaya 57 ± 11% of the ⁸⁷Sr flux in excess of the seawater ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio of 0.709.