Carbon dioxide glaciers on Mars: Products of recent low obliquity epochs (?)

Three localized sets of small arcuate ridges associated with slopes in the northern polar area of Mars (∼70°N latitude) are morphologically similar to sets of drop moraines left by episodes of advance and retreat of cold-based glaciers. Comparison with other glacial features on Mars shows that these features differ in important aspects from those associated with water–ice flow. Instead, we interpret these features to be due to perennial accumulation and flow of solid carbon dioxide during recent periods of very low spin-axis obliquity.     

Lunar highland meteorite Dhofar 026 and Apollo sample 15418: Two strongly shocked,partially melted,granulitic breccias

Abstract— Studies of lunar meteorite Dhofar 026, and comparison to Apollo sample 15418, indicate that Dhofar 026 is a strongly shocked granulitic breccia (or a fragmental breccia consisting almost entirely of granulitic breccia clasts) that experienced considerable post‐shock heating, probably as a result of diffusion of heat into the rock from an external, hotter source. The shock converted plagioclase to maskelynite, indicating that the shock pressure was between 30 and 45 GPa. The post‐shock heating raised the rock's temperature to about 1200 °C; as a result, the maskelynite devitrified, and extensive partial melting took place. The melting was concentrated in pyroxene‐rich areas; all pyroxene melted. As the rock cooled, the partial melts crystallized with fine‐grained, subophitic‐poikilitic textures. Sample 15418 is a strongly shocked granulitic breccia that had a similar history, but evidence for this history is better preserved than in Dhofar 026. The fact that Dhofar 026 was previously interpreted as an impact melt breccia underscores the importance of detailed petrographic study in interpretation of lunar rocks that have complex textures. The name “impact melt” has, in past studies, been applied only to rocks in which the melt fraction formed by shock‐induced total fusion. Recently, however, this name has also been applied to rocks containing melt formed by heating of the rocks by conductive heat transfer, assuming that impact is the ultimate source of the heat. We urge that the name “impact melt” be restricted to rocks in which the bulk of the melt formed by shock‐induced fusion to avoid confusion engendered by applying the same name to rocks melted by different processes.     

Conductivity structure of the upper mantle in an active subduction zone

The results of deep electromagnetic soundings for the active transition ocean-continent zone at Sakhalin Island are presented. After an averaging procedure of the magnetotelluric response functions, the period range was extended up to 500 days by using the geomagnetic soundings of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Kakioka and Memambetsu observatory data. The existence of the asthenosphere and a high conductivity layer located at the base of the upper mantle was established by one-dimensional inverse methods. High resistivity revealed at depths of 250–450 km appears to be connected with the penetration of the cold slab into the mantle. The possible nature of a mid-mantle conductive layer and the relation of its conductances with the tectonic history are discussed.     

Losses of birch foliage due to insect herbivory along geographical gradients in Europe: a climate-driven pattern?

The study reports large-scale geographical variation in foliar damage of Betula pubescens and B. pendula by leaf-chewing and leaf-mining insects in Northern and Central Europe. The data were obtained in late summer of 2004 from 90 study sites located along several latitudinal and longitudinal gradients up to 1275 km in length; repeatability of a pattern detected was checked in 2005. Foliar damage in B. pubescens due to endemic herbivory increased in Fennoscandia from 1–2% at 70°N to 5–7% at 60°N; this pattern was best explained by mean July temperatures. Higher foliar losses in southern Fennoscandia were mostly due to an increase in proportion of damaged leaves, while an average consumption per damaged leaf increased only slightly. Foliar damage in B. pendula in Fennoscandia followed the same pattern as described for B. pubescens, although the overall loss of leaf area was only ca. 70% of that in B. pubescens. In contrast, there was no geographical or climatic pattern in damage of B. pendula by insect herbivores in Central Europe; average foliar losses were around 5% between 48°N and 60°N. These data suggest that damage of northern birch forests by leaf-chewing and leaf-mining insects will at least double with expected climatic warming, while in more southern regions the effects of climate change on birch foliar losses due to insect herbivory may be small or even negligible.     

Imaging heterogeneity of the crust adjacent to the Dead Sea fault using ambient seismic noise tomography

For the purpose of studying the Earth’s crust by means of tomography, we investigated cross-correlation functions emerging from long-term observations of propagating ambient seismic noise at pairs of broadband stations in Israel and Jordan. The data was provided by the eight permanent broadband stations of the Israel Seismic Network evenly distributed over Israel and the 30 stations of the DESERT2000 experiment distributed across the Arava Fault (South of the Dead Sea basin). To eliminate the influence of earthquakes and explosions, we have applied the methodology of Bensen et al. (Geophys J Int 169:1239–1260, 2007), including bandpass filtering and amplitude normalization in time and frequency domain. The cross-correlation functions estimated from continuous recordings of a few months were used to extract Rayleigh waves group velocity dispersion curves using automatic version of the frequency–time analysis procedure. Subsequently, these curves have been converted into the Rayleigh wave group velocity maps in the period range 5–20 s and S waves velocity maps in the depth range 5–15 km. In these maps, four velocity anomalies are prominent. Two of them are outlined by the previous reflection-refraction profiles and body wave tomography studies, i.e. a low velocity anomaly corresponds to the area of the extremely deep (down to 14 km) sedimentary infill in the Southern Dead Sea Basin and a high velocity anomaly in the Southern Jordan corresponds to the area of the Precambrian crystalline rocks of the Nubian Shield on the flanks of the Red Sea. The two other anomalies have not been reported before - the high velocity zone close to the Beersheba city and the low velocity anomaly in the region of Samaria-Carmel mountains - Southern Galilee. They have relatively low resolution and hence need further investigations for approving and contouring. The highest contrast between the average Rayleigh wave group velocity (2.7 km/s) and the anomalies is 10–13 %, comparable, however, to the level of noise in the data. The results have been verified by modeling the revealed anomalies which showed that all the four zones mentioned above could be detected by the tomography study.     

Optical layouts of the WSO-UV spectrographs

Electron acoustic blow up solitary waves and periodic waves are studied in a classical unmagnetized plasma containing cold electron fluid, kappa distributed hot electrons and stationary ions. We obtain Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation for electron acoustic waves (EAWs) using the reductive perturbation technique (RPT). Applying bifurcation theory of planar dynamical systems to the obtained KdV equation, we prove the existence of electron acoustic blowup solitary and periodic wave solutions. Depending on different physical parameters, two types of exact explicit solutions of the mentioned waves are derived. Our model may be applied to explain blow up solitary and periodic wave features that may occur in the planetary magnetosphere and the plasma sheet boundary layer.     

Vertical Distribution of Gelatinous Macroplankton in the North Pacific Observed by Manned Submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2

The vertical distribution of several medusa species in the Kurile-Kamtchatka region of the Pacific Ocean is described. Animals were observed in the light cone from deep-sea submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2 throughout the water column, from the surface to 5000–6000 m at four different sites. Bathy- and abyssopelagic species are noted along with the species living in an extremely wide depth range. A faunistic border is revealed at a depth of 3000 m. The contribution of gelatinous animals (medusae, siphonophores, salps) to the total deep-sea plankton biomass was estimated using a wire reference cube during nine dives in the highly productive areas of the northwest Pacific, eastern Pacific (California, Costa-Rica Dome), and subtropical oligotrophic areas. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.