A highstand oolitic sequence and associated facies from a Late Triassic lake basin, south-west England

High energy, lake‐shoreline carbonate sequences are rarely documented in the geological record. However, one example occurs in the Upper Triassic Mercia Mudstone Group (MMG) of southern Britain. The MMG is one of a number of thick, non‐fossiliferous mudstone deposits associated with North Atlantic Mesozoic rift basins. The origin of the MMG mudstones is the subject of current debate, with marine, playa‐lacustrine and alluvial–aeolian models having been proposed. Shoreline features have been documented from the northern margin of the basin, but the rarity of such features elsewhere in the MMG has led many workers to doubt a lacustrine origin for the mudstones. Wave‐dominated, lake‐shoreline deposits have been recognized in several sections from the southern basin margin in the Clevedon area of the Bristol Channel in south‐west England. These deposits provide evidence for the development of a sizeable perennial to semi‐perennial hypersaline lake in which the MMG mudstones accumulated. Shoreline sediments overlie alluvial stream and sheet‐flood deposits, and pass from transgressive gravel–conglomerate beach units with bioclasts, influenced by shore‐normal waves (deposited under semi‐humid conditions), to lower gradient, highstand oolitic sands affected by more varied wave approach (deposited under progressively more arid conditions), which culminated in lowstand, oolitic strand‐plain deposits overlain by a playa‐mudflat unit. Shoreline deposits record a simple shallowing‐upward transgressive–highstand–lowstand sequence. However, a change from a reflective (transgressive) to dissipative (highstand) shoreline is believed to represent a climatically induced change in prevailing wind direction. Shoreline features recognized in the MMG are similar to those of recent playa‐lacustrine basins of the western United States. Ooids display a variety of size, fracture and dissolution features in addition to beachrock fabrics, suggesting that they were originally composed of radial aragonite, similar to modern ooids from the Great Salt Lake, Utah.     

A 50-year record of NO<Subscript>x</Subscript> and SO<Subscript>2</Subscript> sources in precipitation in the Northern Rocky Mountains,USA

Ice-core samples from Upper Fremont Glacier (UFG), Wyoming, were used as proxy records for the chemical composition of atmospheric deposition. Results of analysis of the ice-core samples for stable isotopes of nitrogen (δ¹⁵N, ) and sulfur (δ³⁴S, ), as well as and deposition rates from the late-1940s thru the early-1990s, were used to enhance and extend existing National Atmospheric Deposition Program/National Trends Network (NADP/NTN) data in western Wyoming. The most enriched δ³⁴S value in the UFG ice-core samples coincided with snow deposited during the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, Washington. The remaining δ³⁴S values were similar to the isotopic composition of coal from southern Wyoming. The δ¹⁵N values in ice-core samples representing a similar period of snow deposition were negative, ranging from -5.9 to -3.2 ‰ and all fall within the δ¹⁵N values expected from vehicle emissions. Ice-core nitrate and sulfate deposition data reflect the sharply increasing U.S. emissions data from 1950 to the mid-1970s.     

A numerical study of the pre-ejection, magnetically-sheared corona as a free boundary problem

A class of magnetostatic equilibria with axial symmetry outside a unit sphere in the presence of plasma pressure and an r ^–2 gravitational field is constructed. The structure contains a localized current-carrying region confined by a background bipolar potential field, and the shape of the region changes subject to the variation of the electric current. The continuity requirement for the magnetic field and plasma pressures at the outer boundary of the cavity defines a free boundary problem, which is solved numerically using a spectral boundary scheme. The model is then used to study the expansion of the current-carrying region, caused by the buildup of magnetic shear, against the background confining field. The magnetic shear in our model is induced by the loading of an azimuthal field, accompanied by a depletion of plasma density.We show that due to the additional effect of confinement by the dense surrounding plasma, the energy of the magnetic field can exceed the energy of its associated open field, presumably a necessary condition for the onset of coronal mass ejections. (However, the plasma beta of the confining fluid is higher than that in the outer boundary of a realistic helmet-streamer structure.) Furthermore, under the assumption that coronal mass ejections are driven by magnetic buoyancy, the result from our model study lends further support to the notion of a suspended magnetic flux rope in the low-density cavity of a helmet-streamer as a promising pre-ejection configuration.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

Uy phoenicis: RR lyrae variable,not dwarf nova

Stellar and atomic systems obey analogous angular momentum/mass relationships and analogous angular momentum/magnetic dipole moment relationships. The dimensional constants in both pairs of angular momentum laws appear to be related by a simple set of self-similar scaling equations, suggesting that atomic and stellar systems may be self-similar.     

A gas-poor planetesimal capture model for the formation of giant planet satellite systems

Assuming that an unknown mechanism (e.g., gas turbulence) removes most of the subnebula gas disk in a timescale shorter than that for satellite formation, we develop a model for the formation of regular (and possibly at least some of the irregular) satellites around giant planets in a gas-poor environment. In this model, which follows along the lines of the work of Safronov et al. [1986. Satellites. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 89-116], heliocentric planetesimals collide within the planet's Hill sphere and generate a circumplanetary disk of prograde and retrograde satellitesimals extending as far out as ∼RH/2. At first, the net angular momentum of this proto-satellite swarm is small, and collisions among satellitesimals leads to loss of mass from the outer disk, and delivers mass to the inner disk (where regular satellites form) in a timescale ?¹⁰⁵ years. This mass loss may be offset by continued collisional capture of sufficiently small <1 km interlopers resulting from the disruption of planetesimals in the feeding zone of the giant planet. As the planet's feeding zone is cleared in a timescale ?¹⁰⁵ years, enough angular momentum may be delivered to the proto-satellite swarm to account for the angular momentum of the regular satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. This feeding timescale is also roughly consistent with the independent constraint that the Galilean satellites formed in a timescale of ¹⁰⁵-¹⁰⁶ years, which may be long enough to accommodate Callisto's partially differentiated state [Anderson et al., 1998. Science 280, 1573; Anderson et al., 2001. Icarus 153, 157-161]. In turn, this formation timescale can be used to provide plausible constraints on the surface density of solids in the satellitesimal disk (excluding satellite embryos for satellitesimals of size ∼1 km), which yields a total disk mass smaller than the mass of the regular satellites, and means that the satellites must form in several ∼10 collisional cycles. However, much more work will need to be conducted concerning the collisional evolution both of the circumplanetary satellitesimals and of the heliocentric planetesimals following giant planet formation before one can assess the significance of this agreement. Furthermore, for enough mass to be delivered to form the regular satellites in the required timescale one may need to rely on (unproven) mechanisms to replenish the feeding zone of the giant planet. We compare this model to the solids-enhanced minimum mass (SEMM) model of Mosqueira and Estrada [2003a. Icarus 163, 198-231; 2003b. Icarus 163, 232-255], and discuss its main consequences for Cassini observations of the saturnian satellite system.     

On the long-term motion of Pluto

A modified periodic orbit of the third kind is introduced that is closely related to periodic orbits of the third kind as defined by Poincaré. It is shown that Pluto librates about the periodic orbit with apparent stability. This further explains the librational motion of the resonant argument of Pluto and the avoidance of a Pluto-Neptune close approach as found by Cohen and Hubbard and the long-term motion of Pluto and the librational motion of the perihelion as found by Williams and Benson. With libration about a periodic orbit, the numerical solution of Williams and Benson can be extrapolated to longer times in the past and future.