A radio-jet–galaxy interaction in 3C 441

Multiwavelength imaging and spectroscopy of the z =0.708 radio galaxy 3C 441 and a red aligned optical/infrared component are used to show that the most striking aspect of the radio–optical 'alignment effect' in this object is due to the interaction of the radio jet with a companion galaxy in the same group or cluster. The stellar population of the red aligned continuum component is predominantly old, but with a small post-starburst population superposed, and it is surrounded by a low-surface-brightness halo, possibly a face-on spiral disc. The [O iii ] 500.7/[O ii ] 372.7 emission-line ratio changes dramatically from one side of the component to the other, with the low-ionization material apparently having passed through the bow shock of the radio source and been compressed. A simple model for the interaction is used to explain the velocity shifts in the emission-line gas, and to predict that the ISM of the interacting galaxy is likely to escape once the radio source bow shock has passed through. We also discuss another, much fainter, aligned component, and the subarcsecond-scale alignment of the radio source host galaxy. Finally, we comment on the implications of our explanation of 3C 441 on theories for the alignment effect.     

Impact of temperature and precipitation variability on crop model predictions

Future climate changes, as well as differences in climates from one location to another, may involve changes in climatic variability as well as changes in means. In this study, a synthetic weather generator is used to systematically change the within-year variability of temperature and precipitation (and therefore also the interannual variability), without altering long-term mean values. For precipitation, both the magnitude and the qualitative nature of the variability are manipulated. The synthetic daily weather series serve as input to four crop simulation models. Crop growth is simulated for two locations and three soil types. Results indicate that average predicted yield decreases with increasing temperature variability where growing-season temperatures are below the optimum specified in the crop model for photosynethsis or biomass accumulation. However, increasing within-year variability of temperature has little impact on year-to-year variability of yield. The influence of changed precipitation variability on yield was mediated by the nature of the soil. The response on a droughtier soil was greatest when precipitation amounts were altered while keeping occurrence patterns unchanged. When increasing variability of precipitation was achieved through fewer but larger rain events, average yield on a soil with a large plant-available water capacity was more affected. This second difference is attributed to the manner in which plant water uptake is simulated. Failure to account for within-season changes in temperature and precipitation variability may cause serious errors in predicting crop-yield responses to future climate change when air temperatures deviate from crop optima and when soil water is likely to be depleted at depth.     

Monitoring Air Sparging Using Resistivity Tomography

Air sparging is a relatively new technique for the remediation of ground water contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons. In this technique, air is injected below the water table, beneath the contaminated soil. Remediation occurs by a combination of contaminant partitioning into the vapor phase and enhanced biodegradation. The air is usually removed by vacuum extraction in the vadose zone.
The efficiency of remediation from air sparging is a function of the air flow pattern, although the distribution of the injected air is still poorly understood. Cross-borehole resistivity surveys were performed at a former service station in Florence, Oregon, to address this unknown. The resistivity measurements were made using six wells, one of which was the sparge well. Data were collected over a two-week period during and after several air injections, or sparge events. Resistivity images were calculated between wells using an algorithm that assumes axially symmetric structures. The movement of the injected air through time was defined by regions of large increases in resistivity, greater than 100 percent from the background. During early sparge times, air moved outward and upward from the injection point as it ascended to the unsaturated zone. At later sparge times, the air flow reached a somewhat stable cone-shaped pattern radiating out and up from the injection point. Two days after sparging was discontinued, a residue of entrained air remained in the saturated zone, as indicated by a zone of 60 to 80 percent water saturation.     

Comparing impacts to shallow-water habitas through time and space

Impacts to shallow-water estuarine habitats should be assessed in a holistic context reflecting both the interrelatedness of habitats that characterize these environments and the history of impacts, human and natural, that have shaped their present ecology. In a holistic context these habitats are considered to be dynamic associations of macrohabitats and micro-habitats, interacting through time to affect the quantity (Q₁), quality (Q₂), and timing (T) of material and energy transfer within the system. Where data are available, this holistic approach (Q₁, Q₂ and T or Q₂T) allows impacts to be evaluated in a multidimensional framework of time and space. Unfortunately, few data are available to evaluate the long-term implications of timing, the T factor. Recorded observations of most estuarine systems cover tens of years, periods not extensive enough to assess long-term changes to the environment or to distinguish man's impacts from those of nature. Sustained droughts, for example, can cause massive disruption in estuaries, altering habitats and species composition. When these changes occur over periods of 5–10 yr, the changes are difficult to identify and may be attributed to man's activities rather than nature's Using the Hudson River estuary as an example, we have knowledge of historical impacts extending back to the 1700s, ranging from dredging to major droughts. For the Hudson River, recorded observations of rainfall and river flow extend back about 70 yr; however, tree rings provide a more extensive record since tree growth increments are directly dependent upon rainfall. The Hudson River drought record was extended back to 1694 using tree rings. Using the reconstructed record, the relationship between today's conditions—flow and average location of the ocean-derived salt front—can be placed in a historical context. This historical perspective allows us to place present-day human impacts into the contex of long-term natural impacts and to discriminate among these effects. The drought example is particularly relevant to shallow-water habitats because these habitats provide an interface between fresh and marine waters. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A01BY074 00008     

Experimental Investigation of Surfactant-Enhanced Dissolution of Residual NAPL in Saturated Soil

Nonaqueous phase liquid (NAPL) is a long-term source of ground water contamination as the pollutant slowly partitions into the air and water phases. The objective of this work was to study the efficacy of aqueous surfactant solution to enhance the dissolution of a residual NAPL below the capillary fringe, hence reducing the time needed for aquifer restoration. An analytical technique was developed to measure the concentration of NAPL in a nonionic surfactant. Soil column experiments simulated conditions in the saturated soil where a NAPL may become trapped as a discontinuous immobile phase. Experimental results indicate that dissolution was a rate-limited process, approaching equilibrium concentrations after 24 hours. The relative permeability of the aqueous phase initially decreased as surfactant was injected, but increased over time as the saturation of residual NAPL was reduced through mass transfer into the surfactant-enhanced aqueous phase. These findings suggest that enhancing the aqueous phase with a nonionic surfactant may significantly enhance the in situ recovery or residual NAPL.     

Role of larger herbvores in seagrass communities

The nutritional ecology of macroherbivores in seagrass meadows and the roles of grazing by urchins, fishes and green turtles in tropical systems and waterfowl in temperate systems are discussed in this review. Only a few species of animals graze on living seagrasses, and apparently only a small portion of the energy and nutrients in seagrasses is usually channeled through these herbivores. The general paucity of direct seagrass grazers may be a function of several factors in the composition of seagrasses, including availability of nitrogen compounds, presence of relatively high amounts of structural cell walls, and presence of toxic or inhibitory substances. The macroherbivores, however, can have a profound effect on the seagrass plants, on other grazers and fauna associated with the meadow, and on chemical and decompositional processes occurring within the meadow. Grazing can alter the nutrient content and digestibility of the plant, as well as its productivity. Removal of leaf material can influence interrelations among permanent and transient faunal residents. Grazing also interrupts the detritus cycle. Possible consequences of this disruption, either through acceleration or through decreased source input, and the enhancement of intersystem coupling by increased export and offsite fecal production, are discussed. The extent and magnitude of these effects and their ecological significance in the overall functioning of seagrass meadows only can be speculated, and probably are not uniform or of similar importance in both tropical and temperate seagrass systems. However, areas grazed by large herbivores provide natural experiments in which to test hypotheses on many functional relations in seagrass meadows.     

Large earthquake doublets and fault plane heterogeneity in the northern Solomon Islands subduction zone

In the Solomon Islands and New Britain subduction zones, the largest earthquakes commonly occur as pairs with small separation in time, space and magnitude. This doublet behavior has been attributed to a pattern of fault plane heterogeneity consisting of closely spaced asperities such that the failure of one asperity triggers slip in adjacent asperities. We analyzed body waves of the January 31, 1974,M _w =7.3, February 1, 1974,M _w =7.4, July 20, 1975 (1437)M _w =7.6 and July 20, 1975 (1945),M _w =7.3 doublet events using an iterative, multiple station inversion technique to determine the spatio-temporal distribution of seismic moment release associated with these events. Although the 1974 doublet has smaller body wave moments than the 1975 events, their source histories are more complicated, lasting over 40 seconds and consisting of several subevents located near the epicentral regions. The second 1975 event is well modeled by a simple point source initiating at a depth of 15 km and rupturing an approximate 20 km region about the epicenter. The source history of the first 1975 event reveals a westerly propagating rupture, extending about 50 km from its hypocenter at a depth of 25 km. The asperities of the 1975 events are of comparable size and do not overlap one another, consistent with the asperity triggering hypothesis. The relatively large source areas and small seismic moments of the 1974 doublet events indicate failure of weaker portions of the fault plane in their epicentral regions. Variations in the roughness of the bathymetry of the subducting plate, accompanying subduction of the Woodlark Rise, may be responsible for changes in the mechanical properties of the plate interface.To understand how variations in fault plane coupling and strength affect the interplate seismicity pattern, we relocated 85 underthrusting earthquakes in the northern Solomon Islands Are since 1964. Relatively few smaller magnitude underthrusting events overlap the Solomon Islands doublet asperity regions, where fault coupling and strength are inferred to be the greatest. However, these asperity regions have been the sites of several previous earthquakes withM _s 7.0. The source regions of the 1974 doublet events, which we infer to be mechanically weak, contain many smaller magnitude events but have not generated any otherM _s 7.0 earthquakes in the historic past. The central portion of the northern Solomon Islands Arc between the two largest doublet events in 1971 (studied in detail bySchwartz et al., 1989a) and 1975 contains the greatest number of smaller magnitude underthrusting earthquakes. The location of this small region sandwiched between two strongly coupled portions of the plate interface suggest that it may be the site of the next large northern Solomon Islands earthquake. However, this region has experienced no known earthquakes withM _s 7.0 and may represent a relatively aseismic portion of the subduction zone.     

A media-based assessment of damage and ground motions from the january 26th, 2001<Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis> 7.6 Bhuj,India earthquake

We compiled available news and internet accounts of damage and other effects from the 26th January, 2001, Bhuj earthquake, and interpreted them to obtain modified Mercalli intensities at over 200 locations throughout the Indian subcontinent. These values are used to map the intensity distribution using a simple mathematical interpolation method. The maps reveal several interesting features. Within the Kachchh region, the most heavily damaged villages are concentrated towards the western edge of the inferred fault, consistent with western directivity. Significant sedimentinduced amplification is also suggested at a number of locations around the Gulf of Kachchh to the south of the epicenter. Away from the Kachchh region intensities were clearly amplified significantly in areas that are along rivers, within deltas, or on coastal alluvium such as mud flats and salt pans. In addition we use fault rupture parameters inferred from teleseismic data to predict shaking intensity at distances of 0–1000 km. We then convert the predicted hard rock ground motion parameters to MMI using a relationship (derived from internet-based intensity surveys) that assigns MMI based on the average effects in a region. The predicted MMIs are typically lower by 1–2 units than those estimated from news accounts. This discrepancy is generally consistent with the expected effect of sediment response, but it could also reflect other factors such as a tendency for media accounts to focus on the most dramatic damage, rather than the average effects. Our modeling results also suggest, however, that the Bhuj earthquake generated more high-frequency shaking than is expected for earthquakes of similar magnitude in California, and may therefore have been especially damaging.