AMSR-E sea surface temperature (SST) charts enhancement

Microwave satellite images used for retrieving sea surface temperatures often have such distortions as noise and blurring of the thermal fronts. An image processing approach based on the Mumford-Shah model of optimal image approximation is considered for the solution to this problem. We divide images into flat areas and frontal zones, and then process these areas separately. Image fragmentation is based on automatic detection of the thermal front lines. SST enhancement in frontal zones is achieved by using image deconvolution methods. It has been shown that SST errors in high gradient areas reach 1–3 °C. The proposed approach can decrease this discrepancy.     

Comparative Analysis of the Propagation Conditions of Millimeter Radio Waves at Radio Astronomy Polygons in Russia and Uzbekistan

Astronomy Reports - The feasibility of expanding the evaluation parameters was discussed when selecting the “Karadag” test site for the installation of millimeter-wave antennas based on...     

俄罗斯-蒙古地学断面地壳模型的地质-地球物理资料综合研究

地学断面是指地壳的垂直剖面,主要通过对地质和地球物理资料的综合分析来揭示构造带的性质及其空间关系。横断面的研究所采用的数据基本包括100 km宽区域地质图、上地壳的地质剖面图、重磁图(沿横断面的重磁剖面图)以及地壳的地震波速度、密度和其他地球物理属性的剖面图。这些数据被用于构建综合的数据剖面图(结果图),以展示各种地球动力学条件下(裂谷、海洋、碰撞带、造山盆地、大陆地台和岩浆弧,包括安第斯岛弧、活动大陆边缘、海沟、弧前和弧后盆地)的特定的岩石组构。本项目的研究目标是根据研究区现存的地质和地球物理数据的综合解释,统一图例,建立研究区深部剖面,以确定地体的空间关系及其在板块构造方面的地球动力学性质。 前人已分别对东西伯利亚南部和蒙古境内的多个地体进行了构造划分,并对它们的地球动力学性质和时空关系进行了分析。研究结果显示该系列地体为早古生代、中晚古生代和晚古生代—早中生代的岛弧和微大陆。此外,研究还识别出了中—晚古生代和晚古生代—早中生代安第斯型活动大陆边缘、晚古生代—早中生代被动大陆边缘和早白垩世裂谷。与岛弧和安第斯型活动大陆边缘相关的岩体被推覆至相邻大陆和微陆块上,部分推覆宽度可达150 km。目前已开展泥盆纪到晚侏罗世时期蒙古-鄂霍次克海地区的古地球动力学重建。 “非地槽”型花岗岩类岩浆作用在板块构造方面找到了直接且合理的解释,其中泥盆纪—石炭纪和二叠纪—三叠纪岩浆作用区域对应于安第斯型活动大陆边缘,中—晚侏罗世岩浆作用则与西伯利亚/蒙古-中国大陆板块碰撞有关。碰撞岩浆作用中亚碱性(地幔)元素的存在及其所在的构造区域在很大程度可以说明蒙古-鄂霍次克海闭合后,巨厚大陆岩石圈下曾经发生过持续的大洋裂谷活动(地幔热点)。在早白垩世时期,大陆裂谷活动影响到了同一时期正在发生的大陆汇聚作用。 西伯利亚南部边界大部分具有安第斯型活动大陆边缘性质,这也是蒙古—鄂霍次克缝合线沿线蛇绿岩数量较少的原因。因为当汇聚大陆一个具有安第斯类型的活动边缘,而另一个具有被动边缘时,前者的大陆地壳会最终逆冲到后者之上,并因此破坏掉先前出露的蛇绿杂岩体。部分被破坏的蛇绿岩块是俯冲带保留下来的海山残余,其可能成为增生-俯冲楔体的混沌复合体的一部分。然而,由于快速俯冲作用,这种楔形体在晚二叠世—早侏罗世的积累并不是西伯利亚活动边缘的典型特征。 沿地学断面综合的地质和地球物理资料分析表明,亚洲大陆是在显生宙时期由部分前寒武纪微陆块构造拼贴而成的。前寒武纪地块间存在不同宽度的已变形且剥蚀强烈的显生宙火山弧,它们也被归类为特定地体。     

Methane fluxes and gas hydrates as well as seismic activity in the Okhotsk Sea

The research works of methane concentration in water column of the Okhotsk Sea from 1984 to 2005 were reviewed. And some regularities of methane distribution in water column in the North-East Sakhalin slope of the Okhotsk Sea were concluded.     

Method of Spherical Phase Screens for Modeling the Propagation of Diverging Beams in Inhomogeneous Media

Izvestiya, Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics - The phase-screen (split-step) method is widely used for modeling wave propagation in inhomogeneous media. The method of plane phase screens is best...     

Distribution and expression of gas seeps in a gas hydrate province of the northeastern Sakhalin continental slope, Sea of Okhotsk

Multidisciplinary surveys were conducted to investigate gas seepage and gas hydrate accumulation on the northeastern Sakhalin continental slope (NESS), Sea of Okhotsk, during joint Korean–Russian–Japanese expeditions conducted from 2003 to 2007 (CHAOS and SSGH projects). One hundred sixty-one gas seeps were detected in a 2000 km² area of the NESS (between 53°45′N and 54°45′N). Active gas seeps in a gas hydrate province on the NESS were evident from features in the water column, on the seafloor, and in the subsurface: well-defined hydroacoustic anomalies (gas flares), side-scan sonar structures with high backscatter intensity (seepage structures), bathymetric structures (pockmarks and mounds), gas- and gas-hydrate-related seismic features (bottom-simulating reflectors, gas chimneys, high-amplitude reflectors, and acoustic blanking), high methane concentrations in seawater, and gas hydrates in sediment near the seafloor. These expressions were generally spatially related; a gas flare would be associated with a seepage structure (mound), below which a gas chimney was present. The spatial distribution of gas seeps on the NESS is controlled by four types of geological structures: faults, the shelf break, seafloor canyons, and submarine slides. Gas chimneys that produced enhanced reflection on high-resolution seismic profiles are interpreted as active pathways for upward gas migration to the seafloor. The chimneys and gas flares are good indicators of active seepage.     

2.8-Ma ash-flow caldera at Chegem River in the northern Caucasus Mountains (Russia), contemporaneous granites, and associated ore deposits

Diverse latest Pliocene volcanic and plutonic rocks in the north-central Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia are newly interpreted as components of a large caldera system that erupted a compositionally zoned rhyolite-dacite ash-flow sheet at 2.83 ± 0.02 Ma (sanidine and biotite ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar). Despite its location within a cratonic collision zone, the Chegem system is structurally and petrologically similar to typical calderas of continental-margin volcanic arcs. Erosional remnants of the outflow Chegem Tuff sheet extend at least 50 km north from the source caldera in the upper Chegem River. These outflow remnants were previously interpreted by others as erupted from several local vents, but petrologic similarities indicate a common origin and correlation with thick intracaldera Chegem Tuff. The 11 × 15 km caldera and associated intrusions are superbly exposed over a vertical range of 2,300 m in deep canyons above treeline (elev. to 3,800 m). Densely welded intracaldera Chegem Tuff, previously described by others as a rhyolite lava plateau, forms a single cooling unit, is > 2 km thick, and contains large slide blocks from the caldera walls. Caldera subsidence was accommodated along several concentric ring fractures. No prevolcanic floor is exposed within the central core of the caldera. The caldera-filling tuff is overlain by andesitic lavas and cut by a 2.84 ± 0.03-Ma porphyritic granodiorite intrusion that has a cooling age analytically indistinguishable from that of the tuffs. The Eldjurta Granite, a pluton exposed low in the next large canyon (Baksan River) 10 km to the northwest of the caldera, yields variable K-feldspar and biotite ages (2.8 to 1.0 Ma) through a 5-km vertical range in surface and drill-hole samples. These variable dates appear to record a prolonged complex cooling history within upper parts of another caldera-related pluton. Major W-Mo ore deposits at the Tirniauz mine are hosted in skarns and hornfels along the roof of the Eldjurta Granite, and associated aplitic phases have textural features of Climax-type molybdenite porphyries in the western USA. Similar ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages, mineral chemistry, and bulk-rock compositions indicate that the Chegem Tuff, intracaldera intrusion, and Eldjurta Granite are all parts of a large magmatic system that broadly resembles the middle Tertiary Questa caldera system and associated Mo deposits in northern New Mexico, USA. Because of their young age and superb three-dimensional exposures, rocks of the Chegem-Tirniauz region offer exceptional opportunities for detailed study of caldera structures, compositional gradients in volcanic rocks relative to cogenetic granites, and the thermal and fluid-flow history of a large young upper-crustal magmatic system.     

综合利用地球物理和地震资料进行北天山地震危险性研究

综合分析地震学、地球物理学资料及地壳深部构造信息，对北天山地震危险性进行评价。作为研究的数学基础采用了对正交归一函数系统进行多维随机抽样的定量分析方法。最后对分析结果的成因进行了解释。     

Hydrogen photoproduction ofA. Variabilis incorporated in a photobioreactor

H₂ photoproduction and nitrogenase activities in two strains ofAnabaena variabilis marked wild type ATCC 29413 and mutant PK84 exposed to thermal stress (temperature higher than the normal incubation temperature of 30°C) were studied. Cultures of both strains collected from any interval of logarithmic growth phase exhibited high H₂ photoproduction and nitrogenase activities when exposed to limited time heat shock during the assay process. In contrast, the algal H₂ photoproduction rate of both strains fluctuated with long term thermal stress caused by increasing the growth temperature from 30°C to 36°C.

The changes of nitrogenase (the key H₂ photobiosynthetic enzyme) activities in the mutant PK84 showed variation tendency similar to that of H₂ photoproduction during exposure to thermal stress, indicating that fluctuation of H₂ photoproduction in the mutant was mainly due to the variation of nitrogenase activities. A temporary maximal H₂ photoproduction in the mutant PK84 (wild type ATCC29413) was observed when cells grew at 36°C for 14 (6) days. However, the responses of nitrogenase activities in the wild type to thermal stress were not completely similar to those in the mutant in spite of similar variations of H₂ photoproduction in both strains. The data obtained in these studies suggested that the activities of other enzymes (in the wild strain) involved in H₂ photoproduction were affected by thermal stress since H₂ photoproduction maximized or dropped to 0 without variation tendency similar to that of nitrogenase activities.

Furthermore, an enhancement of H₂ photoproduction speed of the mutant strain cultured in a 4.4 L laboratory photobioreactor was also observed when it was subjected to short time continuous charge of argon, and temperature rise.

All these results indicated that high temperature plays an important role in the photo-autotrophic H₂ photoproduction, and that long term thermal stress is unfavourable for net H₂ photoproduction in both strains ofA. variabilis though short-time heat shock is conducive to H₂ photoproduction.