Magma genesis in a battered Moon: Effects of basin-forming impacts

Magma genesis in the Moon could have been significantly altered by large impacts if they melted solidified residual liquids and late cumulates from the ‘magma ocean’. Calculations of the heat required to melt these materials, under different assumed conditions, are compared to estimates of the total kinetic energy of the Imbrium impact. For a significant amount of these materials to have been melted, they must have been near their solidus temperatures, the impacts must have been very large, and the lunar lithosphere must have been locally heated at depths of 70 to 140 km. Unless the Imbrium impact released at least the maximum estimated kinetic energy, only larger impacts, e.g., the proposed ‘Gargantuan’ impact, could have augmented the intrinsic lunar heat budget enough to locally alter the abundance, timing of eruption, and chemical compositions of lunar magmas. The mechanical and thermal energy generated by such an impact could have been critical in creating (1) the higher concentrations of radioactive elements in the Imbrium/Procellarum area by migration of residual liquids driven by differential lithospheric thickness; and (2) hybrid mare basalts (representing varying proportions of late cumulates and/or residual liquids incorporated into primitive magmas rising from the partially molten lunar interior). Complete compositional spectra of lunar basalts are to be expected, from primitive mare basalts to pure KREEP and to Ti-rich varieties. Comparison of the Gargantuan/Imbrium area with ancient basins in the eastern nearside area suggests that the interplay between the Moon's internal heat engine and the timing of large impacts was a crucial factor in determining the time of tunar volcanism and the chemical composition of the lavas.     

Short-Term Ozone Forecasting with a Network Model System during Summer 1999

Within the framework of the Tropospheric Research Programme (TFS) four working groups in Germany (University of Stuttgart, University of Cologne, Research Center Karlsruhe, German Weather Service) formed a network developing a model system for chemistry transport calculations on different scales. The network was optimized, based on each module and combined for the different interfaces in order to perform daily preoperational ozone forecasts and its precursors at the German Weather Service in summer 1999 (May through September). The setup of the model system, the interfaces and changes of each module are described. The results of the whole preoperational episode are displayed and discussed. Main efforts were done analyzing the model climate statistics and the verification of the predictions with an extensive data base of observations at stations in Germany. The results of this extensive verification demonstrate the relatively good performance of the entire forecast system.     

Holocene paleoenvironmental change inferred from two sediment cores collected in the Tibetan lake Taro Co

Journal of Paleolimnology - The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the “Water Tower of Asia” because of its function as a water storage and supply region, responds dramatically to modern...     

A geomorphologic kinematic‐wave (GKW) model for estimation of floods from small alpine watersheds

A geomorphologic kinematic‐wave (GKW) model was developed for simulation of extreme floods from small alpine catchments. The GKW model couples the kinematic‐wave theory and the geomorphologic representation of the catchment based on the Horton–Strahler ordering scheme. The model was tested on two small alpine catchments in Switzerland, and the agreement between simulated and observed floods was good. Care must however be taken with the computation of slope and roughness parameters. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CO2 storage in the high Arctic: efficient modelling of pre‐stack depth‐migrated seismic sections for survey planning

The sequestration of CO₂ in subsurface reservoirs constitutes an immediate counter‐measure to reduce anthropogenic emissions of CO₂, now recognized by international scientific panels to be the single most critical factor driving the observed global climatic warming. To ensure and verify the safe geological containment of CO₂ underground, monitoring of the CO₂ site is critical. In the high Arctic, environmental considerations are paramount and human impact through, for instance, active seismic surveys, has to be minimized. Efficient seismic modelling is a powerful tool to test the detectability and imaging capability prior to acquisition and thus improve the characterization of CO₂ storage sites, taking both geological setting and seismic acquisition set‐up into account. The unique method presented here avoids the costly generation of large synthetic data sets by employing point spread functions to directly generate pre‐stack depth‐migrated seismic images. We test both a local‐target approach using an analytical filter assuming an average velocity and a full‐field approach accounting for the spatial variability of point spread functions. We assume a hypothetical CO₂ plume emplaced in a sloping aquifer inspired by the conditions found at the University of Svalbard CO₂ lab close to Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, constituting an unconventional reservoir–cap rock system. Using the local‐target approach, we find that even the low‐to‐moderate values of porosity (5%–18%) measured in the reservoir should be sufficient to induce significant change in seismic response when CO₂ is injected. The sensitivity of the seismic response to changes in CO₂ saturation, however, is limited once a relatively low saturation threshold of 5% is exceeded. Depending on the illumination angle provided by the seismic survey, the quality of the images of five hypothetical CO₂ plumes of varying volume differs depending on the steepness of their flanks. When comparing the resolution of two orthogonal 2D surveys to a 3D survey, we discover that the images of the 2D surveys contain significant artefacts, the CO₂‐brine contact is misplaced and an additional reflector is introduced due to the projection of the point spread function of the unresolvable plane onto the imaging plane. All of these could easily lead to a misinterpretation of the behaviour of the injected CO₂. Our workflow allows for testing the influence of geological heterogeneities in the target aquifer (igneous intrusions, faults, pervasive fracture networks) by utilizing increasingly complex and more realistic geological models as input as more information on the subsurface becomes available.     

Numerical simulation and seismic performance evaluation of buried pipelines rehabilitated with cured‐in‐place‐pipe liner under seismic wave propagation

The cured‐in‐place‐pipe (CIPP) liner technology involves installation of flexible polymeric composite liners coated with thermosetting resin to the inner surfaces of existing buried pipelines. This innovative technology provides an efficient, economic, and environmentally friendly alternative for rehabilitation of structurally compromised underground pipelines without expensive and disruptive excavation. However, the lack of analytical/numerical procedures to quantify the seismic performance of CIPP liner reinforced pipelines remains a barrier to the seismic design and rehabilitation of underground pipelines. This paper first develops an experimentally validated hysteretic model of ductile iron push‐on joints, reinforced with one particular type of CIPP liner under repeated axial loading. A numerical procedure is then proposed to systematically assess the seismic performance and fragility of straight buried pipelines incorporating push‐on joints and subjected to transient ground deformations. The numerical results indicate that CIPP liner‐reinforced pipelines exhibit favorable robust seismic performance with limited joint damage under high‐intensity transient ground deformations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identification of low frequency waves in the vicinity of the terrestrial bow shock

In this paper, methods for the determination of the wave mode for low frequency waves based on observed differences in phase are reviewed. Examples, using measurements made in the terrestrial foreshock and magnetosheath, are used to illustrate the application of these methods. The use of advance methods such as NARMAX modelling or genetic algorithms to identify the plasma wave mode is also discussed.     

The Nu Expression for Probabilistic Data Integration

The general problem of data integration is expressed as that of combining probability distributions conditioned to each individual datum or data event into a posterior probability for the unknown conditioned jointly to all data. Any such combination of information requires taking into account data interaction for the specific event being assessed. The nu expression provides an exact analytical representation of such a combination. This representation allows a clear and useful separation of the two components of any data integration algorithm: individual data information content and data interaction, the latter being different from data dependence. Any estimation workflow that fails to address data interaction is not only suboptimal, but may result in severe bias. The nu expression reduces the possibly very complex joint data interaction to a single multiplicative correction parameter ν ₀, difficult to evaluate but whose exact analytical expression is given; availability of such an expression provides avenues for its determination or approximation. The case ν ₀=1 is more comprehensive than data conditional independence; it delivers a preliminary robust approximation in presence of actual data interaction. An experiment where the exact results are known allows the results of the ν ₀=1 approximation to be checked against the traditional estimators based on assumption of data independence.     

In-flight Performance of the Advanced Camera for Surveys CCDs

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), installed in the Hubble Space telescope in March 2002, will significantly extend HST's deep, survey imaging capabilities. ACS has met, or exceeded, all of its key performance specifications. In this paper we briefly review the in-flight performance of the instrument's CCD detectors and preview early ACS science observations. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Contribution de la gravimétrie à l'étude de la structure du bassin de Tadla (Maroc) : Implications hydrogéologiques

This study is based on the analysis and the interpretation of the gravity data of the Tadla basin. Its purpose is to increase the knowledge of this basin structure. A residual anomaly map was first calculated from the Bouguer anomaly data witch are strongly affected by a regional gradient. The computed map provides information on the ground density variation but it does not bring enough of new elements. Data filtering allows us to emphasize the structures affecting the basin. We chose the horizontal gradient coupled to the upward continuation techniques that permit to highlight news structures and to give information on their dip. The elaborated structural map of the study area constitutes a useful document for rationalizing the future groundwater exploration in the Tadla basin. To cite this article: A. Najine et al., C. R. Geoscience 338 (2006).