Composition and Formation Conditions of Lower Eocene Shallow-Marine Carbonates in Southern Armenia

Lithology and Mineral Resources - Nummulite facies are known to be a good indicator of Eocene shallow-water paleoenvironments. Nummulitic limestones are widespread in the Lower Eocene of...     

Simulating Spatial Dynamics and Processes in a Retail Gasoline Market: An Agent‐Based Modeling Approach

Simulating the dynamics and processes within a spatially influenced retail market, such as the retail gasoline market, is a highly challenging research area. Current approaches are limited through their inability to model the impact of supplier or consumer behavior over both time and space. Agent‐based models (ABMs) provide an alternative approach that overcomes these problems. We demonstrate how knowledge of retail pricing is extended by using a ‘hybrid’ model approach: an agent model for retailers and a spatial interaction model for consumers. This allows the issue of spatial competition between individual retailers to be examined in a way only accessible to agent‐based models, allowing each model retailer autonomous control over optimizing their price. The hybrid model is shown to be successful at recreating spatial pricing dynamics at a national scale, simulating the effects of a rise in crude oil prices as well as accurately predicting which retailers were most susceptible to closure over a 10‐year period.     

The nation-state and the city: introduction to a debate

In recent years, the urban political landscape has become infused with a potent and incendiary mixture of popular-democratic, anti-globalisation, and separatist rhetoric. One central process driving this has been the problematic relations between the nation-state and the city. This Debates and Interventions forum aims to prompt a debate about where the city should be situated intellectually in respect of the nation-state. Four questions are addressed: (1) How do contemporary processes of urban development reflect changing national geopolitical priorities? (2) To what extent are struggles around immigration, citizenship and recognition conducted within cities rather than around the nation-state? (3) To what degree does the city (as e.g. a physical form, social environment or discourse) help to mobilise, propel and/or contest this new urban politics? And (4) Is the concept of a “post-national” global order appropriate for understanding the city and urban politics today?     

Magmatic history and geophysical signature of a post-collisional intrusive center emplaced near a crustal-scale shear zone: the Plechý granite pluton (Moldanubian batholith,Bohemian Massif)

The Plechy pluton, southwestern Bohemian Massif, represents a late-Variscan, complexly zoned intrusive center emplaced near the crustal-scale Pfahl shear zone; the pluton thus provides an opportunity to examine the interplay among successive emplacement of large magma batches, magmatic fabric acquisition, and the late-Variscan stress field associated with strike-slip shearing. The magmatic history of the pluton started with the emplacement of the porphyritic Plechy and Haidmühler granites. Based on gravity and structural data, we interpret that the Plechy and Haidmühler granites were emplaced as a deeply rooted, ∼NE–SW elongated body; its gross shape and internal fabric (steep ∼NE–SW magmatic foliation) may have been controlled by the late-Variscan stress field. The steep magmatic foliation changes into flat-lying foliation (particularly recorded by AMS) presumably as a result of divergent flow. Magnetic lineations correspond to a sub-horizontal ∼NE–SW finite stretch associated with the divergent flow. Subsequently, the Třístoličník granite, characterized by steep margin-parallel magmatic foliation, was emplaced as a crescent-shaped body in the central part of the pluton. The otherwise inward-younging intrusive sequence was completed by the emplacement of the outermost and the most evolved garnet-bearing granite (the Marginal granite) along the southeastern margin of the pluton. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Environmental policy as a factor in a new security policy

Environmental policy is increasingly becoming an indispensable part of modern policy to maintain peace and security. After the end of the East-West conflict, a new cold war between North and South is looming on the horizon. It is caused by a steadily widening gap between the poverty of the South and the wealth of the North, which has been gained not least at the expense of the environment worldwide, and thus also of the South.There is a need for a parallel development between the disarmament process in the classical sense and a disarmament process in a material sense to promote an economic, social and ecological development which is consistent in itself and coordinated with regard to its effects.Appropriate instruments to achieve this, besides international conventions, include the opening up of markets, ecologically honest prices, technical cooperation and not least the enforcement of environmentally compatible and resource-saving forms of industry and ways of life in the industrialised countries.     

The Deep Space 1 Encounter with Comet 19p/Borrelly

NASA's Deep Space 1 (DS1) spacecraft successfully encountered comet 19P/Borrelly near perihelion and the Miniature Integrated Camera and Spectrometer (MICAS) imaging system onboard DS1 returned the first high-resolution images of a Jupiter-family comet nucleus and surrounding environment. The images span solar phase angles from 88° to 52°, providing stereoscopic coverage of the dust coma and nucleus. Numerous surface features are revealed on the 8-km long nucleus in the highest resolution images(47–58 m pixel). A smooth, broad basin containing brighter regions and mesa-likestructures is present in the central part of the nucleus that seems to be the source ofjet-like dust features seen in the coma. High ridges seen along the jagged terminator lead to rugged terrain on both ends of the nucleus containing dark patches and smaller series of parallel grooves. No evidence of impact craters with diameters larger thanabout 200-m are present, indicating a young and active surface. The nucleus is very dark with albedo variations from 0.007 to 0.035. Short-wavelength, infrared spectra from 1.3 to 2.6 μm revealed a hot, dry surface consistent with less than about10% actively sublimating. Two types of dust features are seen: broad fans and highlycollimated “jets” in the sunward hemisphere that can be traced to the surface. The source region of the main jet feature, which resolved into at least three smaller “jets” near the surface, is consistent with an area around the rotation pole that is constantly illuminated by the sun during the encounter. Within a few nuclear radii, entrained dustis rapidly accelerated and fragmented and geometrical effects caused from extended source regions are present, as evidenced in radial intensity profiles centered on the jet features that show an increase in source strength with increasing cometocentric distance. Asymmetries in the dust from dayside to nightside are pronounced and may show evidence of lateral flow transporting dust to structures observed in the nightside coma. A summary of the initial results of the Deep Space 1 Mission is provided, highlighting the new knowledge that has been gained thus far.     

Sulfur biogeochemical cycling and novel Fe-S mineralization pathways in a tidally re-flooded wetland

Sulfur biogeochemical cycling and associated Fe-S mineralization processes exert a major influence over acidity dynamics, electron flow and contaminant mobility in wetlands, benthic sediments and groundwater systems. While S biogeochemical cycling has been studied intensively in many environmental settings, relatively little direct information exists on S cycling in formerly drained wetlands that have been remediated via tidal re-flooding. This study focuses on a tidal wetland that was drained in the 1970s (causing severe soil and water acidification), and subsequently remediated by controlled re-flooding in 2002. We examine reduction rates and Fe-S mineralization at the tidal fringe, 7 years after the commencement of re-flooding. The initial drainage of the wetland examined here caused in-situ pyrite (FeS₂) oxidation, resulting in the drained soil layers being highly acidic and rich in -bearing Fe(III) minerals, including jarosite (KFe₃(SO₄)₂(OH)₆). Tidal re-flooding has neutralized much of the previous acidity, with the pore-water pH now mostly spanning pH 5-7. The fastest rates of in-situ reduction (up to ∼300 nmol cm⁻³ day⁻¹) occur within the inter-tidal zone in the near-surface soil layers (to ∼60 cm below ground surface). The reduction rates correlate with pore-water dissolved organic C concentrations, thereby suggesting that electron donor supply was the predominant rate determining factor. Elemental S was a major short-term product of reduction, comprising up to 69% of reduced inorganic S in the near-surface soil layers. This enrichment in elemental S can be partly attributed to interactions between biogenic H₂S and jarosite - a process that also contributed to enrichment in pore-water Fe²⁺ (up to 55 mM) and (up to 50 mM). The iron sulfide thiospinel, greigite (Fe₃S₄), was abundant in near-surface soil layers within the inter- to sub-tidal zone where tidal water level fluctuations created oscillatory redox conditions. There was evidence for relatively rapid pyrite re-formation within the re-flooded soil layers. However, the results indicate that pyrite re-formation has occurred mainly in the lower formerly drained soil layers, whereas the accumulation of elemental S and greigite has been confined towards the soil surface. The discovery that pyrite formation was spatially decoupled from that of elemental S and greigite challenges the concept that greigite is an essential precursor required for sedimentary pyrite formation. In fact, the results suggest that greigite and pyrite may represent distinct end-points of divergent Fe-S mineralization pathways. Overall, this study highlights novel aspects of Fe-S mineralization within tidal wetlands that have been drained and re-flooded, in contrast to normal, undisturbed tidal wetlands. As such, the long-term biogeochemical trajectory of drained and acidified wetlands that are remediated by tidal re-flooding cannot be predicted from the well-studied behaviour of normal tidal wetlands.     

“Nonlinear energy stability in a compressible atmosphere”

Abstract

A magnetic field line topology with nulls, generated by superimposing a uniform magnetic field onto the field from a distributed ring current, is analyzed. This simple model, which is reminiscent of the structures found in laboratory field reversed configurations and detached plasmoids, is amenable to substantial analytical progress and also facilitates the visualization of the three dimensional field geometry. Four nulls are seen to exist and representative field lines and tubes of flux found by numerical integration are presented. An infinite number of topologically distinct flux bundles is found. These are distinguished by the number of times they encircle a circular magnetic field line. A convenient mapping is described which proves very useful in distinguishing between and following the paths of the different tubes of flux as they traverse through the null system. The separatrices that divide these flux bundles are described. The complexities already present in this simple but nontrivial configuration serve to emphasize the difficulties in analyzing more complicated geometries, but the intuition gained from this study proves beneficial in those cases. One such example is the comparison of the generic features of our model with those found in a topologically different model of plasmoid formations in the earth's magnetotail.     

On the Nature of the Transition Between Roll and Cellular Organization in the Convective Boundary Layer

Both observational and numerical studies of the convective boundary layer (CBL) have demonstrated that when surface heat fluxes are small and mean wind shear is strong, convective updrafts tend to organize into horizontal rolls aligned within 10–20\(^\circ \) of the geostrophic wind direction. However, under large surface heat fluxes and weak to negligible shear, convection tends to organize into open cells, similar to turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection. Using a suite of 14 large-eddy simulations (LES) spanning a range of \(-z_i/L\) between zero (neutral) and 1041 (highly convective), where \(z_i\) is the CBL depth and L is the Obukhov length, the transition between roll- and cellular-type convection is investigated systematically for the first time using LES. Mean vertical profiles including velocity variances and turbulent transport efficiencies, as well the “roll factor,” which characterizes the rotational symmetry of the vertical velocity field, indicate the transition occurs gradually over a range of \(-z_i/L\); however, the most significant changes in vertical profiles and CBL organization occur from near-neutral conditions up to about \(-z_i/L \approx \) 15–20. Turbulent transport efficiencies and quadrant analysis are used to characterize the turbulent transport of momentum and heat with increasing \(-z_i/L\). It is found that turbulence transports heat efficiently from weakly to highly convective conditions; however, turbulent momentum transport becomes increasingly inefficient as \(-z_i/L\) increases.     

STRESS-METAMORPHISM AND ISOTOPIC AGE OF SHEAR ZONE GRANITOID TECTONITES OF IRTYSH SHEAR ZONE (ALTAI REGION)

The Irtysh shear zone (ISZ) of Altai region is the lineament structure of the collision-suture type, where granites of Kalba complex and granodiorites of Zmeinogorsk complex are exposed to regional gneiss-formation and stress-metamorphic alterations. This study is based on detailed structural observations at special grounds using optical and electron microscopy, and on the behavior analysis of isotopic systems from altered granitoids.Within the ISZ area we have established the continuous rows of granitoid stress-metamorphism from initial recrystallization of protolite, its cataclasis and mechanical flaring up to complete recrystallization with alteration of mineral composition and formation of the streaky complexes of granite tectonites of blastomylonite and blastocataclasite types. The directed alteration of rocks has several impulse and is expressed by a change in morphology of mineral grains and their relations, magnification of deformation component in the rock structure, and formation of new mineral phases on the basis of initial ones without surface fluidization. At transformation of isotopic systems from granitoid, their feldspars,biotite and hornblende, we can observe “rejuvenation“ of the rock substrate from 270- 290 Ma for Kalba granitoids to 220-235 Ma for their tectonites, and for Rudny Altai granodiorites, their ages changes from 285-317 Ma to 232-257 Ma for their tectonites.