Instability of gradient dependent elasto-viscoplasticity for clay

A gradient-dependent viscoplastic constitutive model for water saturated clay is proposed to describe the strain localization phenomena and pattern formation during deformation. Second- and fourth-order gradients of volumetric viscoplastic strain are introduced into the constitutive equations to account for the non-local effects due to the motion of microstructures. A linear perturbation analysis is applied to this model. The instability of the government equations (i.e. the constitutive equations and the equations of motion for the clay skeleton and pore water) is discussed for both the one-dimensional and the two-dimensional situations. In addition, issues concerned with the formulation of boundary value problems by finite element analysis in relation to the formulation and the boundary conditions are presented. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A soil chronosequence in Late Glacial and Neoglacial moraines, Humboldt Glacier, northwestern Venezuelan Andes

Late Glacial and Neoglacial (Little Ice Age) deposits on the Humboldt Massif were analyzed for relative-age dating parameters, including geomorphic and weathering characteristics, geochemical and soil properties. The soil chronosequence, formed in chemically uniform parent materials, provides an important database to study soil evolution in a tropical alpine environment. Extractable and total Fe and Al concentrations, examined to assess their use in relative-age determination, and as paleoenvironmental indicators, provide an important measure of the accumulation and downward profile movement over time of organically-bound Al, ferrihydrite and other crystalline forms (hematite and goethite) of extractable Fe. Ferrihydrite is particularly useful in determining former perched water levels in soils with relation to paleoclimate. The ratios of most Fe extracts are time dependent. The Fe_d/Fe_t ratio, within statistical limits, shows a slow increase from LIA (Little Ice Age) to Late Glacial soils, which closely correlates with other alpine soil studies in the middle latitudes and other tropical alpine locales. Values of Al_d (dithionite) and Al_o (oxalate extractable) generally do not correlate with time; however, Al_p (pyrophosphate extractable) measured against Al_t (total) provides insight on the downward translocation over time of organically-bound Al. Low leaching rates in this chronosequence are further supported by clay mineralogy trends and the geochemical data.     

Clinoform deposition across a boundary between orogenic front and foredeep – an example from the Lower Cretaceous in Arctic Alaska

The Lower Cretaceous Fortress Mountain Formation occupies a spatial and temporal niche between syntectonic deposits at the Brooks Range orogenic front and post‐tectonic strata in the Colville foreland basin. The formation includes basin‐floor fan, marine‐slope and fan‐delta facies that define a clinoform depositional profile. Texture and composition of clasts in the formation suggest progressive burial of a tectonic wedge‐front that included older turbidites and mélange. These new interpretations, based entirely on outcrop study, suggest that the Fortress Mountain Formation spans the boundary between orogenic wedge and foredeep, with proximal strata onlapping the tectonic wedge‐front and distal strata downlapping the floor of the foreland basin. Our reconstruction suggests that clinoform amplitude reflects the structural relief generated by tectonic wedge development and load‐induced flexural subsidence of the foreland basin.     

Ecological controls on biogeochemical lfuxes in the western Antarctic Peninsula studied with an inverse foodweb model

Sea ice in the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region is both highly variable and rapidly changing. In the Palmer Station region, the ice season duration has decreased by 92 d since 1978. The sea-ice...     

Evaluation of stratospheric ozone,temperature, and aerosol profiles from the LOANA lidar in Antarctica

We present an evaluation of observations from the Lidar Ozone and Aerosol for NDACC in Antarctica (LOANA) at the Dumont d’Urville station, Antarctica. This instrument is part of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), and ensures continuity with lidar measurements made since 1989 with the previous instrument at this site. This study is based on the dataset from 2008 to 2009, and comparisons are made with observations from balloon soundings, and from three satellite experiments: Aura/MLS, TIMED/SABER, and CALIOP/CALIPSO. The lidar ozone data are in very good agreement with the balloon sounding data (ECC sensor), revealing a bias of less than 3% between 17 and 34 km. For temperature, the lidar shows a low bias of ?3 K at 20 km when compared with Aura/MLS. Between 30 and 50 km, the bias is less than 2 K. We also present our initial results showing diurnal variations in temperature. The amplitude of these diurnal cycles is on the order of 1 K and is unlikely to account for the temperature biases between LOANA and the reference instruments. Comparisons of total attenuated backscatter reveal good qualitative agreement between LOANA and CALIOP, with differences of less than 30% in the derived optical depth.     

Analysis of MDI High-Degree Mode Frequencies and their Rotational Splittings

We present a detailed analysis of solar acoustic mode frequencies and their rotational splittings for modes with degree up to 900. They were obtained by applying spherical harmonic decomposition to full-disk solar images observed by the Michelson Doppler Imager onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft. Global helioseismology analysis of high-degree modes is complicated by the fact that the individual modes cannot be isolated, which has limited so far the use of high-degree data for structure inversion of the near-surface layers (r>0.97R _⊙). In this work, we took great care to recover the actual mode characteristics using a physically motivated model which included a complete leakage matrix. We included in our analysis the following instrumental characteristics: the correct instantaneous image scale, the radial and non-radial image distortions, the effective position angle of the solar rotation axis, and a correction to the Carrington elements. We also present variations of the mode frequencies caused by the solar activity cycle. We have analyzed seven observational periods from 1999 to 2005 and correlated their frequency shift with four different solar indices. The frequency shift scaled by the relative mode inertia is a function of frequency alone and follows a simple power law, where the exponent obtained for the p modes is twice the value obtained for the f modes. The different solar indices present the same result.