Alteration of an Apollo 12 sample by adsorption of water vapor

The adsorption of water vapor caused radical changes in the surface characteristics of an Apollo 12 lunar fines sample. In the initial state, the sample had a relatively low specific surface area and no inherent porosity as deduced from the adsorption isotherms of nitrogen and argon. However, the sample interacted strongly with water vapor, particularly at high relative pressures, and irreversibly retained, in vacuum, a quantity of water much larger than can be explained by a simple chemisorption process. The interaction with water vapor more than doubled the specific surface area and created a pore system. The suggested explanation is that water penetrates the severely radiation damaged, amorphous surface layers of the particles and creates pores by leaching out channels or forcing apart adherent particles. Lunar fines from the Apollo 11, 12 and 14 missions have markedly different reactivities toward water vapor, an observation which remains unexplained at the present time.     

The Reitz ring: a possible circular structure, 350–500 km in diameter,in South Africa

The accurate northwestern rim of the upper Witwatersrand sedimentary basin in South Africa can be regarded as representing 120 degrees of an original circular structure roughly 400 km in diameter. Extrapolation of the perimeter passes, on the east and northeast, near to outcrops of the older, but lithologically similar, Mozaan Series. The center of this circle coincides with a positive Bouguer gravity anomaly, near Reitz (“Ray-tz”), South Africa. If these features are genetically related, the symmetry may reflect an early meteorite impact structure.     

New tie-points for the geomagnetic polarity time scale during the Middle Miocene from the Mogán Group on Gran Canaria and Ocean Drilling Program Leg 157 site 953

A thick sequence of volcaniclastic sediments drilled at site 953 during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 157 northeast of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands) contains an almost complete magneto-stratigraphy back to the shield stage of the island 14.8 Ma ago. Onshore, a sequence of reversals has been identified and dated in 19 dominantly peralkaline rhyolitic ignimbrites, one rhyolitic, and one basaltic lava flow of the Mogán Group (13.35-13.95 Ma), which overlie basalt flows of the island's shield stage (>14 Ma). The magneto-stratigraphy of the ignimbrites onshore has been correlated with the marine magneto-stratigraphy at site 953, determined in syn-ignimbritic volcaniclastic turbidites, which were deposited practically synchronously immediately following the entry of the parent pyroclastic flows into the sea around the circumference of the island. The four polarity intervals recorded in the sequence of the Mogán Group ignimbrites correspond to C5ACr, C5ACn, C5ADr and C5ADn. Single crystal ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar-age determinations of the ignimbrites bracketing the polarity changes gave the following ages and uncertainties for the reversals C5AD (t) (13.95ǂ.07 Ma), C5AC(o) (13.89ǂ.08 Ma), and C5AC(t) (13.47ǂ.09 Ma). The newly dated polarity changes fit and refine the Miocene age model proposed in the global polarity time scale.     

Sediment flux in a small gravel-bed stream: Response to channel remediation works

Abstract:  Sediment transfers in a short reach of the Kiwitea Stream, near Fielding, lower North Island, New Zealand, are assessed using morphological budgeting based on repeat digital elevation model (DEM) differencing. Field data were acquired using high-precision GPS in October 2004, May and November 2005. Two interpolation methods to construct DEMs were compared. Universal kriging and Triangulation with Linear Interpolation produced consistent results and mean errors of between 4 and 14 mm. DEM error increases where relief changes rapidly. Sediment transfers are derived only from the low-relief active channel and indicate a rapidly changing environment. Remediation works following 2004 flood impacts have reduced bank erosion. A highly mobile bed renders the channel system sensitive to small and frequent flood events.     

Urban structure and dengue incidence in Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Dengue is currently the most important arboviral disease globally and is usually associated with built environments in tropical areas. Remotely sensed information can facilitate the study of urban mosquito-borne diseases by providing multiple temporal and spatial resolutions appropriate to investigate urban structure and ecological characteristics associated with infectious disease. In this study, coarse, medium and fine resolution satellite imagery (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer and QuickBird respectively) and ground-based data were analyzed for the Greater Puntarenas area, Costa Rica for the years 2002–04. The results showed that the mean normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was generally higher in the localities with lower incidence of dengue fever during 2002, although the correlation was statistically significant only in the dry season (r =−0.40; p = 0.03). Dengue incidence was inversely correlated to built area and directly correlated with tree cover (r = 0.75, p = 0.01). Overall, the significant correlations between dengue incidence and urban structural variables (tree cover and building density) suggest that properties of urban structure may be associated with dengue incidence in tropical urban settings.     

Influence of survey strategy and interpolation model on DEM quality

Accurate characterisation of morphology is critical to many studies in the field of geomorphology, particularly those dealing with changes over time. Digital elevation models (DEMs) are commonly used to represent morphology in three dimensions. The quality of the DEM is largely a function of the accuracy of individual survey points, field survey strategy, and the method of interpolation. Recommendations concerning field survey strategy and appropriate methods of interpolation are currently lacking. Furthermore, the majority of studies to date consider error to be uniform across a surface. This study quantifies survey strategy and interpolation error for a gravel bar on the River Nent, Blagill, Cumbria, UK. Five sampling strategies were compared: (i) cross section; (ii) bar outline only; (iii) bar and chute outline; (iv) bar and chute outline with spot heights; and (v) aerial LiDAR equivalent, derived from degraded terrestrial laser scan (TLS) data. Digital Elevation Models were then produced using five different common interpolation algorithms. Each resultant DEM was differentiated from a terrestrial laser scan of the gravel bar surface in order to define the spatial distribution of vertical and volumetric error. Overall triangulation with linear interpolation (TIN) or point kriging appeared to provide the best interpolators for the bar surface. Lowest error on average was found for the simulated aerial LiDAR survey strategy, regardless of interpolation technique. However, comparably low errors were also found for the bar-chute-spot sampling strategy when TINs or point kriging was used as the interpolator. The magnitude of the errors between survey strategy exceeded those found between interpolation technique for a specific survey strategy. Strong relationships between local surface topographic variation (as defined by the standard deviation of vertical elevations in a 0.2-m diameter moving window), and DEM errors were also found, with much greater errors found at slope breaks such as bank edges. A series of curves are presented that demonstrate these relationships for each interpolation and survey strategy. The simulated aerial LiDAR data set displayed the lowest errors across the flatter surfaces; however, sharp slope breaks are better modelled by the morphologically based survey strategy. The curves presented have general application to spatially distributed data of river beds and may be applied to standard deviation grids to predict spatial error within a surface, depending upon sampling strategy and interpolation algorithm.     

Analysis of the natural remanent magnetization of rocks by measuring the efficiency ratio through alternating field demagnetization spectra

The REM(AF) method is a new tool for the analysis of the origin and alternating field demagnetization coercivity spectra of the remanent magnetization. We applied this method on precambrian Gila diabase sheets from Arizona in order to identify the high coercivity magnetic carrier, and on artificially shocked Rowley Regis basalt from UK in order to analyze the effect of the shock on the natural remanent magnetization. In the Gila diabase the high coercivity magnetic component was identified to be most likely represented by the acicular magnetite (increase in the efficiency ratio in the high coercivity region). In the Rowley Regis basalt, the REM(AF) analysis revealed that comparing to NRM, the shock produced a different distribution of the AF demagnetization coercivity spectra due to the occurrence of the Shock Remanent Magnetization.