Comet Tago-Sato-Kosaka 1969 IX: Tail structure 25 December 1969 to 12 January 1970

On photographs taken between 25 December 1969 and 12 January 1970 with the Michigan Curtis Schmidt on Cerro Tololo and the Hamburg Schmidt at the Boyden Observatory, Comet 1969 IX is seen projected on planes nearly perpendicular to its orbit. During this period the Type I tail was free of major structural disturbances, and the faintness of the Type II tail facilitated study of the Type I tail near the lead. Characteristics of the main Type I tail are described in Part II. A classification of the tail forms according as the tail had the form of a fan of rays or a wedge, the orientation of the tail axis, and the angular width of the tail are discussed in Section IIA. In Section IIB the structure of the tail from 26 to 31 December, a period within which a disconnection of the tail took place, is viewed as the possible result of the passage across the comet of an interplanetary magnetic sector boundary, as proposed by Niedner and Brandt (1977, Bull. Amer. Astron. Soc. 4). In Sections IIC and IID waves in rays and the onset of turbulence are considered. Section IIIA is devoted to unusually long and bright off-axis rays; data on longitudinal forms, closing rate to the axis, and photometry of a ray are presented. In Section IIIB the structure of a “plume” of seven nearly parallel rays is related to the configuration of magnetic field lines predicted by Schmidt and Wegmann (1976, IPP Report 6/147). The orientations of the plume rays are consistent with those of the calculated field lines; the inferred rate of generation of the rays is about 1/hr.     

Biocultural nationalism? Bananas and biosecurity in Northern Queensland

ABSTRACT

The Cavendish banana is Australia’s most popular fruit and marketed as emblematic of Australian nationalisms. In July 2017, the disease-causing fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense was confirmed present on Australia’s largest Cavendish banana farm, in the worst disease incursion that Northern Queensland Cavendish monocrop plantations have yet faced. Confronted with the potential collapse of the industry, banana growers and Biosecurity Queensland officials have deployed a biosecurity response centred on measures of border control and containment. This paper examines the othering of the disease vector Panama Tropical Race 4, revealing biosecurity attempts as embroiled in cultural preoccupations with invasion. In so doing, this paper establishes that the biosecurity concerns regarding Northern Queensland bananas are not just with the economic and biological productivity of nature, but entangled in post-colonial anxieties over who belongs within the landscape. Following the entangled relations between the disease and Cavendish bananas reveals cultural nuances and multispecies relations. These shape and are shaped by industry and government efforts as experts attempt to maintain governance over entities as they appear to slip from human control. This paper finds that the anxieties and narratives of Australian post-colonial politics are deeply imbricated with the logics of ecological protection, agricultural productivity and the banality of everyday nationalisms.     

Fish and ostracod remains from the Santos Basin (Cretaceous to Recent), Brazil

For the first time, ichthyoliths are described from the Santos sedimentary basin, offshore southern Brazil. Isolated teeth, dermal scales and the first documented otoliths from Cretaceous (Albian) to Recent cuttings from five wells are described. The following groups are represented: Chondrichthyans: Triakidae, Carcharhinidae; Ginglymostomatidae: ?Ginglymostoma sp., Lamnidae indet., Scyliorhinidae; Osteichthyans: Teleostei; Myctophiidae: Diaphus aff. splendidus sp. complex, Diaphus spp., Diaphus cf. garmani, Ceratoscopelus aff. warmingii; Sternoptychidae: Valenciennellus tripunctulatus, teeth of indeterminate Teleostei. The majority of these ichthyofossils represent extant forms, known to occur in the Atlantic Ocean, and are of potential value for stratigraphical correlations between oil‐yielding basins in the region. Ostracods are not well preserved but can be identified to generic level indicating marine environments. The ostracod faunas offer potential for intrabasinal correlation in the Eocene and Oligocene. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting Water Resource Impacts of Unconventional Gas Using Simple Analytical Equations

The rapid expansion in unconventional gas development over the past two decades has led to concerns over the potential impacts on groundwater resources. Although numerical models are invaluable for assessing likelihood of impacts at particular sites, simpler analytical models are also useful because they help develop hydrological understanding. Analytical approaches are also valuable for preliminary assessments and to determine where more complex models are warranted. In this article, we present simple analytical solutions that can be used to predict: (1) the spatial extent of drawdown from horizontal wells drilled into the gas‐bearing formation, and rate of recovery after gas production ceases; (2) the potential for upward transport of contaminants from the gas‐bearing formation to shallow aquifers during hydraulic fracturing operations when pressures in the gas‐bearing formation are greatly increased; and (3) the potential downward leakage of water from shallow aquifers during depressurization of gas‐bearing formations. In particular, we show that the recovery of pressure after production ceases from gas‐bearing shale formations may take several hundred years, and we present critical hydraulic conductivity values for intervening aquitards, below which the impact on shallow aquifers will be negligible. The simplifying assumptions inherent in these solutions will limit their predictive accuracy for site‐specific assessments, compared to numerical models that incorporate knowledge of spatial variations in formation properties and which may include processes not considered in the simpler solutions.     

River Seepage Conductance in Large‐Scale Regional Studies

Flow exchange between surface and groundwater is of great importance be it for beneficial allocation and use of water resources or for the proper exercise of water rights. In large‐scale regional studies, most numerical models use coarse grid sizes, which make it difficult to provide an accurate depiction of the phenomenon. In particular, a somewhat arbitrary leakance coefficient in a third type (i.e., Cauchy, General Head) boundary condition is used to calculate the seepage discharge as a function of the difference of head in the river and in the aquifer, whose value is often found by calibration. A different approach is presented to analytically estimate that leakance coefficient. It is shown that a simple equivalence can be deduced from the analytical solution for the empirical coefficient, so that it provides the accuracy of the analytical solution while the model maintains a very coarse grid, treating the water‐table aquifer as a single calculation layer. Relating the empirical leakance coefficient to the exact conductance, derived from physical principles, provides a physical basis for the leakance coefficient. Factors such as normalized wetted perimeter, degree of penetration of the river, presence of a clogging layer, and anisotropy can be included with little computational demand. In addition the river coefficient in models such as MODFLOW, for example, can be easily modified when grid size is changed without need for recalibration.     

A model for the growth and development of wave-dominated deltas fed by small mountainous rivers: Insights from the Elwha River delta,Washington

Observations from ground-penetrating radar, sediment cores, elevation surveys and aerial imagery are used to understand the development of the Elwha River delta in north-western Washington, USA, which prograded as a result of two dam removals in late 2011. Swash-bar, foreshore and swale depositional elements are recognized within ground-penetrating radar profiles and sediment cores. A model for the growth and development of small mountainous river wave-dominated deltas is proposed based on observation of both the fluvial and deltaic settings. If enough sediment is available in the fluvial system, mouth-bars form after higher than average river discharge events, creating a large platform seaward of the subaqueous delta plain. Swash-bars form concurrently or within a month of mouth-bar deposition as a result of wave action. Fair-weather waves drive swash-bar migration landward and in the direction of littoral drift. The signature of swash-bar welding to the shoreline is landward-dipping reflections, as a result of overwash processes and slipface migration. However, most swash-bars are eroded by the river mouth, as only 10 of the 37 swash-bars that formed between August 2011 and July 2016 survived within the Elwha River delta. The swash-bars that do survive either amalgamate onto the shoreline or an earlier deposited swash-bar, forming a single larger barrier at the delta front. In asymmetrical deltas, the signature of swash-bar welding is more likely to be preserved on the downdrift side of the delta, where formation is more likely and accommodation behind newer swash-bars preserves older deposits. On small mountainous river deltas, welded swash-bars may be more indicative of a large sediment pulse to the system, rather than large hydrological events.     

Measuring the structural similarity of network time prisms using temporal signatures with graph indices

The network‐time prism (NTP) is an extension of the space‐time prism that provides a realistic model of the potential pattern of moving objects in transportation networks. Measuring the similarity among NTPs can be useful for clustering, aggregating, and querying potential mobility patterns. Despite its practical importance, however, there has been little attention given to similarity measures for NTPs. In this research, we develop and evaluate a methodology for measuring the structural similarity between NTPs using the temporal signature approach. The approach extracts the one‐dimensional temporal signature of a selected property of NTPs and applies existing path similarity measures to the signatures. Graph‐theoretic indices play an essential role in summarizing the structural properties of NTPs at each moment. Two extensive simulation experiments demonstrate the feasibility of the approach and compare the performance of graph indices for measuring NTP similarity. An empirical application using bike‐share system data shows that the method is useful for detecting different usage patterns of two heterogenous user groups.     

Production of bioavailable and refractory dissolved organic matter by coastal heterotrophic microbial populations

Production of dissolved organic matter (DOM) by heterotrophic microbial communities isolated from Loch Creran (Scotland) was studied in time course incubations in which cells were re-suspended in artificial seawater amended with variable proportions of glucose, ammonium and phosphate. The incubation experiments demonstrated that microheterotrophs released part of the substrate as new DOM, with a production efficiency of 11 ± 1% for DOC, 18 ± 2% for DON and 17 ± 2% for DOP. Estimating the impact of this production in Loch Creran, showed that from 3 ± 1% (DOC) to 72 ± 16% (DOP) of DOM could originate from the heterotrophic microbial community. The produced DOM (PDOM) was both bioavailable (BDOM) and refractory (RDOM). Bioavailability as assessed by the difference between the maximum and the end DOM concentration, was generally higher than found in natural systems, with DOP (73 ± 15%, average ± SD) more bioavailable than DON (70 ± 15%), and DON than DOC (34 ± 13%).The stoichiometry of PDOM was linked to both nutrient uptake and BDOM ratios. Absorption and fluorescence of DOM increased significantly during the incubation time, indicating that microheterotrophs were also a source of coloured DOM (CDOM) and that they produce both bioavailable protein-like and refractory humic-like fluorophores.     

Modelling eruption cycles and decay of mud volcanoes

Recent debates about the eruptive behavior of mud volcanoes and their activation mechanisms have been driven particularly by the LUSI eruption in Indonesia that resulted in huge commercial and cultural damages. Numerical modeling of mud volcanoes, of which few exist, can provide insight into eruptive behavior and contribute to hazard evaluation. In this paper, we present a simple model to describe fluid escape from an underground reservoir through a conduit, extruded as a mud volcano at the surface. The governing equations result in oscillatory behavior, and we study the influence of changes in rheological properties of surrounding rock and fluid characteristics of the mud on extrusion dynamics. We focus on understanding long-term eruption behavior, flow cycles, and decay factors. Model results can be used to estimate the discharge rates and extruded volume from assumptions on the mud reservoir and conduit, or conversely, the reservoir or conduit properties from discharge rates.