Implications of decadal to century scale glacio‐hydrological change for water resources of the Hood River basin,OR, USA

In glacier‐fed rivers, melting of glacier ice sustains streamflow during the driest times of the year, especially during drought years. Anthropogenic and ecologic systems that rely on this glacial buffering of low flows are vulnerable to glacier recession as temperatures rise. We demonstrate the evolution of glacier melt contribution in watershed hydrology over the course of a 184‐year period from 1916 to 2099 through the application of a coupled hydrological and glacier dynamics model to the Hood River basin in Northwest Oregon, USA. We performed continuous simulations of glaciological processes (mass accumulation and ablation, lateral flow of ice and heat conduction through supra‐glacial debris), which are directly linked with seasonal snow dynamics as well as other key hydrologic processes (e.g. evapotranspiration and subsurface flow). Our simulations show that historically, the contribution of glacier melt to basin water supply was up to 79% at upland water management locations. We also show that supraglacial debris cover on the Hood River glaciers modulates the rate of glacier recession and progression of dry season flow at upland stream locations with debris‐covered glaciers. Our model results indicate that dry season (July to September) discharge sourced from glacier melt started to decline early in the 21st century following glacier recession that started early in the 20th century. Changes in climate over the course of the current century will lead to 14–63% (18–78%) reductions in dry season discharge across the basin for IPCC emission pathway RCP4.5 (RCP8.5). The largest losses will be at upland drainage locations of water diversions that were dominated historically by glacier melt and seasonal snowmelt. The contribution of glacier melt varies greatly not only in space but also in time. It displays a strong decadal scale fluctuations that are super‐imposed on the effects of a long‐term climatic warming trend. This decadal variability results in reversals in trends in glacier melt, which underscore the importance of long‐time series of glacio‐hydrologic analyses for evaluating the hydrological response to glacier recession. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SciMeasure Wavefront Sensor Cameras and their Application in the Palomar Adaptive Optics System

SciMeasure, in collaboration with Emory University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has developed a very versatile CCD controller for use in adaptive optics, optical interferometry, and other applications requiring high-speed readout rates and/or low read noise. The overall architecture of this controller system will be discussed and its performance using both EEV CCD39 and MIT/LL CCID-19 detectors will be presented. This controller is used in the adaptive optics system, developed by JPL, for the 200′′ Hale telescope at Palomar Mountain. Early diffraction-limited science results, recently achieved by the AO system, are presented. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of NASA through SBIR contracts NAS8–97195 and NAS8–98081. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Gravity effect of axially symmetric bodies using the one-dimensional FFT

Summary. A technique for rapid calculation of the vertical gravitational attraction of three-dimensional axially symmetric bodies using the one-dimensional Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is presented and discussed. The calculation is rapid, efficient and accurate, and requires only a simple linear array to describe the body shape. This method is most useful for calculation of the gravity effect of long-wavelength bodies such as oceanic seamounts or sedimentary basins and for the gravity effect of annular bodies such as up-warped sedimentary strata around a salt diapir.     

Olivine or impact melt: Nature of the “Orange” material on Vesta from Dawn

NASA’s Dawn mission observed a great variety of colored terrains on asteroid (4) Vesta during its survey with the Framing Camera (FC). Here we present a detailed study of the orange material on Vesta, which was first observed in color ratio images obtained by the FC and presents a red spectral slope. The orange material deposits can be classified into three types: (a) diffuse ejecta deposited by recent medium-size impact craters (such as Oppia), (b) lobate patches with well-defined edges (nicknamed “pumpkin patches”), and (c) ejecta rays from fresh-looking impact craters. The location of the orange diffuse ejecta from Oppia corresponds to the olivine spot nicknamed “Leslie feature” first identified by Gaffey (Gaffey, M.J. [1997]. Icarus 127, 130–157) from ground-based spectral observations. The distribution of the orange material in the FC mosaic is concentrated on the equatorial region and almost exclusively outside the Rheasilvia basin. Our in-depth analysis of the composition of this material uses complementary observations from FC, the visible and infrared spectrometer (VIR), and the Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND). Several possible options for the composition of the orange material are investigated including, cumulate eucrite layer exposed during impact, metal delivered by impactor, olivine–orthopyroxene mixture and impact melt. Based on our analysis, the orange material on Vesta is unlikely to be metal or olivine (originally proposed by Gaffey (Gaffey, M.J. [1997]. Icarus 127, 130–157)). Analysis of the elemental composition of Oppia ejecta blanket with GRaND suggests that its orange material has ∼25% cumulate eucrite component in a howarditic mixture, whereas two other craters with orange material in their ejecta, Octavia and Arruntia, show no sign of cumulate eucrites. Morphology and topography of the orange material in Oppia and Octavia ejecta and orange patches suggests an impact melt origin. A majority of the orange patches appear to be related to the formation of the Rheasilvia basin. Combining the interpretations from the topography, geomorphology, color and spectral parameters, and elemental abundances, the most probable analog for the orange material on Vesta is impact melt.     

Sediment blanketing and the flexural strength of extended continental lithosphere

The flexural rigidity of the oceanic lithosphere is strongly dependent on its temperature structure at the time of loading. It is commonly assumed that the depth to the 450°C isotherm defines the effective elastic thickness T_e of the lithosphere. However, recent gravity studies across the Baltimore Canyon and Nova Scotian margins suggest that temperature may play a more complicated role in controlling the mechanical strength of extended continental lithosphere. For example, the flexural strength of the Baltimore Canyon margin (with sediment thicknesses of ? 15 km) appears to be controlled by the depth to the 150°C isotherm whereas the strength of the Nova Scotian margin (with sediment thicknesses cf ? 10 km) is controlled by the depth to the 250°C isotherm. The apparent correlation between sediment thickness and controlling isotherm suggests that sediment blanketing may play a role in modifying the flexural strength of extended continental lithosphere. This hypothesis was investigated by simulating the sedimentation history of a margin as a Gaussian function in which sedimentation peak and rate are determined by the mean and standard deviation of the function. The temperature structure of the lithosphere is continually modified as sediments are deposited on, and incorporated into the temperature structure of, the underlying lithosphere. Given a ‘starting’ value of T_e defined by the degree of extension of the lithosphere, the modification of T_e appears to be directly proportional to the sedimentation rate and cumulative sediment thickness, and inversely proportional to the time at which the sedimentation rate is a maximum. The first-order consequence of sediment blanketing is to reduce the cooling rate of the lithosphere relative to cooling in the absence of sediments. At thermal equilibrium, the initial value of T_e is reduced by the cumulative sediment thickness. Local isostatic conditions (i. e. T_e? 0) can only be approached when the sedimentation rate is unrealistically high (> 1000 m/Myr) during the rift or early post-rift phase of basin development. However, while these early loads may be locally compensated, any subsequent loads will be regionally compensated. Thus, it is unlikely that the low present-day flexural strengths interpreted from the Baltimore Canyon and Nova Scotian passive continental margins are a consequence of sediment blanketing.     

Timing of orogenic gold mineralisation in northeastern Tasmania: implications for the tectonic and metallogenetic evolution of Palaeozoic SE Australia

New ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar data from sedimentary rock-hosted orogenic gold deposits in northeastern Tasmania constrain most ore formation to between 395 Ma and 385 Ma. These 385–395 Ma ages for the formation of orogenic gold agree well with an inferred Early to Middle Devonian timing for peak deformation and folding across much of northeastern Tasmania. Data from micas within alteration halos in some deposits give dates of ~420–430 Ma; these dates confirm the occurrence of an earlier Silurian phase of deformation and suggest that at least some of the mineralisation was possibly generated during this event. Gold mineralisation hosted by Middle Devonian post-tectonic granites may be genetically related to magmatism following orogeny, but these deposits formed virtually synchronously with peak deformation-related systems. Early to Middle Devonian deformation in northeastern Tasmania also reactivated older structures in western Tasmania, and the formation of quartz vein-hosted gold mineralisation there. Based on geological, structural, tectonic and metallogenetic similarities, northeastern Tasmania is interpreted as a lateral equivalent of the turbidite-dominated fold-thrust belt of the western Lachlan Orogen. However, unlike Victoria, where the sedimentary rock sequence developed on oceanic crust, northeastern Tasmania was probably underlain by thinned Proterozoic crust, either as part of a promontory along the Gondwana margin or as a microcontinental fragment. This may have protected the Palaeozoic succession from large-scale, pre-Devonian orogeny, with collision not beginning until the Middle Devonian. These variations in the structural and tectonic evolution, and the timing of deformation and ore formation can explain the difference in contained gold, and the distribution and number of major orogenic gold deposits within the Palaeozoic of northeastern Tasmania.Electronic supplementary material Supplementary material is available for this article at