Impact of an unsealed forest road stream crossing: water quality and sediment sources

Turbidity monitoring and rainfall and runoff simulation experiments were conducted at a newly constructed unsealed road stream crossing to determine the quantity and sources of sediment entering the stream. Continuous measurements of turbidity and estimation of total suspended solids (TSS) concentration upstream and downstream of the stream culvert were taken over a 5 month period. There was a statistically significant difference in turbidity and TSS downstream of the crossing during baseflow conditions, but the quality of the water column remained good during non‐rain periods. Rainfall events comprised around 20% of the observation period and led to decreases in water quality downstream of the crossing. Water quality could be considered as degraded for 10% of the observations. This was during a period when the rainfall was 65% of the long‐term average. Calculated suspended sediment loads were 0·78 t upstream and 2·77 t downstream, an increase of 3·5. It was estimated that at least 2–3 t of bedload material was also added to the stream during the crossing construction and from subsequent erosion. This material is a deposit on the cobble stream bed, and is most likely to degrade aquatic ecosystem values. Rainfall and runoff simulation revealed the principal sediment sources to be a fillslope that contributed coarse bedload material through rill erosion and unprotected toe scour, and the unmetalled road verge that provided fines. Although the quality of water column was good for the majority of the observations, the new Australian and New Zealand Water Quality Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Waters suggest this site exceeded ‘trigger levels’ that would warrant further investigation for both the water column and the bed deposits. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Das Entwässerungsverhalten von Klärschlamm in Gegenwart von Polyelektrolyten

Dewatering Behaviour of Sludge in the Presence of Polyelectrolytes Interactions of sludge particles with well defined synthetic polyelectrolytes of different charge, molecular mass, and molecular geometry were investigated by means of zeta- and streaming potential measurements and polyelectrolyte titrations. Different mechanisms of flocculation were discussed with regard to the dewatering behaviour of the sludge. In dependence on the flocculation procedure (cationic monoflocculation, anionic-cationic, and cationicanionic dual flocculation) as well as on the chain length and branching of the polyelectrolytes used, different mechanisms of sludge dewatering were discussed: Polyanions are not adsorbed on the sludge particles and lead to a decline of the dewatering results. Linear short chain polycations result in a flocculation after surface charge neutralization of the particles according to a patch mechanism. Long chain linear polycations cause a bridging of the particles leading to a flocculation without charge neutralization of the aggregates formed. With branched polycations, a flocculation according to a patch mechanism is observed. These polycations form sludge particle aggregates which are surface charge neutralized at the flocculation point. In anionic-cationic dual flocculations using long chain polycations, an inclusion flocculation due to polyanion-polycation complex formation is the predominating mechanism. The cationic-anionic dual flocculation with complete covering of the particles with polycations in the first step can be discussed by a patch mechanism quite similar to an anionic monoflocculation of cationic particles. By knowing the mechanism of interaction for a given flocculation agent, an optimal sludge dewatering procedure can be predicted.     

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.     

A 2D study of the effects of the size of a solid core on the equatorial flow in giant planets

Zonal winds simulated in two-dimensional computer models of turbulent convection in the equatorial plane of giant planets have greater surface amplitudes for cases with smaller solid cores, and therefore larger buoyancy driving, all other properties being equal. This differential rotation in radius is maintained by the convergence of angular momentum flux, which occurs because of the convective flow that develops due to the effects of planetary rotation and density stratification. The superposition of the convective flow and the stronger zonal flow produces wave-like, instead of cellular convection.     

Interactive flare sites within an active region complex

The problem of physical relationships between different active regions has been dealt with only rarely and mainly in connection with flares. How sympathetic activity can be triggered between distant regions is therefore, so far, largely unknown. Soft X-ray images of large-scale coronal structures connecting different active regions were obtained by Skylab nearly 20 years ago, while SMM, more recently, did not provide any clear evidence for this kind of loop. As a consequence, we do not know how common these features are nor how they form nor whether they represent the only means by which distant active regions may be linked. In the latter case, however, interconnecting loops should be detected by analyzing the interaction between different active regions. We examine here a set of images of an active region complex, acquired on June 24-25, 1980, by the Hard X-ray Imaging Spectrometer on SMM, with the purpose of establishing whether there was any interplay between the frequent activity observed at different sites in the activity center and, in such a case, how the interaction was established. By analyzing both quiet and active orbits we show that, as a rule, activity originating in one region triggers the other region's activity. However, we find little unambiguous evidence for the presence of large-scale interconnecting loops. A comparison of X-ray images with magnetic field observations suggested that we interpret the active region behavior in terms of the interaction between different loop systems, in a scenario quite analogous to the interacting bipole representation of individual flares. We conclude that active region interplay provides an easily observable case to study the time-dependent topology and the mechanisms for the spreading of activity in transient events over all energy scales.     

Application of the equations of radioactive growth and decay to geochronological models and explicit solution of the equations by Laplace transformation

A recently developed method of pore-fluid age determination assumes secular equilibrium in the ²³⁸U decay chain. The efficacy of this approximation is investigated using computer evaluations of the equations that give the time evolution of the ²³⁸U decay chain, i.e. the solution of the equations of radioactive growth and decay. This analysis is performed considering two alternative geochemical scenarios to that of secular equilibrium — only ²³⁸U present initially and ²³⁸U and ²³⁴U present initially. In addition, the effects of the ²³⁵U decay chain are also determined in a similar fashion. These particular examples were chosen to show that more sophisticated geochronological models for many dating applications can be developed using such computer calculations. To facilitate such analyses, a solution of the equations of radioactive growth and decay for an arbitrary initial condition is derived using the Laplace transformation method and matrix algebra. Other solutions — both general and special — that are found in some well-known textbooks are reviewed.