Diurnal variations in the spectrum of lower-ionosphere plasma irregularities

We examined the variations caused in the spectrum of lower-ionosphere plasma irregularities by diurnal changes of ionospheric parameters. We demonstrate that at a height of 95 km, where the irregularities arise due to the turbulence of the neutral atmosphere, the expected level of plasma irregularity fluctuations at a constant turbulent mixing intensity is smaller in the daytime than at night. The one-dimensional spectrum which can be measured in experiments also changes, namely, the spectrum slope is greater at night.     

Facilitating adaptation of biodiversity to climate change: a conceptual framework applied to the world’s largest Mediterranean-climate woodland

The importance of ecological management for reducing the vulnerability of biodiversity to climate change is increasingly recognized, yet frameworks to facilitate a structured approach to climate adaptation management are lacking. We developed a conceptual framework that can guide identification of climate change impacts and adaptive management options in a given region or biome. The framework focuses on potential points of early climate change impact, and organizes these along two main axes. First, it recognizes that climate change can act at a range of ecological scales. Secondly, it emphasizes that outcomes are dependent on two potentially interacting and countervailing forces: (1) changes to environmental parameters and ecological processes brought about by climate change, and (2) responses of component systems as determined by attributes of resistance and resilience. Through this structure, the framework draws together a broad range of ecological concepts, with a novel emphasis on attributes of resistance and resilience that can temper the response of species, ecosystems and landscapes to climate change. We applied the framework to the world’s largest remaining Mediterranean-climate woodland, the ‘Great Western Woodlands’ of south-western Australia. In this relatively intact region, maintaining inherent resistance and resilience by preventing anthropogenic degradation is of highest priority and lowest risk. Limited, higher risk options such as fire management, protection of refugia and translocation of adaptive genes may be justifiable under more extreme change, hence our capacity to predict the extent of change strongly impinges on such management decisions. These conclusions may contrast with similar analyses in degraded landscapes, where natural integrity is already compromised, and existing investment in restoration may facilitate experimentation with higher risk?options.     

Stratigraphy of the Maikop Group and Pteropoda Beds in northern Azerbaijan

Deepwater sections of the Maikop Group (Oligocene-lower Miocene) and overlying lower-middle Miocene sediments are studied near the Perekishkyul Settlement in lower reaches of the Sumgait River, northern Azerbaijan. Several lithological reference levels and the Spiratella (Pteropoda) Beds are used to correlate preliminarily these uniform clayey sections barren of benthic fossils. Based on distribution of the organicwalled and calcareous phytoplankton, spores, pollen and ichthyofossils, the sections are first subdivided in detail and dated. Distinguished in the sections are two regional levels characterizing distortions in the basin hydrological regime during the late Oligocene (level with large Leiosphaeridia and Pterospermella) and Burdigalian (level with dominant dinocysts of the genus Batiacasphaera), and separate intervals with diverse phytoplankton and ichthyofossils. The Tarkhanian sediments are marked by first-appearing oceanic nannoplankton with Sphenolithus heteromorphus and deepwater ichthyofauna with Vinciquerria merklini. The Karaganian is established at the first occurrence level of peculiar endemics (Sardinella karaganica W. Dan. and Mugil karaganicus Swich.) among ichthyofauna.     

构造与地表过程相互作用:正断层陡崖形态和几何特征分析

量化分析构造、侵蚀与气候之间的相互作用关系是现代地球动力学的前沿.断层陡崖是伸展构造环境中的一种常见地貌特征,是构造与地表过程密切耦合作用下演化的结果.断层崖面形态各异,如断层陡坎、断层三角面和断层梯形面等.本文基于数值模拟方法,对断层滑动速率、断层滑动周期、河流下切系数、山坡蠕移系数等关键性控制因素对断层崖形态和几何特征的影响进行了系统分析,主要结论为：依据参数空间的动力学对比模拟结果,可以将断层陡崖分为三个主要类型,即沟壑型、断层三角面型和尖锥型;断层陡崖的最终形态主要受地表演化过程（即河流下切、山坡蠕移）的控制;三角面型陡崖的高度和宽度随时间增大,但坡度角在演化过程中基本不变,其几何特征主要受控于断层滑动速率,且在相同的气候和岩性条件下,与断层滑动速率呈正相关;在十万年时间尺度下,断层滑动周期与三角面的形态和几何特征基本无关.断层滑动速率与三角面坡度角间的正相关关系可用于解释观测数据的统计结果,如希腊和保加利亚的观测数据.     

Observational characteristics of the white-light flare of August 9, 2011

We analyzed the monochromatic H_α and spectral (within a range of 6549–6579 Å) observational data for the 2B/X6.9 flare of August 9, 2011, that produced emission in the optical continuum. The morphology and evolution of the H_α flare and the position, time evolution, spectrum, and energetics of the white-light flare (WLF) kernels were studied. The following results were obtained: the flare erupted in the region of collision of a new and rapidly growing and propagating magnetic flux and a preexisting one. This collision led to a merger of two active bipolar regions. The white-light flare had a complex structure: no less than five kernels of continuum emission were detected prior to and in the course of the impulsive flare phase. Preimpulsive and impulsive white-light emission kernels belonged to different types (types II and I, respectively) of white-light flares. A close temporal agreement between the white-light emission maxima and the microwave emission peak was observed for the impulsive white-light emission kernels. The maximum flux, luminosity, and total energy emitted by the brightest impulsive WLF kernel equaled 1.4 × 10¹⁰ ergs cm^?2 s^?1, 1.5 × 10²⁷ ergs/s, and 5 × 10²⁹ ergs, respectively. The H_α profiles within the impulsive WLF kernels had broad wings (with a total extent of up to 26 Å and a half-width of up to 9 Å) and self-reversed cores. The profiles were symmetrical, but were shifted towards the red side of the spectrum. This is indicative of a downward motion of the entire emitting volume with a radial velocity of several tens of km/s. The intensity pattern in the wings did not correspond to the Stark one. The profiles were broadened by nonthermal turbulent motions with velocities of 150–300 km/s. The observed H_α profiles were analyzed and compared in their features to the profiles calculated for an intense heating of the chromosphere by nonthermal electrons accompanied by the development of a chromospheric condensation propagating downward. We came to the conclusion that the analyzed flare exhibited spectral features that may not be readily explained within the framework of chromosphere heating by a beam of nonthermal electrons.     

Coupling of the Crustal and upper mantle deformations in the Mongolia-Siberian Mobile Area

The complex analysis of parameters characterizing the modern deformations of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle in the territory of the Mongolia-Siberian Area is made. Directions of principal tension axes of stress-tensors, calculated with the use of earthquake source mechanisms have been taken as parameters of modern deformations at the level of the middle crust; directions of axes of horizontal strains in the geodesic network by the GPS data have been taken as such parameters at the level of the Earth’s surface. The strain parameters for the mantle depths are the data on seismic anisotropy derived from the published sources about the results of studies on splitting of transversal waves from distant earthquakes. Seismic anisotropy is interpreted as the ordered orientation of olivine crystals, which appears with great strains resulting from the flow of the mantle material. It has been shown that directions of extensional strain axes (minimal compression) by geodesic and seismological data coincide with anisotropy directions in the upper mantle in the region whose median value is 310°–320°. The observed mechanical coupling of the crust and the upper mantle of the Mongolia-Siberian Mobile Area shows the participation of the lithospheric mantle in the formation of neotectonical structures and enables us to distinguish the principal processes determining the Late Cenozoic tectogenesis in this territory. One of the leading mechanisms for the neotectonical and modern deformations of the Mongolia-Siberian Region is the large-scale NW-SE material flow in the upper mantle causing both motion of the entire northern part of the continent and divergence of the Eurasia and the Amurian Plate. Lithospheric deformations in the western part of the region are related to collision-induced compression, while those in the central part are caused by interaction of these large-scale tectonic processes.     

Parageorgbokiite, β-Cu<Subscript>5</Subscript>O<Subscript>2</Subscript>(SeO<Subscript>3</Subscript>)<Subscript>2</Subscript>Cl<Subscript>2</Subscript>, a new mineral species from volcanic exhalations,Kamchatka Peninsula,Russia

Parageorgbokiite, β-Cu₅O₂(SeO₃)₂Cl₂, has been found at the second cinder cone of the Great Fissure Tolbachik Eruption, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia. Ralstonite, tolbachite, melanothallite, chalcocyanite, euchlorine, Fe oxides, tenorite, native gold, sophiite, Na, Ca, and Mg sulfates, cotunnite, and some copper oxoselenites are associated minerals. The estimated temperature of the mineral formation is 400–625°C. The color is green, with a vitreous luster; the streak is light green. The mineral is brittle, with the Mohs hardness ranging from 3 to 4. Cleavage is not observed. The calculated density is 4.70 g/cm³. Parageorgbokiite is biaxial (+); α = 2.05(1), β = 2.05(1), and γ = 2.08(1); 2V _(meas.) is ～0³, and 2V _(calc.) = 0(5)°. The optical orientation is X = a; other details remain unclear. The mineral is pleochroic, from grass green on X and Y to yellowish green on Z. The empirical formula calculated on the basis of O + Cl = 10 is Cu_4.91Pb_0.02O_1.86(ScO₃)₂Cl_2.14. The simplified formula is Cu₅O₂(ScO₃)₂Cl₂. Parageorgbokiite pertains to a new structural type of inorganic compounds. Its name points out its dimorphism with georgbokiite, which was named in honor of G.B. Bokii, the prominent Russian crystal chemist (1909–2000).     

Long wavelength ground surface temperature history from continuous temperature logs in the Transylvanian Basin

Continuous temperature logs to depths between 750 and 1400 m in the Transylvanian Basin, Romania, in many cases show temperature gradient variations with depth which cannot be explained by depth variations in thermal conductivity, topography and ground water flow. The only possible responsible agent seems to be past surface temperature variations. The temperature logs from nine boreholes have been interpreted individually and jointly by least squares inverse modelling with the surface temperature history and background heat flux as unknown parameters. All the temperature profiles are consistent with a temperature rise at the end of the last glaciation. The effects of borehole depth, of a wrong choice of thermal conductivity, and the level of uncorrelated random noise were examined using synthetic examples.     

考虑约束扭转的斜拉桥车激横向振动分析

利用有限单元法,基于力学原理和几何协调条件,导出了非对称箱型截面梁单元的弯扭耦合刚度矩阵,建立了斜拉桥在车辆荷载作用下的横向动力分析模型。由于考虑了箱梁的约束扭转,该模型能够分析复线或多线铁路桥在偏载作用下的横向振动问题。以桥梁轨道随机不平顺作为激振源,进行了机车过桥的实例分析。计算结果表明,桥梁的车激横向动力响应随车速及轨道不平顺样本的不同而变化,并随桥跨的增加而快速变得显著,车辆偏载对箱梁扭转振动有显著影响,所建立的力学模型是斜拉桥车桥耦合振动分析的实用模型。     

Minor elements in carbonaceous sediments of the Baltic Sea

According to the geochemical analysis, the carbonaceous sediments of the Baltic Sea??s deep basins containing 3?C5% C_org are enriched with some metals such as Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, Zn, V, and U as compared with the shallow-water facies of the Bay of Finland. These metals are also concentrated (against the background values in the clayey rocks) in ancient carbonaceous shales, where the average Cu and V contents are slightly higher and that of Mo, Pb, and Zn lower than in the deepwater carbonaceous sediments of the Baltic Sea. In addition, the carbonaceous sediments of the last basin are enriched, although less notably than the ancient shales, with Ag, As, Bi, and Cd. These data confirm the previous assumptions that the carbonaceous sediments accumulating now in seas and oceans may be considered as recent analogs of ancient metalliferous shales.