Kurosegawa Terrane in Southwest Japan: Disrupted Remnants of a Gondwana-Derived Terrane

The Kurosegawa Terrane is an anomalous, disrupted, Paleozoic and Mesozoic lithotectonic assemblage characterized by fragments of continent and continental margins. It is located in Southwest Japan where it lies between two Mesozoic subduction complex terranes. The Kurosegawa Terrane is an exotic and far-travelled geologic entity with respect to its present position. Limestones of the Kurosegawa Terrane formed along a continental margin yield fusulinacean fossils Cancellina, Colania and Lepidolina. Accordingly, the Kurosegawa Terrane was once situated within the Colania-Lepidolina territory in the East Tethys-Panthalassa region at a palaeo-equatorial latitude, possibly close to the eastern margin of the South China and/or Indochina-East Malaya continental blocks. These blocks had rifted from Gondwana by late Devonian. They drifted northwards, passing through the Colania-Lepidolina territory in mid-Permian time, and amalgamated with the proto-Asian continent during the late Triassic. Subsequently, during the Cretaceous, parts of the allochthonous continental blocks and their associated tectonic collage were transpressed, dispersed, and displaced from the southeastern periphery of Asia towards the north. As a result, the Kurosegawa Terrane is formed as a disrupted allochthonous terrane, characterized by a serpentinite melange zone, lying between the adjoining Mesozoic subduction complex terranes.     

The Kepler Mission: Astrophysics and Eclipsing Binaries

The Kepler Mission is a photometric space mission that will continuously observe a single 100 square degree field of view (FOV) of the sky of more than 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region for four or more years with a precision of 14 parts per million (ppm) for a 6.5 hour integration including shot noise for a twelfth magnitude star. The primary goal of the mission is to detect Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of solar-like stars. In the process, many eclipsing binaries (EB) will also be detected. Prior to launch, the stellar characteristics will have been determined for all the stars in the FOV with K<14.5. As part of the verification process, stars with transits (about 5%) will need to have follow-up radial velocity observations performed to determine the component masses and thereby separate grazing eclipses caused by stellar companions from transits caused by planets. The result will be a rich database on EBs. The community will have access to the archive for uses such as for EB modeling of the high-precision light curves. A guest observer program is also planned for objects not already on the target list.     

Characteristics and formation of rain forest soils derived from late Quaternary basaltic rocks in Leyte,Philippines

This study was conducted to evaluate the physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics of rain forest soils derived from late Quaternary basaltic rocks in Leyte, Philippines. Four sites along a catena were selected at an elevation of 75–112 m above sea level with an average annual rainfall of 3,000 mm and an average temperature of 28°C. Results indicate that the soils are deep, clayey, and reddish in color, which is indicative of the advanced stage of soil development. They also posses excellent physical condition (friable and highly porous) although they are plastic and sticky when wet as is usual for clayey soils. In terms of chemical characteristics, the soils are acidic with low CEC values and generally low in organic matter and nutrient contents. The clay mineralogy of the soils is dominated by halloysite and kaolinite with minor amounts of goethite and hematite, and they also have generally high dithionite-extractable Fe contents confirming the advanced stage of their development. The soils in the more stable slope positions (PL-1, PL-2, and PL-4) have generally similar characteristics and appeared more developed than the one in the less stable position (PL-3). The most important pedogenic processes that formed the soils appear to be weathering, loss of bases and acidification, desilification, ferrugination, clay formation and translocation, and structure formation. The nature of the parent rock and climatic conditions prevailing in the area as well as slope position appear to have dominant effects on the development of the soils.     

Assay of phosphatase activity and ATP biomass in tideland sediments and classification of the intertidal area using chemical values

Detailed studies of the phosphatase activity in the tidelands were examined including the localization of the phosphatase activities and the spatial distributions of the activity in the tidelands around Hiroshima Bay, the Aki-Bingo Open Sea and Isahaya Bay of Kyushu on the western side of Japan. The results indicate that the phosphatase activity of the sediment fraction accounts for 98% of the tideland activity. Furthermore, we classified 19 tidelands into four groups by a cluster analysis using two parameters: phosphatase activities and ATP (adenosine 5(')-triphosphate) biomass. The first group is a member of the tidelands located in areas remote from the cities. They have a low phosphatase activity and low ATP biomass and the seawater in the tideland is very clean. The second is a group with a low phosphatase activity and high ATP biomass. In the tidelands belonging to this group, large numbers of benthos and shellfish can be observed. The third group has a high phosphatase activity and a relatively low ATP biomass. The estuary tidelands located near Hiroshima City belong to the third group. The last one is tidelands with a high phosphatase activity and high ATP biomass. In this group, the ratio of the phosphatase activity to ATP biomass is relatively low. In the summer, we observed deterioration in the water quality and accumulation of sludge on the sea bottom in the tideland of the last group.Moreover, we employed a multiple regression analysis and proposed an equation to obtain the group number of the cluster analysis using the assayed values of the phosphatase activity and the ATP biomass.     

The SOLAR-A mission: An overview

The SOLAR-A spacecraft is to be launched by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan (ISAS) in August, 1991. As a successor of HINOTORI, this mission is dedicated principally to the study of solar flares, especially of high-energy phenomena observed in the X- and gamma-ray ranges. The SOLAR-A will be the unique space solar observatory during the current activity maximum period (1989–1992). With a coordinated set of instruments including hard X-ray and soft X-ray imaging telescopes as well as spectrometers with advanced capabilities, it will reveal many new aspects of flares and help better understand their physics, supporting international collaborations with ground-based observatories as well as theoretical investigations. An overview of this mission, including the satellite, its scientific instruments, and its operation, is given in this paper. Also the scientific objectives are briefly discussed.After the launch the name of SOLAR-A has been changed to YOHKOH.     

Possible solar neutron events recorded by the ground-based neutron monitor

Solar Physics - Possible solar neutron emission associated with five SMM gamma-ray events on 7 June 1980, 21 June 1980, 6 November 1980, 26 November 1982 and 25 April 1984 was found from analysis...     

A simple model of drainage flow on a slope

The concept of a cold air ‘Parcel’ is introduced for describing the bulk properties of drainage flow. By means of a model based on the momentum and sensible heat transports under calm conditions, the thickness h and velocity u of the Parcel are derived in simple forms. It is shown that h and u correspond to the inversion height and maximum velocity of actual drainage flow. The governing parameters for h and u are the length and vertical drop of the slope, potential temperature difference between the ambient atmosphere and the Parcel, aerodynamic condition of the slope surface expressed by the mean bulk coefficients, and ambient stability. The mean bulk coefficients depend on the roughness lengths for the velocity and potential temperature profiles and are decreasing functions of the slope length. The Parcel Model agrees qualitatively with Manins and Sawford's (1979) model under neutral ambient stratification. But agreement is not so good under stable conditions. The thickness and velocity of drainage flow predicted by the Parcel Model agree with observations on slopes several tens of meters to several hundred kilometers long.     

Characteristic heat transfer coefficients near the ground at night during strong winds

Based on theoretical radiative cooling values and observed temperature changes with time near the surface during the night, the bulk heat transfer coefficient C _H is estimated from standard meteorological observations obtained from stations representative of open rural, small town and large urban areas, for nights with clear skies and relatively strong winds. It is shown that C _H is smaller than the drag coefficient C _M, and that C _H/C _M over urban areas is smaller than that over open countryside.     

Use of sorbents for oil spills

It is generally acknowledged that removing spilled oil from the sea is preferable to dispersing it, but there have been severe problems in devising methods of collecting oil from thin slicks. In this article the merits of various methods of absorbing spilled oil are reviewed.