Large ageostrophic currents in the abyssal layer southeast of Kyushu, Japan, by direct measurement of LADCP

With full-depth LADCP velocity data collected in a wide area southeast of Kyushu, Japan, large velocity currents, occasionally exceeding 15 cm s^?1, were observed in a thick, 500–1,500 m, near-homogeneous density layer below approximately 3,000 m depth around the steep topographies. The currents were found not to flow along the topographic contours, and to be strongly ageostrophic. The directions of the bottom-layer currents are rather related with phase of the semi-diurnal tides, suggesting deeply intruded internal tides generated at the steep topographies.     

Predictability of Interannual Variability in the Kuroshio Transport South of Japan Based on Wind Stress Data over the North Pacific

It is expected that a roughly two-year forecast of the Kuroshio transport variation can be made from a past record of wind stress data over the ocean, since it takes nearly ten years for the first-mode baroclinic Rossby wave to traverse the entire basin in the midlatitude North Pacific (∼30°N). We therefore investigated the predictability using an ocean general circulation model driven by the wind stress data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis. Referring to a hindcast experiment as the control run, we carried out fifteen forecast experiments, the initial conditions of which are taken from the hindcast experiment at intervals of two years during the period from the end of 1969 to the end of 1997. Each of the forecast experiments is driven only by wind stress in the year preceding each experiment. The forecasted Kuroshio transport anomaly south of Japan agrees better with the hindcasted one during the first two years of the forecast in most cases. In some cases, however, significant disagreements occur, most of which are likely due to larger unpredictable variations caused by wind stress anomalies near Japan. At the end of forecast year 2, the anomaly correlation coefficient is about 0.7, and rms of the forecast error is smaller than rms of the hindcasted anomaly. These results indicate that the prediction of the interannual variability in the Kuroshio transport could be made two years in advance at a statistically significant level. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Stray-Light Effect on Magnetograph Observations

To examine the stray-light effect in magnetograph observations, we have determined the point spread functions of the vector magnetograph mounted on the Japanese Solar Flare Telescope based on two indirect methods, one analyzing the solar limb intensity profile, and the other using the Fourier power spectra of photospheric intensity distributions. Point spread functions consist of two parts: a blurring part which describes seeing and small-spread-angle stray light, and a scattering part which describes large-spread-angle stray light. The FWHM spatial resolution is typically 3.0, and the amount of scattered light is about 15% on clear days. We find that the blurring part is well described by a Moffat function whose Fourier transform is given by an exponential function. Our results indicate that polarization measurements of low-intensity magnetic elements like sunspots may be significantly underestimated due to the large-spread-angle stray light, and polarization measurements of magnetic elements which are smaller than 5–7 appear to be disturbed by small-spread-angle stray light.     

Spectroscopic Studies of Solar Corona VII. Formation of a Coronal Loop by Evaporation

We obtained time-sequence spectroscopic observations in (Fe x) 6374 Å and (Fe xiv) 5303 Å lines successively with the 25-cm coronagraph, and narrow-band and Doppler images in 5303 Å line by the 2-D 10-cm Doppler coronagraph NOGIS at the Norikura Solar Observatory, of a coronal region for about 7 h on 9 19–20, 2001. The raster scans were obtained with a quasi-periodicity of about 14 min and NOGIS obtained the images with an interval of about 1 min. The coronal region observed showed the formation of a coronal loop by a high-speed surge in the 6374 Å line rising from one of the footpoints of the loop. Off the limb spectroscopic observations in the 6374 Å line showed large velocities along the line of sight and vertical to the solar limb at the time of formation of the loop. The 5303 Å line observations showed negligible line-of-sight velocities and low vertical velocities when compared to those in the 6374 Å line. A hump in the intensity plots in 5303 Å with height appears to move up with respect to the solar limb with an average velocity of 4km s^–1. The FWHM of the 6374 Å showed a much smaller value of about 0.7 Å near the foot point as compared to a value of 1.2 Å at larger heights at the beginning of observations. Later as the loop developed, the FWHM of 6374 Å line showed a gradual decrease along the loop up to 70 from the limb, reached a minimum value of about 0.5 Å and then increased with height during the formation of the loop; this trend lasted for about 2 h. About 3 h after the beginning of the formation of the loop, the FWHM of 6374 Å emission line showed normal values and normal rate of increase with height with some fluctuations. The FWHM of the 5303 Å line did not show such variations along the loop and showed normal decrease in FWHM with height found earlier (Singh et al., 2003a). These observations suggest that a relatively cooler plasma at a temperature of about 0.7 MK or less (corresponding to minimum value of FWHM of 0.5 Å) was ejected from the transition region with a large velocity of about 48km s^–1, heated up in the corona by some process and formed a coronal loop with a height of about 200 above the limb that had lifetime greater than 4 h. It appears that the plasma moved from one of the footpoints and the loop was formed by evaporation of chromospheric plasma. No large-scale brightening and H flare were observed in this region during the observational period of 7 h.On leave from Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore 560034, India.     

Prediction of subsurface water level change from satellite data

This study explores the potential for predicting the spatial variation in subsurface water level change with crop growth stage from satellite data in Thabua Irrigation Project, situated in the northern central region of Thailand. The relationship between subsurface water level change from pumping water to irrigate rice in the dry season and the age of the rice was analysed. The spatial model of subsurface water level change was developed from the classification using greenness or (normalized difference vegetation index NDVI) derived from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper data. The NDVI of 52 rice fields was employed to assess its relationship to the age of the rice. It was found that NDVI and rice age have a good correlation (R² = 0·73). The low NDVI values (−0·059 to 0·082) in these fields were related to the young rice stage (0–30 days). NDVI and subsurface water level change were also correlated in this study and found to have a high correlation (Water level change (m day⁻¹) = 0·3442 × NDVI − 0·0372; R² = 0·96). From this model, the water level change caused by rice at different growth stages was derived. This was used to show the spatial variation of water level change in the project during the 1998–99 dry‐season cropping. This simple method of using NDVI relationships with water level change and crop growth stages proves to be useful in determining the areas prone to excessive lowering of the subsurface water level during the dry season. This could assist in the appropriate planning of the use of subsurface water resources in dry‐season cropping. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Curation protocol of Phobos sample returned by Martian Moons eXploration

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission will launch a spacecraft in 2024 to return samples from Phobos in 2029. Curatorial work for the returned Phobos samples is critical for the sample allocation without degrading the sample integrity and subsequent sample analysis that will provide new constraints on the origin of Phobos and the evolution of the circum-Mars environment. The Sample Analysis Working Team of the MMX is designing the sample curation protocol. The curation protocol consists of three phases: (1) quick analysis (extraction and mass spectrometry for gases), (2) pre-basic characterization (bulk-scale observation), and (3) basic characterization (grain-by-grain observation and allocation of the sample aliquots). Nondestructive analyses within the clean chamber (e.g., visible and near-infrared spectral imaging) and outside the chamber (e.g., gas mass spectrometry) are incorporated into the curation flow in coordination with the MMX mission instrument teams for ground-truthing the remote-sensing data sets. The MMX curation/sample analysis flow enables the seamless integration between the sample and remote-sensing data sets to maximize the scientific value of the collected Phobos samples.     

Temporal alteration of fracture permeability in granite under hydrothermal conditions and its interpretation by coupled chemo-mechanical model

Examining the evolution of fracture permeability under stressed and temperature-elevated conditions, a series of flow-through experiments on a single rock fracture in granite has been conducted under confining pressures of 5 and 10 MPa, under differential water pressures ranging from 0.04 to 0.5 MPa, and at temperatures of 20–90 °C, for several hundred hours in each experiment. Measurements of fluid and dissolved mass fluxes, and post-experimental microscopy, were conducted to constrain the progress of mineral dissolution and/or precipitation and to examine its effect on transport properties. Generally, the fracture aperture monotonically decreased with time at room temperature, and reached a steady state in relatively short periods (i.e., <400 h). However, once the temperature was elevated to 90 °C, the aperture resumed decreasing and kept decreasing throughout the rest of the experimental periods. This reduction may result from the removal of the mineral mass from the bridging asperities within the fracture. Post-experimental observations by scanning electron microscopy, coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), revealed the formation of several kinds of secondary minerals such as silica and calcite. However, the precipitated minerals seemed to have had little influence on the flow characteristics within the fracture, because the precipitation was limited to quite local and small areas. The evolving rates and ultimate magnitudes of the fracture aperture are likely to be controlled by the stress exerted over the contacting asperities and temperatures, and by the prescribed flow conditions. Thus, this complex behavior should be attributed to the coupled chemically- and mechanically-induced effect. A coupled chemo–mechano conceptual model, accounting for pressure and free-face dissolutions, is presented in this paper to follow the evolution of the fracture permeability observed in the flow-through experiments. This model addresses the two dissolution processes at the contacting asperities and the free walls within the fractures, and is also capable of describing multi-mineral dissolution behavior. The model shows that the evolution of a fracture aperture (or related permeability) and of element concentrations may be followed with time under arbitrary temperature and pressure conditions. The model predictions for the evolving fracture aperture and elements concentrations show a relatively good agreement with the experimental measurements, although it is not possible to replicate the abrupt reduction observed in the early periods of the experiments, which is likely to be due to an unaccounted mechanism of more stress-mediated fracture compaction driven by the fracturing of the propping asperities.     

Audio frequency magneto-telluric survey of Norikura Volcano in central Japan

Norikura Volcano has not been active during the last 10,000 years in spite of the activity of the surrounding volcanic mountains. To study past volcanic activities, geological studies were carried out extensively. However, quite a few geophysical investigations were conducted to contribute to volcanology. Our objective is to detect the present subsurface structure of Norikura Volcano and to define volcanic stratifications. In the vicinity of Norikura Volcano, geothermal fields are still active. Subsurface volcanic rocks in this area have been exposed to geothermal activity and altered. To comprehend volcanic stratifications of Norikura and geothermal activity, we conducted audio frequency magneto-telluric (AMT) surveys around Norikura Volcano. AMT survey is useful in clearly defining the resistivity structure related to volcanic regions. The AMT data were acquired over a frequency range 10 Hz–10 kHz. Decomposition analysis was applied to the tensor impedance data. Subsequently, apparent resistivity and phase data were inverted using a two-dimensional magneto-telluric (MT) inversion and a model of Norikura was derived. The final model manifests that the surface resistors are in agreement with andesite lava or dacite lava. As for the deeper structure, a horizontal conductor is situated above resistive basements. The alteration of the conductor was weak, while basement rocks were strongly altered and/or heated through the thermal activity. The existence of these layers seems to indicate the degree of thermal activity of Norikura Volcano.     

深部颤动和慢震

过去的10年证实了所发现的不寻常的地震族,可称其为地震频谱的红外线部分。它们以在高频处有（如果有的话）微弱的地震波激发为特征,因为它们比平常的快速地震发生得慢。我们期望能通过这些慢地震更好地了解普通地震,但我们对慢地震的认识还处于初级阶段。