Fair weather and storm sand transport on the Long Island, New York, inner shelf

Both spring-summer and fall-winter sand transport have been observed on the Long Island, New York, inner shelf at water depths of 20-22 m using a radio-isotope sand tracer system. The extent of dispersal of the tagged, fine sand was measured at 3 week intervals in two 70 day experiments. In the late spring and early summer, movement was primarily diffusive in nature, extending 100 m around the line of tracer injection, while late fall-winter patterns had strong advective features, including an ellipsoidal outline extending approximately 1500 m westward of the injection points after the passage of several storms with strong northeasterly winds. Near-bottom current observations made with Savonius rotor sensors identify the event responsible for the bulk of the transport over the 135 day observation period as a storm flow of 2 days duration. Tracer and current observations together suggest that westward winter storm flow along the Long Island shelf is the major mechanism of sand transport at these depths on a yearly time scale. A least-squares fit of several of the observed winter patterns with a plume model yields average sediment mass flux lower bounds of 3.2 × 10^?3 gm/cm/sec and 1.7 × 10^?1 gm/cm/sec for ‘typical’ and extreme winter storm activity.     

Calcretes of Olduvai Gorge and the Ndolanya Beds of northern Tanzania

Pedogenic calcretes are closely associated with Pliocene to Holocene wind-worked deposits of volcanic ash in the Olduvai and Ndolanya Beds of northern Tanzania. The typical profile with calcrete consists of an unconsolidated sediment layer, an underlying laminar calcrete, and a lowermost massive calcrete. The laminar calcrete is a relatively pure limestone, whereas massive calcrete is aeolian tuff cemented and replaced by calcite. An Olduvai calcrete profile can develop to a mature stage in only a few thousand years. Carbonatite ash was the dominant source for most of the calcite in the calcretes. Replacement was a major process in formation of the massive calcretes, and oolitic textures have resulted from micrite replacing pelletoid clay coatings around sand grains. Phillipsite and possible other zeolites were extensively replaced in the massive calcretes. Replacement of clay by micrite in the Olduvai calcretes is accompanied by dissolution or leaching of phengitic illite and the formation of clay approaching the composition of halloysite or kaolinite. In the upper calcrete of the Ndolanya Beds, montmorillonite was altered to a kaolinite-type mineral and to dioctahedral chlorite. Authigenic dolomite, zeolite, and dawsonite in the Olduvai calcretes probably received at least some of their components from replaced materials.     

Ice clathrate as a possible source of the atmospheres of the terrestrial planets

The presence and compositions of atmospheres on the terrestrial planets do not follow directly from condensation models which would have Earth accreting near 500°K. No single mechanism yet proposed adequately accounts for the abundances of noble gases and carbon and nitrogen in the atmospheres. We show that the composition of clathrates forming at low temperatures in cold regions of the nebula can be predicted. Addition of about 1 ppm clathrate material to the Earth can explain observed abundances of Ar, Kr, and Xe. Condensation and adsorption processes occuring at 400–500°K are necessary to explain the observed abundances of Ne, H₂O, C, and N. Possible sources of clathrates could be cometary bodies formed in the outer solar system.     

Analysis of stellar occultation data: Effects of photon noise and initial conditions

A new inversion technique for obtaining temperature, pressure, and number density profiles of a planetary atmosphere from an occultation light curve is described. This technique employs an improved boundary condition to begin the numerical inversion and permits the computation of errors in the profiles caused by photon noise in the light curve. We present our assumptions about the atmosphere, optics, and noise and develop the equations for temperature, pressure, and number density and their associated errors. By inverting in equal increments of altitude, Δh, rather than in equal increments of time, Δt, the inversion need not be halted at the first negative point on the light curve as required by previous methods. The importance of the boundary condition is stressed, and a new initial condition is given. Numerical results are presented for the special case of inversion of a noisy isothermal light curve. From these results, simple relations are developed which can be used to predict the noise quality of an occultation. It is found that fractional errors in temperature profiles are comparable to those of pressure and number density profiles. An example of the inversion method is shown. Finally, we discuss the validity of our assumptions. In an appendix we demonstrate that minimum fractional errors in scale height determined from the inversion are comparable to those from an isothermal fit to a noisy isothermal light curve.     

Absolute spectrophotomery of comets 1973XII and 1975IX: II. Profiles of the Swan bands

Absolute spectrophotometric measurements of the Swan bands of two comets have been compared with computed synthetic spectra using modern Franck-Condon and Hönl-London factors, and varying rotational, vibrational, and electronic excitation temperatures. Rotational and vibrational temperatures were obtained for the comets. Although the electronic excitation temperature and the molecular column density cannot be separated, a relationship is found between these two quantities. A review is made of recent determinations of column densities for CN in comets.     

Direct imaging of extra-solar planets with stationary occultations viewed by a space telescope

The feasibility of detecting planets outside the solar system through imaging at optical wavelengths by a telescope in space is considered. The “black” limb of the moon can be used as an occulting edge to greatly reduce the background light from the planet's star. With this technique and if certain other technical requirements can be realized, a hypothetical Jupiter-Sun system could be detected at a distance of 10 pc. For this system, a signal-to-noise ratio of 9 could be achieved in less than 20 min with a 2.4-m telescope in space. For diffraction limited optics, the required integration time is inversely proportional to the fifth power of the telescope aperture. An orbit for the telescope is described that could achieve a stationary lunar occultation of any star that would last nearly two hours, providing six times more integration time than required by the hypothetical Jupiter-Sun example.     

How to compare the surface of Io to laboratory samples

Since one does not know the photometric functions of various parts of Io, one cannot convert the observed geometric albedo of the satellite to a parameter more directly measurable in the laboratory. One must therefore convert laboratory reflectances to geometric albedos before quantitative comparisons between Io's surface and a laboratory sample are made. This procedure involves determining the wavelength dependence of the sample's photometric function. For substances such as sulfur, whose reflectance varies strongly with wavelength, it is incorrect to assume that the photometric function, and hence the ratio (laboratory reflectance/geometric albedo) is independent of wavelength. To illustrate this point, measurements of the color dependence of this ratio for sulfur are presented for the specific case in which the measured laboratory reflectance is the sample's normal reflectance. In general, unless the laboratory reflectance is precisely the geometric albedo, a wavelength-dependent correction factor must be determined before the laboratory sample can be compared quantitatively with Io's surface.     

The occultation of ϵ Gem by Mars as observed from Agassiz Station

Observations of the April 8, 1976 occultation of ? Gem by Mars made at the Agassiz Station of the Harvard College Observatory have been analyzed to yield temperature profiles of the Martian atmosphere for number densities between 10¹³ and 10¹⁵ cm^?3. Pronounced wavelike structure is evident in both immersion and emersion profiles, with a peak-tto-peak variation of up to 50°K and a vertical scale of 20 km.