The Early Pleistocene Praetiglian and Ludhamian pollen stages in the North Sea Basin and their relationship to the marine isotope record

In this paper, the currently accepted correlation of the Early Pleistocene Ludhamian stage of England with the Tiglian‐A sub‐stage of the Netherlands is challenged. Recent investigations of Early Pleistocene marine North Sea deposits from a borehole near Noordwijk (the Netherlands) yielded evidence from molluscs, dinoflagellate cysts and sporomorphs for an alternation of warm‐temperate and arctic intervals within the Praetiglian and Tiglian stages. Marine equivalents of the terrestrial‐based pollen sub‐stages Tiglian A and B have been recognised in the upper part of the sequence. A Praetiglian age can be assigned to the lower part of the sequence on the basis of mollusc analysis. Within the Praetiglian, an alternation of warm and cold phases has been recognised from both the dinoflagellate cyst and molluscan records. Three cold phases within the Praetiglian are tentatively correlated with marine isotope stages (MIS) 96–100. The molluscan assemblages provide evidence for climate forcing of the sea level: highest sea levels are reached in the warm‐temperate intervals. Within the Praetiglian, an interval with an acme zone of the dinoflagellate cyst Impagidinium multiplexum, is correlated with the Ludhamian and tentatively linked to MIS 97 and/or MIS 96. The cold molluscan assemblages from the Noordwijk borehole include an acme zone of Megayoldia thraciaeformis, the first and only occurrence of this North Pacific bivalve in the North Sea Basin. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A simulation tool for high data-rate acoustic communication in ashallow-water, time-varying channel

The paper discusses the development of a simulation tool to model high data-rate acoustic communication in shallow water. The simulation tool is able to generate synthetic time series of signals received at a transducer array after transmission across a shallow-water communication channel. The simulation tool is suitable for testing advanced signal processing techniques for message recovery. A channel model has been developed based on the physical aspects of the acoustic channel. Special emphasis has been given to fluctuations of the signal transmission caused by time-varying multipath effects. At shorter ranges, the temporal variations are dominated by acoustic scattering from the moving sea surface. Therefore, the channel model produces a coherence function which may be interpreted as a time-varying reflection coefficient for the surface scattered acoustical path. A static, range-independent ray model identifies the significant multipaths, and the surface path is modulated with the time-varying reflection coefficient. The advantages and limitations of the channel model are discussed and assumptions necessary to overcome the limitations are emphasised. Based on the assumptions, an algorithm has been developed and implemented to model how a binary message will be modulated when transmitted by a transducer, is distorted in the channel and finally is received by a transducer array     

Application of an improved self-starter to geoacoustic inversion

The self-starter is improved using the operator of the split-step Pade solution. In addition to providing greater stability and being applicable closer to the source, the improved self-starter is an efficient forward model for geoacoustic inversion. It is necessary to solve only O(10) tridiagonal systems of equations to obtain the acoustic field on a vertical array located O(10) wavelengths from a source. This experimental configuration is effective for geoacoustic inverse problems involving unknown parameters deep in the ocean bottom. For problems involving depth-dependent acoustic parameters, the improved self-starter can be used to solve nonlinear inverse problems involving O(10) unknown sediment parameters in less than a minute on the current generation of workstations     

Isobaric cooling and anti-clockwise P–T paths in the Variscan Odenwald Crystalline Complex, Germany

Mineral assemblages in Al₂O₃‐rich, SiO₂‐ and K₂O‐poor metapelitic rocks from the western Odenwald Crystalline Complex (Variscan Mid‐German Crystalline Rise, southern Germany) include corundum, spinel, cordierite, sillimanite, garnet and staurolite. Quartz is absent from almost all samples. Therefore, the applicability of conventional geothermobarometry is very limited or even impossible. Detailed petrographic investigation on selected samples permits inference of the sequence of appearance and disappearance of several mineral assemblages. The recognition of such partial re‐equilibration stages and their associated mineral assemblages, together with mineral stabilities predicted from KFMASH pseudosections, enables the determination of the pressure‐temperature (P–T) trajectories experienced by these rocks during the Variscan metamorphism. The rocks were metamorphosed under low‐P/high‐T conditions and underwent an anti‐clockwise P–T evolution. A pressure increase from about 2 kbar to 4 ± 0.5 kbar was accompanied by heating. Peak metamorphic conditions were reached at pressures of 4 ± 0.5 kbar and temperatures of at least 640 °C, probably even higher. The retrograde evolution is characterised by near‐isobaric cooling from ≥ 640 °C to approximately 550 °C. The rocks underwent the anti‐clockwise evolution in a subduction‐related magmatic arc setting. The close spatial association of the low‐P/high‐T rocks with recently discovered metabasic eclogites in the eastern part of the Odenwald Crystalline Complex may indicate a fossil paired metamorphic belt in the Central European Variscides.     

Ice‐cover variability on shallow lakes at high latitudes: model simulations and observations

A one‐dimensional thermodynamic model for simulating lake‐ice phenology is presented and evaluated. The model can be driven with observed daily or hourly atmospheric forcing of air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, cloud amount and snowfall. In addition to computing the energy balance components, key model output includes the temperature profile at an arbitrary number of levels within the ice/snow (or the water temperature if there is no ice) and ice thickness (clear ice and snow‐ice) on a daily basis, as well as freeze‐up and break‐up dates. The lake‐ice model is used to simulate ice‐growth processes on shallow lakes in arctic, sub‐arctic, and high‐boreal forest environments. Model output is compared with field and remote sensing observations gathered over several ice seasons. Simulated ice thickness, including snow‐ice formation, compares favourably with field measurements. Ice‐on and ice‐off dates are also well simulated when compared with field and satellite observations, with a mean absolute difference of 2 days. Model simulations and observations illustrate the key role that snow cover plays on the seasonal evolution of ice thickness and the timing of spring break‐up. It is also shown that lake morphometry, depth in particular, is a determinant of ice‐off dates for shallow lakes at high latitudes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A light subsystem inside a gravitating triaxial ellipsoid

We obtain the possible ellipsoidal and hyperboloidal equilibrium figures of the light subsystem with internal fluxes of matter of constant vorticity inside a gravitating homogeneous triaxial ellipsoid. We obtain the domains of stability of these equilibrium figures with respect to second-form oscillations.Translated fromAstrofizika, Vol. 38, No. 2, 1995.     

MAXIPOL: a balloon-borne experiment for measuring the polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation

We discuss MAXIPOL, a bolometric balloon-borne experiment designed to measure the E-mode polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) on angular scales of 10^′ to 2°. MAXIPOL is the first CMB experiment to collect data with a polarimeter that utilizes a rotating half-wave plate and fixed wire-grid polarizer. We present the instrument design, elaborate on the polarimeter strategy and show the instrument performance during flight with some time domain data. Our primary dataset was collected during a 26 h turnaround flight that was launched from the National Scientific Ballooning Facility in Ft. Sumner, New Mexico in May 2003. During this flight five regions of the sky were mapped. Data analysis is in progress.     

Butterfly diagrams of strongly spotted late type stars

At present, long-term (over 30 years) multicolor photometric observations give the possibility to determine general properties of spotted areas on late-type stars. Star-spot modeling from broadband photometric data has been carried out by Alekseev and Gershberg since 1996 under the assumption that spots are situated in two latitudinal zones. Here we propose a new analysis of their results for several G and K dwarf stars with high irregular activity. On these stars, EK Dra, VY Ari, V775 Her, and V833 Tau, two spot belts exist separately and do not merge into a single equatorial active region, as occurs on cooler red-dwarf stars. The zonal spottedness models allow us to fit simultaneously both rotational modulation and long-term variability of stellar brightness. These models give evidence for an equatorward drift of the lower latitude boundary of the spotted region, φ₀, during the rising phase of activity, beyond any possible errors concerned with our methodology. In order to evaluate the drift rate we introduce the concept of `effective' spot belt, whose width is independent of longitude. This permits us to construct butterfly diagrams for stellar spots. The equatorward drift rates of the lower boundary of the spotted region D=dφ_low/dt are (− 1)–(− 2) deg year⁻¹ in the years of increasing spottedness. These values are less than the analogous solar one D≈−4 deg year⁻¹ for the rising phase of the cycle. Thus, cyclic activity can be revealed from butterfly diagrams and derived drifts of starspots prior to a possible detection from the spectral analysis of photometric variability. Finally, we briefly discuss a possible explanation of high-latitude activity and surface drifts of starspots in the framework of the current state of dynamo theory.