10Be in marine sediments

The depth profile of the long-lived radionuclide¹⁰Be in a marine sediment recovered in the vicinity of the Samoan Islands has been precisely assayed with a highly sensitive needle-type gas counter. The obtained irregular pattern of¹⁰Be concentrations with depths ranging from 4.7 to 0.3 dpm/kg dry sediment is interpreted as being due to dilution of¹⁰Be by volcanic eruptions in the past.     

Current activities in aerobiology in Japan

A brief review of the research activities of Japanese scientists in aerobiology, which is one of the interdisciplinary sciences closely related to atmospheric turbulence and diffusion as well as to biology, is presented in order to make contacts with interested scientists in other countries.     

Diatoms on earth,comets, europa and in interstellar space

There exists a close correspondence between the measured infrared properties of diatoms and the infrared spectrum of interstellar dust as observed in the Trapezium nebula and toward the galactic center source GC-IRS 7. Diatoms and bacteria also exhibit an absorbance peak near 2200 », which is found to agree with the observed ultraviolet absorbance properties of interstellar grains. We review the observational data and consider the known properties of diatoms and bacteria. It is suggested that these characteristics are consistent with the concept of a cosmic microbiological system in which these or similar microorganisms might exist on comets, Europa and in interstellar space.     

WSO and the winds of massive stars: the gate to the metal-poor Local Universe

The spectrographs on-board the World Space Observatory (WSO) will provide access to the 1020–1800 Å wavelength range with unprecedented sensitivity. Previous observatories operating in the 1150–2000 Å range (such as IUE and HST-STIS) have proved extremely useful to study the winds of OB type stars, which leave their most prominent imprints in the far ultraviolet range. The addition of the λ < 1200 Å wavelengths is critical as it contains important diagnostic lines for mass loss and shocks in the wind, as found by FUSE-based analyses.WSO will enable quantitative spectroscopic analyses of blue massive stars in the Local Group beyond the Magellanic Clouds. The results will lead to the characterization of their winds as a function of metallicity, and shed new light on current urging questions regarding radiation driven winds.     

Mercury surface composition: Integrating petrologic modeling and remote sensing data to place constraints on FeO abundance

A significant opaque component in Mercury’s crust is inferred based on albedo and spectral observations. Previous workers have favored iron-titanium bearing oxide minerals as the spectrally neutral opaque. A consequence of this hypothesis is that Mercury’s surface would have a high FeO content. An array of remote sensing techniques have not provided definitive constraints on the FeO content of Mercury’s surface. However, spectral observations have not detected a diagnostic 1 μm absorption band and have thus limited the FeO in coexisting silicates to <2 wt.% FeO. In this paper, we assess equilibrium among oxide and silicate minerals to constrain the distribution of iron between opaque oxides and silicates under a variety of environmental conditions. Equilibrium modeling is favored here because the geologic process that produced Mercury’s low-albedo intermediate terrain must have occurred globally, which favors a common widespread igneous process. Based on our modeling, we find that iron-rich ilmenite cannot occur with silicates that do not display a 1 μm absorption feature unless plagioclase abundances are high. However, such high plagioclase abundances are precluded by Mercury’s low albedo. Incorporating equilibrium crystallization modeling with spectral and albedo constraints we find the iron abundance of Mercury’s intermediate terrain is ?10 wt.% FeO. This intermediate iron composition matches constraints provided by visible albedo and total neutron absorption observed by MESSENGER. In fact, the total neutron absorption of mixtures of oxide, plagioclase, olivine and pyroxene for the oxide abundances estimated for Mercury, favor Mg-rich members of the ilmenite-geikielite solid-solution series. This work offers compositional constraints for Fe, Ti, and Mg that will be testable by various MESSENGER instrument data sets after it begins its orbital mission.     

Temporal Evolution of a Rapidly-Moving Umbral Dot

We performed two-dimensional spectroscopic observations of the preceding sunspot of NOAA 10905 located off disk center (S8 E36, μ≈0.81) by using the Interferometric BI-dimensional Spectrometer (IBIS) operated at the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST) of the National Solar Observatory, New Mexico. The magnetically insensitive Fe I line at 709.04 nm was scanned in wavelength repetitively at an interval of 37 s to calculate sequences of maps of the line-wing and line-core intensity, and the line-of-sight Doppler velocity at different line depths (3% to 80%). Visual inspection of movies based on speckle reconstructions computed from simultaneous broadband data and the local continuum intensity at 709.04 nm revealed an umbral dot (UD) intruding rapidly from the umbral boundary to the center of the umbra. The apparent motion of this object was particularly fast (1.3 km s⁻¹) when compared to typical UDs. The lifetime and size of the UD was 8.7 min and 240 km, respectively. The rapid UD was visible even in the line-core intensity map of Fe I 709.04 nm and was accompanied by a persistent blueshift of about 0.06 km s⁻¹.     

Application of Chlorite Geothermometry to Hydrothermal Alteration in Toyoha Geothermal System, Southwestern Hokkaido, Japan

In this study, we applied chemical geothermometers to the estimation of formation temperatures of chlorites from various types of hydrothermally altered rocks in the Toyoha geothermal field, using core samples from six drill holes (TH-2 to TH-7) together with wasted ore samples from Toyoha vein-type ore deposit. Based on the preliminary examination of mineral assemblages by X-ray powder diffraction and optical microscopy, hydrothermal alteration observed through the drill holes was classified into four types of alteration zones: propylitic, mixed-layer minerals, kaolin minerals, and ore mineralized zones. The mineral assemblage of the ore mineralized zone observed through TH-2, TH-4, and TH-6 is similar to those of Toyoha ore veins reported previously. The Fe³⁺/ΣFe ratios of chlorites were determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), in addition to the usual microprobe analyses. The ratios ranged from 0.20–0.26 for chlorites from the propylitic alteration zone and from 0.13 to 0.17 for those from the ore mineralized zone associated with sulfide minerals. After correcting the Fe³⁺ contents in the octahedral sites of chlorite structures, we obtained acceptable temperatures of the chlorite formation by application of geothermometers, for instance, a similar range of 150–300°C for chlorites from either the propylitic zone or the ore mineralized zone developed through TH-2, TH-4, and TH-6. Chlorites from the ore mineralized zone proximal to the Toyoha deposit are characterized by high Fe and Mn contents compared to the propylitic chlorites, which is similar to the Toyoha vein-filling chlorites; the formation temperatures were close to both the homogenization temperatures of fluid inclusions and the present subsurface temperatures measured through drill holes. Chlorites from the Toyoha ore veins, however, gave slightly higher formation temperatures (180–350°C) than those of chlorites from the ore mineralized zone in the drill cores. This suggests that several types of hydrothermal alteration occurred at different stages in the Toyoha geothermal field and the composition of product chlorite was controlled not only by the temperature but also the composition of fluid related to the formation. Reliable estimation of temperature for the chlorite formation provides basic information on evaluating correctly other physicochemical conditions prevalent at the formation.     

Micro-XCT chondrule classification for subsequent isotope analysis

Chondrules are microscopic, recrystallized melt droplets found in chondritic meteorites. High-resolution isotope analyses of minor elements require large enough element quantities which are obtained by dissolving entire chondrules. This work emphasizes the importance of X-ray computed tomography (XCT) to detect features that can significantly affect the bulk chondrule isotope composition. It thereby expands on other works by looking into chondrules from a wide range of chondrites including CR, CV, CB, CM, L, and EL samples before turning toward complex and time-consuming chemical processing. The features considered are metal and igneous rims, compound chondrules, matrix remnants, and metal contents. In addition to the identification of these features, computed tomography prevents the inclusion of non-chondrule samples (pure matrix or metal) as well as samples where two different chondrule fragments with potentially different isotope compositions are held together by matrix. Matrix surrounding chondrules is also easily detected and the affected chondrules can be omitted or reprocessed. The results strongly encourage to perform XCT before dissolution of chondrules for isotope analysis as a non-invasive method.