Production of organic molecules in the outer solar system by proton irradiation: Laboratory simulations

In the past few years considerable attention has been given to the determination of likely compounds that could account for the various colors observed in the outer solar system: and to possible formation mechanisms for these compounds. Many experiments have been done using electrical discharges (Chadha, M. S., et al., 1971, Icarus15, 39) and ultraviolet light (Khare, B. N., and Sagan, C., 1973, Icarus20, 311) on mixtures of CH₄, NH₃, and H₂S, which are most likely the dominant minor constituents of the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Titan, and possibly the other satellites early in their histories. Colored polymers, usually brownish-red, have been produced in these experiments. With the passage of Pioneer 10 around Jupiter, there is another source of energy worthy of consideration, energetic protons (and electrons). Preliminary experiments to investigate the formation of colored polymers and other interesting molecules by the irradiation of gas mixtures by protons are discussed. Two to four Mev protons were used, with corresponding beam fluxes (as measured at 6R_J from the planet) equivalent to approximately 80 Earth years at Jupiter per hour of exposure. As in the other types of experiments, colored polymers have been produced. An important feature of this work is the presence or absence of absorption at 5 μm in the different materials produced; Titan is quite dark at this wavelength and Io is fairly bright. Such features may provide criteria for accepting or rejecting various materials produced in these experiments as reasonable coloring agents for the outer solar system.     

CO2 solubility and speciation in intermediate (andesitic) melts: the role of H2O and composition

We determined total CO₂ solubilities in andesite melts with a range of compositions. Melts were equilibrated with excess C-O(-H) fluid at 1 GPa and 1300°C then quenched to glasses. Samples were analyzed using an electron microprobe for major elements, ion microprobe for C-O-H volatiles, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for molecular H₂O, OH⁻, molecular CO₂, and CO₃²⁻. CO₂ solubility was determined in hydrous andesite glasses and we found that H₂O content has a strong influence on C-O speciation and total CO₂ solubility. In anhydrous andesite melts with ∼60 wt.% SiO₂, total CO₂ solubility is ∼0.3 wt.% at 1300°C and 1 GPa and total CO₂ solubility increases by about 0.06 wt.% per wt.% of total H₂O. As total H₂O increases from ∼0 to ∼3.4 wt.%, molecular CO₂ decreases (from 0.07 ± 0.01 wt.% to ∼0.01 wt.%) and CO₃²⁻ increases (from 0.24 ± 0.04 wt.% to 0.57 ± 0.09 wt.%). Molecular CO₂ increases as the calculated mole fraction of CO₂ in the fluid increases, showing Henrian behavior. In contrast, CO₃²⁻ decreases as the calculated mole fraction of CO₂ in the fluid increases, indicating that CO₃²⁻ solubility is strongly dependent on the availability of reactive oxygens in the melt. These findings have implications for CO₂ degassing. If substantial H₂O is present, total CO₂ solubility is higher and CO₂ will degas at relatively shallow levels compared to a drier melt. Total CO₂ solubility was also examined in andesitic glasses with additional Ca, K, or Mg and low H₂O contents (<1 wt.%). We found that total CO₂ solubility is negatively correlated with (Si + Al) cation mole fraction and positively correlated with cations with large Gibbs free energy of decarbonation or high charge-to-radius ratios (e.g., Ca). Combining our andesite data with data from the literature, we find that molecular CO₂ is more abundant in highly polymerized melts with high ionic porosities (>∼48.3%), and low nonbridging oxygen/tetrahedral oxygen (<∼0.3). Carbonate dominates most silicate melts and is most abundant in depolymerized melts with low ionic porosities, high nonbridging oxygen/tetrahedral oxygen (>∼0.3), and abundant cations with large Gibbs free energy of decarbonation or high charge-to-radius ratio. In natural silicate melt, the oxygens in the carbonate are likely associated with tetrahedral and network-modifying cations (including Ca, H, or H-bonds) or a combinations of those cations.     

Isotopic partitioning between scallop shell calcite and seawater: effect of shell growth rate

The relationship between molluscan shell growth rate and skeletal δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C was investigated in a detailed field study for the scallop, Pecten maximus. Seasonal variation in shell growth rate was found to be a governing factor influencing shell δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C. At low shell growth rates, shell δ¹⁸O were more positive (of the order +0.4‰) and δ¹³C more negative (up to −2‰) as compared with predicted values for precipitation of inorganic calcite in isotopic equilibrium with seawater. The deviations in δ¹⁸O were hypothesized as reflecting possible differences in solution carbonate chemistry at the site of mineralization in the extrapallial fluid as compared with that of the external seawater medium. The deviations in shell δ¹³C were consistent with incorporation of isotopically depleted respiratory ¹³C (i.e., a metabolic effect). A trend toward more depleted shell δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C values occurred at higher shell growth rates, with negative δ¹⁸O values as compared with predicted equilibrium at shell growth rates above 0.13 mm per day. These simultaneous negative deviations in skeletal δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C were interpreted as resulting from a kinetic effect. The implications for environmental reconstruction from molluscan isotopic records are discussed in light of a model of isotopic behavior based on the findings of the study.     

On the land use in Three Gorges Reservoir area

In this study the arable land changes in two counties (Zigui and Xingshan) in the Three Gorges Reservoir area in China are investigated. The statistical data from the officially published statistical books are used to study these changes in the two counties during the past 50 years since 1949. The changes of arable land, changes of arable land per capita, and changes of multiple crop index in Zigui and Xingshan counties are examined. Using an index method, we conclude that the two counties are critical in the sustainable utilization of arable land.     

Recent Rapid Regional Climate Warming on the Antarctic Peninsula

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that mean global warming was 0.6 ± 0.2 °C during the 20th century and cited anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases as the likely cause of temperature rise in the last 50 years. But this mean value conceals the substantial complexity of observed climate change, which is seasonally- and diurnally-biased, decadally-variable and geographically patchy. In particular, over the last 50 years three high-latitude areas have undergone recent rapid regional (RRR) warming, which was substantially more rapid than the global mean. However, each RRR warming occupies a different climatic regime and may have an entirely different underlying cause. We discuss the significance of RRR warming in one area, the Antarctic Peninsula. Here warming was much more rapid than in the rest of Antarctica where it was not significantly different to the global mean. We highlight climate proxies that appear to show that RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula is unprecedented over the last two millennia, and so unlikely to be a natural mode of variability. So while the station records do not indicate a ubiquitous polar amplification of global warming, the RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula might be a regional amplification of such warming. This, however, remains unproven since we cannot yet be sure what mechanism leads to such an amplification. We discuss several possible candidate mechanisms: changing oceanographic or changing atmospheric circulation, or a regional air-sea-ice feedback amplifying greenhouse warming. We can show that atmospheric warming and reduction in sea-ice duration coincide in a small area on the west of the Antarctic Peninsula, but here we cannot yet distinguish cause and effect. Thus for the present we cannot determine which process is the probable cause of RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula and until the mechanism initiating and sustaining the RRR warming is understood, and is convincingly reproduced in climate models, we lack a sound basis for predicting climate change in this region over the coming century.     

The Darwin Rise demise: the western Pacific guyot heights trace the trans-Pacific Mendocino fracture zone

The Darwin Rise has been proposed so many times and in so many forms and places that the time has come to make a more comprehensive examination of the region. Lying on the NW Pacific Plate between the Geisha Guyots, the Mid-Pacific Mountains, the equator, and the trenches, the region is roughly bounded by magnetic anomaly M20 (147 Ma). It was subjected to a massive outpouring of lava about 105 to 120 Ma, which created the guyots and seamounts in that region. Guyots are excellent tools for studying events of long ago because they eroded in the same lowstand in the Cretaceous and guyot relief, therefore, is a surrogate for paleo-sealevel. The relief is derived by subtracting the break depth of the summit plateau of a guyot from the regional depth. Guyot relief would necessarily be less in the center than to the periphery if the feature formed on a pre-existing rise, as has been postulated. The existence of a paleo-Darwin Rise would give concentric contours for the region in question. Of the sixty guyots used in this study, thirty-seven of these guyots were surveyed using SASS multibeam in the Marcus-Wake seamount group. Twenty-three guyots were surveyed using random track single-beam sonar surveys. An entirely different scenario is shown. Data revealed a major fracture passing through the area coevally or after the guyots formed. Because the depths to the summit are not the same now, vertical tectonics occurred after subaerial erosion. This means the fracture formed during and after the erosion (roughly 105 Ma) and influenced the normal sequence of events in guyot formation. Depending on how one deciphers trends through the Hess Rise morass, SASS bathymetry shows a continuation of the Surveyor/Mendocino fracture zone swarm inside the M20 region to the NE of these data. The fracture swarm continues to the western Pacific trench system. Based on this information, if the Darwin Rise ever existed, it had to have done so elsewhere.     

Migmatites from Grenville, Quebec: metamorphic P-T-X conditions in transitional amphibolite/granulite-facies rocks

Migmatitic rocks near Grenville, Quebec, preserve features indicative of reactions at the onset of granulite facies metamorphism. In this area, metapelites and metacarbonates of the classic Grenville Series are spatially associated with granitic gneiss and metabasite, and flank a Paleozoic, Fe-rich syenite stock. Near this intrusion, the metapelite is diatexitic and nearly devoid of biotite, indicating the involvement of biotite during melting in the contact aureole of this intrusion. Outside of the contact aureole, metapelites and associated rocks contain biotite and are metatexitic. These features suggest two episodes of migmatization, the earlier predating the syenite, the later, synchronous with this intrusion.

Hornblende-rich metabasites near the syenite contain a two-part neosome consisting of coarse-grained leucosome veins and patches that are enclosed by fine-grained, pyroxene-rich envelopes. Migmatization is attributed to dehydration melting in the presence of CO₂-rich fluids possibly derived from nearby carbonate rocks prior to and/or during emplacement of the syenite. The occurrence of isolated mafic clots in the mesosome and rarity of melanosome seams on leucosomes suggest that some melts were mobile on an outcrop scale. These observations suggest that the leucosomes formed by the segregation of melts, which, coupled with CO₂ flux, dehydrated the wallrock along narrow margins, forming the pyroxene-rich neosomes. Back-reaction with residual fluids led to the local scapolitization of plagioclase and the concomitant formation of coronal garnet on pyroxene in neosomes. Thermobarometry of corona structures within the contact aureole generates diffusional Mg-Fe blocking temperatures ( 550 °C at 5.5 kbar). Extrapolated up-temperature, P-sensitive equilibria for the coronas yield similar pressures (8–9 kbar) as texturally-equilibrated assemblages for which high temperatures ( 750 ± 50 °C; X_CO2 = 0.90−0.95) were determined for rocks sampled inside and outside of the contact aureole. This suggests that the Grenville migmatites had not been substantially decompressed by the time that the syenite was emplaced.     

High-resolution historical records from Pettaquamscutt River basin sediments: 1. Pb and varve chronologies validate record of Cs released by the Chernobyl accident

Cesium-137 derived from the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor in 1986 was preserved in anoxic sediments from a coastal environment in southern Rhode Island. Although the radioactive plume was detected in surface air samples at several locations in the United States, this is the first known record of a Chernobyl ¹³⁷Cs peak in sediments from North America. The inventory of Chernobyl ¹³⁷Cs that was preserved in the Pettaquamscutt River is small compared to European counterparts and should only be detectable for the next 15-20 yr. However, the presence of two ¹³⁷Cs peaks (1963 and 1987) identifies a well-dated segment of the sediment column that could be exploited in understanding the decomposition and preservation of terrestrial and aquatic organic matter. Different methods for calculating the ²¹⁰Pb chronology were also evaluated in this study and checked against independent varve counting. The end result is a detailed chronology of a site well suited for reconstruction of historical records of environmental change.