Deposition of trace substances via cloud interception on a coniferous forest at Kleiner Feldberg

A resistance model to calculate the deposition of cloud droplets on a coniferous forest and some improved parameterizations of the indispensable input parameters are described. The deposition model is adapted to the coniferous forest at the Kleiner Feldberg site and verified by the data of a drip water monitoring station below the forest canopy. The measurements of liqud water content, wind speed and trace substance compounds in cloud water of the Ground-based Cloud Experiment (GCE) at Kleiner Feldberg in 1990 are used to calculate the cloud water deposition fluxes and the deposition of trace substances via cloud water interception. The calculated deposition of trace substances via cloud water interceptions is three to six times higher than via rain during the experiment. On a long term data basis the yearly amount of cloud water deposition is 180 mm year^–1 at Kleiner Feldberg site (840 m a.s.l.) while the precipitation amount is 1030 mm year^–1. Due to higher trace substance concentrations in cloud water compared to rain the ionic deposition via cloud water interception and via precipitation were assessed to be of comparable magnitude.     

Accretion tectonics and crustal structure in Alaska

The entire width of the North American Cordillera in Alaska is made up of “suspect terranes”. Pre-Late Cretaceous paleogeography is poorly constrained and the ultimate origins of the many fragments which make up the state are unclear. The Prince William and Chugach terranes accreted since Late Cretaceous time and represent the collapse of much of the northeast Pacific Ocean swept into what today is southern Alaska. Greater Wrangellia, a composite terrane now dispersed into fragments scattered from Idaho to southern Alaska, apparently accreted into Alaska in Late Cretaceous time crushing an enormous deep-marine flysch basin on its inboard side. Most of interior eastern Alaska is the Yukon Tanana terrane, a very large entirely fault-bounded metamorphic-plutonic assemblage covering thousands of square kilometers in Canada as well as Alaska. The original stratigraphy and relationship to North America of the Yukon-Tanana terrane are both obscure. A collapsed Mesozoic flysch basin, similar to the one inboard of Wrangellia, lies along the northern margin. Much of Arctic Alaska was apparently a vast expanse of upper Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic deep marine sediments and mafic volcanic and plutonic rocks now scattered widely as large telescoped sheets and Klippen thrust over the Ruby geanticline and the Brooks Range, and probably underlying the Yukon-Koyukuk basin and the Yukon flats. The Brooks Range itself is a stack of north vergent nappes, the telescoping of which began in Early Cretaceous time. Despite compelling evidence for thousands of kilometers of relative displacement between the accreted terranes, and large amounts of telescoping, translation, and rotation since accretion, the resulting new continental crust added to North America in Alaska carries few obvious signatures that allow application of currently popular simple plate tectonic models. Intraplate telescoping and strike-slip translations, delamination at mid-crustal levels, and large-scale lithospheric wedging were important processes in northern Cordilleran tectonic evolution.     

Surface wave tomography for azimuthal anisotropy in a strongly reduced parameter space

Large scale seismic anisotropy in the Earth's mantle is likely dynamically supported by the mantle's deformation; therefore, tomographic imaging of 3-D anisotropic mantle seismic velocity structure is an important tool to understand the dynamics of the mantle. While many previous studies have focused on special cases of symmetry of the elastic properties, it would be desirable for evaluation of dynamic models to allow more general axis orientation. In this study, we derive 3-D finite-frequency surface wave sensitivity kernels based on the Born approximation using a general expression for a hexagonal medium with an arbitrarily oriented symmetry axis. This results in kernels for two isotropic elastic coefficients, three coefficients that define the strength of anisotropy, and two angles that define the symmetry axis. The particular parametrization is chosen to allow for a physically meaningful method for reducing the number of parameters considered in an inversion, while allowing for straightforward integration with existing approaches for modelling body wave splitting intensity measurements. Example kernels calculated with this method reveal physical interpretations of how surface waveforms are affected by 3-D velocity perturbations, while also demonstrating the non-linearity of the problem as a function of symmetry axis orientation. The expressions are numerically validated using the spectral element method. While challenges remain in determining the best inversion scheme to appropriately handle the non-linearity, the approach derived here has great promise in allowing large scale models with resolution of both the strength and orientation of anisotropy.     

Mineral magnetic and physical properties of surficial sediments and onshore samples from the southern basin of Lake Baikal, Siberia

Results of lithostratigraphic and mineral magnetic analysis of two surficial sediment cores (21 cm and 45 cm in length) collected from the Southern basin of Lake Baikal at a water depth of 1390 m, are presented. The sediments have been measured for a wide range of mineral magnetic parameters in order to assess their value in the identification of turbidite layers. Particle size and geochemical data are also presented and these explain some of the down core variations in magnetic mineralogy. It is suggested that changes in the particle size frequency distributions down core may be related to fossil diatom shells. One of the cores has been dated using ²¹⁰Pb. The sediment cores were cross-correlated using low frequency magnetic susceptibility (f) and these cores can also be correlated with a nearby core collected earlier in 1992. Changes in the magnetic parameters of lf, IRMs and HIRM₂₁₀ suggest that there are significant changes in the concentration of ferrimagnetic minerals in the sediment cores, indicating changing sediment sources and/or increasing concentrations of spheroidal carbonaceous particles and the dissolution of minerals through reduction below the oxidised layer within the sediment core.     

Similarity measures of conditional intensity functions to test separability in multidimensional point processes

Separability in the context of multidimensional point processes assumes a multiplicative form for the conditional intensity function. This hypothesis is especially convenient since each component of a separable process may be modeled and estimated individually, and this greatly facilitates model building, fitting, and assessment. This is also related to the problem of reduction in the number of dimensions. Following previous approximations to this problem, we focus on the conditional intensity function, by considering nonparametric kernel-based estimators. Our approach calculates thinning probabilities under the conditions of separability and nonseparability and compares them through divergence measures. Based on Monte Carlo experiments, we approximate the statistical properties of our tests under a variety of practical scenarios. An application on modeling the spatio-temporal first-order intensity of forest fires is also developed.     

Bayesian data fusion in a spatial prediction context: a general formulation

In spite of the exponential growth in the amount of data that one may expect to provide greater modeling and predictions opportunities, the number and diversity of sources over which this information is fragmented is growing at an even faster rate. As a consequence, there is real need for methods that aim at reconciling them inside an epistemically sound theoretical framework. In a statistical spatial prediction framework, classical methods are based on a multivariate approach of the problem, at the price of strong modeling hypotheses. Though new avenues have been recently opened by focusing on the integration of uncertain data sources, to the best of our knowledges there have been no systematic attemps to explicitly account for information redundancy through a data fusion procedure. Starting from the simple concept of measurement errors, this paper proposes an approach for integrating multiple information processing as a part of the prediction process itself through a Bayesian approach. A general formulation is first proposed for deriving the prediction distribution of a continuous variable of interest at unsampled locations using on more or less uncertain (soft) information at neighboring locations. The case of multiple information is then considered, with a Bayesian solution to the problem of fusing multiple information that are provided as separate conditional probability distributions. Well-known methods and results are derived as limit cases. The convenient hypothesis of conditional independence is discussed by the light of information theory and maximum entropy principle, and a methodology is suggested for the optimal selection of the most informative subset of information, if needed. Based on a synthetic case study, an application of the methodology is presented and discussed.     

Regularized derivatives of potential fields and their role in semi-automated interpretation methods

Evaluation of higher derivatives (gradients) of potential fields plays an important role in geophysical interpretation (qualitative and/or quantitative), as has been demonstrated in many approaches and methods. On the other hand, numerical evaluation of higher derivatives is an unstable process – it has the tendency to enlarge the noise content in the original data (to degrade the signal-to-noise ratio). One way to stabilize higher derivative evaluation is the utilization of the Tikhonov regularization. In the submitted contribution we present the derivation of the regularized derivative filter in the Fourier domain as a minimization task by means of using the classical calculus of variations. A very important part of the presented approach is the selection of the optimum regularization parameter – we are using the analysis of the C-norm function (constructed from the difference between two adjacent solutions, obtained for different values of regularization parameter). We show the influence of regularized derivatives on the properties of the classical 3D Euler deconvolution algorithm and apply it to high-sensitivity magnetometry data obtained from an unexploded ordnance detection survey. The solution obtained with regularized derivatives gives better focused depth-estimates, which are closer to the real position of sources (verified by excavation of unexploded projectiles).     

The geography of the elderly in a modernizing society: the Hong Kong case

The characteristics of the elderly population of Hong Kong are first described. Recent changes in the spatial distribution of the elderly are also detailed. The spatial distribution and internal migration patterns of the elderly are shown to be very similar to those of the population as a whole. The problems posed by the fact that many of the elderly are poorly educated and lowly paid are considered.     

Neutron activation analysis of the 1965 taal volcanic ash

Neutron activation analysis of the Taal volcanic ash revealed the presence of unusual amount of scandium in the volcanic ash as compared to the standard basalt BCR-1. The BCR-1 value for Fe/Sc is 2760 while that of Taal ash is about 2649. It is suggested that the eruption was probably characterized by the ejection of scandium-rich materials. Scandium may be used as supplementary evidence in evaluating an impending future Taal volcanic activity.     

Dunes on Titan observed by Cassini Radar

Thousands of longitudinal dunes have recently been discovered by the Titan Radar Mapper on the surface of Titan. These are found mainly within ±30° of the equator in optically-, near-infrared-, and radar-dark regions, indicating a strong proportion of organics, and cover well over 5% of Titan's surface. Their longitudinal duneform, interactions with topography, and correlation with other aeolian forms indicate a single, dominant wind direction aligned with the dune axis plus lesser, off-axis or seasonally alternating winds. Global compilations of dune orientations reveal the mean wind direction is dominantly eastwards, with regional and local variations where winds are diverted around topographically high features, such as mountain blocks or broad landforms. Global winds may carry sediments from high latitude regions to equatorial regions, where relatively drier conditions prevail, and the particles are reworked into dunes, perhaps on timescales of thousands to tens of thousands of years. On Titan, adequate sediment supply, sufficient wind, and the absence of sediment carriage and trapping by fluids are the dominant factors in the presence of dunes.