Glacial–interglacial sediment transport to the Meiji Drift,northwest Pacific Ocean: Evidence for timing of Beringian outwashing

A large sediment deposit known as the Meiji Drift, located in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, is thought to have formed from deep water exiting the Bering Sea, although no notable deep water forms there presently. We determine the terrigenous sources since 140 ka to the drift using bulk sediment ⁴⁰Ar–³⁹Ar and Nd isotopic analyses on the silt-sized (20–63 μm) terrigenous fraction from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 884 to reconstruct paleo-circulation patterns. There are large changes in both isotopic tracers, varying on glacial–interglacial cycles. During glacial intervals, bulk sediment ⁴⁰Ar–³⁹Ar ages range between 40 and 80 Ma, while Nd isotopic values range from ε_Nd = ? 1 to + 2. During interglacial intervals, sediments become much younger and more radiogenic, with bulk sediment ages falling to 2–15 Ma and Nd isotopic values ranging between ε_Nd = + 5 and + 9. These data and quantitative comparison to potential source rocks indicate that the young Kamchatkan and Aleutian Arcs, lying NW and NE of the Meiji Drift, contribute the majority of sediment during interglacials. Conversely, older source rocks, such as those drained by the Yukon River and northeast Russia are the dominant origin of sediments during glacials. Mixing model calculations suggest that as much as 35–45% of the sediment deposited in the Meiji Drift during glacials is from the Bering Sea. It remains unclear whether thermohaline-type circulation or focussing of Bering Sea flow lead to the glacial–interglacial sediment source changes observed here.     

MATHEMATICAL MODELS FOR LIQUID-SOLID TWO-PHASE FLOW

I INTRODUCTIONTurbulence models for single-phase fluid flows have been developed and widely applied in mechanical,aeronautical, environmental and hydraulic engineering, and other fields. The closure techniques for theReynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for various levels of models including the simple turbulencemodel, one-equation turbulence model, k-s turbulence model and turbulence stress/flux model have beenverified to be physically reasonable and have acceptable accuracy in app…     

A new solution for a partially penetrating constant‐rate pumping well with a finite‐thickness skin

A mathematical model describing the constant pumping is developed for a partially penetrating well in a heterogeneous aquifer system. The Laplace‐domain solution for the model is derived by applying the Laplace transforms with respect to time and the finite Fourier cosine transforms with respect to vertical co‐ordinates. This solution is used to produce the curves of dimensionless drawdown versus dimensionless time to investigate the influences of the patch zone and well partial penetration on the drawdown distributions. The results show that the dimensionless drawdown depends on the hydraulic properties of the patch and formation zones. The effect of a partially penetrating well on the drawdown with a negative patch zone is larger than that with a positive patch zone. For a single‐zone aquifer case, neglecting the effect of a well radius will give significant error in estimating dimensionless drawdown, especially when dimensionless distance is small. The dimensionless drawdown curves for cases with and without considering the well radius approach the Hantush equation (Advances in Hydroscience. Academic Press: New York, 1964) at large time and/or large distance away from a test well. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new insight into land use classification based on aggregated mobile phone data

Land-use classification is essential for urban planning. Urban land-use types can be differentiated either by their physical characteristics (such as reflectivity and texture) or social functions. Remote sensing techniques have been recognized as a vital method for urban land-use classification because of their ability to capture the physical characteristics of land use. Although significant progress has been achieved in remote sensing methods designed for urban land-use classification, most techniques focus on physical characteristics, whereas knowledge of social functions is not adequately used. Owing to the wide usage of mobile phones, the activities of residents, which can be retrieved from the mobile phone data, can be determined in order to indicate the social function of land use. This could bring about the opportunity to derive land-use information from mobile phone data. To verify the application of this new data source to urban land-use classification, we first construct a vector of aggregated mobile phone data to characterize land-use types. This vector is composed of two aspects: the normalized hourly call volume and the total call volume. A semi-supervised fuzzy c-means clustering approach is then applied to infer the land-use types. The method is validated using mobile phone data collected in Singapore. Land use is determined with a detection rate of 58.03%. An analysis of the land-use classification results shows that the detection rate decreases as the heterogeneity of land use increases, and increases as the density of cell phone towers increases.     

Investigating the ancient Martian magnetic field using microwaves

The new microwave palaeointensity technique has been used to investigate samples from the Martian meteorite Nakhla. This technique is a promising new way to obtain absolute palaeointensity information regarding the ancient Martian magnetic field as recorded by the Martian meteorites. Assuming that a part of the magnetic remanence is of thermal origin and originating on Mars the two samples studied yield estimates of 4 μT for the Martian magnetic field at 1.35 Ga.     

Reservoir description using dynamic parameterisation selection with a combined stochastic and gradient search

There is a correspondence between flow in a reservoir and large scale permeability trends. This correspondence can be derived by constraining reservoir models using observed production data. One of the challenges in deriving the permeability distribution of a field using production data involves determination of the scale of resolution of the permeability. The Adaptive Multiscale Estimation (AME) seeks to overcome the problems related to choosing the resolution of the permeability field by a dynamic parameterisation selection. The standard AME uses a gradient algorithm in solving several optimisation problems with increasing permeability resolution. This paper presents a hybrid algorithm which combines a gradient search and a stochastic algorithm to improve the robustness of the dynamic parameterisation selection. At low dimension, we use the stochastic algorithm to generate several optimised models. We use information from all these produced models to find new optimal refinements, and start out new optimisations with several unequally suggested parameterisations. At higher dimensions we change to a gradient-type optimiser, where the initial solution is chosen from the ensemble of models suggested by the stochastic algorithm. The selection is based on a predefined criterion. We demonstrate the robustness of the hybrid algorithm on sample synthetic cases, which most of them were considered insolvable using the standard AME algorithm.     

Temporal and spatial variability of cation and silica export in an alpine watershed,Emerald Lake,California

A reaction set of possible mineral weathering reactions is proposed to explain observed cation and silica export for the Emerald Lake watershed, a small Sierra Nevada, California catchment. The reaction set was calculated through a stoichiometric mole‐balance method, using a multiyear record of stream flow and snowpack chemical analyses and site‐specific mineral compositions. Reaction‐set calculations were intended to explore how the processes controlling stream cation and silica export depend on differing bedrock mineralogy across the catchment as snowmelt and runoff patterns change over the year. Different regions within the watershed can be differentiated by lake inflow subdrainages, each exhibiting different stream‐flow chemistry and calculated weathering stoichiometry, indicating that different silica and cation generation processes are dominant in wet steep portions of the catchment. Short‐term differences in stream concentrations were assumed to reflect ion exchange equilibria and rapid biological processes, whereas long‐term persistent stream concentration differences in different areas of the catchment were assumed to reflect spatial variability in mineral weathering stoichiometry. Mineralogical analyses of rock samples from the watershed provided site‐specific chemical compositions of major mineral species for reaction calculations. Reaction sets were evaluated by linear regression of calculated versus observed differences between snowmelt and stream‐flow chemistry and by a combined measure. Initially, single weathering reactions were balanced and evaluated to determine the reactions that best explained observed stream chemical export. Next, reactions were combined, using mineral compositions from different rock types to estimate the dependence of ion fluxes on lithology. The seasonal variability of major solute calculated fluxes is low, approximately one order of magnitude, relative to the observed three orders of magnitude variability in basin discharge. Reaction sets using basin‐averaged lithology and Aplite lithologies gave superior explanations of stream chemical composition. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical simulation of the marine boundary layer characteristics over the Bay of Bengal as revealed by BOBMEX-98 Pilot experiment

An attempt has been made to study the marine boundary layer characteristics over Bay of Bengal using BOBMEX (Bay of Bengal and Monsoon Experiment) pilot experiment data sets, which was conducted between 23rd October and 12th November 1998 on board ORV Sagar Kanya. A one-dimensional multilevel atmospheric boundary layer with TKE-ε closure scheme is employed to study the marine boundary layer characteristics. In this study two synoptic situations are chosen: one represents an active convection case and the other a suppressed convection. In the present article the marine boundary layer characteristics such as temporal evolution of turbulent kinetic energy, height of the boundary layer and the airsea exchange processes such as sensible and latent heat fluxes, drag coefficient for momentum are simulated during both active and suppressed convection. Marine boundary layer height is estimated from the vertical profiles of potential temperature using the stability criterion. The model simulations are compared with the available observations.     

The new hominid skeleton from Sterkfontein,South Africa: age and preliminary assessment

A new hominid skeleton from Sterkfontein Member 2 attaches to foot bones recovered from loose blocks during the 1980s and first described in 1995. Several flowstone horizons are present above and below the skeleton and have given clear palaeomagnetic signatures. Five changes in magnetic polarity have been identified; when constrained by the available biostratigraphy, this sequence can be placed confidently between 3.22 and 3.58 Ma. Interpolation of sedimentation rates over the small intervals between reversals allows this range to be reduced to 3.30–3.33 Ma. The skeleton is thus the oldest yet discovered and is considered to belong to a species of Australopithecus other than africanus. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.