The dispersion of magnetite bedload tracer across a gravel point-bar and the development of heavy-mineral placers

Economic concentrations of heavy-minerals are often associated with fluvial point-bars but prospecting models identifying the heaviest concentrations are poorly developed. Consequently, the dispersal and storage of a heavy-mineral bedload tracer–magnetite–across a rapidly evolving point-bar was studied using magnetic susceptibility as a surrogate measure of magnetite concentration. The bar-head was a preferential area for the development of a placer owing to a lag accumulation of magnetite over an armoured bed surface. In contrast, when viewed in plan, the bar-platform and bar-tail were regions of tracer dilution owing to downstream dispersion and mixing with shale in the vertical as the bar-top rapidly aggraded. However, in section, false-bottom placers developed along bedding planes were evident. The latter consisted of thin layers of concentrated magnetite resulting from the passage of bedload sheets, consisting of a mix of shale and magnetite, moving repeatedly from the bar-head to accrete over the bar-tail. Differential density-sorting of magnetite and shale occurred during transport and deposition, such that the heavier magnetite tended to accumulate as a visible concentrated bed-layer, later to be over-run by layers of shale-sediment in which magnetite was present diffusely. However, the placer thickness was greater than that visible because finer fractions of magnetite from each concentrated layer infiltrated the interstices of the top of the shale bed below. The placer thickness, the infiltration potential of the sediment bed and the actual rate of infiltration of the tracer were determined by fitting a mathematical function to measured variation in magnetic susceptibility with depth in the sediment body. Finally, a simple mathematical model, described in the literature as reproducing the plan-view of flow and topographic patterns in river bends, was found to reproduce patterns of depth, velocity, shear stress and competence in the point-bar environment which were in accordance with the interpretation of the field data. It was concluded that such a model when linked to entrainment functions for sediments of mixed density might be suitable for prospecting for economic heavy minerals in the point-bar environment.     

Range finding of Alfvén oscillations and direction finding of ion-cyclotron waves by using the ground-based ULF finder

A new approach to the problem of direction and distance finding of magnetospheric ULF oscillations is described. It is based on additional information about the structure of geoelectromagnetic field at the Earths surface which is contained in the known relations of the theory of magnetovariation and magnetotelluric sounding. This allows us to widen the range of diagnostic tools by using observations of Alfvén oscillations in the PC 3–5 frequency band and the ion-cyclotron waves in the PC 1 frequency band. Preliminary results of the remote sensing of the magnetosphere at low-latitudes using the MHD ranger technique are presented. The prospects for remote sensing of the plasmapause position are discussed.     

Detection Of Soft X-Ray Emission From Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale–Bopp)

We report the detection of soft X-rays from comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) by the Low Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (LECS) on-board the X-ray satellite, BeppoSAX. The observations took place on 1996 September 10–11 approximately 1 day after a large dust outburst (Schulz et al., 1997–1999). After correcting for the comets motion, a 7σ enhancement was found centered (2.1 ± 1.3) x 10⁵ km from the position of the nucleus, in the general solar direction. The total X-ray luminosity in the 0.1–2.0 keV energy band is 5 x 10¹⁶ erg s⁻¹ which is at least a factor of ∼ 3 greater than measured by the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE)4 days later and suggests that the bulk of the emission measured by the LECS is related to the dust outburst. The extracted LECS spectrum is well fit by a thermal bremsstrahlung-like distribution of temperature of 0.29 ± 0.06 keV - consistent with that observed in other comets. We find no evidence for fluorescent carbon or oxygen emission and place 95% confidence limits of 1.0 x 10¹⁵ and 7.8 x 10¹⁵ erg s⁻¹ to narrow line emission at 0.28 and 0.53 keV, respectively. We calculate that if such lines are present, they constitute at most 18% of the 0.1–2.0 keV continuum luminosity. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

RADIOCARBON DATING OF A PEAT DEPOSIT IN THE CUCAMONGA FAULT ZONE,CALIFORNIA*

A sequence of peat beds was deposited in a small sag pond along the Cucamonga fault zone during late Holocene. The stratigraphic section of this deposit is described; several beds have been radiocarbon dated. Comparison of radiometric and stratigraphic chronologies allows reconstruction of the geomorphic history of the sag pond, which extends back 3000 years, and establishes evidence that the fault has been active within the very recent geologic past.     

Perspective on theories of non-Fickian transport in heterogeneous media

Subsurface fluid flow and solute transport take place in a multiscale heterogeneous environment. Neither these phenomena nor their host environment can be observed or described with certainty at all scales and locations of relevance. The resulting ambiguity has led to alternative conceptualizations of flow and transport and multiple ways of addressing their scale and space–time dependencies. We focus our attention on four approaches that give rise to nonlocal representations of advective and dispersive transport of nonreactive tracers in randomly heterogeneous porous or fractured continua. We compare these approaches theoretically on the basis of their underlying premises and the mathematical forms of the corresponding nonlocal advective–dispersive terms. One of the four approaches describes transport at some reference support scale by a classical (Fickian) advection–dispersion equation (ADE) in which velocity is a spatially (and possibly temporally) correlated random field. The randomness of the velocity, which is given by Darcy’s law, stems from random fluctuations in hydraulic conductivity (and advective porosity though this is often disregarded). Averaging the stochastic ADE over an ensemble of velocity fields results in a space–time-nonlocal representation of mean advective–dispersive flux, an approach we designate as stnADE. A closely related space–time-nonlocal representation of ensemble mean transport is obtained upon averaging the motion of solute particles through a random velocity field within a Lagrangian framework, an approach we designate stnL. The concept of continuous time random walk (CTRW) yields a representation of advective–dispersive flux that is nonlocal in time but local in space. Closely related to the latter are forms of ADE entailing fractional derivatives (fADE) which leads to representations of advective–dispersive flux that are nonlocal in space but local in time; nonlocality in time arises in the context of multirate mass transfer models, which we exclude from consideration in this paper. We describe briefly each of these four nonlocal approaches and offer a perspective on their differences, commonalities, and relative merits as analytical and predictive tools.