Potential impacts from tephra fall to electric power systems: a review and mitigation strategies

Modern society is highly dependent on a reliable electricity supply. During explosive volcanic eruptions, tephra contamination of power networks (systems) can compromise the reliability of supply. Outages can have significant cascading impacts for other critical infrastructure sectors and for society as a whole. This paper summarises known impacts to power systems following tephra falls since 1980. The main impacts are (1) supply outages from insulator flashover caused by tephra contamination, (2) disruption of generation facilities, (3) controlled outages during tephra cleaning, (4) abrasion and corrosion of exposed equipment and (5) line (conductor) breakage due to tephra loading. Of these impacts, insulator flashover is the most common disruption. The review highlights multiple instances of electric power systems exhibiting tolerance to tephra falls, suggesting that failure thresholds exist and should be identified to avoid future unplanned interruptions. To address this need, we have produced a fragility function that quantifies the likelihood of insulator flashover at different thicknesses of tephra. Finally, based on our review of case studies, potential mitigation strategies are summarised. Specifically, avoiding tephra-induced insulator flashover by cleaning key facilities such as generation sites and transmission and distribution substations is of critical importance in maintaining the integrity of an electric power system.     

Massive dark matter haloes around bright isolated galaxies in the 2dFGRS

We identify a large sample of isolated bright galaxies and their fainter satellites in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS). We analyse the dynamics of ensembles of these galaxies selected according to luminosity and morphological type by stacking the positions of their satellites and estimating the velocity dispersion of the combined set. We test our methodology using realistic mock catalogues constructed from cosmological simulations. The method returns an unbiased estimate of the velocity dispersion provided that the isolation criterion is strict enough to avoid contamination and that the scatter in halo mass at fixed primary luminosity is small. Using a maximum likelihood estimator that accounts for interlopers, we determine the satellite velocity dispersion within a projected radius of 175  h ⁻¹ kpc. The dispersion increases with the luminosity of the primary and is larger for elliptical galaxies than for spiral galaxies of similar b _J luminosity. Calibrating the mass–velocity dispersion relation using our mock catalogues, we find a dynamical mass within 175  h ⁻¹ kpc of     for elliptical galaxies and     for spiral galaxies. Finally, we compare our results with recent studies and investigate their limitations using our mock catalogues.     

The galaxy power spectrum: precision cosmology from large-scale structure?

Published galaxy power spectra from the two-degree field galaxy redshift survey (2dFGRS) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) are not in good agreement. We revisit this issue by analysing both the 2dFGRS and SDSS Data Release 5 (DR5) catalogues using essentially identical techniques. We confirm that the 2dFGRS exhibits relatively more large-scale power than the SDSS, or, equivalently, SDSS has more small-scale power. We demonstrate that this difference is due to the r -band selected SDSS catalogue being dominated by more strongly clustered red galaxies, which have a stronger scale-dependent bias. The power spectra of galaxies of the same rest-frame colours from the two surveys match well. If not accounted for, the difference between the SDSS and 2dFGRS power spectra causes a bias in the obtained constraints on cosmological parameters which is larger than the uncertainty with which they are determined. We also found that the correction developed by Cole et al. to model the distortion in the shape of the power spectrum due to non-linear evolution and scale-dependent bias is not able to reconcile the constraints obtained from the 2dFGRS and SDSS power spectra. Intriguingly, the model is able to describe the differences between the 2dFGRS and the much more strongly clustered Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) sample, which exhibits greater non-linearities. This shows that more work is needed to understand the relation between the galaxy power spectrum and the linear perturbation theory prediction for the power spectrum of matter fluctuations. It is therefore important to accurately model these effects to get precise estimates of cosmological parameters from these power spectra and from future galaxy surveys like Pan-STARRS, or the Dark Energy Survey, which will use selection criteria similar to the one of SDSS.     

Electro-hydromagnetic waves in a fully ionized gas-II

The propagation of hydromagnetic and low frequency radio waves in all directions in a fully ionized gas containing a magnetic field is examined. For longitudinal and transverse propagation the addition of one extra term in the magneto-ionic formulae (without collisions) accounts for the presence of heavy ions.

The partition of energy of disturbance between kinetic (K) and magnetic (M) for longitudinal propagation of all frequencies is given by

where V is the Alfvén speed. Thus approximate equipartition may exist for some audio- and radio-frequencies in the Earth's exosphere.

Some errors in Paper I of this series are corrected.     

Hydromagnetic “whistles” at the dayside cusps: IPRP events

The current status of the morphological properties of the variation of the earth's magnetic field known as Intervals of Pulsations with Rising Periods (IPRP) observed at the polar cusp stations Casey, Mirny and Heiss throughout 1978 is presented. They have the characteristic of a “whistle” with steadily falling tone. Comprehensive observational and dynamical morphological accounts of the IPRP phenomenon are presented including new analyses of polarisation, power spectra and digital sonograms. Simultaneously occurring IPRP at the two widely spaced stations Casey and Mirny are examined. In an accompanying paper (Cole et al., 1982) a theory which accounts for the properties of the phenomenon is presented.     

The ratio between magnetotail height and neutral point height

The ratio between the magnetotail height and the neutral point height is exactly 2 in the classical calculation of the shape of the magnetopause following Chapman and Ferraro. This ratio is useful in assessing the results of calculations. There exist possibilities for improvement of magnetopause shape calculations, especially in the tail region or in the neutral point region for “tilted” cases.     

The quantity and condition of Martian underground water

It is widely accepted that Mars holds a quantity of water in its surface crustal region but the amount is unknown. The present arguments quantify this suspicion, offering an estimate of the quantity on the basis of certain consequences of the comparison between the present observed compositions of the atmospheres of the planets Earth, Venus, and Mars, and the inferred compositions of the mantles of the icy satellites. The results are consistent with alternative estimates such as they are but offer possibilities of regarding the problems of the crustal region of Mars in a different way.     

Detritus fuels ecosystem metabolism but not metazoan food webs in San Francisco estuary's freshwater delta

Detritus from terrestrial ecosystems is the major source of organic matter in many streams, rivers, and estuaries, yet the role of detritus in supporting pelagic food webs is debated. We examined the importance of detritus to secondary productivity in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Delta (California, United States), a large complex of tidal freshwater habitats. The Delta ecosystem has low primary productivity but large detrital inputs, so we hypothesized that de tritus is the primary energy source fueling production in pelagic food webs. We assessed the sources, quantity, composition, and bioavailability of organic matter among a diversity of habitats (e.g., marsh sloughs, floodplains, tidal lakes, and deep river channels) over two years to test this hypothesis. Our results support the emerging principle that detritus dominates riverine and estuarine organic matter supply and supports the majority of ecosystem metabolism. Yet in contrast to prevailing ideas, we found that detritus was weakly coupled to the Delta's pelagic food web. Results from independent approaches showed that phytoplankton production was the dominant source of organic matter for the Delta's pelagic food web, even though primary production accounts for a small fraction of the Delta's organic matter supply. If these results are general, they suggest that the value of organic matter to higher trophic levels, including species targeted by programs of ecosystem restoration, is a function of phytoplankton production.