The use of GPS for marine positioning in Germany—requirements,experience, and concepts

Abstract

While beginning to establish a German Civil GPS Information and Observation Service in 1990, the actual and (near) future GPS market in Germany was analyzed. In addition, the feasibility of using GPS for water authority tasks has been studied during past years. Typical capabilities in this area are real‐time positioning for hydrographic surveying (kinematic application) and precise transfer of levels to tide gauges and verification at offshore positions.

The article describes the user interests, the requirements, some of the test campaigns, and the derived concepts for future applications.     

Integrated Debris Flow Disaster Mitigation - A Comprehensive Method for Debris Flow Disaster Mitigation

Integrated disaster mitigation needs interpreting torrent catchment areas as complex landscape systems. The history of valley-evolution shows the influence of climate and vegetation on the valley-evolution. The energy-concept (energy dissipation concept including the idea of the energy-line) is used for a simple explanation of debris flow. Examples of heavy debris flow disasters in controlled torrents in the Alps and Pyrenees give hints, which expanding the time scale can show that side-effects restrict or counteract the mitigation measures. A pallet of different mitigation measures to avoid or to reduce some of the side-effects is shown. The comprehensive method of disaster mitigation also includes the effect of vegetation. The pallet includes: avoiding hazards (hazard mapping, warning and alarming), appropriate land use and avoiding disaster-enhancing measures in the landscape and technical measures, which take into account their side-effects. The energy line is used as simple design theory. The Jiu-Jitsu Principle is explained too. With this comprehensive method a more sustainable reduction of disasters seems possible.     

Can newly-forming stars act like Mini-QSOs?

The birth of stars takes place inside dense molecular clouds and is therefore difficult to observe with optical telescopes. Yet some stars form at the edges of clouds, and combined radio, infrared, optical and X-ray observations have recently revealed a great deal of structure: over a wide range of luminosities one observes high mass-outflow rates from pre-Main-Sequence and T Tauri-stars, with wind momenta exceeding the radiation momenta by large factors. The mass flows take the shape of two highly supersonic jets, perpendicular to a circumstellar disk. The jets have knotlike condensations, show strong linear polarization along the flow direction, and are often seen to reconverge. They resemble the twin-jets from the nuclei of active galaxies and may be driven by a similar type of engine. They may even hold a clue to the problem of how stars like our Sun got rid of the enormous angular momentum of their progenitor cloud. I propose that in both phenomena, the central engine is the maximally rotating core of a massive disk which produces a pair of thin, antipodal, magnetized relativistic jets.     

Fireworks in Orion

The energetic outflow in Orion – which made headlines in the(northern-hemisphere) Summer of 1993 – is reinterpreted as a recent Supernova whose explosion went unnoticed, of age10^2.2±0.2 years. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

SS 433 — Again

The standard model for SS 433 encounters increasing difficulties, including geometrical and chemical irregularities, short-time correlations and the presence of circular polarization. It is argued that these difficulties disappear when one drops the assumption that the moving spectral lines are emitted by the (mapped) jets. All the spectral peculiarities can be blamed on (special) radiation from the inner accretion disk, at radius 10⁷ cm, around a young neutron star. The jets consist of relativistic pair plasma-like in all the other jet sources. A prediction is made for the center of the radio jets.     

Vacuum energy in cosmic dynamics

The analysis of the Th/U ratio in meteorites and the evolutionary ages of globular clusters favour values of the cosmic age of (19±5)×10⁹ yr. This evidence together with a Hubble parameterH ₀>70 km s^–1 Mpc^–1=(14×10⁹ yr)^–1 cannot be reconciled in a Friedmann model with =0. It requires a cosmological constant in the order of 10^–56 cm^–2, equivalent to a vacuum density _v =10^–29 g cm^–3 The Friedmann-Lemaître models (>0) with a hot big-bang have been calculated. They are based on a present value of the baryonic matter density of ₀=0.5×10^–30 g cm^–3 as derived from the primordial⁴He and²H abundances.For a Hubble parameter ofH ₀=75 km s^–1 Mpc^–1, our analysis favours a set of models which can be represented by a model with Euclidean metric (density parameter ₀=1.0, deceleration parameterq ₀=–0.93, aget ₀=19.7×10⁹ yr) and by a closed model with perpetual expansion (₀=1.072,q ₀=–1.0, aget ₀=21.4×10⁹ yr). A present density parameter close to one can indeed be expected if the conjecture of an exponential inflation of the very early universe is correct.The possible behaviour of the vacuum density is demonstrated with the help of Streeruwitz' formula in the context of the closed model with an inflationary phase at very early times.     

Distribution and Migrations of two Cerithid Snails on a Sand Flat in Bermuda

Abstract. Two species of cerithid prosobranchs live on a sand flat in Bermuda. At low tide during day light Batillaria minima is found on the surface whereas Cerithium lutosum remains buried in the sediment. This correlates with much higher lethal and coma temperatures, as well as much greater resistance to desiccation, of the former species. However, at other diurnal or tidal stages the two species co-occur in the same layer of sand. Despite greater resistance to physical factors the population of B. minima seems to be declining since in 1980 juveniles of this species were rare on Tuckers Town Flat whereas the population of C. lutosum was thriving.     

Constraints on Variscan granite emplacement in north-east Bavaria,Germany: further clues from a petrogenetic study of the Mitterteich granite

Petrochemical and Rb-Sr, K-Ar and Sm-Nd isotopic data presented for the Mitterteich granite provide information on whole rock and mineral compositional characteristics, intrusion and cooling history, and protolith nature and put further constraints on the Variscan magmatic evolution in north-east Bavaria.The compositional characteristics classify the Mitterteich granite as a peraluminous (monzo-)granite (SiO₂ 67.3–73.5 wt.% ). Values for K₂O/Na₂O (> 1.2 and Al₂O₃/(CaO + N₂O + K₂O) (>1.1) are in the range of S-type granites. The rare earth elements show fractionated chondrite-normalized patterns (La _N /Yb _N =24–19) with negative Eu anomalies (Eu _N /Eu _N ^*=0.35–0.19). The micas have restricted ranges of major element composition, but reveal notable variations in trace element concentrations. Different biotite fractions of single specimens show a trend to lower concentrations of compatible elements in the finer fraction which can be explained as a result of asynchronous growth during the fractionation process. The PT conditions of crystallization of the magma based on muscovite and biotite is 600–640°C at 3 kbar. Regression of the whole rock samples gives an isochron corresponding to a ⁸⁷Rb-⁸⁷Sr age of 310 ± 7 Ma, initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr of 0.7104±0.0010 (2 errors) and MSWD =0.03. Muscovite and biotite yield concordant K-Ar ages between 310 and 308 Ma, indicating a fast cooling rate of the granite intrusion. _{Nd T310}values average –4.2±1.0. Nd model ages of 1.4 Ga suggest a source region of mid-Proterozoic age.The Rb-Sr isochron age and initial Sr ratio of the Mitterteich granite are indistinguishable from those of the adjacent Falkenberg granite, establishing a genetic link. However, the K-Ar mica ages suggest that the Mitterteich granite must have undergone a faster uplift or cooling history than Falkenberg. Confronted with the geochronological record of granite emplacement in north-east Bavaria, the new results substantiate the view of three key periods of magmatic activity around 330–325, 315–305 and 290 Ma.