On the observations of Mount St Helens volcanic emissions: Research note

Abstract

The envelopes of dust clouds from the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington State, U.S.A. were plotted as they traversed the northern United States and southern Canada. Visibility observations at many meteorological stations indicated the presence of volcanic ash and smoke and verified trajectory calculations. In addition, sulphur dioxide released by the volcano was detected as it passed over Toronto, Ontario, while satellite photographs showed dust clouds in the upper atmosphere.     

Element mobility during continental collision: insights from polymineralic metamorphic vein within UHP eclogite in the Dabie orogen

Metamorphic dehydration and partial melting are two important processes during continental collision. They have significant bearing on element transport at the slab interface under subduction‐zone P–T conditions. Petrological and geochemical insights into the two processes are provided by a comprehensive study of leucocratic veins in ultrahigh‐pressure (UHP) metamorphic rocks. This is exemplified by this study of a polymineralic vein within phengite‐bearing UHP eclogite in the Dabie orogen. The vein is primarily composed of quartz, kyanite, epidote and phengite, with minor accessory minerals such as garnet, rutile and zircon. Primary multiphase solid inclusions occur in garnet and epidote from the both vein and host eclogite. They are composed of quartz ± K‐feldspar ± plagioclase ± K‐bearing glass and exhibit irregular to negative crystal shapes that are surrounded by weak radial cracks. This suggests their precipitation from solute‐rich metamorphic fluid/melt that involved the reaction of phengite breakdown. Zircon U–Pb dating for the vein gave two groups of concordant ages at 217 ± 2 and 210 ± 2 Ma, indicating two episodes of zircon growth in the Late Triassic. The same minerals from the two rocks give consistent δ¹⁸O and δD values, suggesting that the vein‐forming fluid was directly derived from the host UHP eclogite. The vein is much richer in phengite and epidote than the host eclogite, suggesting that the fluid is associated with remarkable concentration of such water‐soluble elements as LILE and LREE migration. Garnet and rutile in the vein exhibit much higher contents of HREE (2.2–5.7 times) and Nb–Ta (1.8–2.0 times) than those in the eclogite, indicating that these normally water‐insoluble elements became mobile and then were sunken in the vein minerals. Thus, the vein‐forming agent would be primarily composed of the UHP aqueous fluid with minor amounts of the hydrous melt, which may even become a supercritical fluid to have a capacity to transport not only LILE and LREE but also HREE and HFSE at subduction‐zone metamorphic conditions. Taken together, significant amounts of trace elements were transported by the vein‐forming fluid due to the phengite breakdown inside the UHP eclogite during exhumation of the deeply subducted continental crust.     

Hydrous and anhydrous alterations of chondrules in Kaba and Mokoia CV chondrites

Abstract— Chondrules in the Bali-like CV chondrite Kaba and the Allende-like portion of the Mokoia breccia have been studied to explore the relationship between hydrous alteration to form phyllosilicates and anhydrous alteration resulting in secondary olivine zonation, replacement of enstatite by ferroan olivine and formation of feldspathoids (nepheline and sodalite). All Kaba chondrules experienced extensive hydrous alteration; whereas, anhydrous alteration was minor and resulted only in the olivine zonation. On the other hand, all of the Mokoia chondrules experienced both extensive anhydrous and hydrous alteration. Bronzite rims formed between relic enstatite grains and phyllosilicates in both Kaba and Mokoia during the hydrous alteration. Petrographic observations indicate that phyllosilicates in Mokoia postdate formation of the secondary ferroan olivine and feldspathoids. We conclude that anhydrous alteration in Kaba and Mokoia predated hydrous alteration and took place before accretion of chondrules into the CV parent asteroid.     

A note on the deflection of a baroclinic current by a continental shelf

The deflection, at a step-shelf fronted coast, of a constant potential vorticity current in a reduced-gravity, inviscid model ocean is studied theoretically. The step shelf, with a depth smaller than the reservoir depth, forces the uplifting of the approaching current and causes water column foreshortening, leading to relative vorticity generation that enhances current deflection to the right (facing the coast). As a consequence, in comparison to the case of a vertical wall coast, the proportion of the transport to the right is increased. For normal incidence for a shelf-depth/reservoir-depth ratio of 0.3 and shelf width to deformation radius ratio of 1.5, more than 90% of the approaching current transport goes to the right and less than 10% to the left. In addition, the (barotropic) dynamic pressure at the coast is low to the right and high to the left (with the highest pressure at the stagnation point). In the vertical wall case, the wall pressures on the flank are equal. For oblique incidence from the left, the deflection to the left is drastically reduced. In fact, there is practically no steady-state flow diverted to the left (less than 2%) when the approach angle is greater than 60° to the left of normal. In the vertical wall case, the same angle would have to be 90° for the flow to the left to vanish, namely only when the approach current is parallel to the coast to the right.     

Numerical reconstruction of trajectory of small-size surface drifter in the Mediterranean sea

In this study, we addressed the effects of wind-induced drift on Lagrangian trajectories of surface sea objects using high-resolution ocean forecast and atmospheric data. Application of stochastic Leeway model for prediction of trajectories drift was considered for the numerical reconstruction of the Elba accident that occurred during the period 21.06.2009–22.06.2009: a person on an inflatable raft was lost in the vicinity of the Elba Island coast; from the initial position, the person on a raft drifted southwards in the open sea and later he was found on a partially deflated raft during rescue operation. For geophysical forcing, we used high-resolution currents from the Mediterranean Forecasting System and atmospheric wind from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. To investigate the effect of wind on trajectory behavior, numerical simulations were performed using different categories of drifter-like particles similar to a person on an inflatable raft. An algorithm of spatial clustering was used to differentiate the most probable search areas with a high density of particles. Our results showed that the simulation scenarios using particles with characteristics of draft-limited sea drifters provided better prediction of an observed trajectory in terms of the probability density of particles.     

Biogeochemistry of nitrous oxide in groundwater in a forested ecosystem elucidated by nitrous oxide isotopomer measurements

The biological and physical controls on microbial processes that produce and consume N₂O in soils are highly complex. Isotopomer ratios of N₂O, with abundance of ¹⁴N¹⁵N¹⁶O, ¹⁵N¹⁴N¹⁶O, and ¹⁴N¹⁴N¹⁸O relative to ¹⁴N¹⁴N¹⁶O, are promising for elucidation of N₂O biogeochemistry in an intact ecosystem. Site preference, the nitrogen isotope ratio of the central nitrogen atom minus that of the terminal nitrogen atom, is useful to distinguish between N₂O via hydroxylamine oxidation and N₂O via nitrite reduction.We applied this isotopomer analysis to a groundwater system in a temperate coniferous-forested ecosystem. Results of a previous study at this location showed that the N₂O concentration in groundwater varied greatly according to groundwater chemistry, i.e. NO₃⁻, DOC, and DO, although apportionment of N₂O production to nitrification or denitrification was ambiguous. Our isotopic analysis (δ¹⁵N and δ¹⁸O) of NO₃⁻ and N₂O implies that denitrification is the dominant production process of N₂O, but definitive information is not derived from δ¹⁵N and δ¹⁸O analysis because of large variations in isotopic fractionations during production and consumption of N₂O. However, the N₂O site preference and the difference in δ¹⁵N between NO₃⁻ and N₂O indicate that nitrification contributes to total N₂O production and that most measured N₂O has been subjected to further N₂O reduction to N₂. The implications of N₂O biogeochemistry derived from isotope and isotopomer data differ entirely from those derived from conventional concentration data of DO, NO₃⁻, and N₂O. That difference underscores the need to reconsider our understanding of the N cycle in the oxic-anoxic interface.     

Linear and nonlinear vibration of non-uniform beams on two-parameter foundations using p-elements

A hierarchical finite element is presented for the geometrically nonlinear free and forced vibration of a non-uniform Timoshenko beam resting on a two-parameter foundation. Legendre orthogonal polynomials are used as enriching shape functions to avoid the shear-locking problem. With the enriching degrees of freedom, the accuracy of the computed results and the computational efficiency are greatly improved. The arc-length iterative method is used to solve the nonlinear eigenvalue equation. The computed results of linear and nonlinear vibration analyses show that the convergence of the proposed element is very fast with respect to the number of Legendre orthogonal polynomials used. Since the elastic foundation and the axial load applied at both ends of the beam affect the ratios of linear frequencies associated with the internal resonance, they influence the nonlinear vibration characteristics of the beam. The axial tensile stress of the beam in nonlinear vibration is investigated in this paper, and attention should be paid to the geometrically nonlinear vibration resulting in considerably large axial tensile stress in the beam.     

Relationship between Magmatic,Metamorphic, and Hydrothermal Processes within the Baikal–Muya Terrane (Eastern Siberia): Constraints from High-Precision Geochronological Study of the Kedrovskii Granitoid Massif

Doklady Earth Sciences - High-precision dating of granitoids is of key significance for age identification of the main stages of crust formation in various blocks of the continental crust. Here we...     

Structural damage detection using the optimal weights of the approximating artificial neural networks

This work presents a novel neural network‐based approach to detect structural damage. The proposed approach comprises two steps. The first step, system identification, involves using neural system identification networks (NSINs) to identify the undamaged and damaged states of a structural system. The partial derivatives of the outputs with respect to the inputs of the NSIN, which identifies the system in a certain undamaged or damaged state, have a negligible variation with different system errors. This loosely defined unique property enables these partial derivatives to quantitatively indicate system damage from the model parameters. The second step, structural damage detection, involves using the neural damage detection network (NDDN) to detect the location and extent of the structural damage. The input to the NDDN is taken as the aforementioned partial derivatives of NSIN, and the output of the NDDN identifies the damage level for each member in the structure. Moreover, SDOF and MDOF examples are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of using the proposed method for damage detection of linear structures. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.