Occurrence of triterpenyl acetates in soil and their potential as chemotaxonomical markers of Asteraceae

As a part of a wider study aimed at determining new molecular biomarkers in soils and sediments that could be specific for distinct vegetation types with respect to unravelling past changes in land use, we analysed the neutral lipid content of soil developed in the catchment of a small lake in central France. The ketone/acetate lipid fraction of soil under pasture or meadow contained a series of pentacyclic triterpenyl acetates with wide structural diversity, most being reported in soil for the first time. The restricted number of potential plant sources of triterpenyl acetates (some produced by a single species) underlines the potential of triterpenyl acetates as new biomarkers to track past vegetation change in palaeoenvironmental studies, when found in natural archives such as soil, sediments or peat.     

Simulation of atmospheric effect on the emergent radiation over a circular lake

The upwelling radiation at the top of the atmosphere is computed over a circular lake which is located in the uniform Lambert surface, using a modified version of the doubling-adding method. The radiance over the lake is discussed with respect to the atmospheric effect. The radius of the lake is assumed to be 0.5, 1, and 3 km. The observational site is located at altitude 30 km. The zenith of the observational site is located in the plane which is determined by the zenith of the center of the lake and incident solar direction. The zenith angle of the observational site to the center of the lake is fixed to 6.28°. The atmosphere is assumed to be homogeneous, which is composed of aerosol and molecule, where the model aerosol is of the oceanic or the water soluble types.Numerical simulation exhibits an extraordinary effect near the lake. The radiance of the lake against the surrounding depends upon the albedo of the surrounding surface. It increases with the increase of the size of the lake and decreases with the optical thickness. At large optical depth, the radiance depends upon the aerosol characteristics. It shows little dependence on the solar zenith angle if less than 60°.     

Double diffusive convection in a rotating system

Linear instability theory of double diffusive convection is generalized to a rotating system. For sufficiently large rotation, rotation has a stabilizing effect, and viscosity stabilizes most of oscillatory modes but destabilizes direct modes. The following behavior is found in oscillatory modes in the case of destabilizing temperature distribution and stabilizing solute distribution. With the fixed destabilizing temperature distribution (1) the system is stable when the stabilizing solute gradient is large, (2) it becomes unstable with respect to oscillatory modes when the gradient is less than a certain value. (3) When the gradient is reduced further, the system becomes stable again. This anomalous phenomenon happens only when the Prandtle number is less than unity and larger than the ratio of the diffusivity of solute and that of temperature, under the existence of rotation.     

A DETAILED CHEMICAL STUDY ON THE BARWISE CHONDRITE

Six fragments of the Barwise meteorite were analyzed for REE and eleven other elements (Al, Ca, Mg, Mn, Na, K, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni and Ba). In addition, two fragments were analyzed for Si and Mg. The chondrite-normalized REE patterns of six fragments studied show interesting systematic variations. Three fragments with relatively high La abundances show a negative Ce anomaly. Since the meteorite in question is a find, it could be suspected that the observed REE fractionations are due to terrestrial contamination. To examine this point, a soil sample from the find site was also analyzed for REE and major chemical elements. It is considered that several facts, especially, the relationships between La and SiO₂ and between SiO₂ and MgO, suggest the pre-terrestrial fractionation rather than the terrestrial contamination. Unexpectedly, it is shown that the REE fractionation observed in the investigated fragments correlates with the metal-silicate and the Fe-Co-Ni fractionations. In this connection, large metal grains were investigated for Fe, Co and Ni contents. A suggestion is presented that this chondrite was formed through the melting of the surface of a planetesimal and the subsequent collision, although the possibility of terrestrial contamination might not be ruled out.     

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON BEHAVIORS OF MAJOR AND MINOR LITHOPHILE ELEMENTS IN VAPORIZATION UNDER EVACUATED CONDITION

In order to investigate the volatilities of major and minor lithophile elements, evaporation experiments by electron bombardment were carried out employing basaltic rock powder. The elements studied included Al, Fe, Ca, Mg, Mn, Na, K, Rb, Ba and REE. The source crucible was heated to about 2300 °K, and the vaporized material was collected at different distances from the source. The enrichment factors of studied elements in the material collected on the condensation plate were calculated relative to the starting material. Patterns of REE removed during flights between varying distances were also evaluated.     

An asteroseismic study of the β Cephei star 12 Lacertae: multisite spectroscopic observations, mode identification and seismic modelling

We present the results of a spectroscopic multisite campaign for the β Cephei star 12 (DD) Lacertae. Our study is based on more than thousand high-resolution high S/N spectra gathered with eight different telescopes in a time span of 11 months. In addition, we make use of numerous archival spectroscopic measurements. We confirm 10 independent frequencies recently discovered from photometry, as well as harmonics and combination frequencies. In particular, the slowly pulsating B-stars (SPB)-like g -mode with frequency 0.3428 d⁻¹ reported before is detected in our spectroscopy. We identify the four main modes as  (ℓ₁, m ₁) = (1, 1), (ℓ₂, m ₂) = (0, 0), (ℓ₃, m ₃) = (1, 0)  and  (ℓ₄, m ₄) = (2, 1)  for   f ₁= 5.178 964 d⁻¹, f ₂= 5.334 224 d⁻¹, f ₃= 5.066 316 d⁻¹  and   f ₄= 5.490 133 d⁻¹  , respectively. Our seismic modelling shows that f ₂ is likely the radial first overtone and that the core overshooting parameter  α_ov  is lower than 0.4 local pressure scale heights.     

MOA-cam3: a wide-field mosaic CCD camera for a gravitational microlensing survey in New Zealand

We have developed a wide-field mosaic CCD camera, MOA-cam3, mounted at the prime focus of the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) 1.8-m telescope. The camera consists of ten E2V CCD4482 chips, each having 2k×4k pixels, and covers a 2.2 deg² field of view with a single exposure. The optical system is well optimized to realize uniform image quality over this wide field. The chips are constantly cooled by a cryocooler at ??80° C, at which temperature dark current noise is negligible for a typical 1–3 min exposure. The CCD output charge is converted to a 16-bit digital signal by the GenIII system (Astronomical Research Cameras Inc.) and readout is within 25 s. Readout noise of 2–3 ADU (rms) is also negligible. We prepared a wide-band red filter for an effective microlensing survey and also Bessell V, I filters for standard astronomical studies. Microlensing studies have entered into a new era, which requires more statistics, and more rapid alerts to catch exotic light curves. Our new system is a powerful tool to realize both these requirements.     

A Hard X-ray Two-Ribbon Flare Observed with Yohkoh/HXT

The Yohkoh hard X-ray telescope (HXT) observed hard X-rays from the impulsive phase of a long-duration event (LDE) occurring on 14 July 2000. The Yohkoh soft X-ray telescope (SXT) and other instruments observed a large arcade, with width and length ∼30 000 km and ∼120 000 km, respectively. In hard X-rays, for the first time, a two-ribbon structure was clearly observed in the energy range above 30 keV. This result suggests that electrons are in fact accelerated in the whole system of this arcade, not merely in a particular dominant loop. We analyzed the motions of bright kernels in the two hard X-ray ribbons in detail. Assuming these bright kernels to be footpoints of newly reconnected loops, we infer from their motions that the loops reconnecting early are highly sheared, while the loops reconnecting later are less sheared. We have also analyzed the hard X-ray spectra of the two ribbons independently. At the outer edge of a ribbon, the spectrum tends to be harder than that in the inner edge. This suggests that higher-energy electrons precipitate at the footpoints of outer loops and lower ones do at those of inner loops. We discuss what kind of model can support this tendency.     

Fine structures of mutually normalized rare-earth patterns of chondrites

REE abundances in ten chondrites (nine falls and one find) were determined very accurately by mass-spectrometric stable isotope dilution techniques. All of the chondrites have different relative and absolute REE patterns. Except for Eu and, rarely, for Ce, the REE abundances in chondrites are smoothly fractionated from sample to sample. Notwithstanding differences in the abundances of common REE, four of five L6 chondrites have very similar absolute Eu abundances; their mutually-normalized REE patterns are not curved, but are composed of two rectilinear segments.The Leedey-normalized REE pattern for St. Séverin (LL6) is composed of two concave curves. Yonozu's (H4,5) pattern shows negligibly concave curvature on both sides of Eu. Kesen's (H4) pattern is unusual in its overall pattern but also in irregularities for particular elements. The irregularity may be connected with the unusually high vapor pressure of metallic Yb. The REE pattern for the Allende bulk sample shows a discontinuity, presumably reflecting its considerable heterogeneity of composition and structure. It is evident that any pattern of ordinary chondrites cannot be produced from the Allende bulk pattern. A comparison is also made with the results on the chondrite composites previously investigated.