Evaluation of Soil Re-mineralizer from By-Product of Volcanic Rock Mining: Experimental Proof Using Black Oats and Maize Crops

Natural Resources Research - This study was focused on physical, petrographical, mineralogical, and chemical characterization of a volcanic-rock mining by-product (dacite rock), as well as on...     

Probabilistic long-term reservoir operation employing copulas and implicit stochastic optimization

Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment - This paper explores and combines implicit stochastic optimization (ISO) with copula functions to simulate long-term operating policies for a...     

The consequences of Brazil’s lack of transport planning is written in the blood of sparrows

The medium-sized cities of Brazil are those with populations of between 100,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. These cities are growing rapidly, and are characterized by poor urban planning, a loss of biodiversity and decreasing health prospects for residents. Historically, urbanization in Brazil has been associated with incentives to increase the use of private vehicles for local transport. The air pollution resulting from this “car dependency” has been quantified in some major cities in Brazil, such as the megacity of São Paulo. In this paper, we demonstrate through a bioindication study carried out in the Brazilian city of Rondonópolis, that atmospheric pollution resulting from vehicular emissions is also a measurable reality for medium-sized cities. Most Brazilian cities lack air quality measurement equipment, and we used an inexpensive and easy to apply bioindication assay to measure air pollution, and this approach could be easily implemented in those cities and beyond.     

Variations in annual snowline and area of an ice-covered stratovolcano in the Cordillera Ampato,Peru, using remote sensing data (1986–2014)

This research focuses on the recent variations in the annual snowline and the total glaciated area of the Nevado Coropuna in the Cordillera Ampato, Peru. Maximum snowline altitude towards the end of dry season is taken as a representative of the equilibrium line altitude of the year, which is an indirect measurement of the annual mass balance. We used Landsat and IRS LISS3 images during the last 30 years due to its better temporal coverage of the study site. It is found that there was a decrease of 26.92% of the glaciated area during 1986–2014. We calculated the anomalies in precipitation and temperature in this region and also tried to correlate the changes in glacier parameters with the combined influence of El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). It is concluded that the snowline of Nevado Coropuna has been fluctuated during ENSO, and maximum fluctuations were observed when ENSO and PDO were in phase.     

Capability of LISEM to estimate flood hydrographs in a watershed with predominance of long-duration rainfall events

Natural Hazards - Process-based hydrological models are of great importance to understand hydrological processes and support decision making. The LImburg Soil Erosion Model (LISEM) requires...     

Evolutionary and pulsational properties of white dwarf stars

White dwarf stars are the final evolutionary stage of the vast majority of stars, including our Sun. Since the coolest white dwarfs are very old objects, the present population of white dwarfs contains a wealth of information on the evolution of stars from birth to death, and on the star formation rate throughout the history of our Galaxy. Thus, the study of white dwarfs has potential applications in different fields of astrophysics. In particular, white dwarfs can be used as independent reliable cosmic clocks, and can also provide valuable information about the fundamental parameters of a wide variety of stellar populations, such as our Galaxy and open and globular clusters. In addition, the high densities and temperatures characterizing white dwarfs allow these stars to be used as cosmic laboratories for studying physical processes under extreme conditions that cannot be achieved in terrestrial laboratories. Last but not least, since many white dwarf stars undergo pulsational instabilities, the study of their properties constitutes a powerful tool for applications beyond stellar astrophysics. In particular, white dwarfs can be used to constrain fundamental properties of elementary particles such as axions and neutrinos and to study problems related to the variation of fundamental constants. These potential applications of white dwarfs have led to renewed interest in the calculation of very detailed evolutionary and pulsational models for these stars. In this work, we review the essentials of the physics of white dwarf stars. We enumerate the reasons that make these stars excellent chronometers, and we describe why white dwarfs provide tools for a wide variety of applications. Special emphasis is placed on the physical processes that lead to the formation of white dwarfs as well as on the different energy sources and processes responsible for chemical abundance changes that occur along their evolution. Moreover, in the course of their lives, white dwarfs cross different pulsational instability strips. The existence of these instability strips provides astronomers with a unique opportunity to peer into their internal structure that would otherwise remain hidden from observers. We will show that this allows one to measure stellar masses with unprecedented precision and to infer their envelope thicknesses, to probe the core chemical stratification, and to detect rotation rates and magnetic fields. Consequently, in this work, we also review the pulsational properties of white dwarfs and the most recent applications of white dwarf asteroseismology.     

Geochemistry of diffuse low-temperature hydrothermal fluids in the North Fiji basin

Low-temperature (<13°C) diffuse hydrothermal fluids were sampled directly at the seafloor with a specially designed Hydro Bottom Station in the North Fiji Basin and analyzed for gases, major and minor elements, and a large number of trace metals. The fluids were significantly enriched in CO₂, Si, Li, Rb, Cs, Ba, Mn, and several trace metals compared to ambient seawater, had high CH₄ and H₂S concentrations, and had a slightly decreased salinity. Calculated end-member concentrations of the low-temperature fluids show a strong similarity to the neighboring hot vents, implying that the diffuse fluids are hot vent waters diluted by seawater. According to the chemical composition, the sampled fluids derive from vapor-phase fluids produced by subseafloor boiling and phase separation. Compared to hot vents from other regions, Mn, Fe, and other trace metal concentrations are low. Subsurface metal sulfide precipitation during cooling and dilution with seawater has further decreased the dissolved metal contents of the diffuse fluids, thus creating a very favorable environment for the hydrothermal fauna, as indicated by a very low Fe/H₂S ratio. Therefore, the fluids support high bioproductivity but no hydrothermal mineral precipitation. The emanation of the condensed vapor phase appears to have been stable during the past 10 years; however, the occurrence of metal sulfide particles in some fluid and sediment samples and small areas of dead fauna indicate that the hydrothermal system may be evolving toward the emanation of the stored brine phase.