Monitoring selective availability dither frequencies and their effect on GPS data

Summary The signals transmitted by Block II satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) can be degraded to limit the highest accuracy of the system (10 m or better point positioning) to authorized users. This mode of degraded operation is called Selective Availability (S/A). S/A involves the degradation in the quality of broadcast orbits and satellite clock dithering. We monitored the dithered satellite oscillator and investigated the effect of this clock dithering on high accuracy relative positioning. The effect was studied over short 3-meter and zero-baselines with two GPS receivers. The equivalent S/A effects for baselines ranging from 0 to >10,000 km can be examined with short test baselines if the receiver clocks are deliberately mis-synchronized by a known and varying amount. Our results show that the maximum effect of satellite clock dithering on GPS double difference phase residuals grows as a function of the clock synchronization error according to: S/A _effect =0.04 cm/msec, and it increases as a function of baseline length like: S/A _effect =0.014 cm/100 km. These are equations for maximum observed values of post-fit residuals due to S/A. The effect on GPS baselines is likely to be smaller than the 0.14 mm for a baseline separation of 100 km. We therefore conclude, for our limited data set, and for the level of S/A during our tests, that S/A clock dithering has negligible effect on all terrestrial GPS baselines if double difference processing techniques are employed and if the GPS receivers remain synchronized to better than 10 msec. S/A may constitute a problem, however, if accurate point processing is required, or if GPS receivers are not synchronized. We suggest and test two different methods to monitor satellite frequency offsets due to S/A. S/A modulates GPS carrier frequencies in the range of-2 Hz to +2 Hz over time periods of several minutes. The methods used in this paper to measure the satellite clock dither could be applied by the civilian GPS community to continuously monitor S/A clock dithering. The monitored frequencies may aid high accuracy point positioning applications in a postprocessing mode (Malys and Ortiz 1989), and differential GPS with poorly synchronized receivers (Feigl et al. 1991).     

Eutrephoceras subplicatum (Steinmann, 1895) is a junior synonym of Eutrephoceras dorbignyanum (Forbes in Darwin, 1846) (Cephalopoda, Nautiloidea) from the Maastrichtian Quiriquina Formation of Chile

Nautilus subplicatusSteinmann, 1895 is a latest Cretaceous species of nautiloid which is common in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and the Antarctic Peninsula and which is best assigned to the genus EutrephocerasHyatt, 1894. Nautilus dorbignyanusForbes in Darwin, 1846 and Nautilus valenciennii Hupé in Gay, 1854 are here considered to be senior synonyms which later authors have apparently overlooked. The type material of these two taxa is reillustrated. On the basis of this and additional material it is demonstrated that only a single nautiloid species occurs in the Quiriquina Formation of late Maastrichtian age. For this we propose to use N. dorbignyanus as the oldest available name.     

Post-breakup basaltic magmatism along the East Greenland Tertiary rifted margin

Mafic and ultramafic intrusions in East Greenland adjacent to the offshore Greenland–Iceland ridge were emplaced 5–9 My after continental breakup at 55 Ma [1]. Rare earth element (REE) concentrations determined by secondary ion mass spectrometry are reported for cumulus clinopyroxene from these intrusions, and the data are used to estimate REE abundance in equilibrium melts using available partitioning data. Estimated equilibrium melts from intrusions have strongly fractionated REE patterns with Nd/Dy(N) in the range 2 to 5.6 and Yb/Dy(N) 0.55 to 0.92, similar to values for coeval basalts. These melts have markedly higher Nd/Dy(N) than earlier breakup related flood basalts. The moderately low Yb/Dy(N) for the post-breakup volcanism is indicative of residual garnet in the source, while their high Nd/Dy(N) ratios can best be explained by aggregating low degree melts from a light-REE-enriched garnet- and spinel-bearing mantle source. We also report He, Sr, and Nd isotopic data for the intrusions. The highest ³He/⁴He ratios (>10 R/R_a) are found in the samples whose REE data reflect the largest proportion of melts from a garnet-bearing source, and having Sr and Nd isotopic compositions identical with the radiogenic Sr and unradiogenic Nd isotope end of the Iceland compositional field. There is no indication of a MORB-type mantle in the source of the intrusions. We postulate that post-breakup volcanism along the East Greenland coastline reflects the increasing proximity of the mantle plume to the East Greenland continental margin. The low degree of melting at high mean pressure inferred for the parental melts for the intrusions may reflect re-thickening of the lithosphere, which in turn was caused by the vigorous volcanism during breakup, with accompanying depletion of upper mantle and underplating of the crust at the continental margin.     

Living with limits: growth,resources, and climate change

Is it possible for all of humanity to enjoy the standards of living of today's high-income countries? What would happen if these limits were reached, perhaps because of climate change or a shortage of natural resources essential to production? How would society manage – or fail to manage – such limits? Notwithstanding the current financial and economic crises, these are perhaps the biggest questions confronting our species (and of a host of other species, who are the victims of our decisions). The article begins by considering the biggest economic event of our lifetimes – the ‘great convergence’ and its implications for the demand for resources. The discussion then turns to a specific limit on our development, climate change, which is different from most other limits, because it involves a global public good: the atmosphere. What such limits might mean for our civilization is discussed. One can persuade people to tackle climate change only if those concerned with the dangers persuade ordinary people that action will not come at the expense of their prosperity.     

Enter the working forest: Discourse analysis in the Northern Forest

In 1988, four states in the northeastern USA commissioned a study to address land use changes in the Northern Forest, 26 million acres of temperate and boreal forest extending from Maine to eastern New York State. Against a backdrop of economic destabilization and concerns regarding social and ecological implications of a real estate boom, the sustained deliberative dialogue catalyzed by this study has come to rely heavily on the ambiguous concept of “working forest.” To clarify political and environmental dynamics in the region, we analyzed how people respond to and seek to capitalize on the interpretive flexibility of the term working forest. We combine an analysis of socio-political discourses of working forest based on a structured literature review with an assessment of local peoples’ definitions of working forest based on a survey conducted in a pair of contrasting New York State communities. The first study site represents an amenity-oriented community (i.e. a place where the forest supports a service economy including recreation and tourism) and the other study site represents a timber-dependent community. By linking data from community-level analysis to data derived from a general analysis of forest politics, we seek to develop a more robust perspective. By comparing discourses across differently structured communities, we investigate how local forest politics are mediated by local economic development processes. Our study empirically illustrates contested and geographically uneven processes of social construction of environment and rural development in a region confronting pressures of globalization. Results indicate that timber harvesting is a heavily privileged management objective, as a logic of ‘the forest that pays is the forest that stays’ dominates. Environmental politics in the region, and perhaps more generally, increasingly conforms to a form of pragmatism in which economic opportunities structure conservation planning and investment.