The basement geology of Japan from A to Z

The Precambrian and lower Paleozoic units of the Japanese basement such as the Hida Oki and South Kitakami terranes have geological affinities with the eastern Asia continent and particularly strong correlation with units of the South China block. There are also indications from units such as the Hitachi metamorphics of the Abukuma terrane and blocks in the Maizuru terrane that some material may have been derived from the North China block. In addition to magmatism, the Japanese region has seen substantial growth due to tectonic accretion. The accreted units dominantly consist of mudstone and sandstone derived from the continental margin with lesser amounts of basaltic rocks associated with siliceous deep ocean sediments and local limestone. Two main phases of accretionary activity and related metamorphism are recorded in the Jurassic Mino–Tanba–Ashio, Chichibu, and North Kitakami terranes and in the Cretaceous to Neogene Shimanto and Sanbagawa terranes. Other accreted material includes ophiolitic sequences, e.g. the Yakuno ophiolite of the Maizuru terrane, the Oeyama ophiolite of the Sangun terrane, and the Hayachine–Miyamori ophiolite of the South Kitakami terrane, and limestone‐capped ocean plateaus such as the Akiyoshi terrane. The ophiolitic units are likely derived from arc and back‐arc basin settings. There has been no continental collision in Japan, meaning the oceanic subduction record is more complete than in convergent orogens seen in intracontinental settings making this a good place to study the geological record of accretion. Hokkaido lacks most of the Paleozoic history recognized in Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and the Ryukyu Islands to the south and its geology reflects the Cenozoic development of two convergent domains with volcanic arcs, their approach, and eventual collision. The Hidaka terrane reveals a cross section through a volcanic arc and the main accretionary complex of the convergent system is represented by the Sorachi–Yezo terrane.     

Triplications for the converted wave in transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis

In seismic data processing, serious problems could be caused by the existence of triplication and need to be treated properly for tomography and other inversion methods. The triplication in transversely isotropic medium with a vertical symmetry axis has been well studied and concluded that the triplicated traveltime only occurs for S wave and there is no triplication for P and converted PS waves since the P wave convexity slowness always compensates the S wave slowness concavity. Compared with the vertical symmetry axis model, the research of the triplication in transversely isotropic medium with a tilted symmetry axis is still keeping blank. In order to analyse the triplication for the converted wave in the tilted symmetry axis model, we examine the traveltime of the triplication from the curvature of averaged P and S wave slowness. Three models are defined and tested in the numerical examples to illustrate the behaviour of the tilted symmetry axis model for the triplicated traveltime with the change of the rotation angle. Since the orientation of an interface is related to the orientation of the symmetry axis, the triplicated traveltime is encountered for the converted wave in the tilted symmetry axis model assuming interfaces to be planar and horizontal. The triplicated region is influenced by the place and level of the concave curvature of the P and S wave slowness.     

Effect of bed roughness on turbulent boundary layer and net sediment transport under asymmetric waves

This paper presents an investigation of the roughness effects in the turbulent boundary layer for asymmetric waves by using the baseline (BSL) k–ω model. This model is validated by a set of the experimental data with different wave non-linearity index, N_i (namely, N_i = 0.67, N_i = 0.60 and N_i = 0.58). It is further used to simulate asymmetric wave velocity flows with several values of the roughness parameter (a_m/k_s) which increase gradually, namely from a_m/k_s = 35 to a_m/k_s = 963. The effect of the roughness tends to increase the turbulent kinetic energy and to decrease the mean velocity distribution in the inner boundary layer, whereas in the outer boundary layer, the roughness alters the turbulent kinetic energy and the mean velocity distribution is relatively unaffected. A new simple calculation method of bottom shear stress based on incorporating velocity and acceleration terms is proposed and applied into the calculation of the rate of bed-load transport induced by asymmetric waves. And further, the effect of bed roughness on the bottom shear stress and bed-load sediment transport under asymmetric waves is examined with the turbulent model, the newly proposed method, and the existing calculation method. It is found that the higher roughness elements increase the magnitude of bottom shear stress along a wave cycle and consequently, the potential net sediment transport rate. Moreover, the wave non-linearity also shows a big impact on the bottom shear stress and the net sediment transport.     

Analytical representation of phase characteristics for source time function modeled by stochastic impulse train

In order to discuss the relationship between the lower and higher frequency components of earthquake source spectra, we deal with impulse train model as source time function of earthquake, because spectral characteristics of source time function depend on occurrence times of impulse function which corresponds to small extent on the fault. Then, the spectral characteristics of source time function are obtained analytically and numerically from the stochastic viewpoints: namely, on one hand, the trend of impulse train dominates the frequency characteristics in low frequency range, and on the other hand, the fluctuation from the trend settles high frequency range. Furthermore, it is shown that the spectral properties of source time function can be determined using only two parameters which are number of impulses n and the probability density function of occurrence time of impulses f_T(t).     

The distribution of total and methylmercury concentrations in soils near the Idrija mercury mine, Slovenia, and the dependence of the mercury concentrations on the chemical composition and organic carbon levels of the soil

Although the mining activity of the Idrija mine in Slovenia ceased in 1995, a large amount of mining dregs containing high concentrations of mercury remains in the area. The mining dregs were transported with river flow and deposition along the Idrija River. To estimate the dispersion and change in the chemical form of mercury, a total of 28 soil core samples were taken around the river. The individual core samples were separated into layers for the analysis of their chemical composition, carbon contents, total mercury (T-Hg) and methylmercury (MeHg) concentrations. The chemical composition measured by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry was useful to estimate the dispersion of tailings: the fluvial terrace soil had a chemical composition similar to that of the tailings and could be distinguished clearly from the forest soil. The highest T-Hg concentration, 1,100 mg kg⁻¹, was observed in the fluvial terrace soil near the mine. Although the concentration decreased gradually along with distance from the mine, concentrations higher than 200 mg kg⁻¹ of T-Hg were still observed in the fluvial terrace soil approximately 20 km downstream from the mine. In the vertical distribution of T-Hg in the hillslope soil, a higher value was observed in the upper layers, which suggests the recent atmospheric deposition of mercury. The concentration of MeHg was the lowest at the riverside and higher in the hillslope soil, which was the opposite of the T-Hg distribution. The total organic carbon content tracked similarly with the distribution of MeHg and a linear relation with a significantly high correlation coefficient was obtained. The distinction may be related to the different dispersion process of mercury, and the organic carbon contents may be an important factor for MeHg formation.     

Potential of submarine-cave sediments and oxygen isotope composition of cavernicolous micro-bivalve as a late Holocene paleoenvironmental record

A sediment layer (43 cm thick) and surface sediments (5 cm thick) in a submarine limestone cave (31 m water depth) on the fore-reef slope of Ie Island, off Okinawa mainland, Japan, were examined by visual, mineralogical and geochemical means. Oxygen isotope analysis was performed on the cavernicolous micro-bivalve Carditella iejimensis from both cored sediments and surface sediments, and the water temperature within the cave was recorded for nearly one year. These data show that: (1) water temperature within the cave is equal to that at 30 m deep in the open sea; (2) the biotic and non-biotic environments within the cave have persisted for the past 2000 years; (3) mud-size carbonate detritus is a major constituent of the submarine-cave deposit, and may have come mainly from the suspended carbonate mud produced on the emergent Holocene reef flat over the past two millennia; (4) the δ¹⁸O-derived temperature (T_δ18_O) of C. iejimensis suggests that the species grows between April and July; (5) the T_δ18_O of C. iejimensis from cored sediments implies that there were two warmer intervals, at AD 340 ± 40 and AD 1000 ± 40, which correspond to the Roman Warm Period and Medieval Warm Period, respectively. These suggest that submarine-cave sediments provide unique information for Holocene reef development. In addition, oxygen isotope records of cavernicolous C. iejimensis are a useful tool to reconstruct century-scale climatic variability for the Okinawa Islands during the Holocene.     

Shock-wave heating model for chondrule formation: Hydrodynamic simulation of molten droplets exposed to gas flows

Millimeter-sized, spherical silicate grains abundant in chondritic meteorites, which are called as chondrules, are considered to be a strong evidence of the melting event of the dust particles in the protoplanetary disk. One of the most plausible scenarios is that the chondrule precursor dust particles are heated and melt in the high-velocity gas flow (shock-wave heating model). We developed the non-linear, time-dependent, and three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation code for analyzing the dynamics of molten droplets exposed to the gas flow. We confirmed that our simulation results showed a good agreement in a linear regime with the linear solution analytically derived by Sekyia et al. [Sekyia, M., Uesugi, M., Nakamoto, T., 2003. Prog. Theor. Phys. 109, 717-728]. We found that the non-linear terms in the hydrodynamical equations neglected by Sekiya et al. [Sekiya, M., Uesugi, M., Nakamoto, T., 2003. Prog. Theor. Phys. 109, 717-728] can cause the cavitation by producing negative pressure in the droplets. We discussed that the fragmentation through the cavitation is a new mechanism to determine the upper limit of chondrule sizes. We also succeeded to reproduce the fragmentation of droplets when the gas ram pressure is stronger than the effect of the surface tension. Finally, we compared the deformation of droplets in the shock-wave heating with the measured data of chondrules and suggested the importance of other effects to deform droplets, for example, the rotation of droplets. We believe that our new code is a very powerful tool to investigate the hydrodynamics of molten droplets in the framework of the shock-wave heating model and has many potentials to be applied to various problems.     

Wind-Tunnel Experiment on Logarithmic-Layer Turbulence under the Influence of Overlying Detached Eddies

A wind-tunnel experiment was carried out to test a hypothesis that the turbulence characteristics in the near-neutral surface layer are largely determined by detached eddies from above. The surrogate detached eddies were generated by using an active turbulence grid installed at the front of the test section and the parameters of the grid were chosen such that the fully developed logarithmic layer downstream consists of a turbulent flow that has similar normalized intensity to that typically observed in the near-neutral atmospheric surface layer. The effects of the detached eddies on turbulence characteristics were investigated by comparison with a second experiment without detached eddies. The influence of the detached eddies on the logarithmic layer was mostly on the coherent structures; the logarithmic layer with the detached eddies revealed a multi-layer structure similar to that found in the atmosphere where the lower part of the surface layer is dominated by sweep-like events and the upper part by ejection-like events. Our experiments show that the mean velocity gradient and the Reynolds shear stress were, however, not affected significantly by the detached eddies and hence the eddy viscosity.     

Similarity solution for the interaction of the stellar wind with surrounding interstellar medium

Similarity solution for the interaction of stellar wind with surrounding interstellar medium is obtained on the base of momentum conservation. The conversion efficiency of kinetic energy of stellar wind into the kinetic energy of expanding shell is derived. The results are compared with the observations on the ring nebulae associated with the Wolf-Rayet star and it is shown that the observed values of energy conversion are in good agreement with the momentum conserving model.     

Empirical formula to relate the auroral electrojet intensity with interplanetary parameters

An empirical formula has been constructed using the results of correlative analyses to determine in what form the AL index, as a measure of the intensity of the westward auroral electrojet, depends on interplanetary parameters. The formula thus obtained shows that AL is mainly determined by B_sV² where B_s is the southward component of the IMF and V is the solar wind velocity, and is modulated in a characteristic way by the combined effect of the east-west component of the IMF and the tilt angle of the Earth's dipole axis toward the Sun-Earth line. In contrast, effects of the solar wind density and the IMF variability were found to be insignificant.Implications of the empirical formula are discussed mainly in relation to the problem of the location in the dayside magnetosphere of the region where the reconnection process to initiate the substorm takes place.