Xixth International Congress of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

The XIXth International Congress of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing was held at the Amsterdam RAI International Exhibition and Congress Centre, the Netherlands, from 16th to 23rd July 2000. Reports are given on the Congress as a whole, including the General Assembly, some Technical Commission activities and the Congress Exhibition. Papers from the Congress are published in the International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 33.     

The early history of oxygen and ozone in the atmosphere

There may have been three stages in the growth of oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere. Prior to the origin of photosynthesis the only source of oxygen was photolysis of water vapor followed by escape of hydrogen to space. The rate of this process was probably less than the rate of release of reduced gases (principally hydrogen) from volcanoes, so the oxygen partial pressure was held to negligibly low values by photochemical reactions with an excess of hydrogen. The photosynthetic source of oxygen was probably in operation as long ago as 3.8 billion years. It released oxygen to the ocean. Presumably most of this oxygen was destroyed in the ocean as long as its rate of supply was less than the rate of supply of readily oxidizable material (principally Fe²⁺) provided by the weathering of rocks. This phase appears to have lasted until about 2 billion years ago, during which period most banded iron formations were deposited. During this period the production of oxygen by algae was limited by competition with photosynthetic bacteria, which preempted the supply of nutrient phosphorus as long as reduced chemicals were available in the environment. Once the photosynthetic oxygen source exceeded the rate of supply of reduced minerals exposed by erosion and weathering, the accumulation of oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere could be controlled only by reaction of oxygen with reduced organic material. This is the stabilization mechanism that operates today. It seems unlikely that oxygen could be consumed at a significant rate by this process until oxygen levels sufficiently high to support respiration had been achieved. I therefore suggest that atmospheric oxygen rose rapidly from essentially zero to approximately its present value (within a factor of 10) when the photosynthetic source of oxygen rose above the weathering source of reduced minerals, probably about 2 billion years ago. The ozone layer and the ultraviolet screen were absent prior to this time and essentially fully developed after this time.Presented at IAGA/IAMAP Symposium on Minor Neutral Constituents in Middle Atmosphere-Chemistry and Transport, Seattle, August, 1977.     

Characteristics of two phreatoplinian ashes, and their water-flushed origin

The whole-deposit grain-size populations have been determined for two phreatoplinian ashes of the rhyolitic Taupo volcano (New Zealand). One is much finer than plinian pumice deposits studied from the same volcano, and the other differs in having a lower content of coarse pumice. The poor sorting of the two ashes is attributed mainly to water-scavenging of the ash cloud. The very limited fractionation with distance from source, combined with the very regular exponential thickness decrease, indicates that the scavenging water was an integral part of the ash cloud and was derived from Lake Taupo. At times when the proportion of erupted water to magma became particularly high, erosion of the underlying deposits took place, and to this is attributed the striking gullying of the surface which separates the two ashes.     

Plinian eruptions and their products

Plinian eruptions are amongst the most powerful of explosive volcanic events, and the extensive pumice deposits which they produce have an exceptionally wide dispersal because of the great eruptive plume height. Historical data on 12 plinian eruptions, and available quantitative data on the deposits of these and 37 other plinian eruptions are collated in this review to characterise further the plinian eruptive style and its products and to establish the known limits of their variation. The deposit volumes have been recomputed according to a standard procedure to provide a better basis for comparison, and they vary over 4 orders of magnitude to reach a maximum of about 100 km³. Almost all volcanic magma compositions apart from the most mafic are represented among the juvenile products; rhyolitic and dacitic deposits account for 80% of the total volume and basaltic ones less than 1%. Compositional zoning is very common. Plinian eruptions are of open vent type and produce deposits which tend to be homogeneous in grain size and constitution through their thickness. Considerable departures from homogeneity often however exist. Finer grained beds which often interrupt the continuity can be produced by a number of different mechanisms, the features of which are summarised. In a significant proportion of plinian deposits the finer beds are the deposits of intraplinian pyroclastic flows, or are related to such flows; pyroclastic flows such as may be attributable to column collapse thus do not form exclusively at the end of the plinian phase. The most recent work indicates that major phreatoplinian eruptions dominated by the copious inflow of water into the vent can produce deposits quite as widely dispersed and as voluminous as the biggest plinian eruptions, and it appears that the characteristics of the grain size populations of the two types tend to converge in the most powerful eruptions.     

The significance of vitric-enriched air-fall ashes associated with crystal-enriched ignimbrites

A distinctive type of fine-grained air-fall ash is found intimately associated with many ignimbrites. They have crystal/glass ratios systematically lower than artificially crushed pumice from the same ignimbrites. The crystal enrichment found in crystal-bearing ignimbrites indicates substantial losses of the vitric component, amounting to an average of at least 35% by weight of the original juvenile material, and this lost material is believed to occur in the ash-fall deposits. These ashes thus complement ignimbrite, and are here called “co-ignimbrite ashes”. The loss is believed to take place during ignimbrite eruptions as a result of: (1) the escape of fine ash and gas above a collapsing eruptive column; (2) the preferential entry of fine vitric ash into an upper turbulent cloud when (immediately following column collapse) the segregation of a dense pyroclastic flow from an initially highly turbulent, low-concentation density flow takes place; (3) the elutriation of fine vitric ash (generated in part within the pyroclastic flow) from the fluidised flow. Ash from all three mechanisms would be expected to rise to a great height in convective plumes and be dispersed by winds to produce extensive, vitric-enriched ash-fall deposits.The data indicate that the co-ignimbrite ashes must have volumes comparable with those of ignimbrites, and examples are given of particularly large ash-fall deposits (including some found in deep-sea cores) associated with large ignimbrites which may be of this type rather than fall-out from a preceding plinian phase as hitherto thought.     

Abyssal tholeiites from the Oceanographer Fracture Zone

Fresh basalts from the Oceanographer Fracture Zone are petrographically and chemically similar to typical abyssal tholeiites, but are somewhat enriched in large ion lithophile elements, with consistent differences among separate dredge hauls. Olivine compositions are in equilibrium with host basalt for reasonable K _D values, but some plagioclases are anomalously calcic (e.g., a rock highly differentiated in Mg/Mg+Fe bears some plagioclase of An₈₆). Ti/Al in clinopyroxene is approximately constant at 1/6, but Ti+Al abundance decreases in the sequence basalt groundmass cpx, basalt phenocryst+microphenocryst cpx, gabbro cpx (samples from adjacent dredges), an effect that may be related to decrease in cooling rate. Least-squares calculations indicate that 45% of magma with the composition of the more primitive sample must be removed as plagioclase, clinopyroxene and olivine (in the ratio 4.42.71, respectively) to obtain the composition of the more differentiated sample. Both samples have excess plagioclase on the liquidus, however, which should not be the case for the differentiated composition if it is produced by fractionation of all three phases. The excess of plagioclase and the anomalous plagioclase compositions indicate that the samples cannot be related solely by fractional crystallization. Additional processes such as magma mixing or plagioclase accumulation (or both) must have effected these differences.     

Fossil track and thermoluminescence studies of Luna 20 material

Track densities in 85 feldspar crystals from L-2009 range from 2.5 × 10⁶/cm² to > 10⁹/cm². This track distribution represents an intermediate case between what have been previously defined as lightly and heavily irradiated soils and suggests that the Luna 20 sample consists of a mixture of a mature, heavily irradiated component with another, lightly irradiated component. Using a two component mixing model, the age of the lightly irradiated component is ~270 × 10⁶ yr. It is possible, but by no means certain, that this is associated with the formation of the crater Apollonius C. At ~200°C the ratio of natural TL to that induced by a standard irradiation is similar to that in Apollo 12 and 14 cores below ~7 cm. This confirms that most of the Luna 20 sample represents sub-surface material.     

Crystal concentration in ignimbrites

A comparison of the crystal contents of selected sieve grades from 9 ignimbrites, with the yield of crystals from crushed pumice, shows that on average a tenfold concentration of crystals has taken place in the ignimbrites. This is explained by the selective loss of pumice by an amount equal to at least the present bulk of the samples studied. The pumice is thought to have been lost above the vent or the moving pyroclastic flow, though there is a possibility, yet untested, that it may be contained in the distil part of the ignimbrites.This paper also further characterises the relatively well-sorted basal layer, and the pipes (interpreted as due to primary fumaroles) which cut some ignimbrites. Basal layer and pipes show an even greater concentration of crystals than the body of the ignimbrites.One corollary of this study is that doubt is placed on the value of making chemical analyses of ignimbrites, the composition of which is likely to depart appreciably from that of the eruptive magma.     

Geopotential coefficients of order 29, from analysis of the orbit of satellite 1967-104B

The orbit of the satellite 1967-104B has been analysed as it passed through 29:2 resonance with the Earth's gravitational field between January 1977 and September 1978. From the changes in inclination and eccentricity the following lumped 29th-order geopotential harmonic coefficients were obtained: $\text{10}{}^9\text{C}\text{?}{}_{29}{}^{0.2}\text{= 4.1 ± 0.8}$, $\text{10}{}^9\text{S}\text{?}{}_{29}{}^{0.2}\text{= 10.3 ± 2.4}$, $\text{10}{}^9\text{C}\text{?}{}_{29}{}^{1.1}\text{= ? 160 ± 19}$, $\text{10}{}^9\text{S}\text{?}{}_{29}{}^{1.1}\text{= 79 ± 10}$, $\text{10}{}^9\text{C}\text{?}{}_{29}{}^{\mathrm{?1.3}}\text{= 38 ± 14}$, $\text{10}{}^9\text{S}\text{?}{}_{29}{}^{\mathrm{?1.3}}\text{= 19 ± 5}$. These values have been compared with existing comprehensive geopotential models: the best agreement is with the model of Rapp (1981).