Topographic change and numerically modelled near surface wind flow in a bowl blowout

A number of studies have measured and numerically modelled near surface wind velocity over a range of aeolian landforms and made suppositions about topographic change and landform evolution. However, the precise measurement and correlation of flow dynamics and resulting topographic change have not yet been fully realized. Here, using repeated high-resolution terrestrial laser scanning and numerical flow modelling within a bowl blowout, we statistically analyse the relationship between wind speed, vertical wind velocity, turbulent kinetic energy and topographic change over a 33-day period. Topographic results showed that erosion and deposition occurred in distinct regions within the blowout. Deposition occurred in the upwind third of the deflation basin, where wind flow became separated and velocity and turbulent kinetic energy decreased, and erosion occurred in the downwind third of the deflation basin, where wind flow reattached and aligned with incident wind direction. Statistical analysis of wind flow and topographic change indicated that wind speed had a strong correlation with overall topographic change and that vertical wind velocity (including both positive and negative) displayed a strong correlation with negative topographic change (erosion). Only weak or very weak correlations exist for wind flow parameters and positive topographic change (accretion). This study demonstrates that wind flow modelling using average incident wind conditions can be utilized successfully to identify regions of overall change and erosion for a complex aeolian landform, but not to identify and predict regions where solely accretion will occur. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Origin and age of metal veins in Canyon Diablo graphite nodules

Previous studies attributed the origin of metal veins penetrating graphite nodules in the Canyon Diablo IAB main group iron meteorite to condensation from vapor or melting of host metal. Abundances of 16 siderophile elements measured in kamacite within vein and host meteorite are most consistent with an origin by melting of the host metal followed by fractional crystallization of the liquid. The presence of the veins within graphite nodules may be explained by impact, as peak shock temperatures, and thus the most likely areas to undergo metal melting are at metal–graphite interfaces. The origin of the veins is constrained by Re‐Os chronometry to have occurred early (>4 Ga) in solar system history.     

H,not O or pressure,causes eutectic T depression in the Fe‐FeS System to 8 GPa

The Fe‐FeS system maintains a eutectic temperature of 990 ± 10 °C to at least 8 GPa if starting materials and pressure media are rigorously dehydrated. Literature reports of pressure‐induced freezing point depression of the eutectic for the Fe‐FeS system are not confirmed. Modest addition of oxygen alone is confirmed to cause negligible freezing point depression at 6 GPa. Addition of H alone causes a progressive decrease in the eutectic temperature with P in the Fe‐FeS‐H system to below 965 °C at 6 GPa to below 950 °C at 8 GPa. It is our hypothesis that moisture contamination in unrigorously dried experiments may be an H source for freezing point depression. O released from H₂O disproportionation reacts with Fe and is sequestered as ferropericlase along the sample capsules walls, leaving the H to escape the system and/or enter the Fe‐FeS mixture. The observed occurrence of ferropericlase on undried MgO capsule margins is otherwise difficult to explain, because an alternate source for the oxygen in the ferropericlase layer is difficult to identify. This study questions the use of pressure‐depressed Fe‐S eutectic temperatures and suggests that the lower eutectic temperatures sometimes reported are achieved by moving into the ternary Fe‐S‐H system. These results adjust slightly the constraints on eutectic temperatures allowed for partly solidified cores on small planets. H substantially diminishes the temperature extent of the melting interval in Fe‐S by reducing the melting points of the crystalline phases more than it depresses the eutectic.     

The Fe-rich liquidus in the Fe-FeS system from 1 bar to 10 GPa

The composition and evolution of a metallic planetary core is determined by the behavior with pressure of the eutectic and the liquidus on the Fe-rich side of the Fe-FeS eutectic. New experiments at 6 GPa presented here, along with existing experimental data, inform a thermodynamic model for this liquidus from 1 bar to at least 10 GPa. Fe-FeS has a eutectic that becomes more Fe-rich but remains constant in T up to 6 GPa. The 1 bar, 3 GPa, and 6 GPa liquidi all cross at a pivot point at 1640 ± 5 K and FeS_37 ± 0.5. This liquid/crystalline metal equilibrium is T-x-fixed and pressure independent through 6 GPa. Models of the 1 bar through 10 GPa experimental liquidi show that with increasing P there is an increase in the T separation between the liquidus and the crest of the metastable two-liquid solvus. The solvus crest decreases in T with increasing P. The model accurately reproduces all the experimental liquidi from 1 bar to 10 GPa, as well as reproducing the 0-6 GPa pivot point. The 14 GPa experimental liquidus ( [Chen et al., 2008a] and Chen et al., 2008b) deviates sharply from the lower pressure trends indicating that the 0-10 GPa model no longer applies to this 14 GPa data.     

Large-volume ultrafiltration for the study of radiocarbon signatures and size vs. age relationships in marine dissolved organic matter

In recent decades, tangential-flow ultrafiltration (UF) technology has become a primary tool for isolating large amounts of “ultrafiltered” marine dissolved organic carbon (UDOC; 0.1 μm to ∼1 nm) for the detailed characterization of DOC chemical composition and radiocarbon (Δ¹⁴C) signatures. However, while total DOC Δ¹⁴C values are generally thought to be quite similar in the world ocean, previous studies have reported widely different Δ¹⁴C values for UDOC, even from very similar ocean regions, raising questions about the relative “reactivity” of high molecular weight (HMW) DOC. Specifically, to what degree do variations in DOM molecular weight (MW) vs. composition alter its relative persistence, and therefore HMW DOC Δ¹⁴C values?In this study we evaluate the effects of varying proportions of HMW vs. low molecular weight (LMW) DOC on UDOC Δ¹⁴C values. Using concentration factor (CF) as a proxy for MW distributions, we modeled the retention of both OC and Δ¹⁴C in several very large CF experiments (CF >3000), from three depths (20, 670, and 915 m) in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG). The resulting DOC and Δ¹⁴C UF permeation coefficients generally increase with depth, consistent with mass balance trends, indicating very significant permeation of LMW, ¹⁴C-depleted DOC at depth, and higher recoveries of Δ¹⁴C-enriched, HMW DOC in the surface. In addition, changes in CF during sample concentration and ionic strength during sample diafiltration had very large and predictable impacts on UDOC Δ¹⁴C values.Together these results suggest that previously reported disparities in UDOC Δ¹⁴C values are reconciled by linked trends of Δ¹⁴C content vs. MW. At low CFs, UDOC samples have similar Δ¹⁴C values to total DOC. In contrast, UDOC samples collected at extremely high CFs (and after diafiltration) have more positive Δ¹⁴C values. We demonstrate that the observed relationships between UDOC Δ¹⁴C and CF derived from our data can directly explain offsets in all previously published UDOC Δ¹⁴C values for the NPSG. While CF is not traditionally considered in UF studies, our results indicate it can substantially influence the interpretation of UDOC ¹⁴C “age”, and thus reactivity, in the marine environment. In addition, our results indicate that CF can in fact be used as a proxy for average MW. We suggest that a variable-CF-UF approach, coupled with molecular-level Δ¹⁴C analyses, presents a new tool for studying relationships between molecular size, age, and “labile” DOC distributions in the ocean.     

Spin-dependent limits from the DRIFT-IId directional dark matter detector

Data are presented from the DRIFT-IId detector operated in the Boulby Underground Science Facility in England. A 0.8 m³ fiducial volume, containing partial pressures of 30 Torr CS₂ and 10 Torr CF₄, was exposed for a duration of 47.4 live-time days with sufficient passive shielding to provide a neutron free environment within the detector. The nuclear recoil events seen are consistent with a remaining low-level background from the decay of radon daughters attached to the central cathode of the detector. However, charge from such events must drift across the entire width of the detector, and thus display large diffusion upon reaching the readout planes of the device. Exploiting this feature, it is shown to be possible to reject energy depositions from these Radon Progeny Recoil events while still retaining sensitivity to fiducial-volume nuclear recoil events. The response of the detector is then interpreted, using the F nuclei content of the gas, in terms of sensitivity to proton spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon interactions, displaying a minimum in sensitivity cross section at 1.8 pb for a WIMP mass of 100 GeV/c². This sensitivity was achieved without compromising the direction sensitivity of DRIFT.     

The first high-precision radial velocity search for extra-solar planets

The reflex motion of a star induced by a planetary companion is too small to detect by photographic astrometry. The apparent discovery in the 1960s of planetary systems around certain nearby stars, in particular Barnard’s star, turned out to be spurious. Conventional stellar radial velocities determined from photographic spectra at that time were also too inaccurate to detect the expected reflex velocity changes. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the introduction of solid-state, signal-generating detectors and absorption cells to impose wavelength fiducials directly on the starlight, reduced radial velocity errors to the point where such a search became feasible. Beginning in 1980, our team from UBC introduced an absorption cell of hydrogen fluoride gas in front of the CFHT coudé spectrograph and, for 12 years, monitored the radial velocities of some 29 solar-type stars. Since it was assumed that extra-solar planets would most likely resemble Jupiter in mass and orbit, we were awarded only three or four two-night observing runs each year. Our survey highlighted three potential planet hosting stars, γ Cep (K1 IV), β Gem (K0 III), and ? Eri (K2 V). The putative planets all resembled Jovian systems with periods and masses of: 2.5 years and 1.4 M_J, 1.6 years and 2.6 M_J, and 6.9 years and 0.9 M_J, respectively. All three were subsequently confirmed from more extensive data by the Texas group led by Cochran and Hatzes who also derived the currently accepted orbital elements.None of these three systems is simple. All five giant stars and the supergiant in our survey proved to be intrinsic velocity variables. When we first drew attention to a possible planetary companion to γ Cep in 1988 it was classified as a giant, and there was the possibility that its radial velocity variations and those of β Gem (K0 III) were intrinsic to the stars. A further complication for γ Cep was the presence of an unseen secondary star in an orbit with a period initially estimated at some 30 years. The implication was that the planetary orbit might not be stable, and a Jovian planet surviving so close to a giant then seemed improbable. Later observations by others showed the stellar binary period was closer to 67 years, the primary was only a sub-giant and a weak, apparently synchronous chromospheric variation disappeared. Chromospheric activity was considered important because κ¹ Cet, one of our program stars, showed a significant correlation of its radial velocity curve with chromospheric activity.? Eri is a young, magnetically active star with spots making it a noisy target for radial velocities. While the signature of a highly elliptical orbit (e = 0.6) has persisted for more than three planetary orbits, some feel that even more extensive coverage is needed to confirm the identification despite an apparent complementary astrometric acceleration detected with the Hubble Space Telescope.We confined our initial analyses of the program stars to looking for circular orbits. In retrospect, it appears that some 10% of our sample did in fact have Jovian planetary companions in orbits with periods of years.