Sediment and carbon storages in the Yahagi River Delta during the Holocene,central Japan

We estimated stored sediment and carbon during the Holocene for each layer of the Yahagi River Delta, central Japan and discussed the provenance of stored carbon. To estimate the bulk density and the carbon content of each layer, we collected two 30 m deep undisturbed cores. The volume of each layer was calculated using ArcView 3D analyst. Although the volume ratio of each layer to the total volume was calculated to be 9.5% for the top mud layer, 34.9% for the upper sand layer, 32.8% for the middle mud layer and 22.9% for the lower sand layer, the mass ratio of each layer to the total mass was calculated to be 8.5, 40.9, 25.2 and 25.4%, respectively, and the stored carbon ratio in each layer to the total stored carbon was 20.4, 4.7, 55.9 and 18.9%, respectively. These results suggest that the top mud and middle mud layers have a significant role as a place for carbon sequestration during postglacial time. Total stored carbon in the study area of only 92.1 km² was estimated at 26 Tg C, which is equivalent to 0.003% of atmospheric carbon. This suggests that deltas on the globe have accumulated a massive amount of carbon during the evolution. The inorganic carbon ratio to total carbon reached more than 45% around the boundary between the middle mud and lower sand layers. The increasing trend in the C_org/N_total ratio accompanied with a decrease in δ¹³C from the bottom to the top horizon in the middle mud layer indicates a gradual increase in terrestrial organic matter contribution. The relative proportion of terrestrially derived materials decreases with increasing distance seaward.     

The Solar Optical Telescope of Solar-B (Hinode): The Optical Telescope Assembly

The Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) aboard the Solar-B satellite (Hinode) is designed to perform high-precision photometric and polarimetric observations of the Sun in visible light spectra (388 – 668 nm) with a spatial resolution of 0.2 – 0.3 arcsec. The SOT consists of two optically separable components: the Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA), consisting of a 50-cm aperture Gregorian with a collimating lens unit and an active tip-tilt mirror, and an accompanying Focal Plane Package (FPP), housing two filtergraphs and a spectro-polarimeter. The optomechanical and optothermal performance of the OTA is crucial to attain unprecedented high-quality solar observations. We describe in detail the instrument design and expected stable diffraction-limited on-orbit performance of the OTA, the largest state-of-the-art solar telescope yet flown in space.     

Characteristics and formation of rain forest soils derived from late Quaternary basaltic rocks in Leyte,Philippines

This study was conducted to evaluate the physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics of rain forest soils derived from late Quaternary basaltic rocks in Leyte, Philippines. Four sites along a catena were selected at an elevation of 75–112 m above sea level with an average annual rainfall of 3,000 mm and an average temperature of 28°C. Results indicate that the soils are deep, clayey, and reddish in color, which is indicative of the advanced stage of soil development. They also posses excellent physical condition (friable and highly porous) although they are plastic and sticky when wet as is usual for clayey soils. In terms of chemical characteristics, the soils are acidic with low CEC values and generally low in organic matter and nutrient contents. The clay mineralogy of the soils is dominated by halloysite and kaolinite with minor amounts of goethite and hematite, and they also have generally high dithionite-extractable Fe contents confirming the advanced stage of their development. The soils in the more stable slope positions (PL-1, PL-2, and PL-4) have generally similar characteristics and appeared more developed than the one in the less stable position (PL-3). The most important pedogenic processes that formed the soils appear to be weathering, loss of bases and acidification, desilification, ferrugination, clay formation and translocation, and structure formation. The nature of the parent rock and climatic conditions prevailing in the area as well as slope position appear to have dominant effects on the development of the soils.     

Automatic extraction of lineament information from satellite images using digital elevation data

Using conventional visual interpretation in lineament analysis presents two main problems. The first is subjectivity, introduced because of the bias of various interpreters. The second problem is that lineaments detected from satellite images are constrained by the direction of the illumination source. Since lineament identification mainly involves recognition of diagnostic morphological features, the use of digital elevation can contribute significant information about these features. Further, in generating images using digital elevation data, the direction of illumination can easily be controlled. Thus, the use of digital elevation data offers the possibility of revealing features not apparent in regular satellite images.We discuss a sequential line detection method for extraction of linear features from digital elevation data. In this method, raw elevation data is used for generating shaded relief images using the Lambertian reflection model, wherein the illumination direction is controlled by the user. The Directional Segment Detection Algorithm (DSDA) is used for detecting linear topographic features in user-defined trends. Locational information about these linear features is stored in the computer as coordinate pairs amenable to editing and subsequent analysis. Finally, three-dimensional terrain models are generated by combining the digital elevation data and satellite images. The experiments were carried out using digital elevation data of southwest Japan and Landsat MSS data.     

New discoveries in dynamics of an M8 earthquake-phenomena and their implications from the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake using a long term monitoring cabled observatory

At the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake of M8, seafloor phenomena such as a generation process of tsunami, seafloor uplifts, turbidity current, etc., were observed using a cabled observatory installed on the seafloor. The turbidity current was observed as a benthic storm caused presumably by the mainshock. The seafloor uplifts were observed at the mainshock and continuously after the mainshock. The uplifts were 0.35, 0.37, and 0.12 m for epicentral distances of 25.5, 31.4, and 81.7 km, respectively. After the mainshock, a continuous uplift of the seafloor is observed at all three pressure gauge locations indicating that there was a change in the state of friction on the plate boundary interface by the mainshock. In this paper, we first show what was observed using the cabled observatory installed right above the focal area of the earthquake, and then we discuss to summarize these phenomena associated with the earthquake, its possible causes, and future directions in long term monitoring of seismogenic processes.     

Titanochondrodite and titanoclinohumite derived from the upper mantle in the Buell Park Kimberlite,Arizona, USA

Kimberlite from Buell Park, Arizona, which was intruded into Permian sediments about 30 m.y. ago, is characterized by the hydrous silicates titanochondrodite and titanoclinohumite. Titanochondrodite is the first finding in kimberlites. Optical properties, chemical compositions and cell dimensions of these two minerals are determined.Titanochondrodite and titanoclinohumite are considered to crystallize from kimberlite magma at a depth of about 100 km and at 1,000° C, on the basis of kimberlite mineralogy, petrography and high pressure experimental work. Although there is no direct evidence, the importance of these two minerals in peridotite wedges above sinking lithosphere at the continental margins is also discussed.     

Spectroscopic properties of Cr-doped melilite crystals

 Four kinds of Cr-droped melilite crystals, Ca₂MgSi₂O₇ (akermanite), CaAl₂SiO₇ (gehlenite), CaGa₂SiO₇ (Ga-gehlenite) and CaGa₂GeO₇ (GaGe-gehlenite), with different sizes of the sites for Cr ions to substitute, were grown in series, using both the CZ and FZ techniques. Although Cr⁴⁺ is regarded as a major species in melilites, the existence of Cr⁶⁺ in gehlenite is also suggested from the change in absorption spectra by annealing, and the dependence of distribution coefficient of Cr ions on growth atmosphere. Spectral peak shifts are not obvious if the host crystal field is altered in melilites, because the local environment of the sites for Cr ion is possibly changed by reforming the packing features of the host lattice. Received February 7, 1996 / Revised, accepted September 20, 1996     

Plastic deformation of garnets: systematics and implications for the rheology of the mantle transition zone

Plastic properties of materials with garnet structure have been studied under wide temperature conditions, ranging from room temperature to 95% of the melting temperatures, using uniaxial compression and hot microhardness tests. Garnets studied include single crystals of oxide garnets (Y₃Al₅O₁₂, Gd₃Ga₅O₁₂ and Y₃Fe₅O₁₂) and silicate garnets (various solid solutions, including grossular, almandine, andradite, pyrope, spessartine and uvarovite). Both uniaxial compression and hot hardness tests indicate that there is a general trend in the plasticity of garnets when the data are compared at normalized conditions (T/T_m andσ/μ), and that the resistance to plastic deformation in garnets is significantly higher than most of the other minerals in the Earth's mantle. Based on both stress-dip tests and microstructural observations, it is proposed that the creep strength of garnet is largely controlled by the resistance to dislocation glide rather than by recovery processes. This conclusion is consistent with the high Peierls stress inferred from the hot hardness tests. The high Peierls stress in garnets is, presumably, due to the large unit cell (i.e., long Burgers vectors) and/or the bcc packing, which are common to all garnets. We postulate, therefore, that the present results can be applied to the strength of high-pressure garnet (majorite) and suggest that garnet-rich layers in the Earth, such as subducted oceanic crust in the transition zone or a possibly garnet-rich (bottom part of the) transition zone, will be considerably stronger than surrounding regions.