Systematics of crack controlled mechanical properties for a suite of Conway granites from the White Mountains, New Hampshire

The Conway granite of New Hampshire is a highly radioactive intrusive into which a 1-km deep borehole was drilled and continuously cored. The formation is composed of two major granitic units, the Osceola and the Conway; and it is cut by three lamprophyre dikes. The suite of rocks used in this paper contained eight granitic and two lamprophyre samples on which acoustic and strain measurements were performed over the pressure range of 1 atm. to 0.4 GPa. The V_p data were subjected to cluster analyses to determine what, if any, similarities in pressure-dependence existed among the samples. Three distinct similarity groupings were found: the lamprophyre dike rocks and two groups each of which contains samples from both granitic units. These groupings by V_p behavior were also found to correlate exactly with sample similarity groupings formed by dynamic and static moduli data, crack spectra, and rock texture. Such sample similarities in the functional forms of the pressure-dependence were found not to correlate with mineral modes nor with original in situ depth, but rather with grain size and the degree to which the mineral phases were homogeneously mixed. A consideration of the results suggests that for these rocks, grain size and mineral phase homogeneity exerted a dominant influence on crack population formation. Further, it appears that the exhumation and coring of these samples may have intensified the amount of cracking over that in situ but it did not necessarily introduce any individual distinct crack populations.     

Photometric and Thermal Cross-calibration of Solar EUV Instruments

We present an assessment of the accuracy of the calibration measurements and atomic physics models that go into calculating the SDO/AIA response as a function of wavelength and temperature. The wavelength response is tested by convolving SDO/EVE and Hinode/EIS spectral data with the AIA effective area functions and by comparing the predictions with AIA observations. For most channels, the AIA intensities summed over the disk agree with the corresponding measurements derived from the current version (V2) of the EVE data to within the estimated 25 % calibration error. This agreement indicates that the AIA effective areas are generally stable in time. The AIA 304 Å channel, however, does show degradation by a factor of almost 3 from May 2010 through September 2011, when the throughput apparently reached a minimum. We also found some inconsistencies in the 335 Å passband, possibly due to higher-order contamination of the EVE data. The intensities in the AIA 193 Å channel agree to within the uncertainties with the corresponding measurements from EIS full CCD observations. Analysis of high-resolution X-ray spectra of the solar-like corona of Procyon and of EVE spectra allowed us to investigate the accuracy and completeness of the CHIANTI database in the AIA shorter wavelength passbands. We found that in the 94 Å channel, the spectral model significantly underestimates the plasma emission owing to a multitude of missing lines. We derived an empirical correction for the AIA temperature responses by performing differential emission measure (DEM) inversion on a broad set of EVE spectra and adjusting the AIA response functions so that the count rates predicted by the full-disk DEMs match the observations.     

The response of playa and sabkha hydraulics and mineralogy to climate forcing

Dry playa lakes and sabkhat often represent the terminus of large ground water flow systems and act as integrators of both upgradient (recharge) and downgradient discharge (evaporation). Ground water levels beneath playa/sabkha systems show a variety of surprising responses driven by large evaporation demands and chemical processes not typically encountered in more humid regions. When the water table is very close to the land surface, almost instantaneous rises can be observed with little observed change in either upgradient ground water recharge or potential evaporation. Conversely, when water tables are several meters below the playa surface, water table responses to interannual variability of recharge can be damped and lag significantly behind such changes. This review of the dynamics of shallow water tables in playa lakes and sabkhat discusses the pertinent hydraulic and solute processes and extracts a simple but comprehensive model based on soil physics for predicting the water table response to either upstream recharge changes or changes in potential evaporation at the playa/sabkha. Solutes and associated authigenic minerals are also shown to be important in discriminating both the causes and effects of water level fluctuations.     

A comparison of a GCM response to historical anthropogenic land cover change and model sensitivity to uncertainty in present-day land cover representations

This study assesses the sensitivity of the fully coupled NCAR-DOE PCM to three different representations of present-day land cover, based on IPCC SRES land cover information. We conclude that there is significant model sensitivity to current land cover characterization, with an observed average global temperature range of 0.21 K between the simulations. Much larger contrasts (up to 5 K) are found on the regional scale; however, these changes are largely offsetting on the global scale. These results show that significant biases can be introduced when outside data sources are used to conduct anthropogenic land cover change experiments in GCMs that have been calibrated to their own representation of present-day land cover. We conclude that hybrid systems that combine the natural vegetation from the native GCM datasets combined with human land cover information from other sources are best for simulating such impacts. We also performed a prehuman simulation, which had a 0.39 K ~higher average global temperature and, perhaps of greater importance, temperature changes regionally of about 2 K. In this study, the larger regional changes coincide with large-scale agricultural areas. The initial cooling from energy balance changes appear to create feedbacks that intensify mid-latitude circulation features and weaken the summer monsoon circulation over Asia, leading to further cooling. From these results, we conclude that land cover change plays a significant role in anthropogenically forced climate change. Because these changes coincide with regions of the highest human population this climate impact could have a disproportionate impact on human systems. Therefore, it is important that land cover change be included in past and future climate change simulations.     

中国大陆斑岩铜矿资源潜力定量评价

应用美国"三部式"资源评价方法原理,对中国大陆斑岩铜矿成矿地质背景、时空分布规律、矿床模型等方面研究,圈出46个远景区;以中国1999年金属储量数据库和区划矿产地数据为基础,建立了铜矿数据库共984个,分不同类型进行品位吨位的研究,以此为基础构造出数字找矿模型和开发出矿产资源定量评价模型程序,并计算了每个远景区的概率资源量,为评估中国斑岩铜矿资源潜力提供了参照。     

The Big Circles in Jordan: First absolute ages using rock luminescence surface dating

In this study, we provide the first absolute ages for a Big Circle megalithic structure in Jordan, using rock surface luminescence dating of the buried surface of rocks collected from circle J4 in southern Jordan. Five rocks were used for this study. All rocks showed evidence of previous daylight exposure before being used in the construction of the circle. The exposure was sufficient to bleach the latent luminescence signal to a negligible level compared to the subsequent burial dose. Three rocks gave indistinguishable ages, and were last exposed to daylight in 1500 ± 100 BCE; this is very likely to be the date of circle construction. Two others gave younger ages, indicating later disturbance or reworking. These new results provide very strong evidence for construction during the Late Bronze Age, and refute the earlier hypothesis of construction during Umayyad period (661–750 CE) as a hunting trap.     

Hydrogeological origin of the CO2-rich mineral water of Vilajuïga in the Eastern Pyrenees (NE Catalonia,Spain)

The mineral water of Vilajuïga village in Alt Empordà (NE Catalonia, Spain) owes its uniqueness to an emanation of geogenic CO₂ that modifies groundwater hydrochemistry to produce a differentiated HCO₃–Na- and CO₂-rich groundwater among the usual Ca–HCO₃ type found in this region. A hydrogeological conceptual model attributes its occurrence to the intersection of two faults: La Valleta and Garriguella-Roses. The former provides a thrust of metamorphic over igneous rocks, formed during the Paleozoic, over a layer of ampelitic shale that, from a hydrogeological perspective, acts as a confining layer. The Garriguella-Roses normal fault, which originated during the Neogene, permits the degassing of geogenic CO₂ that is attributed to volcanic activity occurring in the Neogene. Groundwater mixing from the metamorphic and igneous rock units plus the local occurrence of CO₂ creates a HCO₃–Na water that still holds free-CO₂ in solution. Interaction with the gas phase is restricted at the intersection of the two faults. Radiocarbon dating, after correcting for geogenic dead carbon, estimates an age of 8,000 years BP. The low tritium content (0.7 TU) indicates that Vilajuïga water is a mix of “older” groundwater recharged in the metamorphic rocks of the Albera range and “younger” groundwater from the igneous rocks of the Rodes range, over a recharge area of 45 km² and a maximum elevation of 600 m. Given its origin as rare groundwater in the southern slope of the Eastern Pyrenees, purposeful monitoring is necessary to evaluate the groundwater vulnerability and anticipate impacts from nearby wells and climate-change effects.