Viability of pyrite pulled metabolism in the ‘iron-sulfur world’ theory: Quantum chemical assessment

The viability of pyrite-pulled metabolism in the ‘iron-sulfur world’ theory was assessed using a simple model of iron-nickel sulfide (Fe-Ni-S) surface and data obtained from quantum chemical calculations. We have investigated how the individual reactions in the carbon fixation cycle (carboxylic acids formation) on an Fe-Ni-S surface could have operated to produce carboxylic acids from carbon oxide and water. The proposed model cycle reveals how the individual reactions might have functioned and provides the thermodynamics of each step of the proposed pathway. The feasibility of individual reactions, as well the whole cycle was considered. The reaction of acetic acid production from CH₃SH and CO on an Fe-Ni sulfide surface was revealed to be endergonic with a few partial steps having positive Gibbs free energy. On the other hand, the pyrite formation was found to be slightly exergonic. The significance of the catalytic activity of transition metal sulfides in generation of acetic acid was shown. The Gibbs free energy values indicate that the acetic acid synthesis is unfavorable to proceed on the studied Fe-Ni-S model under simulated conditions. The importance of these results in terms of a primordial chemistry on iron-nickel sulfide surfaces is discussed.     

Privacy, reconsidered: New representations, data practices, and the geoweb

Blogging, social networking, and other Web 2.0 practices have sparked widespread debate about the status and future of privacy. This paper examines an explicitly geographical aspect of Web 2.0 with respect to these debates: the geospatial web, or ‘geoweb’. As part of fundamental shifts in the kinds of geographic information available, its circulation, and representative forms it assumes, the geoweb implies new objects of privacy concern and subsequent privacy-related negotiations over the aggregate of its component information, technologies, and data praxes. Thus we argue that privacy must not only be revisited, but indeed re-conceptualized. Whereas prior research on privacy vis-à-vis geographic information technologies has tended to question what privacy ‘is’, we focus instead on the constitutive outcomes of societal struggles over privacy. We examine how privacy is being negotiated around two geoweb services - Google Street View and the Twitter GeoAPI - to illustrate that these contestations produce privacy as a social object in particular ways. We show that public discourse around actual or anticipated privacy harms stemming from geoweb services and their uses, as well as the preventatives and remedies proposed or implemented to address such harms, reconstitute the objects and practices of privacy concern, and alter the roles and relationships of state, civil and corporate actors in the construction of privacy. Finally we suggest that the geoweb raises new privacy concerns because some of its representational forms - namely geo-tagged images and self-authored texts - facilitate identification and disclosure with more immediacy and less abstraction.     

Meltwater discharge through the subglacial bed and its land‐forming consequences from numerical experiments in the Polish lowland during the last glaciation

Numerical experiments suggest that the last glaciation severely affected the upper lithosphere groundwater system in NW Poland: primarily its flow pattern, velocities and fluxes. We have simulated subglacial groundwater flow in two and three spatial dimensions using finite difference codes for steady‐state and transient conditions. The results show how profoundly the ice sheet modifies groundwater pressure heads beneath and some distance beyond the ice margin. All model runs show water discharge at the ice forefield driven by ice‐sheet‐thickness‐modulated, down‐ice‐decreasing hydraulic heads. In relation to non‐glacial times, the transient 3D model shows significant changes in the groundwater flow directions in a regionally extensive aquifer ca. 90 m below the ice–bed interface and up to 40 km in front of the glacier. Comparison with empirical data suggests that, depending on the model run, only between 5 and 24% of the meltwater formed at the ice sole drained through the bed as groundwater. This is consistent with field observations documenting abundant occurrence of tunnel valleys, indicating that the remaining portion of basal meltwater was evacuated through a channelized subglacial drainage system. Groundwater flow simulation suggests that in areas of very low hydraulic conductivity and adverse subglacial slopes water ponding at the ice sole was likely. In these areas the relief shows distinct palaeo‐ice lobes, indicating fast ice flow, possibly triggered by the undrained water at the ice–bed interface. Owing to the abundance of low‐permeability strata in the bed, the simulated groundwater flow depth is less than ca. 200 m. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trends in water quality variations in the Odra River the day before implementation of the Water Framework Directive

This paper contains an account of UN/EEC-sponsored research on water quality monitoring and assessments in the catchments areas of Europe's 10 transboundary rivers. In this context, water quality assessments established on the basis of monitoring data for Poland's rivers are discussed. Consideration is also given to the water quality assessment methods recommended by the EU Directives. The problem has been exemplified by the analysis of water quality variations in the transboundary river Odra in the time span of 1973–2003. For the years 1993–2003, the trends in water quality variations are calculated and the rates of variation are analysed. The points in time when the water quality will have attained the second class purity values are predicted, taking into account the requirements specified in Polish, Czech and German standards. Analysis of the trends in the variations of pollution parameters has revealed that the achievability of good water quality depends on the limit values adopted for the assessment.     

Modelling of a medium-term dynamics in a shallow tidal sea, based on combined physical and neural network methods

The paper presents an approach towards a medium-term (decades) modelling of water levels and currents in a shallow tidal sea by means of combined hydrodynamic and neural network models. The two-dimensional version of the hydrodynamic model Delft3D, forced with realistic water level and wind fields, is used to produce a two-year-database of water levels and currents in the study area. The linear principal component analysis (PCA) of the results is performed to reveal dominating spatial patterns in the analyzed dataset and to significantly reduce the dimensionality of the data. It is shown that only a few principal components (PCs) are necessary to reconstruct the data with high accuracy (over 95% of the original variance). Feed-forward neural networks are set up and trained to effectively simulate the leading PCs based on water level and wind speed and direction time series in a single, arbitrarily chosen point in the study area. Assuming that the spatial modes resulting from the PCA are ‘universally’ applicable to the data from time periods not modelled with Delft3D, the trained neural networks can be used to very effectively and reliably simulate temporal and spatial variability of water levels and currents in the study area. The approach is shown to be able to accurately reproduce statistical distribution of water levels and currents in various locations inside the study area and thus can be viewed as a reliable complementary tool e.g., for computationally expensive hydrodynamic modelling. Finally, a detailed analysis of the leading PCs is performed to estimate the role of tidal forcing and wind (including its seasonal and annual variability) in shaping the water level and current climate in the study area.     

Particle sedimentation patterns in the eastern Fram Strait during 2000–2005: Results from the Arctic long-term observatory HAUSGARTEN

Since 2000 long-term measurements of vertical particle flux have been performed with moored sediment traps at the long-term observatory HAUSGARTEN in the eastern Fram Strait (79°N/4°E). The study area, which is seasonally covered with ice, is located in the confluence zone of the northward flowing warm saline Atlantic water with cold, low salinity water masses of Arctic origin. Current projections suggest that this area is particularly vulnerable to global warming. Total matter fluxes and components thereof (carbonate, particulate organic carbon and nitrogen, biogenic silica, biomarkers) revealed a bimodal seasonal pattern showing elevated sedimentation rates during May/June and August/September. Annual total matter flux (dry weight, DW) at ～300 m depth varied between 13 and 32 g m^?2 a^?1 during 2000 and 2005. Of this total flux 6–13% was due to CaCO₃, 4–21% to refractory particulate organic carbon (POC), and 3–8% to biogenic particulate silica (bPSi). The annual flux of all biogenic components together was almost constant during the period studied (8.5–8.8 g m^?2 a^?1), although this varied from 27% to 67% of the total annual flux. The fraction was lowest in a year characterized by the longest duration of ice coverage (91 and 70 days for the calendar year and summer season, May–September, respectively). Biomarker analyses revealed that organic matter originating from marine sources was present in excess of terrigenious material in the sedimented matter throughout most of the study period. Fluxes of recognizable phyto- and protozooplankton cells amounted up to 60×10⁶ m^?2 d^?1. Diatoms and coccolithophorids were the most abundant organisms. Diatoms, mainly pennate species, dominated during the first years of the investigation. A shift in the composition occurred during the last year when numbers of diatoms declined considerably, leading to a dominance of coccolithoporids. This was also reflected in a decrease in the sedimentation of bPSi. The sedimentation of biogenic matter, however, did not differ from the amount observed during the previous years. Among the larger organisms, pteropods at times contributed significantly to both the total matter and CaCO₃, fluxes.     

Volume, heat and salt transport by the West Spitsbergen Current

During the summer of 2000 (June-July) 14 CTD and ADCP transects perpendicular to the West Spitsbergen Current and along the western border of the Barents Sea were made. The measurements covered the area between 69° 43'and 80° N and 01° and 20° E. The main purpose was to follow changes in volume, heat and salt content of Atlantic Water (AW) on its way north. The strongest and most stable flow of AW was located along the continental slope where northward flowing currents exceeding 40 cm/sec were measured. A few weaker northward branches were also found to the west of the slope. South-directed currents were recorded between them and eddy-like mesoscale structures were commonly observed. Measured by vessel-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (VM-ADCP), the net northward transport of AW volume in the upper 136 m layer decreased from nearly 6 Sv at the southernmost transect to below 1 Sv at a latitude of 78° 50'N. Similarly, heat transport drops from about 173 TW to about 9 TW and relative salt transport (over 34.92 psu) from 980 × 10³ kg/sec to 14 × 10³ kg/sec. Transport in the southern direction prevails at the transect located between 79° 07'and 79° 30'N. The calculated baroclinic geostrophic transport of AW volume, heat and salt in the upper 1000 m layer behaves similarly. East-directed transport dominates at the Barents Sea boundary while westward flow prevails on the western side of the West Spitsbergen Current.     

Abiotic typology of Polish lakes

According to the requirements of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, all member states of the EU have to establish the typology of their surface waterbodies. The typology is aimed at defining the type-specific reference conditions against which the ecological state of waters can be assessed. The abiotic typology of Polish lakes of an area greater than 50 ha was established based on morphometric, hydrographic and physico-chemical data taken from the Polish national monitoring dataset. The current dataset comprises 749 out of a total of 1042 lakes with an area greater than 50 ha in Poland. Lake types were identified based on a combination of abiotic characteristics of lakes specified in Annex II of the Water Framework Directive such as ecoregions, size, altitude, mean depth, geology and an additional factor – Schindler's ratio. Altogether 13 abiotic lake types were established.     

Geomorphology of medium‐high mountains under changing human impact,from managed slopes to nature restoration: a study from the Sudetes,SW Poland

In the last few hundred years, medium‐high mountain geomorphic systems of the East Sudetes, central Europe, have evolved under varying human impacts and have shown distinctive behaviours, depending on the nature and intensity of human activities. The general trend within this period has been from initial disturbance brought about by the spread of agriculture, through managed rural landscapes in the 19th and early 20th century, to gradual restoration of natural conditions observed in the last few tens of years, concurrent with considerable population decline in the mountain valleys. Accelerated soil erosion was successfully mitigated by the introduction of agricultural terraces in the 19th century, and most sediment could have been stored within the slopes. The current phase of nature restoration is understood as a return to general slope stability, weak coupling between slopes and channels, and limited sediment transfer across and out of mountainous drainage basins, which typified most of the Holocene prior to human colonization. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.