Convection in the earth's mantle

According to the hypothesis of global plate tectonics the surface motions of the earth are now known in considerable detail, but very little is known about the three-dimensional flow in the earth and about the forces which maintain the motions. The motions at depth are difficult to study because they produce few surface effects. For instance, there is now no reason to believe that ridges are the surface evidence for rising convection currents at depth. Only the plate motions themselves and the gravity field observed by satellites must be consequences of three-dimensional flow beneath the plates. Other observations, such as the high heat flow near ridges or deep earthquakes beneath trenches, now appear to be explained by the production and destruction of plates.     

The East Anatolian Fault: A major structure in Eastern Turkey

Satellite photographs of Eastern Turkey show a large strike slip fault about 550 km long extending from the Gulf of Iskenderun to the North Anatolian Fault with a strike of 60°E. This fault takes up most of the motion between the Turkish and Arabian plates.     

Large aspect ratio cells in two-dimensional thermal convection

Numerical experiments have been carried out on two-dimensional thermal convection, in a Boussinesq fluid with infinite Prandtl number, at high Rayleigh numbers. With stress free boundary conditions and fixed heat flux on upper and lower boundaries, convection cells develop with aspect ratios (width/depth) λ? 5, if heat is supplied either entirely from within or entirely from below the fluid layer. The preferred aspect ratio is affected by the lateral boundary conditions. If the temperature, rather than the heat flux, is fixed on the upper boundary the cells haveλ ≈ 1. At Rayleigh numbers of 2.4 × 10⁵ and greater, small sinking sheets are superimposed on the large aspect ratio cells, though they do not disrupt the circulation. Similar two-scale flows have been proposed for convection in the earth's mantle. The existence of two scales of flow in two-dimensional numerical experiments when the viscosity is constant will allow a variety of geophysically important effects to be investigated.     

SUMER spectral observations of post-flare supra-arcade inflows

On 21 April 2002 a large eruptive flare on the west limb of the Sun developed a bright, very dynamic, post-flare arcade. In TRACE 195 Å images, a series of dark, sunward moving flows were seen against the bright extreme ultraviolet (EUV) arcade. SUMER obtained a series of spectra of the dark EUV flows in the lines Cii, Fexii, and Fexxi at a fixed position above the limb. These spectra give spatially resolved line-of-sight velocities and emission measures for the arcade plasma over a temperature range 2×10⁴ to 10⁷ K. The flows are dark in all SUMER lines. The UV continuum longward (1350 Å) and shortward (675 Å) of the hydrogen Lyman limit is used to determine whether the dark 195 Å inflows are due to regions of low plasma density (plasma voids) or cold absorbing material. There is some evidence of absorption near the front of one of the inflows; however, along most of the dark channels there is no change in continuum ratio and we therefore conclude, as originally suggested by McKenzie and Hudson (1999), that they are plasma voids.     

Source enrichment processes responsible for isotopic anomalies in oceanic island basalts

A new method has been developed to separate the compositional variations in ocean island basalts into those that result from variations in source composition and from the melting process itself. The approach depends on correlations between isotope ratios, which can only come from source inhomogeneities, and elemental concentrations. Analysis of three data sets shows that the inhomogeneities beneath Theistareykir, in NE Iceland, Kilauea and Pitcairn can be produced by subduction of oceanic islands and volcanic ridges. The thicknesses of the lithosphere on which such islands were constructed and potential temperatures of the plumes that produced them can be estimated from the geochemical observations. Model ages are harder to determine, though simple assumptions give about 400 Ma for the Theistareykir source and 1.2 Ga for Kilauea. The model may also provide a physical explanation for the commonly used isotopic classification of ocean island basalts, with the isotopic composition changing from HIMU through EMII to EMI as the melt fraction increases. These results have been obtained from a small number of data sets obtained from ocean island basalts erupted in small areas during short time intervals. More such observations are needed to discover whether geochemical observations from other islands are consistent with the same model.     

四川盐源磨耳哥地区铁多金属矿找矿前景分析

盐源县阿萨乡磨耳哥一带，铁、铜、铅、锌、金、银等多金属矿受地层、构造双重控制。通过对该矿集区区域成矿地质背景、含矿地层、控矿构造、矿化带特征、矿体特征、矿物组合、找矿标志等进行研究分析，认为该区成矿地质条件较好，通过进一步地质工作可望发现较大的铁多金属矿床。     

山区公路隧道建设对地下水环境扰动评价研究

由于长大隧道建设期间具有显著地集水廊道效应，施工过程中地下水不断向隧道轴线汇集，进而诱发一系列的水文 地质灾害，给施工人员和隧址区周边的生态环境带来不可估量的损失。为此，在构建山区公路隧道建设对地下水环境扰动 评价体系的基础上，考虑到群决策不同个体实践认知水平的差异，把基于决策人员偏好信息的区间数层次分析模型用于山 区公路隧道建设对地下水的环境影响评价领域，并与模糊综合评判法进行有机结合，对西藏米拉山特长隧道建设对地下水 环境影响进行评价，结果表明，米拉山特长公路隧道建设对地下水的扰动程度属于一般水平。依据评价结果，采取了相 应的工程措施，实现了隧道建设与隧址区环境保护的协调统一，可为类似地区隧道建设的地下水环评工作提供有益的 参考。     

京津唐地区地壳结构与强震的发生──Ⅱ．S波速度结构

利用１９８６－１９９３年发生在京津唐地区的２５１６个地震的２１９２７个Ｓ波到时进行层析成像，得出：（１）公元１０００年以来研究区强震震中在下地壳的投影大多分布在低速块体内或低速块体与高速块体相交地带偏低速块体的一侧；（２）唐山地震震源下方的物质，波速比Ｖｐ／Ｖｓ呈现高值，推测呈部分熔融状态，有热物质流从莫霍界面的下方沿通向震源下方的断裂入侵的迹象。（３）黄骅坳陷中心区的上地壳呈现低Ｖｐ／Ｖｓ值，推测那里为水－汽转变的地热系，这与在该地区所测量的高热流值一致。冀中坳陷区的高Ｖｐ／Ｖｓ值反映出其地下物质可能呈部分熔融状态。     

Estimation of the dielectric constant of H2O from experimental solubilities of quartz,and calculation of the thermodynamic properties of aqueous species to 900°C at 2 kb

Experimental quartz solubilities in H₂O (Anderson and Burnham, 1965, 1967) were used together with equations of state for quartz and aqueous species (Helgesonet al., 1978; Walther and Helgeson, 1977) to calculate the dielectric constant of H₂O () at pressures and temperatures greater than those for which experimental measurements (Heger, 1969; Lukashovet al., 1975) are available ($\text{0.001 ? P ? 5}\text{kb}$ and $\text{0 ? T ? 600°C}$). Estimates of computed in this way for 2 kb (which are the most reliable) range from 9.6 at 600°C to 5.6 at 800°C. These values are 0.5 and 0.8 units greater, respectively, than corresponding values estimated by Quist and Marshall (1965), but they differ by <0.3 units from extrapolated values computed from Pitzer's (1983) adaptation of the Kirkwood (1939) equation. The estimates of generated from quartz solubilities at 2 kb were fit with a power function of temperature, which was then used together with equations and data given by Helgeson and Kirkham (1974a,b, 1976) Helgesonet al. (1981), and Helgeson (1982b, 1984) to calculate Born functions, Debye Hückel parameters, and the thermodynamic properties of Na⁺, K⁺, Mg⁺⁺, Ca⁺⁺, and other aqueous species of geologic interest at temperatures to 900°C.