Advancing the understanding of variations of Arctic sea ice optical and thermal behaviors through an international research and mobility project

In recent decades, significant changes of Arctic sea ice have taken place. These changes are expected to influence the surface energy balance of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. To quantify this energy ba...     

The evolution of He Isotopes in the convecting mantle and the preservation of high He/He ratios

A key requirement for any model of mantle evolution is accounting for the high ³He/⁴He ratios of many ocean island basalts compared to those of mid-ocean ridge basalts. The early, popular paradigm of primitive, undegassed mantle stored in a convectively isolated lower mantle is incompatible with geophysical constraints that imply whole mantle convection. Thus it has been suggested more recently that domains with high ³He/U ratios have been created continuously from the bulk mantle throughout Earth history. Such models require that the ³He/⁴He ratio of the convecting mantle was at least as high as the highest values seen in OIB at the time the OIB source was generated. These domains must also be created with sufficient He to impart distinctive He isotopic signatures to ocean island basalts. However, the He isotope evolution of the mantle has not been consistently quantified to determine if such scenarios are plausible.

Here a simple model of the He evolution of the whole mantle is examined. Using a wide range of possible histories of continental extraction and He degassing, the bulk convecting mantle was found to have had ³He/⁴He ratios as high as those seen in the Iceland hotspot only prior to 3 Ga. Such high ³He/⁴He ratios can only be preserved if located in domains that are not modified by convective mixing or diffusive homogenisation since that time. Further, there are difficulties in producing, with commonly invoked magmatic processes, domains with sufficiently high ³He/U ratios and enough ³He to be able to impart this signature to ocean island basalts. The results are consistent with models that store such He signatures in the core or a deep layer in the mantle, but are hard to reconcile with models that continuously generate high ³He/⁴He domains within the mantle.     

Source model of the 11th July 2004 Zhongba earthquake revealed from the joint inversion of InSAR and seismological data

We use interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and broadband seismic waveform data to estimate a source model of the 11th July, 2004 M W 6.2 Zhongba earthquake, Tibet of China. This event occurred within the seismically active zone of southwestern Tibetan Plateau where the east-west extension of the upper crust is observed. Because of limitations in one pair of InSAR data available, there are trade-offs among centroid depth, rupture area and amount of slip. Available seismic data tightly constrain ...     

An assessment of uncertainties in VS profiles obtained from microtremor observations in the phased 2018 COSMOS blind trials

Journal of Seismology - Site response is a critical consideration when assessing earthquake hazards. Site characterization is key to understanding site effects as influenced by seismic site...     

Preliminary reference Earth model

A large data set consisting of about 1000 normal mode periods, 500 summary travel time observations, 100 normal mode Q values, mass and moment of inertia have been inverted to obtain the radial distribution of elastic properties, Q values and density in the Earth's interior. The data set was supplemented with a special study of 12 years of ISC phase data which yielded an additional 1.75 × 10⁶ travel time observations for P and S waves. In order to obtain satisfactory agreement with the entire data set we were required to take into account anelastic dispersion. The introduction of transverse isotropy into the outer 220 km of the mantle was required in order to satisfy the shorter period fundamental toroidal and spheroidal modes. This anisotropy also improved the fit of the larger data set. The horizontal and vertical velocities in the upper mantle differ by 2–4%, both for P and S waves. The mantle below 220 km is not required to be anisotropic. Mantle Rayleigh waves are surprisingly sensitive to compressional velocity in the upper mantle. High S_n velocities, low P_n velocities and a pronounced low-velocity zone are features of most global inversion models that are suppressed when anisotropy is allowed for in the inversion.The Preliminary Reference Earth Model, PREM, and auxiliary tables showing fits to the data are presented.     

Anomalous upper mantle beneath the Australian-Antarctic discordance

Within the Australian-Antarctic discordant zone, residual depth anomalies approach 1000 m. In sea floor younger than 10 Ma that is more than 500 m deeper than expected, Rayleigh wave phase velocities are significantly faster than in sea floor of comparable age in the Pacific. In this area, the shear wave velocity in the 20–40 km depth range is unusually fast, indicating that the lithosphere develops more rapidly than usual from an asthenosphere that is perhaps cooler than average. In sea floor that is older than 10 Ma, phase velocities are anomalously fast and independent of the residual depth. Beneath this older sea floor, the low-velocity zone in the oceanic mantle is much less pronounced than beneath sea floor of comparable age in the Pacific.     

Baseline studies of delaware ocean outfall sites

A quarterly sampling programme was conducted during 1973–1974 off the coast of Delaware to provide an environmental baseline for two ocean sewage outfalls. Extensive physical measurements and water quality data, together with biological data (fish, invertebrates, bacteriological samples), were collected. Based on this research the design of sewage treatment for one of the outfalls was improved.     

Density fronts in the vicinity of a long ridge

Laboratory experiments concerning the nature of density fronts in a two-layer fluid in the vicinity of a continuous ridge were conducted. The experiments were carried out in a circular rotating test cell containing an annular ridge of uniform cross-section. The density fronts were established by releasing a lighter fluid contained in a bottomless cylinder in the interior of the region defined by the topography into a heavier fluid occupying the rest of the test cell. The system was also equipped with an oscillating plunger located along the test cell axis to produce simulated tidal currents impinging in the normal direction on the ridge; experiments without and with tidal forcing were conducted. The governing parameters for the physical system considered are the Rossby, temporal Rossby, Burger and Ekman numbers and geometrical parameters. It is found that for both the non-forced and tidally forced experiments the fronts were stabilized by the ridge. The fronts in the simulated tidal currents experiments were found to advect radially outward more rapidly at early times than their non-forced counterparts; at large times, the temporal evolution of the front for these forced experiments approached that of the non-forced experiments. In the region interior to the annular ridge, the motion field is highly baroclinic, while outside this region, the flow response at the forcing frequency is barotropic. Scaling arguments regarding frontal position, viscous decay and barotropic oscillatory flow responses are advanced and supported by experimental observations.