Effect of Biofuels on Biodegradation of Benzene and Toluene at Gasoline Spill Sites

The risk that benzene and toluene from spills of gasoline will impact drinking water wells is largely controlled by the natural anaerobic biodegradation of benzene and toluene. Benzene and toluene, as well as ethanol and other biofuels, are degraded under anaerobic conditions to the same pool of degradation products. Biodegradation of biofuels may produce concentrations of degradation products that make the thermodynamics for degradation of benzene and toluene infeasible under methanogenic conditions and produce larger plumes of benzene and toluene. This study evaluated the concentrations of fuel alcohols that are necessary to inhibit the anaerobic degradation of benzene and toluene under methanogenic conditions. At two ethanol spill sites, concentrations of ethanol greater ≥42 mg/L inhibited the anaerobic degradation of toluene. The pH and concentrations of acetate, dissolved inorganic carbon, and molecular hydrogen were used to calculate the Gibbs free energy for the biodegradation of toluene. In general, the anaerobic biodegradation of toluene was not thermodynamically feasible in water with ≥42 mg/L ethanol. In a microcosm study, when the concentrations of ethanol were ≥14 mg/L or the concentrations of n‐butanol were ≥16 mg/L, the biodegradation of the alcohols consistently produced concentrations of hydrogen, dissolved inorganic carbon, and acetate that would preclude natural anaerobic biodegradation of benzene and toluene by syntrophic organisms. In contrast, iso‐butanol and n‐propanol only occasionally produced conditions that would preclude the biodegradation of benzene and toluene.     

Upwelling and the distribution of chlorophyll a within the Bay of Concepción,Chile

The influence of upwelling on the distribution of chlorophyll a within the Bay of Concepción, Chile is discussed in light of continuous measurements of surface in vivo chlorophyll fluorescence and temperature taken simultaneously along horizontal transects, and hydrographic stations' data. Results suggest significant temporal variability both in the distribution of in vivo fluorescence, temperature and salinity within the Bay and in the characteristics of the exchange between the Bay and the adjacent shelf waters, induced by variable upwelling. Upwelling is produced by the predominant south-westerly winds during the summer. Significant variations in the wind direction occur with periods from two to seven days. During active upwelling, exchange is characterized by a surface outflow through the mouth of the Bay and an inflow at depth. Low chlorophyll fluorescence is confined to the upwelling areas on the eastern shore either within or outside the Bay; high chlorophyll fluorescence is confined to the central and western Bay. Density data suggest a three-layered circulation pattern at the mouth of the Bay during the upwelling relaxation involving an inflow both at the surface and bottom and outflow at mid-depth. Associated with this exchange is an active high chlorophyll transport from the Bay to the adjacent coastal waters at mid-depth and inflow of low chlorophyll water from the adjacent shelf at the surface and near the bottom.     

Observations and Simulations of the Polar Field Reversals in Cycle 23

We have used observations obtained by the National Solar Observatory at Kitt Peak to study the reversals of the polar magnetic fields in Cycle 23. We have compared them with corresponding data obtained by the Mt. Wilson Observatory, when these are available, testing both data sets against the locations of H filaments. Because of the unreliability of the data at extreme latitudes and because the apparent time of reversal varies with the degree of smoothing applied to the data, it is difficult to determine precise reversal time in each hemisphere from direct observations. However, we show that it is possible to obtain a better-defined and more precise reversal time using polar maps derived from simulations of the synoptic fields. These indirect values, however, depend critically on the diffusivity used in the simulations. We applied various tests to confirm an empirical value for the diffusivity parameter of about 600 km ² s ^–1 and hence determined empirical reversal times of CR 1976 in the northern hemisphere and CR 1981 in the south.     

Dust Trails of 8P/Tuttle and the Unusual Outbursts of the Ursid Shower

We calculate the position of dust trails from comet 8P/Tuttle, in an effort to explain unusual Ursid meteor shower outbursts that were seen when the comet was near aphelion. Comet 8P/Tuttle is a Halley-type comet in a 13.6-year orbit, passing just outside of Earth's orbit. We find that the meteoroids tend to be trapped in the 12:14 mean motion resonance with Jupiter, while the comet librates in a slightly shorter period orbit around the 13:15 resonance. It takes 6 centuries to decrease the perihelion of the meteoroid orbits enough to intersect Earth's orbit, during which time the meteoroids and comet separate in mean anomaly by 6 years, thus explaining the 6-year lag between the comet's return and Ursid outbursts. The resonances also prevent dispersion along the comet orbit and limit viewing to only one year in each return. We identified past dust trail encounters with dust trails from 1392 (Dec. 1945) and 1378 (Dec. 1986) and predicted another outburst on 2000 December 22 at around 7:29 and 8:35 UT, respectively, from dust trails dating to the 1405 and 1392 returns. This event was observed from California using video and photographic techniques. At the same time, five Global-MS-Net stations in Finland, Japan, and Belgium counted meteors using forward meteor scatter. The outburst peaked at 8:06±07 UT, December 22, at zenith hourly rate ∼90 per hour, and the Ursid rates were above half peak intensity during 4.2 h. We find that most Ursid orbits do scatter around the anticipated positions, confirming the link with comet 8P/Tuttle and the epoch of ejection. The 1405 and 1392 dust trails appear to have contributed similar amounts to the activity profile. Some orbits provide a hint of much older debris being present as well. This work is the strongest evidence yet for the relevance of mean motion resonances in Halley-type comet dust trail evolution.     

High-resolution Studies of the Polar Magnetic Fields during Cycle 23

High-resolution mosaics of the solar polar magnetic fields have been constructed using individual magnetograms obtained with the video magnetograph of the Big Bear Solar Observatory, and the properties of these mosaics are demonstrated in this paper. The mosaics show selected regions of the polar fields on several days during the rising phase of Cycle 23, and are related to the global polar fields (i) by superposing the mosaic for a given day on to a full-disk SOHO-MDI magnetogram obtained on the same day, (ii) by plotting the mosaics in polar projection and using these to identify the approximate regions reported by the mosaics on the NSOKP polar synoptic plots, and (iii) by imposing the locations of the H filaments on to the mosaics in order to infer the neutral lines of the large-scale fields. We have studied the fine structure of the large-scale unipolar fields near the poles and, in particular, have constructed histograms of the magnetic field intensities within particular regions of the mosaics and, in this way, have estimated the ratios of the number of magnetic knots of opposite polarities within the unipolar plumes. We have also generated enlargements of the polar regions of the NSOKP daily magnetograms. These and statistical studies have shown that on days for which the BBSO mosaics are not available, the NSOKP enlargements may be used to study the high-resolution polar fields. Time-series of mosaics obtained over four-hour periods on September 6 and November 18 show that considerable evolution in the structure of existing flux knots and the formation of several new knots has taken place during these periods.     

Observations of the Polar Magnetic Fields During the Polarity Reversals of Cycle 22

The Mount Wilson synoptic magnetic data for the period September 1987 through March 1996 are completely revised and used to provide polar plots of the solar magnetic fields for both hemispheres. This period, from Carrington rotations 1793 to 1906, covers the reversals of the polar magnetic fields in cycle 22. Comparison of our plots with the presently available H filtergrams for this period shows that the polarity boundaries are consistent in these two data sets where they overlap. The Mount Wilson plots show that the polar field reversals involve a complex sequence of events. Although the details differ slightly, the basic patterns are similar in each hemisphere. First the old polarity becomes isolated at the pole, then shortly thereafter, the isolation is broken, and the polar field includes unipolar regions of both polarities. The old polarity then reclaims the polar region, but when the isolation of this field is established for a second time, it declines in both area and strength. We take the reversal to be complete when the old polarity field is no longer observed in the Mount Wilson plots. With this criterion we find that the polar field reversal is completed in the north by CR 1836, i.e., by December 1990, and in the south by CR 1853, i.e., March 1992.     

Octahedral cation ordering in olivine at high temperature. I: in situ neutron single-crystal diffraction studies on natural mantle olivines (Fa12 and Fa10)

Crystallographic determinations on natural olivine single crystals of mantle composition and origin, carried out by in situ neutron diffraction at high temperature, show that the octahedrally co-ordinated Fe²⁺ and Mg cations undergo two successive trends of cation ordering with increasing temperature. An initial slight preference of Fe²⁺ for site M1, up to a temperature of about 850?°C, is followed by a reverse-ordering reaction with a site preference exchange between the two cations. The cross-over between the two regimes of ordering, corresponding to a situation of complete disorder, occurs at about 900?°C. Above this temperature Fe²⁺ progressively and strongly segregates into site M2 up to 1300?°C, the practical limit of the experimental setup utilized in the experiments. Care was taken to ensure that no chemical changes occurred in the crystals (i.e. oxidation), as testified by Mössbauer spectroscopy determinations carried out before and after the heat treatment. The cation-ordering behaviour is reflected in temperature-dependent changes of geometrical and atomic displacement parameters occurring in the octahedral sites M1 and M2. A thermodynamical explanation of this behaviour is proposed in terms of a prevailing vibrational contribution to entropy.