Magnetic susceptibility and electrical conductivity as a proxy for evaluating soil contaminated with arsenic,cadmium and lead in a metallurgical area in the San Luis Potosi State,Mexico

A total of 113 samples of waste and soil were collected from a site in the state of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, that was occupied for several years by the metallurgical industry. Specific magnetic susceptibility (MS), electrical conductivity (EC) and pH were determined, as well as the total and available concentrations of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) such as As, Cd, Cu, Fe, Pb and Zn, which may cause a health risk for humans, animals and ecosystems, and the concentrations of major ions in aqueous extracts of soils and wastes. The solid phases of the samples were also characterized. The results revealed that the soils and wastes exhibited elevated values of PTEs, MS and EC. For soils these values decreased with increasing distance from the waste storage sites. The MS values were elevated primarily due to the presence of Fe-oxyhydroxides, such as magnetite, hematite and goethite, which contain PTEs in their structure leading to a high correlation between the value of MS and the As, Cd, Fe and Pb contents (r = 0.57–0.91) as well as between the PTEs values (r = 0.68–0.92). The elevated EC values measured in the metallurgical wastes were the result of presence of the sulfate minerals of Ca, Mg and Fe. The pollution index, which indicates the levels of simultaneous toxicity from elements such as As, Cd and Pb, was determined, with extreme hazard zones corresponding to areas that exhibit high MS values (0.91 correlation). In conclusion, MS measurements can be used as an indirect indicator to evaluate the PTE contamination in metallurgical areas, and EC measurements can aid in the identification of pollution sources.     

Light curves of the eclipsing systems of RS CVn-type

This work presents the light curves for rotating spotted stars generated by a computational code developed by us. This code is based in a model of the system and its analytical solution. The work also present an analysis of the photometric curve variations with the changes in the model's parameters.As a first result we have simulated a temporal evolution of the light curve when the photospheric spot varies its size and position and we reproduced some observational light curves of the II Peg star.Work supported by Dirección de Investigación, Universidad de La Serena, Chile.     

An implementation of radiative transfer in the cosmological simulation code gadget

We present a novel numerical implementation of radiative transfer in the cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation code gadget . It is based on a fast, robust and photon-conserving integration scheme where the radiation transport problem is approximated in terms of moments of the transfer equation and by using a variable Eddington tensor as a closure relation, following the Optically Thin Variable Eddington Tensor suggestion of Gnedin & Abel. We derive a suitable anisotropic diffusion operator for use in the SPH discretization of the local photon transport, and we combine this with an implicit solver that guarantees robustness and photon conservation. This entails a matrix inversion problem of a huge, sparsely populated matrix that is distributed in memory in our parallel code. We solve this task iteratively with a conjugate gradient scheme. Finally, to model photon sink processes we consider ionization and recombination processes of hydrogen, which is represented with a chemical network that is evolved with an implicit time integration scheme. We present several tests of our implementation, including single and multiple sources in static uniform density fields with and without temperature evolution, shadowing by a dense clump and multiple sources in a static cosmological density field. All tests agree quite well with analytical computations or with predictions from other radiative transfer codes, except for shadowing. However, unlike most other radiative transfer codes presently in use for studying re-ionization, our new method can be used on-the-fly during dynamical cosmological simulation, allowing simultaneous treatments of galaxy formation and the re-ionization process of the Universe.     

AWAPer: An R package for area weighted catchment daily meteorological data anywhere within Australia

Meteorological time-series data are a fundamental input to hydrological investigations. But sourcing data is often laborious and plagued with difficulties. In an effort to improve efficiency and rigor we present an R-package, named AWAPer ( https://github.com/peterson-tim-j/AWAPer ), for the efficient estimation of daily area weighted catchment average and spatial variance of meteorological variables, including evapotranspiration. The package allows creation and updating of a data-cube of gridded daily data from 1900 onwards. Once created, point and area weighted estimates can be extracted at user-defined locations and time periods for anywhere within Australia. Examples of point and catchment average extraction are presented.     

Ecological distribution of Stephanodiscus niagarae Ehrenberg in central Mexico and niche modeling for its last glacial maximum habitat suitability in the Nearctic realm

Journal of Paleolimnology - Stephanodiscus niagarae Ehrenberg is currently restricted to specific regions of central Mexico, however, during the late Pleistocene, it had a wider distribution in the...     

Geo-scape,a granularity depended spatialization tool for visualizing multidimensional data sets

Recently,the expertise accumulated in the field of geovisualization has found application in the visualization of abstract multidimensional data,on the basis of methods called spatialization methods.Spatialization methods aim at visualizing multidimensional data into low-dimensional representational spaces by making use of spatial metaphors and applying dimension reduction techniques.Spatial metaphors are able to provide a metaphoric framework for the visualization of information at different levels of gran...     

Heating-induced changes in the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility of impact breccias, Chicxulub Crater (Mexico)

Initial results of a thermal treatment study on the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) of impact breccias from Chicxulub crater are used to investigate the nature of the magnetic fabrics. Chicxulub impact breccias are heterogeneous materials, with carbonate, basement and melt clasts within carbonate-rich or melt-rich matrix. Samples studied come from the carbonate-rich basal unit Lower Suevite in the Yaxcopoil-1 borehole impactite sequence (core depth interval: 885?C895 m). The Lower Suevite is characterized by mixed prolate and oblate ellipsoids with shallow to steep principal susceptibility axes, which had been related to emplacement as an excavation flow with ground-surge components during the early cratering stages. Thermal treatment results in changes in the fabrics with a tendency to oblate fabrics. Stepwise thermal treatment up to 700°C reveals different behaviors for the oblate, neutral and prolate fabrics marked by changes in AMS parameters and principal susceptibility axis orientations. A sample with oblate fabrics and vertical minimum axes showed an increase of magnetic susceptibility at high temperatures, indicating formation of secondary magnetite and fabric enhancement. A sample with neutral ellipsoid showed heating-induced changes towards oblate fabrics and vertical minimum susceptibility axes. Samples characterized by prolate ellipsoids with horizontal maximum axes showed no directional changes. In a sample with apparent intermediate or inverse fabrics, vertical maximum axes showed changes to horizontal inclinations, with the intermediate and maximum axes switching positions. Changes induced by stepwise thermal treatment appear useful to characterize the fabrics of impact lithologies. Further investigation of heating-induced effects in mineralogy, grain size and textural changes is, however, required to relate the different behaviors observed after stepwise thermal treatment with the magnetic mineralogy and emplacement mode of the breccias.     

The age and composition of the pre-Cenozoic basement of the Jalisco Block: implications for and relation to the Guerrero composite terrane

The Jalisco Block is thought to be part of the Guerrero terrane, but the nature and age of the underlying crystalline basement are largely unknown. We have collected a suite of schists, granitoids, and weakly metamorphosed marine sediments from various parts of the Jalisco Block including Atenguillo and Ameca, Mascota and San Sebastián, Cuale, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Mita, Yelapa, and Tomatlán. The schists range in age from 135 to 161 Ma, with many exhibiting Proterozoic and Phanerozoic zircon ages. The granitoids range in age from 65 to 90 Ma, and are calc-alkaline compositionally—similar to granitoids from the Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos batholiths. The Jalisco granitoids also experienced similar uplift rates to granitoids from the regions to the north and south of the Jalisco Block. The marine sediments yield a maximum depositional age of 131 Ma, and also contain a significant zircon population with ages extending back to the Archean. Granitoids from this study define two age groups, even after the effects of thermal resetting and different closure temperatures are considered. The 66.8-Ma silicic ash flow tuff near Union de Tula significantly expands the extent of this Cretaceous–Paleocene age ash flow tuff unit within the Jalisco Block, and we propose calling the unit “Carmichael silicic ash flow tuff volcanic succession” in honor of Ian Carmichael. The ages of the basement schists in the Jalisco Block fully overlap with the ages of terranes of continental Mexico, and other parts of the Guerrero terrane in the south, confirming the autochthonous origin of the Jalisco Block rather than exotic arc or allochthonous origin. Geologic data, in combination with geochronologic and oxygen isotopic data, suggest the evolution of SW Mexico with an early 200–1,200-Ma passive margin, followed by steep subduction in a continental arc setting at 160–165 Ma, then shallower subduction by 135 Ma, and finally, emplacement of granitoids at 65–90 Ma.     

Gamma-ray emission from individual classical novae

Classical novae are important producers of radioactive nuclei, such as ⁷Be, ¹³N, ¹⁸F, ²²Na and ²⁶Al. The disintegration of these nuclei produces positrons (except for ⁷Be) that through annihilation with electrons produce photons of energies 511 keV and below. Furthermore, ⁷Be and ²²Na decay producing photons with energies of 478 and 1275 keV, respectively, well in the γ-ray domain. Therefore, novae are potential sources of γ-ray emission. We have developed two codes in order to analyse carefully the γ-ray emission of individual classical novae: a hydrodynamical one, which follows both the accretion and the explosion stages, and a Monte Carlo one, able to treat both production and transfer of γ-ray photons. Both codes have been coupled in order to simulate realistic explosions. The properties of γ-ray spectra and γ-ray light curves (for the continuum and for the lines at 511, 478 and 1275 keV) have been analysed, with a special emphasis on the difference between carbon–oxygen and oxygen–neon novae. Predictions of detectability of individual novae by the future SPI spectrometer on board the INTEGRAL satellite are made. Concerning ²⁶Al, its decay produces photons of 1809 keV but this occurs on a time-scale much longer than the typical time interval between nova outbursts in the Galaxy, making it undetectable in individual novae. The accumulated emission of ²⁶Al from many Galactic novae has not been modelled in this paper.     

High Angular Resolution Studies of Coronal Structures with SOHO

Since January 1996, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)has been providing unprecedented views of the extended solar coronato heliocentric distances of up to 32 solar radii. During the past threeyears we carried out studies of the morphology and dynamical evolutionof various structures in the solar corona using two instruments on boardSOHO: the Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) and the ExtremeUltraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT). We have applied advanced image resolutionenhancement techniques to explore in detail the characteristics of thesmall-scale structures and/or the low contrast structures in the solarcorona. We describe here the results from these high-angular resolutionstudies, including of the kinematics of several Coronal Mass Ejections andpolar jets.