Geological age of the Yokawa Formation of the Kobe Group (Japan) on the basis of terrestrial mammalian fossils

Abstract   The age of the Yokawa Formation of the Cenozoic Kobe Group distributed in Hyogo Prefecture of western Japan based on mammalian fossils is discussed. Two fossil dental specimens of terrestrial mammals discovered from the lowest part of the Yokawa Formation in the Sanda area are described. These two fossils described here are: (i) a right mandibular fragment with p2–m3 of Bothriodon sandaensis sp. nov. (selenodont anthracotheriid artiodactyl), which appears to be the most primitive among the species of the genus; and (ii) right m1–m3 of cf. Hyrachyus sp. (primitive rhinocerotoid perissodactyl). In the lower part of the Yokawa Formation, Zaisanamynodon (amynodontid perissodactyl) was previously reported. The morphology ('evolutionary stage') of B. sandaensis is indicative of the latest Middle to Late Eocene, that of cf. Hyrachyus sp. is indicative of the Early to Middle Eocene, and Zaisanamynodon is indicative of the Late Middle to Late Eocene. Therefore, the fossil mammals of the Yokawa Formation indicate an latest Middle Eocene ( ca . 38 Ma) correlation for the lower part of the formation, as a working hypothesis. Although the resolution of the geological age based on these mammalian fossils is relatively low compared to that based on marine index fossils, this result is concordant with the recent radiometric correlation of the lower part of the Yokawa Formation in the Sanda area.     

Response of a two-layer ocean with a baroclinic current to a moving storm,part II

A circular storm moves with a constant speedc along a geostrophic flow similar to a western boundary current in the upper layer of a two-layer ocean with the motionless lower layer. The linear inertia terms are retained. Effects of the current becomes more conspicuous for smallerc and insignificant forc above 10 m s^–1. The inertia effects are manifested in cellular patterns of the interface perturbations with cell lengths of(c–vf ^–1 in a wake of the storm with a radius of an order of 100 km, wherev is the current velocity. On the left hand edge where the flow has a strong shear, the interface displacements have large amplitudes which increase with a distance along the path in a wake of the storm. These disturbances propagate to the left of the edge within an angle of cot^–1 (c ²/gH₀–1), whereg is the reduced gravity andH ₀ is the depth of the interface at the edge of the current. Comparison with the observations during Typhoon Trix in 1971 south of Japan suggests that fluctuations of the daily mean sea level with several days' periods observed along the southern coast of Japan may be due to the stationary oscillations of the Kuroshio caused by the inertia undulations along its left edge or due to the propagating perturbations to the left.     

Effects of solar wind parameters on the development of magnetospheric substorms

Effects of solar wind parameters on the development of substorms during the events of southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) lasting more than one hour were studied. Analysis on 175 events with average magnitude of the southward component of IMF larger than l·5γ as observed in July–December 1965 lead to the following results: (1) The total auroral electrojet (AEJ) current associated with the southward IMF event is approximately proportional to the time integral of the magnitude of the southward component. (2) The azimuthal component of IMF also affects the AEJ development. AEJ about twice as intense were observed when IMF was directed duskward than when IMF was directed dawnward. (3) AEJ intensity is strongly affected by the solar wind velocity during the southward IMF events, the intensity being approximately proportional to the square of the velocity. (4) No indication was found that the angle between the Sun-Earth line and the Earth's dipole axis plays any role on the development of substorms if effects of the solar wind parameters as described above are eliminated.     

Güttler scattering analogues for dust aggregates

We show that suitably defined Güttler (core-mantle) analogues can satisfactorily represent the optical cross-sections of aggregates of very small particles that result from mutual collisions and sticking. Earlier calculations using the discrete dipole approximation are seen to be in good agreement with Güttler analogue calculations, particularly in the case of the so-called Ballistic Particle-Cluster Aggregates (BPCA).     

Stray-Light Effect on Magnetograph Observations

To examine the stray-light effect in magnetograph observations, we have determined the point spread functions of the vector magnetograph mounted on the Japanese Solar Flare Telescope based on two indirect methods, one analyzing the solar limb intensity profile, and the other using the Fourier power spectra of photospheric intensity distributions. Point spread functions consist of two parts: a blurring part which describes seeing and small-spread-angle stray light, and a scattering part which describes large-spread-angle stray light. The FWHM spatial resolution is typically 3.0, and the amount of scattered light is about 15% on clear days. We find that the blurring part is well described by a Moffat function whose Fourier transform is given by an exponential function. Our results indicate that polarization measurements of low-intensity magnetic elements like sunspots may be significantly underestimated due to the large-spread-angle stray light, and polarization measurements of magnetic elements which are smaller than 5–7 appear to be disturbed by small-spread-angle stray light.     

Impact of road‐generated storm runoff on a small catchment response

The impact of road‐generated runoff on the hydrological response of a zero‐order basin was monitored for a sequence of 24 storm events. The study was conducted in a zero‐order basin (C1; 0·5ha) with an unpaved mountain road; an adjacent unroaded zero‐order basin (C2; 0·2 ha) with similar topography and lithology was used to evaluate the hydrological behaviour of the affected zero‐order basin prior to construction of the road. The impact of the road at the zero‐order basin scale was highly dependent on the antecedent soil‐moisture conditions, total storm precipitation, and to some extent rainfall intensity. At the beginning of the monitoring period, during dry antecedent conditions, road runoff contributed 50% of the total runoff and 70% of the peak flow from the affected catchment (C1). The response from the unroaded catchment was almost insignificant during dry antecedent conditions. As soil moisture increased, the road exerted less influence on the total runoff from the roaded catchment. For very wet conditions, the influence of road‐generated runoff on total outflow from the roaded catchment diminished to only 5·4%. Both catchments, roaded and unroaded, produced equivalent amount of outflow during very wet antecedent conditions on a unit area basis. The lag time between the rainfall and runoff peaks observed in the unroaded catchment during the monitoring period ranged from 0 to 4 h depending on the amount of precipitation and antecedent conditions, owing mainly to much slower subsurface flow pathways in the unroaded zero‐order basin. In contrast, the lag time in the roaded zero‐order basin was virtually nil during all storms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fine‐structures of planar deformation features in shocked olivine: A comparison between Martian meteorites and experimentally shocked basalts as an indicator for shock pressure

We performed shock recovery experiments on an olivine‐phyric basalt at shock pressures of 22.2–48.5 GPa to compare with shock features in Martian meteorites (RBT 04261 and NWA 1950). Highly shocked olivine in the recovered basalt at 39.5 and 48.5 GPa shows shock‐induced planar deformation features (PDFs) composed of abundant streaks of defects. Similar PDFs were observed in olivine in RBT 04261 and NWA 1950 while those in NWA 1950 were composed of amorphous lamellae. Based on the present results and previous studies, the width and the abundance of lamellar fine‐structures increased with raising shock pressure. Therefore, these features could be used as shock pressure indicators while the estimated pressures may be lower limits due to no information of temperature dependence. For Martian meteorites that experienced heavy shocks, the minimum peak shock pressures of RBT 04261 and NWA 1950 are estimated to be 39.5–48.5 GPa and 48.5–56 GPa, respectively, which are found consistent with those estimated by postshock temperatures expected by the presence of brown olivine. We also investigated shock‐recovered basalts preheated at 750 and 800 °C in order to check the temperature effects on shock features. The results indicate a reduction in vitrifying pressure of plagioclase and a pressure increase for PDFs formation in olivine. Further temperature‐controlled shock recovery experiments will provide us better constraints to understand and to characterize various features found in natural shock events.