Origin of layering in cumulate gabbros in the Oman ophiolite: Insights from magnetic susceptibility measurements in the Wadi Sadm area

Abstract   Magnetic susceptibility and the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility were measured on an 800-cm-thick succession of cumulate gabbro in the Sadm area of the Oman ophiolite. The section contained three distinct cumulate units. The susceptibility tends to decrease upward in each from a melanocratic layer (several tens of centimeters thick) to a leucocratic layer (a few meters thick). The susceptibility decreases in accordance with the decreasing number of magnetite grains, which are the alteration product mainly of olivine minerals. This suggests the cyclic downward accumulation of olivine in the cumulate gabbro. The apparent strain deduced from the patterns of magnetic and grain fabrics was the result mostly of simple shear, so that the layering of gabbro is understood to be formed primarily by a crystal cumulus process followed by simple shear deformation.     

Submillimeter-wave and observations of the event on 28 November, 2001

We present a detailed study of a 1B/M6.9 impulsive flare combining high time resolution (1 ms) and instantaneous emission source localization observations at submillimeter frequencies (212 GHz), obtained with the solar submillimeter telescope (SST), and Hα data from the Hα solar telescope for argentina (HASTA). The flare, starting at 16:34 UT, occurred in active region (AR) 9715 (NOAA number) on November 28, 2001, and was followed by an Hα surge. We complement our data with magnetograms from the Michelson Doppler Imager (SOHO/MDI). SST observed a short impulsive burst at 212 GHz, presenting a weak bulk emission (of about 90 sfu) composed of a few shorter duration structures. The integrated Hα and the 212 GHz light curves present a remarkable agreement during the impulsive phase of the event. The delay between both curves stays below 12 s (the time resolution of the Hα telescope). The flare as well as the surge are linked to new flux emergence very close to the main AR bipole. Taking into account the AR magnetic field evolution, we infer that magnetic field reconnection, occurring at low coronal levels, could have been at the origin of the flare; while in the case of surge this would happen at the chromospheric level.     

Historical measurements of the Earth's magnetic field compared with remanence directions from lava flows in Italy over the last four centuries

Direct measurements of the Earth's magnetic field in Italy since 1640 a.d. have been used to check the remanence directions derived from historically dated volcanic rocks of Etna and Vesuvius. Direct measurements consist of the records of L’Aquila and Pola geomagnetic observatories, the repeat stations of the Italian Magnetic Network and the data base of the Historical Italian Geomagnetic Data Catalogue. All have been relocated to the same reference site (Viterbo — lat. 42.45°N, long. 12.03°E) in order to draw a reference secular variation (SV) curve. The direction of the Earth's field at Viterbo has also been calculated from the historical records (2000-1600) of ref. [Jackson, A., Jonkers, A.R.T., Walker, M.R., 2000. Four centuries of geomagnetic secular variation from historical records. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 358, 957-990] database. The remanence directions from Etna show a general agreement with the trend of the SV curve, although their inclination is usually lower than that from the direct measurement. The directions from Vesuvius are more scattered. Large discrepancies occur at both volcanoes and in some cases have been ascribed in the literature to poor geographic information, making it difficult to identify the flows actually emplaced during the eruptions reported in the chronicles. Closer examination shows that the great majority of the best-defined remanence directions (semi-angle of confidence α₉₅ < 2.5°) deviate significantly from the geomagnetic direction measured at the time of the emplacement, the angle between the two directions being larger than the α₉₅ value. The value of 2.5-3.0° can thus be regarded as a conservative evaluation of the error when dealing with dating Etna and Vesuvius lava flows older than 17th century, even when the accuracy attained in remanence measurements is higher. In default of a SV curve for Italy derived from archaeological artefacts, a further error in dating is introduced when reference is made to SV curves of other countries, even if well-established, as these are from regions too far from Italy (>600 km) to confidently relocate magnetic directions.     

On core surface flows inferred from satellite magnetic data

Satellite-data allows the magnetic field produced by the dynamo within the Earth’s core to be imaged with much more accuracy than previously possible with only ground-based data. Changes in this magnetic field can in turn be used to make some inferences about the core surface flow responsible for them. In this paper, we investigate the improvement brought to core flow computation by new satellite-data based core magnetic field models. It is shown that the main limitation now encountered is no longer the (now high) accuracy of those models, but the “non-modelled secular variation” produced by interaction of the non-resolvable small scales of the core flow with the core field, and by interaction of the (partly) resolvable large scales of the core flow with the small scales of the core field unfortunately masked by the crustal field. We show how this non-modelled secular variation can be taken into account to recover the largest scales of the core flow in a consistent way. We also investigate the uncertainties this introduces in core flows computed with the help of the frozen-flux and tangentially geostrophic assumptions. It turns out that flows with much more medium and small scales than previously thought are needed to explain the satellite-data-based core magnetic field models. It also turns out that a significant fraction of this flow unfortunately happens to be non-recoverable (being either “non-resolvable” because too small-scale, or “invisible”, because in the kernel of the inverse method) even though it produces the detectable “non-modelled secular variation”. Applying this to the Magsat (1980) to Ørsted (2000) field changes leads us to conclude that a flow involving at least strong retrograde vortices below the Atlantic Hemisphere, some less-resolved prograde vortices below the Pacific Hemisphere, and some poorly resolved (and partly non-resolvable) polar vortices, is needed to explain the 1980-2000 satellite-era average secular variation. The characteristics of the fraction of the secular variation left unexplained by this flow are also discussed.     

Estimation of regional material yield from coastal landslides based on historical digital terrain modelling

High‐resolution historical (1942) and recent (1994) digital terrain models were derived from aerial photographs along the Big Sur coastline in central California to measure the long‐term volume of material that enters the nearshore environment. During the 52‐year measurement time period, an average of 21 000 ± 3100 m³ km^?1 a^?1 of material was eroded from nine study sections distributed along the coast, with a low yield of 1000 ± 240 m³ km^?1 a^?1 and a high of 46 700 ± 7300 m³ km^?1 a^?1. The results compare well with known volumes from several deep‐seated landslides in the area and suggest that the processes by which material is delivered to the coast are episodic in nature. In addition, a number of parameters are investigated to determine what influences the substantial variation in yield along the coast. It is found that the magnitude of regional coastal landslide sediment yield is primarily related to the physical strength of the slope‐forming material. Coastal Highway 1 runs along the lower portion of the slope along this stretch of coastline, and winter storms frequently damage the highway. The California Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining this scenic highway while minimizing the impacts to the coastal ecosystems that are part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. This study provides environmental managers with critical background data on the volumes of material that historically enter the nearshore from landslides, as well as demonstrating the application of deriving historical digital terrain data to model landscape evolution. Published in 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The dependence of response spectrum on the tectonic ambient shear stress field

Introduction The acceleration response spectrum and peak ground acceleration are the necessary and im-portant parameters in earthquake-resistant design at present. They are still active research field. With the increase of digital high accurate strong motion observation data, especially the earth-quakes of Loma Prieta (M=7.0) in 1989; Landers (M=7.3) in 1992; Big Bear (M=6.4) in 1994 and Northridge (M=6.7) in 1994 in USA; Kozani (M=6.6) earthquake and afteshocks in 1995 in Greece; Dinar…     

Geostatistical simulation of random fields with bivariate isofactorial distributions by adding mosaic models

This work deals with the geostatistical simulation of a family of stationary random field models with bivariate isofactorial distributions. Such models are defined as the sum of independent random fields with mosaic-type bivariate distributions and infinitely divisible univariate distributions. For practical applications, dead leaf tessellations are used since they provide a wide range of models and allow conditioning the realizations to a set of data via an iterative procedure (simulated annealing). The model parameters can be determined by comparing the data variogram and madogram, and enable to control the spatial connectivity of the extreme values in the realizations. An illustration to a forest dataset is presented, for which a negative binomial model is used to characterize the distribution of coniferous trees over a wooded area.     

Characteristics and genesis of maghemite in Chinese loess and paleosols: Mechanism for magnetic susceptibility enhancement in paleosols

Morphological characteristics and microstructures of magnetic minerals extracted from Chinese loess and paleosols were investigated using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Our results indicate that maghemite in loess–paleosol sequences was transformed from magnetite through oxidation of magnetite. Maghemite transformed from eolian magnetite during chemical weathering has low-angle grain boundaries among maghemite nano-crystals. Some nano-crystalline maghemites with nanoporous texture resulted from microbe-induced precipitation of magnetite or transformation of poorly crystalline ferric Fe (oxy)hydroxides in presence of Fe-reducing bacteria. Aggregates of euhedral maghemite nano-crystals were transformed from magnetite magnetosomes. Both microbe-induced nanoporous magnetite and microbe-produced magnetite magnetosomes are directly related to microbial activities and pedogenesis of the paleosols. It is proposed that the formation of nano-crystalline maghemite with superparamagnetic property in paleosol results in the enhancement of magnetic susceptibility, although the total amount (weight percent) of magnetic minerals in both paleosol and loess units is similar. Our results also show that nano-crystalline and nanoporous magnetite grains prefer to transform into maghemite in semi-arid soil environments instead of hematite, although hematite is a thermodynamically stable phase. This result also indicates that a decrease in crystal size will increase stability of maghemite. It is also inferred that surface energy of maghemite is lower than that of hematite.