Imaging of Buried Archaeological Materials: The Reflection Properties of Archaeological Wood

Effective marine archaeological site management demands detailed information on not only the spatial distribution of artefacts but also the degradation state of the materials present. Although sonar methods have frequently been used in an attempt to detect buried wooden shipwrecks they are currently unable to indicate their degradation state. To assess the sensitivity of acoustic measurements to changes in the degradation state of such material, and hence the potential for sonars to quantify degradation, laboratory measurements of compressional wave velocity, as well as bulk density for oak and pine samples, in varying states of decay, were undertaken. These data enabled the calculation of theoretical reflection coefficients for such materials buried in various marine sediments. As wood degrades, the reflection coefficients become more negative, resulting in the hypothesis that the more degraded wood becomes, the easier it should be to detect. Typical reflection coefficients of the order of −0.43 and −0.52 for the most degraded oak and pine samples in sand are predicted. Conversely, for wood exposed to seawater the predicted reflection coefficients are large and positive for undegraded material (0.35 for oak, 0.18 for pine) and decrease to zero or slightly below for the most degraded samples. This indicates that exposed timbers, when heavily degraded, can be acoustically transparent and so undetectable by acoustic methods. Corroboration of these experimental results was provided through comparison with high resolution seismic reflection data that has been acquired over two shipwrecks.     

Environmental Factors Contributing to the Development and Demise of a Toxic Dinoflagellate (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Karlodinium veneficum</Emphasis>) Bloom in a Shallow,Eutrophic, Lagoonal Estuary

A dense bloom of the ichthyotoxic dinoflagellate Karlodinium veneficum was discovered in the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina, on 19 October 2006 and was associated with four subsequent fish kills. Microscopic, photopigment, DNA, and toxicological techniques confirmed bloom identity and toxicity. High-resolution spatio-temporal data from ship-board and fixed automated sampling stations provided a unique opportunity to investigate the environmental conditions that initiated, maintained, and terminated the K. veneficum bloom. Bloom initiation and growth were favored by high nutrient availability and reduced dispersal during the period of declining riverine discharge after Tropical Storm Ernesto. K. veneficum out-competed other co-occurring dinoflagellates, perhaps because of the production of karlotoxins that are known to act as grazing deterrents and to facilitate mixotrophic feeding. Once the bloom was established, small-scale hydrodynamic processes, coupled with vertical migration, concentrated cells along a frontal convergence to high densities (>200,000 cells per milliliter). By 26 October 2006, wind mixing and possible nutrient stress disrupted the bloom. Release of cell-bound toxins during the bloom collapse likely accounted for the associated fish kill events where fish were reported as exhibiting typical symptoms of karlotoxin poisoning. The dynamics of this bloom underscore the tight control of harmful algal blooms by meteorological forcing, hydrology, and sediment nutrient input in this shallow lagoonal estuary.     

Croatia as a Danube country

Among the three principal regional units of Croatia, i.e. the elongated and spacious Adriatic littoral (with numerous islands), the relatively small and narrow mountainous belt (the Croatian transit doorway) and the Pannonian/peri-Pannonian region, the latter is the largest and accounts for 54 percent of the surface area and 66 percent of the population of Croatia (1991 census). It is part of the Pannonian (or Carpathian) basin, or the central Danube basin, so that Croatia is simply by its position a Danube country. Its Danube character is also highlighted by the fact that the Pannonian/peri-Pannonian region of Croatia through the Sava and Drava Rivers is directly linked to the navigable Danube, which is the historical and ethnic eastern boundary of Croatia. Croatia is an old historical Danube nation and country, although it has nominally appeared as a state after the break-up of Yugoslavia, and its international recognition as an independent state (1992).     

Upper Silesia,a forgotten region in Central Europe

On the map of Europe, forming the south-western border region of Poland, is to be found the name Silesia, with in many cases its southern part emphasized — Upper Silesia. Any search for statistics as to its exact surface area and population size will be in vain. At the end of World War I, Upper Silesia found itself squeezed between two nationalistically-obsessed peoples, and economically too attractive to both to be allowed to play an idependent political role, as it had for centuries. Upper Silesia was in 1921 divided. After World War II, under the communist centralised power system, a completely colonial robber economy was pursued. Because of the coal production there is now here one of the greatest agglomeration areas in Europe, with an ageing heavy industry and a catastropihcally damaged environment.     

ASPI experiment: measurements of fields and waves on board the INTERBALL-1 spacecraft

The plasma-wave experiment ASPI (analysis of spectra of plasma waves and instabilities) on board the INTERBALL spacecraft is a combined wave diagnostics experiment. It performs measurements of the DC and AC magnetic field vector by flux-gate and searchcoil sensors, the DC and AC electric field vector by Langmuir double probes and the plasma current by Langmuir split probe. Preliminary data analysis shows the low noise levels of the sensors and the compatibility of new data with the results of previous missions. During several months of in-orbit operation a rich collection of data was acquired, examples of which at the magnetopause and plasma sheet are presented in second part of the paper.     

Radiative Exchange in an Urban Street Canyon

The influence of building geometry on the radiation terms ofthe surface energy balance is a principal reason for surfacetemperature differences between rural and urban areas.Methods exist to calculate the radiation balance in an urban area,but their validity across the range of urban geometries andmaterials has not been carefully considered.Here the exchange of diffuse radiation in an urban street canyon isinvestigated using a method incorporating all reflections of radiation.This exact solution is compared to two commonly used approximationsthat retain either no reflections, or just one reflection of radiation.The area-averaged net radiative flux density from the facets of the canyondecreases in magnitude monotonically as the canyon aspect ratio increases.The two approximate solutions possess unphysical differences from thismonotonic decrease for high canyon aspect ratios or low materialemissivities/high material albedos.The errors of the two approximate solutions are small for near blackbodymaterials and small canyon aspect ratios but can be an order ofmagnitude for intermediate material properties and deep street canyons.Urban street canyon models need to consider at least one reflectionof radiation and multiple reflections are desirable for full applicability.     

Sedimentology and kinematics of a large, retrogressive growth-fault system in Upper Carboniferous deltaic sediments, western Ireland

Growth faulting is a common feature of many deltaic environments and is vital in determining local sediment dispersal and accumulation, and hence in controlling the resultant sedimentary facies distribution and architecture. Growth faults occur on a range of scales, from a few centimetres to hundreds of metres, with the largest growth faults frequently being under‐represented in outcrops that are often smaller than the scale of feature under investigation. This paper presents data from the exceptionally large outcrops of the Cliffs of Moher, western Ireland, where a growth‐fault complex affects strata up to 60 m in thickness and extends laterally for ≈ 3 km. Study of this Namurian (Upper Carboniferous) growth‐fault system enables the relationship between growth faulting and sedimentation to be detailed and permits reconstruction of the kinematic history of faulting. Growth faulting was initiated with the onset of sandstone deposition on a succession of silty mudstones that overlie a thin, marine shale. The decollement horizon developed at the top of the marine shale contact for the first nine faults, by which time aggradation in the hangingwall exceeded 60 m in thickness. After this time, failure planes developed at higher stratigraphic levels and were associated with smaller scale faults. The fault complex shows a dominantly landward retrogressive movement, in which only one fault was largely active at any one time. There is no evidence of compressional features at the base of the growth faults, thus suggesting open‐ended slides, and the faults display both disintegrative and non‐disintegrative structure. Thin‐bedded, distal mouth bar facies dominate the hangingwall stratigraphy and, in the final stages of growth‐fault movement, erosion of the crests of rollover structures resulted in the highest strata being restricted to the proximity of the fault. These upper erosion surfaces on the fault scarp developed erosive chutes that were cut parallel to flow and are downlapped by the distal hangingwall strata of younger growth faults.