High-frequency monitoring of hydrological and biogeochemical fluxes in forested catchments of southern Chile

The variability of rainfall-dependent streamflow at catchment scale modulates many ecosystem processes in wet temperate forests. Runoff in small mountain catchments is characterized by a quick response to rainfall pulses which affects biogeochemical fluxes to all downstream systems. In wet-temperate climates, water erosion is the most important natural factor driving downstream soil and nutrient losses from upland ecosystems. Most hydrochemical studies have focused on water flux measurements at hourly scales, along with weekly or monthly samples for water chemistry. Here, we assessed how water and element flows from broad-leaved, evergreen forested catchments in southwestern South America, are influenced by different successional stages, quantifying runoff, sediment transport and nutrient fluxes during hourly rainfall events of different intensities. Hydrograph comparisons among different successional stages indicated that forested catchments differed in their responses to high intensity rainfall, with greater runoff in areas covered by secondary forests (SF), compared to old-growth forest cover (OG) and dense scrub vegetation (CH). Further, throughfall water was greatly nutrient enriched for all forest types. Suspended sediment loads varied between successional stages. SF catchments exported 455 kg of sediments per ha, followed by OG with 91 kg/ha and CH with 14 kg/ha, corresponding to 11 rainfall events measured from December 2013 to April 2014. Total nitrogen (TN) and phosphorus (TP) concentrations in stream water also varied with rainfall intensity. In seven rainfall events sampled during the study period, CH catchments exported less nutrients (46 kg/ha TN and 7 kg/ha TP) than SF catchments (718 kg/ha TN and 107 kg/ha TP), while OG catchments exported intermediate sediment loads (201 kg/ha TN and 23 kg/ha TP). Further, we found significant effects of successional stage attributes (vegetation structure and soil physical properties) and catchment morphometry on runoff and sediment concentrations, and greater nutrients retention in OG and CH catchments. We conclude that in these southern hemisphere, broad-leaved evergreen temperate forests, hydrological processes are driven by multiple interacting phenomena, including climate, vegetation, soils, topography, and disturbance history.     

Reliability assessment of granular filters in embankment dams

Empirical criteria have been used successfully to design filters of most embankment large dam projects throughout the world. However, these empirical rules are only applicable to a particular range of soils tested in laboratory and do not take into account the variability of the base material and filter particle sizes. In addition, it is widely accepted that the safety of fill dams is mainly dependent on the reliability of their filter performance. The work herein presented consists in a new general method for assessing the probability of fulfilling any empirical filter design criteria accounting for base and filter heterogeneity by means of first‐order reliability methods (FORM), so that reliability indexes and probabilities of fulfilling any particular criteria are obtained. This method will allow engineers to estimate the safety of existing filters in terms of probability of fulfilling their design criteria and might also be used as a decision tool on sampling needs and material size tolerances during construction. In addition, sensitivity analysis makes possible to analyse how reliabilities are influenced by different sources of input data. Finally, in case of a portfolio risk assessment, this method will allow engineers to compare the safety of several existing dams in order to prioritize safety investments and it is expected to be a very useful tool to evaluate probabilities of failure due to internal erosion. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geothermal palaeogradients and metamorphic zonation from the conodont colour alteration index (CAI)

The conodont colour alteration index (CAI) is potentially valuable in thermal history investigations, but there are problems in its use. An approach is proposed herein to overcome the problem of establishing reliable geothermal palaeogradients in areas with burial metamorphism, based on knowledge of the stratigraphic succession thickness, the boundaries of chronostratigraphic units, and the age and duration of deformation episodes. Although also problematical that a correlation between CAI and Kübler index (KI) values does not exist, there are areas where CAI and KI values are notably consistent for the anchizone boundaries; however, anomalous correlations between CAI and KI values have also been found in some areas. A CAI anchizone (or ancaizone) is defined in order to enable CAI values to be used independently to establish a metamorphic zonation.     

A focal plane detector design for a wide-band Laue-lens telescope

The energy range above 60 keV is important for the study of many open problems in high energy astrophysics such as the role of Inverse Compton with respect to synchrotron or thermal processes in GRBs, non thermal mechanisms in SNR, the study of the high energy cut-offs in AGN spectra, and the detection of nuclear and annihilation lines. Recently the development of high energy Laue lenses with broad energy bandpasses from 60 to 600keV have been proposed for a Hard X ray focusing Telescope (HAXTEL) in order to study the X-ray continuum of celestial sources. The required focal plane detector should have high detection efficiency over the entire operative range, a spatial resolution of about 1mm, an energy resolution of a few keV at 500keV and a sensitivity to linear polarization. We describe a possible configuration of the focal plane detector based on several CdTe/CZT pixelated layers stacked together to achieve the required detection efficiency at high energy. Each layer can operate both as a separate position sensitive detector and polarimeter or work with other layers to increase the overall photopeak efficiency. Each layer has a hexagonal shape in order to minimize the detector surface required to cover the lens field of view. The pixels would have the same geometry so as to provide the best coupling with the lens point spread function and to increase the symmetry for polarimetric studies.     

What type was SN 1987A?

A comparison is made of the light and colour curves of the SN 1987A in the first 280 days with the mean properties of type II supernovae. The conclusion is that even though it has H lines, and was not a typical type II supernova, but a peculiar object from a photometric point of view. The implications for inclusion of SN 1987A in the context of the usual Minkowski-Zwicky classification are explicitly discussed.     

Notes on Hori Method for Canonical Systems

In this paper a slightly different approach is proposed for the process of determining the functions S _m and H _m ^* of the algorithm of the canonical version of Hori method. This process will be referred to as integration theory of the mth order equation of the method. It will be shown that the ordinary differential equation with an auxiliary parameter t ^* as independent variable, introduced through Hori auxiliary system, can be replaced by a partial differential equation in the time t. In this way, the mth order equation of the algorithm assumes a form very similar to the one of other perturbation methods. In virtue of this new approach of the integration theory for Hori method, Lagrange's variational equations introduced by Sessin are revised. As an example, the Duffing equation is solved through this new approach.     

Baryon loading and the Weibel instability in gamma-ray bursts

The dynamics of two counter-streaming electron–positron–ion unmagnetized plasma shells with zero net charge is analysed in the context of magnetic field generation in gamma-ray burst internal shocks due to the Weibel instability. The effects of large thermal motion of plasma particles, arbitrary mixture of plasma species and space charge effects are taken into account. We show that, although thermal effects slow down the instability, baryon loading leads to a non-negligible growth rate even for large temperatures and different shell velocities, thus guaranteeing the robustness and the occurrence of the Weibel instability for a wide range of scenarios.     

Late Carboniferous porphyry copper mineralization at La Voluntad,Neuquén,Argentina: Constraints from Re–Os molybdenite dating

The La Voluntad porphyry Cu–Mo deposit in Neuquén, Argentina, is one of several poorly known porphyry-type deposits of Paleozoic to Early Jurassic age in the central and southern Andes. Mineralization at La Voluntad is related to a tonalite porphyry from the Chachil Plutonic Complex that intruded metasedimentary units of the Piedra Santa Complex. Five new Re–Os molybdenite ages from four samples representing three different vein types (i.e., quartz–molybdenite, quartz–sericite–molybdenite and quartz–sericite–molybdenite ± chalcopyrite–pyrite) are identical within error and were formed between ~312 to ~316 Ma. Rhenium and Os concentrations range between 34 to 183 ppm and 112 to 599 ppb, respectively. The new Re–Os ages indicate that the main mineralization event at La Voluntad, associated to sericitic alteration, was emplaced during a time span of 1.7 ± 3.2 Ma and that the deposit is Carboniferous in age, not Permian as previously thought. La Voluntad is the oldest porphyry copper deposit so far recognized in the Andes and indicates the presence of an active magmatic arc, with associated porphyry style mineralization, at the proto-Pacific margin of Gondwana during the Early Pennsylvanian.     

Shale basins,sulfur-deficient ore brines and the formation of exhalative base metal deposits

The massive sulfide deposits of the Iberian Pyrite Belt are interbedded with felsic volcanic rocks and shale, and underlain by several thousand meters of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks known as the PQ Group. Isotope geochemistry and regional geology are both consistent with equilibration of the ore-forming fluids with the PQ Group, prior to ore deposition near the former seafloor. The average Cu:Zn:Pb ratio of the PQ Group rocks (ca. 26:55:19) is similar to the weighted average of all the massive sulfide orebodies combined (ca. 25:52:23).The genetic relationship between massive sulfide deposits and a siliciclastic sedimentary metal source is explained here by a thermodynamic model, proposing that mildly reducing redox conditions imposed by equilibration with the sedimentary rocks are most critical for the formation of an effective ore-forming fluid. Relatively metal-rich but organic-poor pyrite-bearing shale undergoing dewatering of saline pore fluids is an effective source for the generation of sulfur-deficient but relatively iron and base metal-rich brines. Thus, we propose that the giant deposits of the Iberian Pyrite Belt owe their existence not to exceptionally metal-enriched (e.g., magmatic) fluids, but to the existence of a fairly ordinary but large metal source in reactive siliciclastic sediments, combined with an underlying igneous heat source and a particularly efficient mechanism of sulfide precipitation by mixing with H₂S-rich fluids at or near the seafloor.Essentially similar mineral equilibria are imposed when saline fluids are buffered by typical continental basement rocks. Leaching of retrograde minerals and possibly residual salts from their magmatic or metamorphic prehistory is expected to generate similar, variably metal-rich but relatively sulfide-deficient fluids. Thus, the existence of mildly reducing rocks can be the dominant chemical control in the source of fluids generating many volcanogenic, Irish-type or sedex deposits, many of which are known to precipitate their metal load in response to biogenic sulfide addition at the ore deposition site.