Amino acid analyses of Antarctic CM2 meteorites using liquid chromatography‐time of flight‐mass spectrometry

Abstract— Amino acid analyses of the Antarctic CM2 chondrites Allan Hills (ALH) 83100 and Lewis Cliff (LEW) 90500 using liquid chromatography‐time of flight‐mass spectrometry (LC‐ToF‐MS) coupled with UV fluorescence detection revealed that these carbonaceous meteorites contain a suite of indigenous amino acids not present in Antarctic ice. Several amino acids were detected in ALH 83100, including glycine, alanine, β‐alanine, γ‐amino‐n‐butyric acid (γ‐ABA), and α‐aminoisobutyric acid (AIB) with concentrations ranging from 250 to 340 parts per billion (ppb). In contrast to ALH 83100, the CM2 meteorites LEW 90500 and Murchison had a much higher total abundance of these amino acids (440–3200 ppb). In addition, ALH 83100 was found to have lower abundances of the α‐dialkyl amino acids AIB and isovaline than LEW 90500 and Murchison. There are three possible explanations for the depleted amino acid content in ALH 83100: 1) amino acid leaching from ALH 83100 during exposure to Antarctic ice meltwater, 2) a higher degree of aqueous alteration on the ALH 83100 parent body, or 3) ALH 83100 originated on a chemically distinct parent body from the other two CM2 meteorites. The high relative abundance of ?‐amino‐n‐caproic acid (EACA) in the ALH 83100 meteorite as well as the Antarctic ice indicates that Nylon‐6 contamination from the Antarctic sample storage bags may have occurred during collection.     

On the in situ aqueous alteration of soils on Mars

Early (>3 Gy) wetter climate conditions on Mars have been proposed, and it is thus likely that pedogenic processes have occurred there at some point in the past. Soil and rock chemistry of the Martian landing sites were evaluated to test the hypothesis that in situ aqueous alteration and downward movement of solutes have been among the processes that have transformed these portions of the Mars regolith. A geochemical mass balance shows that Martian soils at three landing sites have lost significant quantities of major rock-forming elements and have gained elements that are likely present as soluble ions. The loss of elements is interpreted to have occurred during an earlier stage(s) of weathering that may have been accompanied by the downward transport of weathering products, and the salts are interpreted to be emplaced later in a drier Mars history. Chemical differences exist among the sites, indicating regional differences in soil composition. Shallow soil profile excavations at Gusev crater are consistent with late stage downward migration of salts, implying the presence of small amounts of liquid water even in relatively recent Martian history. While the mechanisms for chemical weathering and salt additions on Mars remain unclear, the soil chemistry appears to record a decline in leaching efficiency. A deep sedimentary exposure at Endurance crater contains complex depth profiles of SO₄, Cl, and Br, trends generally consistent with downward aqueous transport accompanied by drying. While no model for the origin of Martian soils can be fully constrained with the currently available data, a pedogenic origin is consistent with observed Martian geology and geochemistry, and provides a testable hypothesis that can be evaluated with present and future data from the Mars surface.     

Alterations in hepatic metallothionein content in perch, Perca fluviatilis, environmentally exposed to cadmium

During recent years laboratory studies have demonstrated the presence of metallothionein in several species of teleosts.^1–3 The role of metallothionein (MT) in protection against cadmium toxicity has been investigated by exposing fish to high levels of cadmium in the water.^4–6 So far, however, few field studies have focused on the existence of MT and its role in subcellular distribution of cadmium.⁷ In the present study the synthesis of MT as a possible mechanism by which perch adapt to cadmium contamination was investigated in a wild population of perch. An increased MT content of perch liver was found to correlate to an increase in cadmium present in the liver.     

A climatology of mesoscale model simulated low-level wind jets over Cook Inlet and Shelikof Strait, Alaska

Weather in the North Gulf of Alaska is characterized by a high frequency of deep synoptic-scale low-pressure systems, especially during the cold season. The strong pressure gradients of these storms interact with the extremely rugged terrain of the coastal mountains to produce a variety of channeled flows. These surface wind regimes are not well documented in the scientific community, due to the paucity of observations. Modeling of these phenomena in regions of complex terrain is of great interest to those working with hydrodynamic, wave, and pollutant transport models in coastal and shelf areas. Such models, when coupled with ocean and coastal-ecology counterparts, give a broad view of the role surface winds play in shaping local coastal marine ecosystem in this region. This paper presents a climatology of simulated low-level wind jets over the domain of Cook Inlet and Shelikof Strait along Alaska's south-central coast. Daily simulations using the RAMS model were conducted in a 36-h forecast mode for the cold-season period 10/1/03 to 3/31/04. Systematic analysis of the resulting simulated low-level wind field makes it possible to characterize these jets and gap flows in spatial and temporal detail. The comparison between the RAMS winds and the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)-derived winds when available verifies the existence of these wind jets and the capability of the model to simulate these cases. Clearly, the results of a study in this region depend on the fidelity of the model at these scales (O[5 km]). The SAR comparisons attempt to help establish this. From the 6 months of simulations over Cook Inlet and Shelikof Strait, the low-level wind jets are classified into 10 different regimes by location and orientation. These regimes are categorized into four more general groups: cross-channel westerly, easterly, and up and down Inlet flows. The nature of a particular regime is largely a function of pressure gradient orientation and local topography. Jets in the same group have a similar occurrence distribution with time. Some form of jet occurred in the study region almost daily each month of the period, with December 2003 having the highest frequency of wind jets.     

Methodology and use of tensor invariants for satellite gravity gradiometry

Although its use is widespread in several other scientific disciplines, the theory of tensor invariants is only marginally adopted in gravity field modeling. We aim to close this gap by developing and applying the invariants approach for geopotential recovery. Gravitational tensor invariants are deduced from products of second-order derivatives of the gravitational potential. The benefit of the method presented arises from its independence of the gradiometer instrument’s orientation in space. Thus, we refrain from the classical methods for satellite gravity gradiometry analysis, i.e., in terms of individual gravity gradients, in favor of the alternative invariants approach. The invariants approach requires a tailored processing strategy. Firstly, the non-linear functionals with regard to the potential series expansion in spherical harmonics necessitates the linearization and iterative solution of the resulting least-squares problem. From the computational point of view, efficient linearization by means of perturbation theory has been adopted. It only requires the computation of reference gravity gradients. Secondly, the deduced pseudo-observations are composed of all the gravitational tensor elements, all of which require a comparable level of accuracy. Additionally, implementation of the invariants method for large data sets is a challenging task. We show the fundamentals of tensor invariants theory adapted to satellite gradiometry. With regard to the GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) satellite gradiometry mission, we demonstrate that the iterative parameter estimation process converges within only two iterations. Additionally, for the GOCE configuration, we show the invariants approach to be insensitive to the synthesis of unobserved gravity gradients.     

Efficient GOCE satellite gravity field recovery based on least-squares using QR decomposition

We develop and apply an efficient strategy for Earth gravity field recovery from satellite gravity gradiometry data. Our approach is based upon the Paige-Saunders iterative least-squares method using QR decomposition (LSQR). We modify the original algorithm for space-geodetic applications: firstly, we investigate how convergence can be accelerated by means of both subspace and block-diagonal preconditioning. The efficiency of the latter dominates if the design matrix exhibits block-dominant structure. Secondly, we address Tikhonov-Phillips regularization in general. Thirdly, we demonstrate an effective implementation of the algorithm in a high-performance computing environment. In this context, an important issue is to avoid the twofold computation of the design matrix in each iteration. The computational platform is a 64-processor shared-memory supercomputer. The runtime results prove the successful parallelization of the LSQR solver. The numerical examples are chosen in view of the forthcoming satellite mission GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer). The closed-loop scenario covers 1 month of simulated data with 5 s sampling. We focus exclusively on the analysis of radial components of satellite accelerations and gravity gradients. Our extensions to the basic algorithm enable the method to be competitive with well-established inversion strategies in satellite geodesy, such as conjugate gradient methods or the brute-force approach. In its current development stage, the LSQR method appears ready to deal with real-data applications.     

Palaeoclimatic studies in South Shetland Islands,Antarctica, based on numerous stratigraphic variables in lake sediments

The hitherto longest found lake sediment sequence on Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, was analysed with respect to lithology, chronology, diatoms, Pediastrum, pollen and spores, mosses, mineralogy, and sediment chemistry. During the ca. 5000 year long development the sediments were influenced by frequent tephra fall-outs. This volcanic impact played a major role in the lake's history during two periods, 4700–4600 and 2800–2500 BP, but was of importance during the lake's entire history with considerable influence on many of the palaeoenvironmentally significant indicators. The large and complex data set was analysed and zonated with different types of multivariate analysis. This resulted in a subdivision of the sequence into 8 time periods and 21 variables. Redundancy analysis (RDA) of this data set, both without and with the tephra periods, and with 4–6 of the variables as explanatory environmental variables, reveal that climatic/environmental signals are detectable. The palaeoclimatic picture that emerged out of the tephra noise suggests that the first 100 years were characterized by mild, humid conditions. This was followed by a less mild and humid climate until ca. 4000 BP when a gradual warming seems to have started, coupled with increased humidity. These mild and humid conditions seem to have reached an optimum slightly after 3000 BP. At ca. 2500 BP a distinct climatic deterioration occurred with colder and drier conditions and long seasons with ice cover. This arid, cold phase probably reached its optimum conditions at ca. 1500 BP, when slightly warmer conditions might have prevailed for a while. Except for the modern sample with rather mild climate, the last 1400 years seem to have been fairly arid and cold, and the effects of the frequent volcanic activity during this period is only vaguely seen in the records.