Trace metals in the North Sea

The distribution of zinc, manganese, nickel, copper and cadmium in water and biological material has been measured in the southern North Sea and Straits of Dover, and off the north-east coast of England. These investigations provide baseline values against which future pollution changes can be measured.     

Non-LTE profiles of the Ali autoionization lines

A non-LTE formulation is given for the transfer of radiation in the autoionizing lines of neutral aluminum at λ1932 and λ1936 through both the Bilderberg and Harvard-Smithsonian model atmospheres. Numerical solutions for the common source function of these lines and their theoretical line profiles are calculated and compared with the corresponding LTE profiles. Our results show that the non-LTE profiles provide a better match with the observations. They also indicate that the continuous opacity of the standard solar models should be increased in this wavelength region if the center-limb variations of observed and theoretical profiles of these lines are to be in reasonable agreement.

     

Gannet mortality incidents in 1972

Investigations of two incidents in 1972 on the east and west coasts of Britain involving the death of unusually large numbers of Gannets indicated that they were almost certainly unrelated. Concentrations of PCB were much higher in the livers of the birds from the west coast and may possibly have contributed to the death of some or all of them. One of these birds also contained an exceptionally high level of mercury in its liver.     

Hydrocarbons of the hypersaline basins of Shark Bay,Western Australia

Shark Bay is an 8000 sq. km shallow marine embayment on the western coast of Western Australia. The waters exhibit a well established salinity gradient from oceanic to hypersaline. The chemical assemblage of sediment hydrocarbons along the salinity gradient may be classified into two distinct chemogeographic types. Firstly, oceanic sediments contain n-alkanes and a suite of highly branched and branched/cyclic C₂₅ alkenes. Hypersaline sediments are characterised by a high relative abundance of a C₂₅H₅₀ alkene together with an analogous C₂₀H₄₀ alkene and its parent C₂₀H₄₂ alkene (2,6,10-trimethyl-7-(3-methylbutyl)-dodecane). A pair of alkanes C₂₁H₄₂ and C₂₂H₄₄ increase in concentration and relative abundance with depth. The hydrocarbons of the hypersaline basins are found in only trace amounts in oceanic sediments. These chemical signals are overlain by further input indicative of the immediate biotic community.     

The spectrum of the inner corona observed during the total solar eclipse of 30 May 1965

A series of spectrograms of the inner solar corona were obtained at the total solar eclipse of 30 May 1965 using a fast spectrograph with a circular slit that recorded the spectrum from 3000 to 9000 at all position angles around the limb simultaneously. In this paper absolute intensity is given as a function of position angle for the stronger lines and the continuum. In the coronal enhancement or condensation centered at heliocentric position angle 293°, absolute intensity is given for 34 forbidden emission lines and the continuum.     

The polarization of continuum radiation in sunspots

Expressions are derived for the Stokes parameters of light scattered by a layer of free electrons and hydrogen atoms in a sunspot. A physically reasonable sunspot model was found so that the direction of the calculated linear polarization agrees reasonably with observations. The magnitude of the calculated values of the linear polarization agrees generally with values observed in the continuum at 5830 Å. Circular polarization in the continuum also accompanies electron scattering in spot regions; however for commonly accepted values of the longitudinal magnetic field, the predicted circular polarization is much smaller than observed.