The meteorite collection sites of Antarctica     

William Cassidy  Ralph Harvey  John Schutt  Georg Delisle  Keizo Yanai 《Meteoritics & planetary science》1992,27(5):490-525

Abstract— Antarctic meteorites have been and are being well studied but the potential for glaciological and climatological information in the sites where they are found is only beginning to be realized. To date, meteorite stranding surfaces have been identified only in East Antarctica: (1) The MacKay Glacier/David Glacier region contains the Allan Hills and the Reckling Moraine/Elephant Moraine stranding surfaces. Because the Allan Hills Main Icefield has a large proportion of meteorites with long terrestrial ages, these concentrations of meteorites must have had catchment areas extending well inland, in contrast to the present. Where known, bedrock topography is mesa-like in form and influences ice flow directions. Ice levels at the Allan Hills may have been higher by 50–100 m in the past. Reckling Moraine and Elephant Moraine are located on a long patch of ice running westward from Reckling Peak; the ice appears to be pouring over a bedrock escarpment. (2) In North Victoria Land, ice diverges around Frontier Mountain and flows into a site behind the barrier where ablation occurs extensively. It is proposed that meteorites and rocks were dumped by ice flow at the mouth of a valley in the lee of the mountain at the site where a meltwater pond existed, in a depression produced by ablation. Later, the pond migrated headward along the valley to a point where it is today, leaving a morainal deposit with the meteorites at a higher level. (3) Between the Beardmore and Law Glaciers, ice flows sluggishly into the southwestern margin of the Walcott Névé. Northeastern sections of the Walcott are virtually barren of meteorites. The entering Plateau ice is diverted northward to flow along the base of Lewis Cliff. This flow apparently terminates in an ice tongue protruding into a vast moraine, where a very large concentration of meteorites was found on the ice. This final segment of flowing ice is called the Lewis Cliff Ice Tongue. Meteorite Moraine, a subsidiary occurrence 2 km to the northeast, is also found against morainal deposits. The origin of the moraines and the history of meteorite concentration at this site is the subject of some debate. (4) The Transantarctic Mountains are submerged along one segment many hundreds of km in length by ice flowing off the Polar Plateau. The Thiel Mountains, Pecora Escarpment and Patuxent Range are the only surface indications of the underlying mountains along this interval, and meteorite stranding surfaces are found at each of these sites. Little is yet known about ice dynamics at these sites. (5) The immense Yamato Mountains meteorite stranding surface covers an area of about 4000 km². So far, most meteorites have been recovered in the upper reaches of this blue ice field, where ice flow is slowed by outlying subice barriers of the Yamato Mountains. Individual massifs in this range extend northward over 50 km, and the Yamato Meteorite Icefield loses 1100 m in elevation over this distance. (6) The Sør Rondane Mountains form a barrier to ice flow off the Polar Plateau. The major meteorite stranding surface associated with this barrier is the Nansenisen Icefield, a large ablation area about 50 km upstream of the mountains. The existence of a meteorite stranding surface at this site has not been explained so far. Most meteorite stranding surfaces have been functioning for a long time. They are sites where net ablation of the surface is occurring; the ice at these sites is stagnant or flowing only slowly, and the numbers of meteorites with great terrestrial ages decrease exponentially. Concentration mechanisms operating at these sites involve ablation, direct infall, time, low temperatures, moderate weathering and wind ablation. Detrimental to concentration are ice flow out of the area and extreme weathering. In spite of the fact that the Antarctic Ice Sheet is thought to be over 10 Ma old, we do not find stranding surfaces with meteorites having greater terrestrial ages than 1 Ma. This suggests that stranding surfaces are transient features, affected on a continental scale by possible extreme warming during late Pliocene and on a smaller scale by regional changes that produce differential effects between icefields. The latter effect is suggested by differences in the average terrestrial age of meteorites at different stranding surfaces. In either case, these sites seem to appear as a result of thinning near the edges of the ice sheet, and stratigraphic sequences may be exposed in the ice at stranding surfaces. We review five models for the production of meteorite stranding surfaces: (1) simple deflation of the ice sheet, in which ablation removes great thicknesses of overlying ice, exposing the contained meteorites while allowing direct falls to accumulate, (2) simple accumulation of direct falls on a bare ice surface that is not deflating, (3) ablation of ice trapped against a barrier, in which meteorites accumulate by direct infall while inflowing ice contributes meteorites by ablation discovery, (4) deceleration of ice by a subice barrier, which allows ablation discovery of meteorites in incoming ice and accumulation of other meteorites on the surface by direct infall and (5) stagnation of ice by encounter with an ice mass able to produce an opposing flow vector, in which ablation discovery and direct infall accumulation processes operate to build the meteorite concentration.  相似文献   

Magmatic unmixing in spinel from late Precambrian concentrically-zoned mafic–ultramafic intrusions, Eastern Desert, Egypt     

Ahmed Hassan Ahmed  Hassan Mohamed Helmy  Shoji Arai  Masako Yoshikawa 《Lithos》2008,104(1-4):85-98

Spinel is widespread in the ultramafic core rocks of zoned late Precambrian mafic–ultramafic complexes from the Eastern Desert of Egypt. These complexes; Gabbro Akarem, Genina Gharbia and Abu Hamamid are Precambrian analogues of Alaskan-type complexes, they are not metamorphosed although weakly altered. Each intrusion is composed of a predotite core enveloped by pyroxenites and gabbros at the margin. Silicate mineralogy and chemistry suggest formation by crystal fractionation from a hydrous magma. Relatively high Cr₂O₃ contents are recorded in pyroxenes (up to 1.1 wt.%) and amphiboles (up to 1.4 wt.%) from the three plutons. The chrome spinel crystallized at different stages of melt evolution; as early cumulus inclusions in olivine, inclusions in pyroxenes and amphiboles and late-magmatic intercumulus phase. The intercumulus chrome spinel is homogenous with narrow-range of chemical composition, mainly Fe³⁺-rich spinel. Spinel inclusions in clinopyroxene and amphibole reveal a wide range of Al (27–44 wt.% Al₂O₃) and Mg (6–13 wt.% MgO) contents and are commonly zoned. The different chemistries of those spinels reflect various stages of melt evolution and re-equilibration with the host minerals. The early cumulus chrome spinel reveals a complex unmixing structures and compositions. Three types of unmixed spinels are recognized; crystallographically oriented, irregular and complete separation. Unmixing products are Al-rich (Type I) and Fe³⁺-rich (Type II) spinels with an extensive solid solution between the two end members. The compositions of the unmixed spinels define a miscibility gap with respect to Cr–Al–Fe³⁺, extending from the Fe³⁺–Al join towards the Cr corner. Spinel unmixing occurs in response to cooling and the increase in oxidation state. The chemistry and grain size of the initial spinel and the cooling rate control the type of unmixing and the chemistry of the final products. Causes of spinel unmixing during late-magmatic stage are analogous to those in metamorphosed complexes. The chemistry of the unmixed spinels is completely different from the initial spinel composition and is not useful in petrogenetic interpretations. Spinels from oxidized magmas are likely to re-equilibrate during cooling and are not good tools for genetic considerations.  相似文献   

Seismic behaviour of pile groups by hybrid experiments     

Kenzo Toki  Tadanobu Sato  Junji Kiyono  Nozar Kishi Garmroudi  Susumu Emi  Masaaki Yoshikawa 《地震工程与结构动力学》1991,20(10):895-909

Non-linear seismic soil-pile interaction was studied with a hybrid procedure that used a pseudo-dynamic testing (PDT) method modified to account for frequency dependence and developed for foundation-soil systems. The numerical scheme used in the conventional PDT was improved by the introduction of a time-dependent pseudo-forcing function derived from the frequency-dependent dynamic characteristics of the system by Hilbert transformation in the frequency domain. Single, 2-, 3- and 9-pile group foundation models were used, their mechanical characteristics later being determined from static and forced vibration dynamic tests. Amplitude scaling was used for three recorded accelerograms. Data recorded during an earthquake at the site of the experiments revealed that the proposed methodology predicts well seismic nonlinear interaction and accounts for frequency dependence and non-linearity in the time domain.  相似文献   

Hybrid experiments on non-linear earthquake-induced soil-structure interaction     

Kenzo Toki  Tadanobu Sato  Junji Kiyono  Nozar Kishi Garmroudi  Susumu Emi  Masaaki Yoshikawa 《地震工程与结构动力学》1990,19(5):709-723

Non-linear seismic soil-structure interaction is studied through a hybrid procedure using the pseudo-dynamic testing (PDT) method which is modified to take into account frequency dependence and developed for foundation-soil systems. The numerical scheme used in conventional PDT is improved by introduction of a time-dependent pseudo-forcing function which is derived from frequency-dependent dynamic characteristics of the system by means of Hilbert transformation in the frequency domain. Surface, shallow and caisson foundation models that differed in size and depth of embedment were used. The mechanical characteristics of the systems were determined from static and forced vibration dynamic tests. An amplitude scaling technique was used for three recorded accelerograms.  相似文献   

Asteroids approaching the Earth from directions around the Sun     

Syuzo Isobe  Makoto Yoshikawa 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》1995,71(3):263-266

We have estimated close asteroid encounters with the Earth by numerical integrations of a system with the Sun, 9 planets, and 188 near-earth-asteroids during the period 1994–4600. Asteroids approach the Earth from directions within 30 around the Sun in more than 20% of encounters with the closest distance less than 0.01 AU. Since ground-based observations cannot detect these objects, we should develop space-borne and/or lunar observatories in a short time to allow enough warning time before a catastrophic collision.  相似文献   

Generation mechanisms of tidal residual circulation     

Tetsuo Yanagi  Kazuteru Yoshikawa 《Journal of Oceanography》1983,39(4):156-166

Two new types of mechanism for the generation of tidal residual flow are revealed with the use of a hydraulic model experiment. A remarkable anticlockwise tidal residual circulation is formed in a model bay due to the presence of a tidal current, the Coriolis force and a horizontal boundary. A similar circulation is also formed due to the presence of a bottom slope, a horizontal boundary and a tidal current which flows normal to the inclination of the bottom slope. The residual circulation in the Sea of Iyo in the Seto Inland Sea is considered to be due to a combination of the effects of the Coriolis force, a bottom slope, a horizontal boundary and the tidal current. We classified some of the generation mechanisms of tidal residual flow which have been described to date into seven types on the basis of vorticity considerations.  相似文献   

Pingos on Earth and Mars     

Devon M. Burr  Kenneth L. Tanaka  Kenji Yoshikawa 《Planetary and Space Science》2009,57(5-6):541-555

Pingos are massive ice-cored mounds that develop through pressurized groundwater flow mechanisms. Pingos and their collapsed forms are found in periglacial and paleoperiglacial terrains on Earth, and have been hypothesized for a wide variety of locations on Mars. This literature review of pingos on Earth and Mars first summarizes the morphology of terrestrial pingos and their geologic contexts. That information is then used to asses hypothesized pingos on Mars. Pingo-like forms (PLFs) in Utopia Planitia are the most viable candidates for pingos or collapsed pingos. Other PLFs hypothesized in the literature to be pingos may be better explained with other mechanisms than those associated with terrestrial-style pingos.  相似文献   

Variation in lunar sodium exosphere measured from lunar orbiter SELENE (Kaguya)     

M. Kagitani  M. Taguchi  I. Yoshikawa  K. Yoshioka  S. Okano 《Planetary and Space Science》2010,58(12):1660-1664

Resonant scattering of the lunar sodium exosphere was measured from the lunar orbiter SELENE (Kaguya) from December 2008 to June 2009. Variations in line-of-sight integrated intensity measured on the night-side hemisphere of the Moon could be described as a spherical symmetric distribution of the sodium exosphere with a temperature of 2400-6000 K. Average surface density of sodium atoms in February is well above that in the other months by about 30%. A clear variation in surface density related to the Moon’s passage across the Earth’s magnetotail could not be seen, although sodium density gradually decreased (by 20±8%) during periods from the first through the last quarter of two lunar cycles. These results suggest that the supra-thermal components of the sodium exosphere are not mainly produced by classical sputtering of solar wind. The variation in sodium density (which depends on lunar-phase angle) is possibly explained by the presence of an inhomogeneous source distribution of photon-stimulated desorption (PSD) on the surface.  相似文献   

Relation between circular polarization of moving type IV bursts and polarity of photospheric magnetic fields     

Keizo Kai 《Solar physics》1978,56(2):417-427

Two-dimensional, high-resolution observations of about 30 moving type IV bursts allow us to compare the polarization structure of the radio sources high in the corona with the distribution of magnetic fields measured at the photospheric level. Left- and right-handed circularly polarized moving type IV bursts are associated with active regions dominated by magnetic fields of plus and minus polarity respectively. The result suggests that the polarity of magnetic fields within the type IV source which moves high in the corona ( 1R above the photosphere) is closely related to the polarity of local magnetic fields at the photosphere. The above relation between the sense of polarization and the polarity of magnetic field is contrary to what would be expected from the generally accepted synchroton hypothesis. One way of resolving this conflict is to postulate that the magnetic field within the radio source has the opposite polarity to that of the ambient magnetic fields.  相似文献   

An unconformity in the early Miocene syn-rifting succession, northern Noto Peninsula, Japan: Evidence for short-term uplifting precedent to the rapid opening of the Japan Sea     

Kazuhiko Kano  Toshiyuki Yoshikawa  Yukio Yanagisawa  Kenshiro Ogasawara  Tohru Danhara 《Island Arc》2002,11(3):170-184

Abstract   The present paper describes the newly discovered early Miocene unconformity in the northern Noto Peninsula, on the Japan Sea side, central Japan. The unconformity marks the boundary between an early Miocene non-marine to marine succession and a more extensive, late early to early middle Miocene marine succession, and contains a time gap of an order of 1 million years or less from 18 Ma or earlier to 17 Ma. The early Miocene succession likely represents an early phase of marine transgression and initial slow rifting. The overlying early to early middle Miocene succession records the climax of the opening of the Japan Sea at ca  16 Ma with widespread, rapid subsidence of the Japan Arc. The unconformity between the two transgressive successions may represent a global sealevel fall or, more likely, crustal uplifting because no upward-shallowing or regressive facies remains between the two successions. Early Miocene unconformities that are thought to be correlative with this unconformity in the northern Noto Peninsula occur in places along the Japan Sea coast of Sakhalin and Japan. They are likely to have been produced during rifting in response to upwelling of asthenospheric mantle, although more accurate age constraints are necessary to evaluate this idea.  相似文献