Weathering process at the natural fission reactor of Bangombé     

G. Bracke  S. Salah  F. Gauthier-Lafaye 《Environmental Geology》2001,40(4-5):403-408

 The uranium deposits in the basin of Franceville (Gabon) host the only natural fission reactors known in the world. Unique geological conditions favoured a natural fission reaction 2 Ga ago. This was detected by anomalous isotopic compositions of uranium and rare earth elements (REE), which are produced by the fission reaction. In total, 16 reactor zones were found. Most of them are mined out. The reactor zone of Bangombé, is only 10–11 m below the surface. This site has been influenced by surface weathering processes. Six drill cores have been sampled at the site of the reactor zone of Bangombé during the course of the study and only one drill core (BAX 08) hit the core of the reactor. From these data and previous drilling campaigns, the reactor size is estimated to be 10 cm thick, 2–3 m wide and 4–6 m long. The migration of fission products can be traced by the anomalous isotope ratios of REE because of the fission process. The ¹⁴⁹Sm/¹⁴⁷Sm ratio close to the reactor zone is only 0.28 (normal: 0.92) because of the intense neutron capture of ¹⁴⁹Sm and subsequent transmutation, whereas ¹⁴⁷Sm is enriched by the fission reaction. Similar changes in isotopic patterns are detectable on other REE. The isotope ratios of Sm and Nd of whole rock and fracture samples surrounding the reactor indicate that fission-genic REE migrated only a few decimetres above and mainly below the reactor zone. Organic matter (bitumen) seems to act as a trap for fission-genic REE. Additional REE-patterns show less intense weathering with increasing depth in the log profile and support a simple weathering model. Received: 26 November 1999 · Accepted: 2 May 2000  相似文献   

Optical and X-Ray Observations of the Symbiotic System Ag Draconis During Quiescence and Outburst     

Roberto F. Viotti  Rosario González-Riestra  Takashi Iijima  Stefano Bernabei  Riccardo Claudi  Jochen Greiner  Michael Friedjung  Vito Francesco Polcaro  Corinne Rossi 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2005,296(1-4):435-439

We review the main characteristics of the symbiotic system AG Draconis, with special emphasis on its optical and X-ray variations. We also discuss the X-ray to visual energy distribution during quiescence and outburst and describe our spectroscopic and X-ray observations during the 2003 outburst. Based on X-ray observations collected with the XMM–Newton Observatory, on INES data from the IUE satellite, and on optical spectra collected with the Asiago–Cima Ekar, Bologna–Loiano and La Palma–Galileo Italian telescopes.  相似文献   

Cosmic metal production and the mean metallicity of the Universe     

F. Calura  F. Matteucci 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,350(1):351-364

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Simultaneous operation of the Sea Beam multibeam echo-sounder andthe SeaMARC II bathymetric sidescan sonar system     

de Moustier  C. Lonsdale  P.F. Shor  A.N. 《Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of》1990,15(2):84-94

An experiment aboard the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's RV Thomas Washington has demonstrated the seafloor mapping advantages to be derived from combining the high-resolution bathymetry of a multibeam echo-sounder with the sidescan acoustic imaging plus wide-swath bathymetry of a shallow-towed bathymetric sidescan sonar. To a void acoustic interference between the ship's 12-kHz Sea Beam multibeam echo-sounder and the 11-12-kHz SeaMARC II bathymetric sidescan sonar system during simultaneous operations, Sea Beam transmit cycles were scheduled around SeaMARC II timing events with a sound source synchronization unit originally developed for concurrent single-channel seismic, Sea Beam, and 3.5-kHz profile operations. The scheduling algorithm implemented for Sea Beam plus SeaMARC II operations is discussed, and the initial results showing their combined seafloor mapping capabilities are presented  相似文献   

X-shaped radio galaxies as observational evidence for the interaction of supermassive binary black holes and accretion disc at parsec scale     

F. K. Liu 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,347(4):1357-1369

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Current plate motions   总被引：57，自引：0，他引：57  

C. DeMets  R. G. Gordon  D. F. Argus  S. Stein 《Geophysical Journal International》1990,101(2):425-478

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Circumstellar Silicate Mineralogy     

A.G.G.M. Tielens  L.B.F.M. Waters  F.J. Molster  K. Justtanont 《Astrophysics and Space Science》1997,255(1-2):415-426

This paper reviews spectra obtained with the SWS on board of ISO of dust shells around O-rich objects. These spectra reveal the presence of many new emission features between 10 and 45 μm. These bands are generally much narrower than the well-known 10 and 20 μm silicates features. The strength of these features relative to the underlying broad continuum varies from source to source (≅ 5-50%). The 10 μm region shows evidence for the presence of Al2O3 grains. At longer wavelength, the spectra are dominated by features due to crystalline olivine and pyroxene. The exact peak position of these features shows that the emitting grains consist of the Mg-rich end-members of these minerals with an Fe-content of < 10%. The underlying continuum is attributed to amorphous silicate grains. These observations of aluminum-rich and magnesium-rich compounds compare well with the thermodynamic condensation sequence of minerals expected for O-rich outflows. The observations also imply that freeze out (ie., kinetics) of this condensation sequence at different temperatures is an important characteristic of dust formation in these objects. It is suggested that the absence of Fe-rich silicates is a natural consequence of the low temperature at which gaseous Fe reacts with Mg-rich silicates in these outflows, resulting in amorphous grains with little characterizing spectral detail. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

ISO-SWS Spectra of Carbon Stars: Molecular Features and a Comparison with Models     

J. Hron  R. Loidl  F. Kerschbaum  U.G. Jørgensen 《Astrophysics and Space Science》1997,255(1-2):359-360

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Exposure history of the Torino meteorite     

R. Wieler  Th. Graf  P. Signer  S. Vogt  G. F. Herzog  C. Tuniz  D. Fink  L. K. Fifield  J. Klein  R. Middleton  A. J. T. Jull  P. Pellas  J. Masarik  G. Dreibus 《Meteoritics & planetary science》1996,31(2):265-272

Abstract— We determined He, Ne, Ar, ¹⁰Be, ²⁶Al, ³⁶Cl, and ¹⁴C concentrations, as well as cosmic-ray track densities and halogen concentrations in different specimens of the H6 chondrite Torino, in order to constrain its exposure history to cosmic radiation. The Torino meteoroid had a radius of ～20 cm and travelled in interplanetary space for 2.5–10 Ma. Earlier, Torino was part of a larger body. The smallest possible precursor had a radius of 55 cm and a journey through space longer than ～65 Ma. If the first-stage exposure took place in a body with a radius of >3 m or in the parent asteroid, then it lasted nearly 300 Ma. The example of Torino shows that it is easy to underestimate first-stage exposure ages when constructing two-stage histories.  相似文献   

Simulations of deep pencil-beam redshift surveys     

N. Yoshida  J. Colberg  S.D.M. White  A.E. Evrard  T.J. MacFarland †  H.M.P. Couchman  A. Jenkins  C.S. Frenk  F.R. Pearce  G. Efstathiou  J.A. Peacock  P.A. Thomas 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2001,325(2):803-816

We create mock pencil-beam redshift surveys from very large cosmological N -body simulations of two cold dark matter (CDM) cosmogonies, an Einstein–de Sitter model ( τ CDM) and a flat model with Ω₀=0.3 and a cosmological constant (ΛCDM). We use these to assess the significance of the apparent periodicity discovered by Broadhurst et al. Simulation particles are tagged as 'galaxies' so as to reproduce observed present-day correlations. They are then identified along the past light-cones of hypothetical observers to create mock catalogues with the geometry and the distance distribution of the Broadhurst et al. data. We produce 1936 (2625) quasi-independent catalogues from our τ CDM (ΛCDM) simulation. A couple of large clumps in a catalogue can produce a high peak at low wavenumbers in the corresponding one-dimensional power spectrum, without any apparent large-scale periodicity in the original redshift histogram. Although the simulated redshift histograms frequently display regularly spaced clumps, the spacing of these clumps varies between catalogues and there is no 'preferred' period over our many realizations. We find only a 0.72 (0.49) per cent chance that the highest peak in the power spectrum of a τ CDM (ΛCDM) catalogue has a peak-to-noise ratio higher than that in the Broadhurst et al. data. None of the simulated catalogues with such high peaks shows coherently spaced clumps with a significance as high as that of the real data. We conclude that in CDM universes, the regularity on a scale of ∼130  h ⁻¹ Mpc observed by Broadhurst et al. has a priori probability well below 10⁻³.  相似文献