Earliest microbially mediated pyrite oxidation in ~ 3.4 billion-year-old sediments     

David Wacey  Martin Saunders  Martin D. Brasier  Matt R. Kilburn 《Earth and Planetary Science Letters》2011,301(1-2):393-402

Pyrite (FeS₂) oxidation in modern sedimentary environments is neither a purely chemical nor purely microbial process, but it is significantly enhanced by the activity of microorganisms that use reduced forms of iron and sulphur in their metabolisms. On the early Earth, where oxygen levels were thought to be < 10^?5 of the present atmospheric level and chemical oxidants scarce, such biological mediation may have been critical in the redox cycles of iron and sulphur. Here, we show that detrital sedimentary pyrite grains in a ~ 3.4 billion-year-old sandstone were colonised by microbial communities. The detrital pyrite comes from the basal quartz arenite member of the 3.43–3.35 Ga Strelley Pool Formation (SPF) in the East Strelley greenstone belt of the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Rock chips and petrographic thin sections of black sandstones occurring on two ridges close to the SPF type locality of Strelley Pool were investigated using optical microscopy, SEM, TEM, laser Raman and NanoSIMS. The detrital pyrite grains exhibit laminated carbonaceous coatings of early Archean age, with localised enrichments of nitrogen that are interpreted as the in situ remains of biofilms growing on these nutrient-rich minerals. Pyrite surfaces contain spherical pits, chains of pits and channels that are morphologically distinct from abiotic alteration features. The pits and channels are widespread, have a clustered distribution typical of microbial colonisation, and are closely comparable to biologically mediated microstructures in the younger rock record and those created by extant Fe- and S-oxidising microbes in the laboratory. They are thus interpreted as trace fossils formed by the attachment of bacteria to the pyrite surfaces. A nano-layer and discreet nano-grains of secondary mineral precipitates, namely Fe-oxides belonging to the magnetite-maghaemite group, attest to pyrite oxidation. These are intimately associated with the biofilms and trace fossils, and are interpreted to represent the fossilised mineral products of biologically mediated pyrite oxidation. These data extend the geological range of microbes capable of metabolising reduced Fe and/or S compounds back to the early Archean and indicate that pyrite-rich sedimentary rocks provide promising targets in the search for extraterrestrial life.  相似文献   

Stewardship of things: The radical potential of product stewardship for re-framing responsibilities and relationships to products and materials     

Ruth Lane  Matt Watson 《Geoforum》2012,43(6):1254-1265

In the context of broad-based concerns about the need to move towards a more sustainable materials economy, particularly as they are expressed in debates around Ecological Modernisation (EM), we argue that product stewardship has radical potential as a means to promote significant change in the relationship between society and the material world. We focus on two important dimensions that have been neglected in approaches to product stewardship to date. Firstly, we argue that immanent within the basic concept of stewardship is a problematisation of dominant understandings of property ownership in neoliberal market economies. In the space opened up by notions of stewardship, different ways of enacting both rights and responsibilities to products and materials emerge which have potential to advance the sustainability of material economies. Secondly, through exploration of existing expressions of product stewardship, we uncover a neglected scale of action. Both policy and dominant articulations of EM focus primarily on the efficiency of production processes; and secondarily, the attitudes and behaviours of individual consumers. Missing from this is the ‘meso-scale’ of social collectives including households, neighbourhoods, more distributed communities and small scale social enterprises. Based on a review of existing research from Australia and the UK, including our own, we argue that understanding of embedded practices of material responsibility at the household scale can both reinvigorate the concept of product stewardship as a potentially radical intervention, and reveal the potential of the meso-scale as a challenging but worthwhile realm of policy intervention.  相似文献   

Deferred decentralized movement pattern mining for geosensor networks     

Patrick Laube  Matt Duckham  Marimuthu Palaniswami 《International journal of geographical information science》2013,27(2):273-292

This article presents an algorithm for decentralized (in-network) data mining of the movement pattern flock among mobile geosensor nodes. The algorithm DDIG (Deferred Decentralized Information Grazing) allows roaming sensor nodes to ‘graze’ over time more information than they could access through their spatially limited perception range alone. The algorithm requires an intrinsic temporal deferral for pattern mining, as sensor nodes must be enabled to collect, memorize, exchange, and integrate their own and their neighbors' most current movement history before reasoning about patterns. A first set of experiments with trajectories of simulated agents showed that the algorithm accuracy increases with growing deferral. A second set of experiments with trajectories of actual tracked livestock reveals some of the shortcomings of the conceptual flocking model underlying DDIG in the context of a smart farming application. Finally, the experiments underline the general conclusion that decentralization in spatial computing can result in imperfect, yet useful knowledge.  相似文献   

The spin of accreting stars: dependence on magnetic coupling to the disc   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Sean Matt †  Ralph E. Pudritz † 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2005,356(1):167-182

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A sample of 6C radio sources designed to find objects at redshift z>4– III. Imaging and the radio galaxy K–z relation     

Matt J. Jarvis  Steve Rawlings  Steve Eales  Katherine M. Blundell  rew J. Bunker  Steve Croft  Ross J. McLure  Chris J. Willott 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2001,326(4):1585-1600

In this paper, the third and final of a series, we present complete K -band imaging and some complementary I -band imaging of the filtered 6C* sample. We find no systematic differences between the K – z relation of 6C* radio galaxies and those from complete samples, so the near-infrared properties of luminous radio galaxies are not obviously biased by the additional 6C* radio selection criteria (steep spectral index and small angular size). The 6C* K – z data significantly improve delineation of the K – z relation for radio galaxies at high redshift ( z >2) . Accounting for non-stellar contamination, and for correlations between radio luminosity and stellar mass, we find little support for previous claims that the underlying scatter in the stellar luminosity of radio galaxies increases significantly at z >2 . In a particular spatially flat universe with a cosmological constant (Ω_M=0.3 and Ω_Λ=0.7) , the most luminous radio sources appear to be associated with galaxies with a luminosity distribution with a high mean (≈5  L *), and a low dispersion ( σ ∼0.5 mag) which formed their stars at epochs corresponding to z ≳2.5 . This result is in line with recent submillimetre studies of high-redshift radio galaxies and the inferred ages of extremely red objects from faint radio samples.  相似文献   

Combining rotation curves and gravitational lensing: how to measure the equation of state of dark matter in the galactic halo     

Tristan Faber  Matt Visser 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,372(1):136-142

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Changing look: from Compton-thick to Compton-thin, or the rebirth of fossil active galactic nuclei     

Giorgio Matt  Matteo Guainazzi  Roberto Maiolino 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2003,342(2):422-426

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The 1995–2002 Long-Term Monitoring of Comet C/1995 O1 (HALE–BOPP) at Radio Wavelength     

Biver  Nicolas  Bockelée-Morvan  Dominique  Colom  Pierre  Crovisier  Jacques  Henry  Florence  Lellouch  Emmanuel  Winnberg  Anders  Johansson  Lars E.B.  Gunnarsson  Marcus  Rickman  Hans  Rantakyrö  Fredrik  Davies  John K.  Dent  William R.F.  Paubert  Gabriel  Moreno  Raphaël  Wink  Jörn  Despois  Didier  Benford  Dominic J.  Gardner  Matt  Lis  Dariusz C.  Mehringer  David  Phillips  Thomas G.  Rauer  Heike 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》2002,90(1-4):5-14

The bright comet Hale–Bopp provided the first opportunity to follow the outgassing rates of a number of molecular species over a large range of heliocentric distances. We present the results of our observing campaign at radio wavelengths which began in August 1995 and ended in January 2002. The observations were carried out with the telescopes of Nançay, IRAM, JCMT, CSO and, since September 1997, SEST. The lines of nine molecules (OH, CO, HCN, CH₃OH, H₂CO, H₂S, CS, CH₃CN and HNC) were monitored. CS, H₂S, H₂CO, CH₃CN were detected up to r_h= 3–4 AU from the Sun, while HCN and CH₃OH were detected up to 6 AU. CO, which is the main driver of cometary activity at heliocentric distances larger than 3–4 AU, was last detected in August 2001, at r_h= 14 AU. The gas production rates obtained from this programme contain important information on the nature of cometary ices, their thermal properties and sublimation mechanisms.Line shapes allow to measure gas expansion velocities, which, at large heliocentric distances, might be directly connected to the temperature of the nucleus surface. Inferred expansion velocity of the gas varied as r_h ^-0.4 within 7 AU from the Sun, but remained close to 0.4 km s^-1 further away. The CO spectra obtained at large r_hare strongly blueshifted and indicative of an important day-to-night asymmetry in outgassing and expansion velocity. The kinetic temperature of the coma, estimated from the relative intensities of the CH₃OH and CO lines, increased with decreasing r_h, from about 10 K at 7 AU to 110 K around perihelion.  相似文献   

A sample of 6C radio sources designed to find objects at redshift z > 4 – II. Spectrophotometry and emission-line properties     

Matt J. Jarvis  Steve Rawlings  Mark Lacy  Katherine M. Blundell  rew J. Bunker  Steve Eales  Richard Saunders  Hyron Spinrad  Daniel Stern  Chris J. Willott 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2001,326(4):1563-1584

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A Compton reflection dominated spectrum in a peculiar accreting neutron star     

N. Rea  L. Stella  G. L. Israel  G. Matt  S. Zane  A. Segreto  T. Oosterbroek  M. Orlandini 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2005,364(4):1229-1238

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