A new approach to spatial data interpolation using higher-order statistics     

Shen Liu  Vo Anh  James McGree  Erhan Kozan  Rodney C. Wolff 《Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (SERRA)》2015,29(6):1679-1690

Interpolation techniques for spatial data have been applied frequently in various fields of geosciences. Although most conventional interpolation methods assume that it is sufficient to use first- and second-order statistics to characterize random fields, researchers have now realized that these methods cannot always provide reliable interpolation results, since geological and environmental phenomena tend to be very complex, presenting non-Gaussian distribution and/or non-linear inter-variable relationship. This paper proposes a new approach to the interpolation of spatial data, which can be applied with great flexibility. Suitable cross-variable higher-order spatial statistics are developed to measure the spatial relationship between the random variable at an unsampled location and those in its neighbourhood. Given the computed cross-variable higher-order spatial statistics, the conditional probability density function is approximated via polynomial expansions, which is then utilized to determine the interpolated value at the unsampled location as an expectation. In addition, the uncertainty associated with the interpolation is quantified by constructing prediction intervals of interpolated values. The proposed method is applied to a mineral deposit dataset, and the results demonstrate that it outperforms kriging methods in uncertainty quantification. The introduction of the cross-variable higher-order spatial statistics noticeably improves the quality of the interpolation since it enriches the information that can be extracted from the observed data, and this benefit is substantial when working with data that are sparse or have non-trivial dependence structures.  相似文献   

Reply to Lowe,D.J., Wilson,C.J.N., Newnham,R.M., Hogg,A.G. comment on Grapes, R., Rieser,U., Wang,N., 2010. Optical luminescence dating of a loess section containing a critical tephra marker horizon,SW North Island of New Zealand. Quaternary Geochronology 5, doi:10.1016/j.quageo.2009.01.004, 2010     

Rodney H. Grapes  Uwe Rieser  Ningsheng Wang 《Quaternary Geochronology》2010,5(4):497-501

The arguments presented by Lowe et al. [Lowe, D.J., Wilson, C.J.N., Newham, R.M., Hogg, A.G., 2010. Dating the Kawakawa/Oruanui eruption: comment on “optical luminescence dating of a loess section containing a critical tephra marker horizon, SW North Island of New Zealand” by R. Grapes et al. Quaternary Geochronology 5(4), 493–496] against our IRSL results, which suggested that the widespread Kawakawa tephra (KkT) could be considerably younger than the generally accepted 27.1 ka cal BP age, are unsustainable. We discuss the points raised by Lowe et al., in terms of: 1) Presentation and analysis of luminescence ages (comparison between reporting and error margins of luminescence and ¹⁴C ages, statistical treatment of age data); 2) Possible sources of error (“upbuilding pedogenesis” and its affect on U and Th distribution in loess, effect of biotubation, variation of K in loess, single grain luminescence dating of quartz, probability of luminescence age underestimation in dating tephra); 3) Stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental considerations (ages of tephras overlying KkT, timing of the end of Ohakea loess deposition and its distribution; 4) Radiocarbon-based ages of KkT (problems with the currently accepted ¹⁴C 27.1 ka cal BP age of KkT). We stress that our study was not to establish a new benchmark age for the KkT, but to open debate about the currently accepted benchmark age of the KkT, which we deem to be erroneous.  相似文献   

The trace element compositions of S-type granites: evidence for disequilibrium melting and accessory phase entrainment in the source   总被引：4，自引：2，他引：2  

Arnaud Villaros  Gary Stevens  Jean-François Moyen  Ian S. Buick 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2009,158(4):543-561

Within individual plutons, the trace element concentrations in S-type granites generally increase with maficity (total iron and magnesium content and expressed as atomic Fe + Mg in this study); the degree of variability in trace element concentration also expands markedly with the same parameter. The strongly peraluminous, high-level S-type granites of the Peninsular Pluton (Cape Granite Suite, South Africa) are the product of biotite incongruent melting of a metasedimentary source near the base of the crust. Leucogranites within the suite represent close to pure melts from the anatectic source and more mafic varieties represent mixtures of melt and peritectic garnet and ilmenite. Trace elements such as Rb, Ba, Sr and Eu, that are concentrated in reactant minerals in the melting process, show considerable scatter within the granites. This is interpreted to reflect compositional variation in the source. In contrast, elements such as LREE, Zr and Hf, which are concentrated within refractory accessory phases (zircon and monazite), show well-defined negative correlations with increasing SiO₂ and increase linearly with increasing maficity. This is interpreted to reflect coupled co-entrainment of accessory minerals and peritectic phases to the melt: leucocratic rocks cannot have evolved from the more mafic compositions in the suite by a process of fractional crystallisation because in this case they would have inherited the zircon-saturated character of this hypothetical earlier magma. Trace element behaviour of granites from the Peninsular Pluton has been modelled via both equilibrium and disequilibrium trace element melting. In the disequilibrium case, melts are modelled as leaving the source with variable proportions of entrained peritectic phases and accessory minerals, but before the melt has dissolved any accessory minerals. Thus, the trace element signature of the melt is largely inherited from the reactants in the melting reaction, with no contribution from zircon and monazite dissolution. In the equilibrium case, melt leaves the source with entrained crystals, after reaching zircon and monazite saturation. A significant proportion of the rocks of the Peninsular Pluton have trace element concentrations below those predicted by zircon and monazite saturation. In the case of the most leucocratic rocks all compositions are zircon undersaturated; whilst the majority of the most mafic compositions are zircon oversaturated. However, in both cases, zircon is commonly xenocrystic. Thus, the leucocratic rocks represent close to pure melts, which escaped their sources rapidly enough that some very closely match the trace element disequilibrium melting model applied in this study. Zircon dissolution rates allow the residency time for the melt in the source to be conservatively estimated at less than 500 years.  相似文献   

Microbial food web contributions to bottom water hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico     

Michael Dagg  Riki Sato  Hongbin Liu  Thomas S. Bianchi  Rebecca Green  Rodney Powell 《Continental Shelf Research》2008

Nutrients from the Mississippi/Atchafalaya Rivers greatly stimulate biological production in the ‘classical’ food web on the inner shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Portions of this production, especially large diatoms and zooplankton fecal pellets, sink and decompose in the bottom water, consuming oxygen and contributing to the annual development of an extensive zone of bottom water hypoxia, typically >15,000 km² since 1993. The microbial food web is also active in the Mississippi River plume, but consists of small organisms that sink slowly. This ‘recycling’ food web has not been considered as a significant contributor to vertical flux and hypoxia. However, gelatinous zooplankton, especially pelagic appendicularians such as Oikopleura dioica, mediate the conversion of microbial web organisms to organic particles with high sinking rates. When pelagic appendicularians are abundant in coastal regions of the northern Gulf of Mexico, they stimulate the rapid vertical transfer of microbial web productivity in the surface layer, which is only 5–15 m thick in the coastal hypoxic region, to the sub-pycnocline layer that becomes hypoxic each summer. In this paper we present results from two studies examining the significance of this pathway. In both 2002 and 2004, we observed high production rates of appendicularians in coastal waters. Discarded gelatinous houses and fecal pellets from the appendicularian populations often provided more than 1 g m⁻² d⁻¹ of organic carbon for the establishment and maintenance of hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico. This source of organic matter flux is especially important in regions far from the river plumes and during periods of low river discharge. Autotrophic elements of this food web are primarily supported by recycled inorganic nutrients originating in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. Sources of dissolved organic matter (DOM) supporting the heterotrophic components of this microbial food web may include in situ production, the Mississippi/Atchafalaya Rivers, and Louisiana's coastal wetlands. If significant, the latter source provides a possible link between Louisiana's high rates of coastal land loss and the large hypoxic zone observed along the coast during summer. Both of the latter DOM sources are independent of phytoplankton production stimulated by inputs of riverine inorganic nutrients.  相似文献   

Magnetic properties of sediments from the Pearl River Delta,South China: Paleoenvironmental implications   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Yang XiaoQiang  Rodney Grapes  Zhou HouYun  Yang Jie 《中国科学D辑(英文版)》2008,51(1):56-66

Magnetic parameters and their environmental implications of sediments in a core (PD) from the Pearl River Delta, South China, indicate that ferrimagnetic minerals with low coercivity, such as magnetite, dominate the magnetic properties although small amounts of Fe-sulphides occur. The fraction of Fe-sulphides increases and becomes the dominant minerals determining the magnetic characteristics in grey-black organic-rich clay horizons, indicating an anoxic, sulphate-reducing swamp environment resulting from a marine regression. In the "Huaban clay" , hard magnetic minerals, such as hematite and goethite, largely control the magnetic properties of the sediments and imply a long period of exposure and weathering. Where magnetite is the main magnetic mineral, its fraction and grain size determine properties such as magnetic susceptibility (κ ) and saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM). Ratios of SIRM/κ and χarm/SIRM reflect changes in sea level with high SIRM/κ and χarm/SIRM correlating with a smaller magnetic mineral grain size and rising sea level. Based on downcore variations of these environmental magnetic parameters along with sediment characteristics and microfauna, the sedimentary environment of the Pearl River Delta area can be divided into two main cycles of transgression and regression during the late Pleistocene and Holocene with more sub-cycles of sea level fluctuation during each transgression.  相似文献   

The optical counterparts to Be/X-ray binaries in the Magellanic Clouds     

J. B. Stevens  M. J. Coe  D. A. H. Buckley 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1999,309(2):421-429

The fields of eight X-ray sources in the Magellanic Clouds believed to be Be/X-ray binaries have been searched for possible Be-star counterparts. BVR _c and H α CCD imaging was employed to identify early-type emission stars through colour indices and H α fluxes. Spectroscopy of five sources confirms the presence of H α emission in each case. Based on the positional coincidence of emission-line objects with the X-ray sources, we identify Be-star counterparts to the ROSAT sources RX J0032.9-7348, RX J0049.1-7250, RX J0054.9-7226 and RX J0101.0-7206, and to the recently discovered ASCA source AX J0051-722. We confirm the Be star nature of the counterpart to the HEAO1 source H0544-66. In the field of the ROSAT source RX J0051.8-7231 we find that there are three possible counterparts, each showing evidence for H α emission. We find a close double in the error circle of the EXOSAT source EXO 0531.1-6609, each component of which could be a Be star associated with the X-ray source.  相似文献   

Infrared line-profile variability in Wolf--Rayet binary systems     

Ian R. Stevens  Ian D. Howarth 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1999,302(3):549-560

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Variations in the broad-band spectra of BL Lac objects: millimetre observations of an X-ray-selected sample     

J. A. Stevens  W. K. Gear 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1999,307(2):403-412

Observations at millimetre wavelengths are presented for a representative sample of 22 X-ray-selected BL Lac objects (XBLs). This sample comprises 19 high-energy cut-off BL Lac objects (HBLs), 1 low-energy cut-off BL Lac object (LBL) and 2 'intermediate' sources. Data for LBLs, which are mostly radio-selected BL Lac objects (RBLs), are taken from the literature. It is shown that the radio–millimetre spectral indices of HBLs     are slightly steeper than those of the LBLs     . A correlation exists between α _5–230 and 230 GHz luminosity. While this correlation could be an artefact of comparing two populations of BL Lac objects with intrinsically different radio properties, it is also consistent with the predictions of existing unified schemes that relate BL Lac objects to Fanaroff–Riley class I radio galaxies.
The HBLs have significantly flatter submillimetre–X-ray spectral indices     than the LBLs     although the two intermediate sources also have intermediate values of α _230–X∼−0.9. It is argued that this difference cannot be explained entirely by the viewing-angle hypothesis and requires a difference in physical-source parameters. The α _230–X values for the HBLs are close to the canonical value found for large samples of radio sources and thus suggest that synchrotron radiation is the mechanism that produces the X-ray emission. As suggested by Padovani & Giommi, the inverse-Compton mechanism is likely to dominate in the LBLs requiring the synchrotron spectra of these sources to steepen or cut off at lower frequencies than those of the HBLs.  相似文献   

Validation of Sagnier's theory by its application to the major planets     

Da Silva Gomes  Rodney 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》1986,36(2):103-116

The understanding of quantum mechanical phenomena has come to rely heavily on theory framed in terms of operators and their eigenvalue equations. This paper investigates the utility of that technique as related to the reciprocity principle in diffuse reflection. The reciprocity operator is shown to be unitary and Hermitian; hence, its eigenvectors form a complete orthonormal basis. The relevant eigenvalue is found to be infinitely degenerate. A superposition of the eigenfunctions found from solution by separation of variables is inadequate to form a general solution that can be fitted to a one-dimensional boundary condition, because the difficulty of resolving the reciprocity operator into a superposition of independent one-dimensional operators has yet to be overcome. A particular lunar application in the form of a failed prediction of limb-darkening of the full Moon from brightness versus phase illustrates this problem. A general solution is derived which fully exploits the determinative powers of the reciprocity operator as an unresolved two-dimensional operator. However, a solution based on a sum of one-dimensional operators, if possible, would be much more powerful. A close association is found between the reciprocity operator and the particle-exchange operator of quantum mechanics, which may indicate the direction for further successful exploitation of the approach based on the operational calculus.  相似文献   

Resonance-fluorescence in barium ion clouds     

Henry G. Horak  Rodney W. Whitaker 《Planetary and Space Science》1982,30(9):897-907

The problem of resonant-fluorescent scattering of sunlight by a high altitude, plane-parallel, barium ion cloud is solved numerically. Line strengths and profiles are computed using our modified version of the computer program LINEAR (Auer, Heasley and Milkey, 1972). Hyperfine structure of the spectral lines becomes important for very thick layers and is taken into account. Comparisons are made between coherent and completely noncoherent scattering results and finally the influence of collisions on the radiation field is estimated.  相似文献