An analysis and comparison of observed Pleistocene South Carolina (USA) shoreline elevations with predicted elevations derived from Marine Oxygen Isotope Stages     

William Richardson Doar III  Christopher George St. Clement Kendall 《Quaternary Research》2014

Geological maps of South Carolina, covering > 6800 km², confirm the existence of eight preserved Pleistocene shorelines above current sea level: Marietta (+ 42.6 m), Wicomico (+ 27.4 m), Penholoway (+ 21.3 m), Ladson (+ 17.4 m), Ten Mile Hill (+ 10.7 m), Pamlico (+ 6.7 m), Princess Anne (+ 5.2 m), and Silver Bluff (+ 3 m). Current geochronologic data suggest that these eight shorelines correlate with Marine Oxygen Isotope Stages (MIS) as follows: Marietta—older than MIS 77; Wicomico—MIS 55–45; Penholoway—MIS 19 or 17; Ladson—MIS 11; Ten Mile Hill—MIS 7; Pamlico—MIS 5; Princess Anne—MIS 5; and Silver Bluff—MIS 5 or 3. Except for the MIS 5e Pamlico, and possibly the MIS 11 Ladson, the South Carolina elevations are higher than predicted by isotope proxy-based reconstructions. The < 4 m of total relief from the Pamlico to the Silver Bluff shoreline in South Carolina, for which other reconstructions suggest an expected relief of ~ 80 m, illustrates the lack of match. Our results suggest that processes affecting either post-depositional changes in shoreline elevations or the creation of proxy sea-level estimates must be considered before using paleo sea-level position on continental margins.  相似文献   

High-frequency reverberation in shallow water     

Hines  P.C. Ellis  D.D. 《Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of》1997,22(2):292-298

Monostatic reverberation measurements were collected in shallow water, over a coarse gravel and cobble bottom, 100 m deep, off the coast of Nova Scotia. Data were collected at frequencies of 21, 28, and 36 kHz using linear FM pulses of 2-kHz bandwidth and 0.160-s duration. An anchored, high-frequency active sonar array deployed at a depth of 42 m was used to collect the data. The reverberation measurements were compared with estimates computed with the NUWC generic sonar model (GSM). The data were reasonably well modeled for times greater than 0.2 s after pulse transmission by neglecting surface reverberation and using Lambert's rule for bottom backscattering with a scattering coefficient of -27 dB, independent of frequency. At all three frequencies, the data and model show a peak approximately 0.9 s after pulse transmission. This peak results from a focusing effect that the downward-refracting sound-speed profile has on the interaction of the rays with the bottom  相似文献   

Hubble Space Telescope imaging polarimetry of Mars during the 2003 opposition     

Yu. Shkuratov  M. Kreslavsky  V. Kaydash  J. Bell III  M. Hubbard  A. Lubenow 《Icarus》2005,176(1):1-11

We report results of polarimetric imaging observations of Mars with the Hubble Space Telescope during the 2003 opposition. Through careful calibration, the observations with the ACS camera allow measurements of the polarization degree with an absolute accuracy better than 0.5% and detection of features with polarization degree contrast as small as 0.2%. The general distribution of linear polarization parameters over the Mars disk and their dependence on phase angle and wavelength are well explained qualitatively by a combination of scattering separately by the martian surface and atmosphere. We have discovered transient polarization phenomena interpreted as clouds that are best observed in ultraviolet light. These clouds are optically thin but strongly polarizing, and their origin may be related to atmospheric ice condensation processes.  相似文献   

The Fossil Starburst in M82     

Richard De Grijs  Robert W. O'Connell  John S. Gallagher III 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2001,276(2-4):397-404

We present high-resolution optical and near-infrared HST observations of two adjacent regions in the fossil starburst region inM82, M82 B1 and B2. The presence of both the active and the fossil starburst in M82 provides a unique physical environment to study the stellar and dynamical evolution of star cluster systems. The cluster population in B2 is more heavily affected by internal extinction than that in B1, amounting to an excess extinction in B2 of A_V,excess≃1.1±0.3 mag. Preliminary age estimates date the cluster population in the fossil starburst between ∼2× 10⁸ and ∼ 10⁹ years. The radial luminosity profiles of the brightest clusters are more closely approximated by power laws than by a Gaussian model, in particular in their wings, which favours a slow star formation scenario. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

Oxygen and sulfur isotope systematics of sulfate produced by bacterial and abiotic oxidation of pyrite   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4  

Nurgul Balci  Wayne C. Shanks III  Kevin W. Mandernack 《Geochimica et cosmochimica acta》2007,71(15):3796-3811

To better understand reaction pathways of pyrite oxidation and biogeochemical controls on δ¹⁸O and δ³⁴S values of the generated sulfate in acid mine drainage (AMD) and other natural environments, we conducted a series of pyrite oxidation experiments in the laboratory. Our biological and abiotic experiments were conducted under aerobic conditions by using O₂ as an oxidizing agent and under anaerobic conditions by using dissolved Fe(III)_aq as an oxidant with varying δ¹⁸O_H2O values in the presence and absence of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans. In addition, aerobic biological experiments were designed as short- and long-term experiments where the final pH was controlled at ∼2.7 and 2.2, respectively. Due to the slower kinetics of abiotic sulfide oxidation, the aerobic abiotic experiments were only conducted as long term with a final pH of ∼2.7. The δ³⁴S_SO4 values from both the biological and abiotic anaerobic experiments indicated a small but significant sulfur isotope fractionation (∼−0.7‰) in contrast to no significant fractionation observed from any of the aerobic experiments. Relative percentages of the incorporation of water-derived oxygen and dissolved oxygen (O₂) to sulfate were estimated, in addition to the oxygen isotope fractionation between sulfate and water, and dissolved oxygen. As expected, during the biological and abiotic anaerobic experiments all of the sulfate oxygen was derived from water. The percentage incorporation of water-derived oxygen into sulfate during the oxidation experiments by O₂ varied with longer incubation and lower pH, but not due to the presence or absence of bacteria. These percentages were estimated as 85%, 92% and 87% from the short-term biological, long-term biological and abiotic control experiments, respectively. An oxygen isotope fractionation effect between sulfate and water (ε¹⁸O_SO4-H2O) of ∼3.5‰ was determined for the anaerobic (biological and abiotic) experiments. This measured value was then used to estimate the oxygen isotope fractionation effects between sulfate and dissolved oxygen in the aerobic experiments which were −10.0‰, −10.8‰, and −9.8‰ for the short-term biological, long-term biological and abiotic control experiments, respectively. Based on the similarity between δ¹⁸O_SO4 values in the biological and abiotic experiments, it is suggested that δ¹⁸O_SO4 values cannot be used to distinguish biological and abiotic mechanisms of pyrite oxidation. The results presented here suggest that Fe(III)_aq is the primary oxidant for pyrite at pH < 3, even in the presence of dissolved oxygen, and that the main oxygen source of sulfate is water-oxygen under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions.  相似文献   

Improved reliability of ENSO hindcasts with multi-ocean analyses ensemble initialization     

Jieshun Zhu  Bohua Huang  Magdalena A. Balmaseda  James L. Kinter III  Peitao Peng  Zeng-Zhen Hu  Lawrence Marx 《Climate Dynamics》2013,41(9-10):2785-2795

Currently, ensemble seasonal forecasts using a single model with multiple perturbed initial conditions generally suffer from an “overconfidence” problem, i.e., the ensemble evolves such that the spread among members is small, compared to the magnitude of the mean error. This has motivated the use of a multi-model ensemble (MME), a technique that aims at sampling the structural uncertainty in the forecasting system. Here we investigate how the structural uncertainty in the ocean initial conditions impacts the reliability in seasonal forecasts, by using a new ensemble generation method to be referred to as the multiple-ocean analysis ensemble (MAE) initialization. In the MAE method, multiple ocean analyses are used to build an ensemble of ocean initial states, thus sampling structural uncertainties in oceanic initial conditions (OIC) originating from errors in the ocean model, the forcing flux, and the measurements, especially in areas and times of insufficient observations, as well as from the dependence on data assimilation methods. The merit of MAE initialization is demonstrated by the improved El Niño and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecasting reliability. In particular, compared with the atmospheric perturbation or lagged ensemble approaches, the MAE initialization more effectively enhances ensemble dispersion in ENSO forecasting. A quantitative probabilistic measure of reliability also indicates that the MAE method performs better in forecasting all three (warm, neutral and cold) categories of ENSO events. In addition to improving seasonal forecasts, the MAE strategy may be used to identify the characteristics of the current structural uncertainty and as guidance for improving the observational network and assimilation strategy. Moreover, although the MAE method is not expected to totally correct the overconfidence of seasonal forecasts, our results demonstrate that OIC uncertainty is one of the major sources of forecast overconfidence, and suggest that the MAE is an essential component of an MME system.  相似文献   

Measurements of winds on Mars with Hubble Space Telescope images in 2003 opposition     

V.G. Kaydash  M.A. Kreslavsky  Yu.G. Shkuratov  J.F. Bell III 《Icarus》2006,185(1):97-101

The winds of Mars at the water cloud level are measured by tracking cloud features in sequential high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope UV images for 5 days during the perihelion season in 2003. Global circulation model (GCM) predictions are in general agreement with the observations for the zonal wind component, but reveal significant differences for the meridional component.  相似文献   

Humpback whale song or humpback whale sonar? A reply to Au et al     

Mercado  E.  III Frazer  L.N. 《Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of》2001,26(3):406-415

Au et al.'s arguments against the hypothesis that humpback whale songs function as long-range sonar are based on questionable assumptions rather than on empirical data. Like other echolocating mammals (e.g., bats), singing humpback whales: 1) localize targets in the absence of visual information; 2) possess a highly innervated peripheral auditory system; and 3) modulate the temporal and spectral features of their sounds based on environmental conditions. The sonar equation is inadequate for determining whether humpback whale songs generate detectable echoes from other whales because it does not account for temporal variables that can strongly affect the detectability of echoes. In particular, the sonar equation ignores the fact that much of the noise encountered by singing humpback whales is spectrally and temporally predictable, and that audition in mammals is a dynamic and plastic process. Experiments are needed to test the hypothesis that singing humpback whales listen for and respond to echoes generated by their songs  相似文献   

Radiating dike swarms on Venus: evidence for emplacement at zones of neutral buoyancy     

Eric B. Grosfils  James W. Head  III 《Planetary and Space Science》1995,43(12)

Theoretical calculations of extrusive volcanic degassing on Venus yield atmospheric pressure-related rock density profiles consistent with the formation of magma neutral buoyancy zones and magma reservoirs at different depths as a function of altitude (Head and Wilson, J. geophys. Res. 97, 3877, 1992). Global analysis of radiating dike swarms interpreted to originate at magma reservoirs show that their distribution matches these predictions across approximately 90% of the planet's surface; only those highland regions whose elevations exceed 6053 km appear anomalous. The distribution of the large volcano population (extrusive reservoir products) (Keddie and Head, Planet. Space Sci. 42, 455, 1994) has yielded similar results. Comparison between the dike swarm (intrusive) and large volcano (extrusive) populations suggests that neutral buoyancy plays an important role in governing volcanic processes near the venusian surface and that the depth to the level of neutral buoyancy increases systematically at altitudes above 6051 km.  相似文献   

A detailed study of the enigmatic cluster M82F     

N. Bastian  I. Konstantopoulos  L. J. Smith  G. Trancho  M. S. Westmoquette  J. S. Gallagher III 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,379(4):1333-1342

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