Radiative instability of a cloudy planetary atmosphere     

Peter J. Gierasch  Andrew P. Ingersoll  R. Terry Williams 《Icarus》1973,19(4):473-481

A cloudy planetary atmosphere at rest is shown to be unstable to disturbances of large horizontal scale. The energy source for the instability is the change in radiative heat flux associated with vertical displacement near the emitting level. A simple model is described in which Q∞ δz, where Q is the net heating rate in the cloud and δz is vertical displacement. The constant of proportionality may be either positive or negative. Disturbances may take the form of either quasi-steady geostrophic motions or amplified inertia-gravity waves. The model is applied to Jupiter's zonal winds and to motions near the Venus cloud tops, and provides a possible explanation for many important features of these two flows.  相似文献   

Structural analysis of Bermagui area,N.S.W.     

Paul F. Williams 《Australian Journal of Earth Sciences》2013,60(3):215-228

The Ordovician rocks exposed along the N.S.W. coast, near Bermagui, comprise a sequence of alternating greywacke and shale and a less abundant sequence of alternating chert and detrital beds. The only lithological boundary that can be mapped is the contact between the two sequences and it sheds little light on the large scale structure. However, due to continuity of outcrop, well‐defined vergence zones and abundant younging evidence it is possible to interpret the regional structure.

Two generations of folds (B1 and B2) are recognized and the regional folds, a N/S trending anticlinorium to the east and synclinorium to the west, are interpreted as second generation structures (B2). First generation folds (B1) are refolded by B2 on the limbs of the large B2 structures and are commonly recumbent. In the hinges of the regional B2 folds, B1 axial planes are steeply dipping and the folds instead of being refolded by B2, are more tightly appressed than elsewhere. A model is described to explain these observations.  相似文献   

Aspects of the quaternary geology of the Tari‐Koroba area,Papua     

P. W. Williams  Ian McDougall  J. M. Powell 《Australian Journal of Earth Sciences》2013,60(4):333-347

The Tari‐Koroba district is at an altitude of about 1,500 m in the Southern Highlands of Papua in an imbricate province in which uplift and faulting occurred in Pliocene times. In the southeast of the area Miocene limestones are overlain by volcanic rocks erupted about 0.85 m.y. ago, as determined from K‐Ar measurements. These middle Pleistocene flows crossed the course of the Tagari River, damming its waters to form Lake Haibuga. Sediments accumulated in this and neighbouring basins. At one site near Pureni, diprotodontid remains were found; wood associated with the deposit gave a ¹⁴C age of 32,700 yrs B.P. Pollen from this fossiliferous horizon and from another section nearby (¹⁴C age of 38,600 yrs B.P.) indicate that the climate was cooler than at present and perhaps equivalent to that experienced at about 600 m higher elevation today. Pollen from stratigraphically lower samples indicate still colder conditions and may reflect a glacial phase in the highlands earlier than the last glaciation.  相似文献   

Structural evidence of the age of folded rocks on the south coast of New South Wales     

M. A. Etheridge  D. M. Ransom  P. F. Williams  C. J. L. Wilson 《Australian Journal of Earth Sciences》2013,60(4):465-470

The pre‐Devonian sedimentary and volcanic sequence exposed along the south coast of New South Wales has previously been divided into three stratigraphic groups: (1) Upper Ordovician graptolite‐bearing slate which is conformable with (2) interlayered thinly‐bedded greywacke and pelite of undifferentiated Ordovician age and (3) Cambrian successions of interlayered chert, pelite and volcanic rock at Bate‐mans Bay and Narooma. The main bases for this subdivision are a change in rock types between (1) and (2), and the unconformity between (2) and (3) formerly proposed on the basis of changes in rock type and fold style across the boundary. New structural data are presented which refute the presence of the unconformity, and conformity of (2) and (3) with the fossiliferous slates is established.  相似文献   

Mass and magnetic properties for 3D geological and geophysical modelling of the southern Agnew–Wiluna Greenstone Belt and Leinster nickel deposits,Western Australia     

N. C. Williams 《Australian Journal of Earth Sciences》2013,60(8):1111-1142

Physical property measurements provide a critical link between geological observations and geophysical measurements and modelling. To enhance the reliability of gravity and magnetic modelling in the Yilgarn Craton's Agnew–Wiluna Greenstone Belt, mass and magnetic properties were analysed on 157 new rock samples and combined with an existing corporate database of field measurements. The new samples include sulfide ore, serpentinised and olivine-bearing ultramafic host-rocks, granitoid, and felsic and mafic volcanic and volcaniclastic country rock. Synthesis of the data provides a useful resource for future geophysical modelling in the region. Several rock types in the region have sufficiently distinct physical properties that a discriminant diagram is proposed to facilitate a basic classification of rock types based on physical properties. However, the accumulation of emplacement, metamorphic, hydrothermal and structural processes has complicated the physical properties of the rocks by imposing duplicate and sometimes opposing physical property trends. The data confirm that massive sulfide and ultramafic rocks have the most distinctive mass and magnetic properties but with variability imposed by their complex history. Sulfide content imposes the strongest control on densities, but can only be identified when comprising >10 vol% of the rock. The pyrrhotite-rich Ni-sulfide assemblages generally have similar magnetic properties to the host ultramafic rocks, but can have much lower susceptibilities where the thermal history of the rocks has favoured development of hexagonal pyrrhotite over monoclinic pyrrhotite. In ultramafic rocks that contain <10 vol% sulfides, density and susceptibility are primarily controlled by serpentinisation, with olivine breaking down to serpentine and magnetite in the presence of water. Serpentinisation dramatically lowered densities and increased susceptibilities, but had limited influence on the intensity of remanent magnetisation. All ultramafic rocks contain multidomain magnetite, and most contain low coercivity grains prone to overprinting by in situ viscous remanent magnetisation or drilling-induced isothermal remanent magnetisation during extraction. Despite the low coercivities, Koenigsberger ratios of 1–20 are observed indicating that viscous remanent magnetisation aligned parallel to the present Earth field must be considered in any magnetic modelling. It is also noted that coarser-grained intrusive varieties of all rock types (e.g. granite, gabbro) show remanent magnetisation intensities 1–2 orders of magnitude greater than their extrusive equivalents (felsic and basaltic volcanics).  相似文献   

Io: Heat flow from dark paterae     

Glenn J. Veeder  David A. Williams  Torrence V. Johnson 《Icarus》2011,212(1):236-261

Dark paterae on the jovian satellite Io are evidence of recent volcanic activity. Some paterae appear to be entirely filled with dark volcanic material, while others have only partially darkened floors. Dark paterae have area and heat flow longitudinal distributions that are bimodal as well as anti-correlated with the longitudinal distribution of mountains on Io at a global scale. As part of our study of Io’s total heat flow, we have examined the darkest paterae and quantified their thermal emission in order to assess their contribution. This is the first time that the areas of the dark material in these paterae have been measured with such precision and correlated with their thermal emission. Dark paterae yield a significantly larger contribution to Io’s heat flow than dark volcanic fields. Dark paterae (including Loki Patera) yield at least ∼4 × 10¹³ W or ∼40% of Io’s total heat flow. In comparison, dark flow fields yield ∼10¹³ W or ∼10% of Io’s total heat flow. Of the total heat loss from dark paterae, Loki Patera alone yields ∼10¹³ W or ∼10% of Io’s total thermal emission.  相似文献   

Comparisons of Supergranule Characteristics During the Solar Minima of Cycles 22/23 and 23/24     

Peter E. Williams  W. Dean Pesnell 《Solar physics》2011,270(1):125-136

Supergranulation is a component of solar convection that manifests itself on the photosphere as a cellular network of around 35 Mm across, with a turnover lifetime of 1 – 2 days. It is strongly linked to the structure of the magnetic field. The horizontal, divergent flows within supergranule cells carry local field lines to the cell boundaries, while the rotational properties of supergranule upflows may contribute to the restoration of the poloidal field as part of the dynamo mechanism, which controls the solar cycle. The solar minimum at the transition from cycle 23 to 24 was notable for its low level of activity and its extended length. It is of interest to study whether the convective phenomena that influence the solar magnetic field during this time differed in character from periods of previous minima. This study investigates three characteristics (velocity components, sizes and lifetimes) of solar supergranulation. Comparisons of these characteristics are made between the minima of cycles 22/23 and 23/24 using MDI Doppler data from 1996 and 2008, respectively. It is found that whereas the lifetimes are equal during both epochs (around 18 h), the sizes are larger in 1996 (35.9 ± 0.3 Mm) than in 2008 (35.0 ± 0.3 Mm), while the dominant horizontal velocity flows are weaker (139 ± 1 m s⁻¹ in 1996; 141 ± 1 m s⁻¹ in 2008). Although numerical differences are seen, they are not conclusive proof of the most recent minimum being inherently unusual.  相似文献   

Restriction of sponges to an atoll lagoon as a result of reduced environmental quality     

Ingrid S.S. Knapp  Gareth J. Williams  José Luis Carballo  José Antonio Cruz-Barraza  Jonathan P.A. Gardner  James J. Bell 《Marine pollution bulletin》2013,66(1-2):209-220

The lagoon at Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific was subject to major military modifications during WWII and now the dominant fauna on the lagoon’s hard substrate are sponges, not corals. In this study, we quantified the physical and biological factors explaining the variation in sponge distribution patterns across 11 sites to determine the potential for the sponges in the lagoon at Palmyra to invade the surrounding reef systems. Significant differences in sponge assemblages were found among all but three sites. For all the models we examined the strongest environmental relationships were found for variables related to sedimentation/turbidity and food/habitat availability. Our findings suggest that the sponges in Palmyra’s lagoon are likely to be restricted to this habitat type where they are associated with conditions resulting from the earlier heavy disturbance and are unlikely to spread to the outer reef environments unless there is a dramatic decline in environmental quality.  相似文献   

Fast error analysis of continuous GNSS observations with missing data   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  

M. S. Bos  R. M. S. Fernandes  S. D. P. Williams  L. Bastos 《Journal of Geodesy》2013,87(4):351-360

One of the most widely used method for the time-series analysis of continuous Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations is Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) which in most implementations requires $\mathcal{O }(n^3)$ operations for $n$ observations. Previous research by the authors has shown that this amount of operations can be reduced to $\mathcal{O }(n^2)$ for observations without missing data. In the current research we present a reformulation of the equations that preserves this low amount of operations, even in the common situation of having some missing data.Our reformulation assumes that the noise is stationary to ensure a Toeplitz covariance matrix. However, most GNSS time-series exhibit power-law noise which is weakly non-stationary. To overcome this problem, we present a Toeplitz covariance matrix that provides an approximation for power-law noise that is accurate for most GNSS time-series.Numerical results are given for a set of synthetic data and a set of International GNSS Service (IGS) stations, demonstrating a reduction in computation time of a factor of 10–100 compared to the standard MLE method, depending on the length of the time-series and the amount of missing data.  相似文献   

Earth observations during space shuttle mission STS‐34: 18–23 October 1989     

Michael R. Helfert  Kamlesh P. Lulla  Victor S. Whitehead  M. Justin Wilkinson  Donald E. Williams  Michael J.. McCulley 《国际地球制图》2013,28(3):65-79

Abstract

Although high‐resolution microwave synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors possess all‐weather capability for mapping soil moisture from spaceborne platforms, continuous temporal and spatial monitoring of this important hydrological parameter has been relatively limited. However, the recent launch of operational SAR sensors aboard various satellites have made possible synoptic soil moisture monitoring a reality. Such systems operate over a wide range of frequencies, look angles, and polarization combinations, and thus show synergistic advantages when combined for estimating soil moisture patterns. Two soil moisture inversion algorithms have been developed using as inputs radar backscattering data at L, S, and C bands in the microwave frequency range. These models have been tested using radar image simulation with speckle added. It is observed that the neural network algorithm yields superior results in mapping actual soil moisture patterns over the linear statistical inversion technique, although both models show comparable errors in soil moisture estimation. We infer that using statistical estimation errors alone for comparison purposes may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the advantages of one soil moisture inversion algorithm over another.  相似文献