The Colônia structure,São Paulo,Brazil     

Claudio RICCOMINI  Alvaro P. CRÓSTA  Renato L. PRADO  Marie‐Pierre LEDRU  Bruno J. TURCQ  Lucy G. SANT’ANNA  José A. FERRARI  W. Uwe REIMOLD 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2011,46(11):1630-1639

Abstract– The near‐circular Colônia structure, located in the southern suburbs of the mega‐city of São Paulo, Brazil, has attracted the attention of geoscientists for several decades due to its anomalous character and the complete absence of any plausible endogenous geologic explanation for its formation. Origin by impact cratering has been suggested repeatedly since the 1960s, but no direct evidence for this has been presented to date. New seismic data have been recently acquired at Colônia, providing new insights into the characteristics and possible layering of infill of the structure, as well as into the depth to the underlying basement. We review the current knowledge about the Colônia structure, present the new seismic data, and discuss the existing—as yet still indirect—evidence for a possible origin by an impact. The new data suggest the existence of a sedimentary fill of approximately 275 m thickness and also the presence of two intermediate zones between sediment and basement: an upper zone that is approximately 65 m thick and can be interpreted as a possible crater‐fill breccia, whereas the other zone possibly represents fractured/brecciated basement, with a thickness of approximately 50 m. Although this depth to basement seems to be inconsistent with the expected geometry of a simple, bowl‐shape impact structure of such diameter, there are a number of still unconstrained parameters that could explain this, such as projectile nature, size and velocity, impact angle, and particularly the current erosion depth.  相似文献   

Detection of CH₃D on Titan     

Bruno Bézard  Conor A. Nixon  Donald E. Jennings 《Icarus》2007,191(1):397-400

We report the detection of ¹³CH₃D in Titan's stratosphere from Cassini/CIRS infrared spectra near 8.7 μm. Fitting simultaneously the ν₆ bands of both ¹³CH₃D and ¹²CH₃D and the ν₄ band of CH₄, we derive a D/H ratio equal to and a ¹²C/¹³C ratio in deuterated methane of , consistent with that measured in normal methane.  相似文献   

Calcium isotope ratios in animal and human bone     

L.M. Reynard  G.M. Henderson 《Geochimica et cosmochimica acta》2010,74(13):3735-6962

Calcium isotopes in tissues are thought to be influenced by an individual’s diet, reflecting parameters such as trophic level and dairy consumption, but this has not been carefully assessed. We report the calcium isotope ratios (δ^44/42Ca) of modern and archaeological animal and human bone (n = 216). Modern sheep raised at the same location show 0.14 ± 0.08‰ higher δ^44/42Ca in females than in males, which we attribute to lactation by the ewes. In the archaeological bone samples the calcium isotope ratios of the herbivorous fauna vary by location. At a single site, the archaeological fauna do not show a trophic level effect. Humans have lower δ^44/42Ca than the mean site fauna by 0.22 ± 0.22‰, and the humans have a greater δ^44/42Ca range than the animals. No effect of sex or age on the calcium isotope ratios was found, and intra-individual skeletal δ^44/42Ca variability is negligible. We rule out dairy consumption as the main cause of the lower human δ^44/42Ca, based on results from sites pre-dating animal domestication and dairy availability, and suggest instead that individual physiology and calcium intake may be important in determining bone calcium isotope ratios.  相似文献   

Is there a possibility to correct fossil n-alkane data for postsedimentary alteration effects?     

Björn Buggle  Guido L.B. Wiesenberg  Bruno Glaser 《Applied Geochemistry》2010

The long chain n-alkane composition of plant material can significantly differ between plant groups e.g. trees and grasses. Due to their relative recalcitrance, they have been employed in paleoecological research as molecular proxies for different types of vegetation. Most of those paleoenvironmental studies rely on the assumption that characteristic molecular fingerprints of plant material are preserved in the fossil organic material without significant alteration. However, there exists evidence that n-alkane distributions may change in the course of plant litter degradation. Here, the authors propose and discuss a conceptual approach to the correction of n-alkane patterns in paleosols and terrestrial sediments for postsedimentary alteration effects. This might have potential to improve paleoenvironmental reconstructions derived from these molecular fossils. In soil depth profiles typically a correlation between the OEP (odd over even predominance) and paleoecological valuable long-chain n-alkane ratios (LARs) can be found. Similar relationships have been also obtained from n-alkane records in paleosols. With the OEP serving as a proxy of microbial reworking, the correction procedure applies OEP vs. LAR regression functions to correct fossil LARs for degradation effects. The regression functions have been derived from modern soils. The application of the procedure and its significance for paleoecological interpretations is demonstrated on a case study of a loess-paleosol sequence (∼400–700 ka) in Romania. It is shown that changes in the C27/C31 n-alkane ratio at this site are closely related to degradation effects rather than to changes in the paleovegetation (e.g. tree vs. grass abundance). However, it was found that the C29/C31 ratio is a more suitable paleoenvironmental proxy at the Mircea Voda site. The results indicate that there is a future potential to correct fossil n-alkane ratios via the OEP/LAR relationship, however at the moment a general straight forward application of this approach might be critical due to lack of extended and diverse n-alkane records from modern soils. The need of more systematic n-alkane studies on soil profiles is highlighted to improve knowledge concerning dynamics and actual mechanisms of postsedimentary LAR and OEP changes.  相似文献   

The effect of dwarf galaxy disruption in semi-analytic models     

Bruno M. Henriques  Serena Bertone  Peter A. Thomas 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2008,383(4):1649-1654

We present results for a galaxy formation model that includes a simple treatment for the disruption of dwarf galaxies by gravitational forces and galaxy encounters within galaxy clusters. This is implemented a posteriori in a semi-analytic model by considering the stability of cluster dark matter subhaloes at   z = 0  . We assume that a galaxy whose dark matter substructure has been disrupted will itself disperse, while its stars become part of the population of intracluster stars responsible for the observed intracluster light. Despite the simplicity of this assumption, our results show a substantial improvement over previous models and indicate that the inclusion of galaxy disruption is indeed a necessary ingredient of galaxy formation models. We find that galaxy disruption suppresses the number density of dwarf galaxies by about a factor of 2. This makes the slope of the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function shallower, in agreement with observations. In particular, the abundance of faint, red galaxies is strongly suppressed. As a result, the luminosity function of red galaxies and the distinction between the red and the blue galaxy populations in colour–magnitude relationships are correctly predicted. Finally, we estimate a fraction of intracluster light comparable to that found in clusters of galaxies.  相似文献