Walking through volcanic mud: the 2,100-year-old Acahualinca footprints (Nicaragua)     

Hans-Ulrich Schmincke  Steffen Kutterolf  Wendy Perez  Juanita Rausch  Armin Freundt  Wilfried Strauch 《Bulletin of Volcanology》2009,71(5):479-493

We present the stratigraphy, lithology, volcanology, and age of the Acahualinca section in Managua, including a famous footprint layer exposed in two museum pits. The ca. 4-m-high walls of the main northern pit (Pit I) expose excellent cross sections of Late Holocene volcaniclastic deposits in northern Managua. We have subdivided the section into six lithostratigraphic units, some of which we correlate to Late Holocene eruptions. Unit I (1.2 m thick), chiefly of hydroclastic origin, begins with the footprint layer. The bulk is dominated by mostly massive basaltic-andesitic tephra layers, interpreted to represent separate pulses of a basically phreatomagmatic eruptive episode. We correlate these deposits based on compositional and stratigraphic evidence to the Masaya Triple Layer erupted at Masaya volcano ca. 2,120 ± 120 a B.P.. The eruption occurred during the dry season. A major erosional channel unconformity up to 1 m deep in the western half of Pit I separates Units II and I. Unit II begins with basal dacitic pumice lapilli up to 10 cm thick overlain by a massive to bedded fine-grained dacitic tuff including a layer of accretionary lapilli and pockets of well-rounded pumice lapilli. Angular nonvesicular glass shards are interpreted to represent hydroclastic fragmentation. The dacitic tephra is correlated unequivocally with the ca. 1.9-ka-Plinian dacitic Chiltepe eruption. Unit III, a lithified basaltic-andesitic deposit up to 50 cm thick and extremely rich in branch molds and excellent leaf impressions, is correlated with the Masaya Tuff erupted ca. 1.8 ka ago. Unit IV, a reworked massive basaltic-andesitic deposit, rich in brown tuff clasts and well bedded and cross bedded in the northwestern corner of Pit I, cuts erosionally down as far as Unit I. A poorly defined, pale brown mass flow deposit up to 1 m thick (Unit V) is overlain by 1–1.5 m of dominantly reworked, chiefly basaltic tephra topped by soil (Unit VI). A major erosional channel carved chiefly between deposition of Units II and I may have existed as a shallow drainage channel even prior to deposition of the footprint layer. The swath of the footprints is oriented NNW, roughly parallel to, and just east of, the axis of the channel. The interpretation of the footprint layer as the initial product of a powerful eruption at Masaya volcano followed without erosional breaks by additional layers of the same eruptive phase is strong evidence that the group of 15 or 16 people tried to escape from an eruption.  相似文献   

Statistical analysis and origin of the magnetic susceptibility of drill cuttings from the 9.1-km-deep KTB drill hole   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Armin Rauen  Heinrich C. Soffel  & Helmuth Winter 《Geophysical Journal International》2000,142(1):83-94

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Cantilever beam analogy for modal analysis of rocking core-moment frames     

Nima Rahgozar  Abdolreza S. Moghadam  Armin Aziminejad 《Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering》2018,16(9):4081-4106

Unlike conventional seismic resisting systems, rocking core-moment frame (RCMF) combinations as low-damage assemblies are being developed to mitigate, or even eliminate structural damage and residual deformations following a severe earthquake. Despite extensive studies on the performance of specific rocking cores, dynamic characteristics and strength demands of a generic RCMF have not been addressed. By utilizing cantilever beam analogy, the current article proposes a modal analysis method to formulate RCMF demands. The proposed model and obtained analytical charts provide a manual method for rapid study and preliminary design of low- to mid-rise RCMFs with relatively uniform properties over the height. An extensive parametric study investigates the effects of rocking core base-fixity and frame-to-core stiffness on demand values. An independent computer analysis verifies the validity and accuracy of the proposed formulas. Findings show significant higher-mode effects in several RCMF combinations.  相似文献   

Observations of Lake-Breeze Events During the Toronto 2015 Pan-American Games     

Zen Mariani  Armin Dehghan  Paul Joe  David Sills 《Boundary-Layer Meteorology》2018,166(1):113-135

Enhanced meteorological observations were made during the 2015 Pan and Parapan American Games in Toronto in order to measure the vertical and horizontal structure of lake-breeze events. Two scanning Doppler lidars (one fixed and one mobile), a C-band radar, and a network including 53 surface meteorological stations (mesonet) provided pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind speed and direction measurements over Lake Ontario and urban areas. These observations captured the full evolution (prior, during, and after) of 27 lake-breeze events (73% of observation days) in order to characterize the convective and dynamic processes driving lake breezes at the local scale and mesoscale. The dominant signal of a passing lake-breeze front (LBF) was an increase in dew-point temperature of \(2.3 \pm 0.3 \,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\), coinciding with a \(180^{\circ }\) shift in wind direction and a decrease in air temperature of \(2.1 \pm 0.2 \,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\). Doppler lidar observations over the lake detected lake breezes 1 hour (on average) before detection by radar and mesonet. On days with the synoptic flow in the offshore direction, the lidars observed wedge-shaped LBFs with shallow depths, which inhibited the radar’s ability to detect the lake breeze. The LBF’s ground speed and inland penetration distance were found to be well-correlated (\(r = 0.78\)), with larger inland penetration distances occurring on days with non-opposing (non-offshore) synoptic flow. The observed enhanced vertical motion \(({>} 1\hbox { m s}^{-1})\) at the LBF, observed by the lidar on 54% of lake-breeze days, was greater (at times \({>} 2.5\hbox { m s}^{-1}\)) than that observed in previous studies and longer-lasting over the lake than over land. The weaker and less pronounced lake-breeze structure over land is illustrated in two case studies highlighting the lifetime of the lake-breeze circulation and the impact of propagation distance on lake-breeze intensity.  相似文献   

U-Pb and Lu-Hf isotope record of detrital zircon grains from the Limpopo Belt - Evidence for crustal recycling at the Hadean to early-Archean transition     

Armin Zeh  Axel Gerdes  J.M. Barton Jr. 《Geochimica et cosmochimica acta》2008,72(21):5304-5329

Detrital zircon grains from Beit Bridge Group quartzite from the Central Zone of the Limpopo Belt near Musina yield mostly ages of 3.35-3.15 Ga, minor 3.15-2.51 Ga components, and numerous older grains grouped at approximately 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6 Ga. Two grains yielded concordant Late Hadean U-Pb ages of 3881 ± 11 Ma and 3909 ± 26 Ma, which are the oldest zircon grains so far found in Africa. The combined U-Pb and Lu-Hf datasets and field relationships provide evidence that the sedimentary protolith of the Beit Bridge Group quartzite was deposited after the emplacement of the Sand River Gneisses (3.35-3.15 Ga), but prior to the Neoarchean magmatic-metamorphic events at 2.65-2.60 Ga. The finding of abundant magmatic zircon detritus with concordant U-Pb ages of 3.35-3.15 Ga, and ¹⁷⁶Hf/¹⁷⁷Hf of 0.28066 ± 0.00004 indicate that the Sand River Gneiss-type rocks were a predominant source. In contrast, detrital zircon grains older than approximately 3.35 Ga were derived from the hinterland of the Limpopo Belt; either from a so far unknown crustal source in southern Africa, possibly from the Zimbabwe Craton and/or a source, which was similar but not necessarily identical to the one that supplied the Hadean zircons to Jack Hills, Western Australia. The Beit Bridge Group zircon population at >3.35 Ga shows a general εHf_t increase with decreasing age from εHf_3.9Ga = −6.3 to εHf_3.3-3.1Ga = −0.2, indicating that Hadean crust older than 4.0 Ga (T_DM = 4.45-4.36 Ga) was rejuvenated during magmatic events between >3.9 and 3.1 Ga, due to a successive mixing of crustal rocks with mantle derived magmas. The existence of a depleted mantle reservoir in the Limpopo’s hinterland is reflected by the ∼3.6 Ga zircon population, which shows εHf_3.6Ga between −4.6 and +3.2. In a global context, our data suggest that a long-lived, mafic Hadean protocrust with some tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite constituents was destroyed and partly recycled at the Hadean/Archean transition, perhaps due to the onset of modern-style plate tectonics.  相似文献   

Application of ray-traced tropospheric slant delays to geodetic VLBI analysis     

Armin Hofmeister  Johannes Böhm 《Journal of Geodesy》2017,91(8):945-964

The correction of tropospheric influences via so-called path delays is critical for the analysis of observations from space geodetic techniques like the very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). In standard VLBI analysis, the a priori slant path delays are determined using the concept of zenith delays, mapping functions and gradients. The a priori use of ray-traced delays, i.e., tropospheric slant path delays determined with the technique of ray-tracing through the meteorological data of numerical weather models (NWM), serves as an alternative way of correcting the influences of the troposphere on the VLBI observations within the analysis. In the presented research, the application of ray-traced delays to the VLBI analysis of sessions in a time span of 16.5 years is investigated. Ray-traced delays have been determined with program RADIATE (see Hofmeister in Ph.D. thesis, Department of Geodesy and Geophysics, Faculty of Mathematics and Geoinformation, Technische Universität Wien. http://resolver.obvsg.at/urn:nbn:at:at-ubtuw:1-3444, 2016) utilizing meteorological data provided by NWM of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). In comparison with a standard VLBI analysis, which includes the tropospheric gradient estimation, the application of the ray-traced delays to an analysis, which uses the same parameterization except for the a priori slant path delay handling and the used wet mapping factors for the zenith wet delay (ZWD) estimation, improves the baseline length repeatability (BLR) at 55.9% of the baselines at sub-mm level. If no tropospheric gradients are estimated within the compared analyses, 90.6% of all baselines benefit from the application of the ray-traced delays, which leads to an average improvement of the BLR of 1 mm. The effects of the ray-traced delays on the terrestrial reference frame are also investigated. A separate assessment of the RADIATE ray-traced delays is carried out by comparison to the ray-traced delays from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA GSFC) (Eriksson and MacMillan in http://lacerta.gsfc.nasa.gov/tropodelays, 2016) with respect to the analysis performances in terms of BLR results. If tropospheric gradient estimation is included in the analysis, 51.3% of the baselines benefit from the RADIATE ray-traced delays at sub-mm difference level. If no tropospheric gradients are estimated within the analysis, the RADIATE ray-traced delays deliver a better BLR at 63% of the baselines compared to the NASA GSFC ray-traced delays.  相似文献   

Nocturnal Near-Surface Temperature,but not Flow Dynamics,can be Predicted by Microtopography in a Mid-Range Mountain Valley     

Lena Pfister  Armin Sigmund  Johannes Olesch  Christoph K. Thomas 《Boundary-Layer Meteorology》2017,165(2):333-348

We investigate nocturnal flow dynamics and temperature behaviour near the surface of a 170-m long gentle slope in a mid-range mountain valley. In contrast to many existing studies focusing on locations with significant topographic variations, gentle slopes cover a greater spatial extent of the Earth’s surface. Air temperatures were measured using the high-resolution distributed-temperature-sensing method within a two-dimensional fibre-optic array in the lowest metre above the surface. The main objectives are to characterize the spatio-temporal patterns in the near-surface temperature and flow dynamics, and quantify their responses to the microtopography and land cover. For the duration of the experiment, including even clear-sky nights with weak winds and strong radiative forcing, the classical cold-air drainage predicted by theory could not be detected. In contrast, we show that the airflow for the two dominant flow modes originates non-locally. The most abundant flow mode is characterized by vertically-decoupled layers featuring a near-surface flow perpendicular to the slope and strong stable stratification, which contradicts the expectation of a gravity-driven downslope flow of locally produced cold air. Differences in microtopography and land cover clearly affect spatio-temporal temperature perturbations. The second most abundant flow mode is characterized by strong mixing, leading to vertical coupling with airflow directed down the local slope. Here variations of microtopography and land cover lead to negligible near-surface temperature perturbations. We conclude that spatio-temporal temperature perturbations, but not flow dynamics, can be predicted by microtopography, which complicates the prediction of advective-heat components and the existence and dynamics of cold-air pools in gently sloped terrain in the absence of observations.  相似文献   

Impact of in-consistency between the climate model and its initial conditions on climate prediction     

Liu  Xueyuan  Köhl  Armin  Stammer  Detlef  Masuda  Shuhei  Ishikawa  Yoichi  Mochizuki  Takashi 《Climate Dynamics》2017,49(3):1061-1075

We investigated the influence of dynamical in-consistency of initial conditions on the predictive skill of decadal climate predictions. The investigation builds on the fully coupled global model “Coupled GCM for Earth Simulator” (CFES). In two separate experiments, the ocean component of the coupled model is full-field initialized with two different initial fields from either the same coupled model CFES or the GECCO2 Ocean Synthesis while the atmosphere is initialized from CFES in both cases. Differences between both experiments show that higher SST forecast skill is obtained when initializing with coupled data assimilation initial conditions (CIH) instead of those from GECCO2 (GIH), with the most significant difference in skill obtained over the tropical Pacific at lead year one. High predictive skill of SST over the tropical Pacific seen in CIH reflects the good reproduction of El Niño events at lead year one. In contrast, GIH produces additional erroneous El Niño events. The tropical Pacific skill differences between both runs can be rationalized in terms of the zonal momentum balance between the wind stress and pressure gradient force, which characterizes the upper equatorial Pacific. In GIH, the differences between the oceanic and atmospheric state at initial time leads to imbalance between the zonal wind stress and pressure gradient force over the equatorial Pacific, which leads to the additional pseudo El Niño events and explains reduced predictive skill. The balance can be reestablished if anomaly initialization strategy is applied with GECCO2 initial conditions and improved predictive skill in the tropical Pacific is observed at lead year one. However, initializing the coupled model with self-consistent initial conditions leads to the highest skill of climate prediction in the tropical Pacific by preserving the momentum balance between zonal wind stress and pressure gradient force along the equatorial Pacific.

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Efficiency of reduced-order, time-dependent adjoint data assimilation approaches     

Ibrahim Hoteit  Armin Köhl 《Journal of Oceanography》2006,62(4):539-550

Applications of adjoint data assimilation, which is designed to bring an ocean circulation model into consistency with ocean observations, are computationally demanding. To improve the convergence rate of an optimization, reduced-order optimization methods that reduce the size of the control vector by projecting it onto a limited number of basis functions were suggested. In this paper, we show that such order reduction can indeed speed up the initial convergence rate of an assimilation effort in the eastern subtropical North Atlantic using in situ and satellite data as constraints. However, an improved performance of the optimization was only obtained with a hybrid approach where the optimization is started in a reduced subspace but is continued subsequently using the full control space. In such an experiment about 50% of the computational cost can be saved as compared to the optimization in the full control space. Although several order-reduction approaches seem feasible, the best result was obtained by projecting the control vector onto Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) computed from a set of adjusted control vectors estimated previously from an optimization using the same model configuration.  相似文献   

Discharge experiments simulating chemical evolution on the surface of Titan     

Kristof Plankensteiner  Bernd M. Rode  Tomas Mikoviny  Armin Hansel  Georg Fischer  Helmut O. Rucker 《Icarus》2007,187(2):616-619

Saturn's moon Titan has been considered as one of the few places in our Solar System, where atmospheric and surface conditions could have produced organic compounds essential as precursors for an evolution of life. The Cassini-Huygens mission has provided new data on Titan's atmosphere and surface, which enabled us to simulate the chemical processes occurring under these conditions. Possible lightning events on Titan cannot only produce higher hydrocarbons, but also allow surface water ice to participate in the reaction scenario, resulting in CHO, CHN, and CHON compounds including several molecules relevant for the formation of amino acids and nucleic acids.  相似文献