From desert to Mediterranean rangelands: will increasing drought and inter-annual rainfall variability affect herbaceous annual primary productivity?     

Carly Golodets  Marcelo Sternberg  Jaime Kigel  Bertrand Boeken  Zalmen Henkin  No’am G. Seligman  Eugene David Ungar 《Climatic change》2013,119(3-4):785-798

Climate change is predicted to alter the rainfall regime in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin: total annual rainfall will decrease, while seasonal and inter-annual variation in rainfall will increase. Such changes in the rainfall regime could potentially lead to large-scale changes in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) in the region. We conducted a data-driven evaluation of herbaceous ANPP along an entire regional rainfall gradient, from desert (90 mm MAR [Mean Annual Rainfall]) to Mesic-Mediterranean (780 mm MAR) ecosystems, using the largest database ever collated for herbaceous ANPP in Israel, with the aim of predicting consequences of climate change for rangeland productivity. This research revealed that herbaceous ANPP increases with increasing rainfall along the gradient, but strong dependence on rainfall was only apparent within dry sites. Rain Use Efficiency peaks at mid-gradient in Mediterranean sites without woody vegetation (560 and 610 mm MAR). Inter-annual coefficients of variation in rainfall and herbaceous ANPP decrease along the rainfall gradient up to ca. 500 mm MAR. Climate change is more likely to affect herbaceous ANPP of rangelands in the arid end of the rainfall gradient, requiring adaptation of rangeland management, while ANPP of rangelands in more mesic ecosystems is less responsive to variation in rainfall. We conclude that herbaceous ANPP in most Mediterranean rangelands is less vulnerable to climate change than generally predicted.  相似文献   

NIGHTGLOW: an instrument to measure the Earth’s nighttime ultraviolet glow—results from the first engineering flight     

Louis M. Barbier  Robert Smith  Scott Murphy  Eric R. Christian  Rodger Farley  John F. Krizmanic  John W. Mitchell  Robert E. Streitmatter  Eugene C. Loh  Stephen Stochaj 《Astroparticle Physics》2005,22(5-6):439-449

We have designed and built an instrument to measure and monitor the “nightglow” of the Earth’s atmosphere in the near ultraviolet (NUV). In this paper we describe the design of this instrument, called NIGHTGLOW. NIGHTGLOW is designed to be flown from a high altitude research balloon, and circumnavigate the globe. NIGHTGLOW is a NASA, University of Utah, and New Mexico State University project. A test flight took place from Palestine, Texas on July 5, 2000, lasting about 8 h. The instrument performed well and landed safely in Stiles, Texas with little damage. The resulting measurements of the NUV nightglow are compared with previous measurements from sounding rockets and balloons.  相似文献   

Fossil hyrax dung and evidence of Late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation types in the Namib Desert     

Louis Scott  Eugene Marais  George A. Brook 《第四纪科学杂志》2004,19(8):829-832

Pollen was derived from fossil dung of herbivorous hyraxes, deposited in a rock shelter on the highest mountain in Namibia, Dâures or Brandberg, situated on the Namib Desert margin. Radiocarbon dating ranging in age between modern times and 30 000 yr BP showed it represents the first empirical pollen evidence of continental palaeovegetation during the Late Pleistocene along the western escarpment of southern Africa. The initial results indicate Last Glacial Maximum vegetation differed totally from the current pattern as vegetation types were dominated by small Asteraceae shrubs, in contrast to those of the Holocene and modern times which show more succulents, grass and woody elements (arboreal pollen). The results suggest that Cape floral communities did not reach into the tropics along the western escarpment of Africa, despite such pollen types occurring in marine cores. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

ACCEPTANCE OF THE BARRINGER AWARD     

Eugene M. Shoemaker 《Meteoritics & planetary science》1984,19(4):180-182

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Boltysh,another end‐Cretaceous impact     

Simon P. Kelley  Eugene Gurov 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2002,37(8):1031-1043

Abstract— The Chixculub impact occurred at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary, and although several other Late Cretaceous and Paleogene impact craters have, at times, been linked with the K/T boundary, isotope geochronology has demonstrated that all have significantly different ages. The currently accepted age of the 24 km diameter Boltysh crater, a K‐Ar whole‐rock age, places it in the Coniacian at 88 ± 3 Ma. However, comprehensive Ar‐Ar dating of a range of melt samples yields a mean age of 65.17 ± 0.64 Ma, within errors of the K/T boundary. Several of the fresh samples exhibit signs of excess argon but this seems to be concentrated in rapidly crystallized glass‐rich samples. The Ar‐Ar age confirms an earlier fission track measurement and thus two dating techniques have yielded an age within errors of the K/T boundary for this crater. Crucially, although the ages of Boltysh and Chixculub are within errors, they may not have formed synchronously. Craters of 24 km diameter occur much more commonly than impacts of Chixculub dimensions, but their proximity does raise the important question of how many impacts there might have been close to the K/T boundary.  相似文献   

FRAGMENTAL BRECCIAS AND THE COLLISIONAL EVOLUTION OF ORDINARY CHONDRITE PARENT BODIES     

Alan E. Rubin  Angeline Rehfeldt  Eric Peterson  Klaus Keil  Eugene Jarosewich 《Meteoritics & planetary science》1983,18(3):179-196

Our survey of type 4–6 ordinary chondrites indicates that gas-poor, melt-rock and/or exotic clast-bearing fragmental breccias constitute 5%, 22% and 23%, respectively, of H, L and LL chondrites. These abundances contrast with the percentages of solar-gas-rich regolith breccias among ordinary chondrites: H (14%), L (3%) and LL (8%) (Crabb and Schultz, 1981). Petrologic study of several melt-rock-clast-bearing fragmental breccias indicates that some acquired their clasts prior to breccia metamorphism and others acquired them after metamorphism of host material. In general, the melt-rock clasts in gas-poor H chondrite fragmental breccias were acquired after breccia metamorphism and were probably formed by impacts into boulders or exposed outcrops of H4-6 material in the H chondrite parent body regolith. In contrast, most of the melt-rock clasts in gas-poor L and LL fragmental breccias were acquired prior to breccia metamorphism. The low abundance of regolith breccias among L chondrites and evidence that at least two-thirds of the L chondrites suffered a major shock event 0.5 Gyr ago, suggest that the L parent body may have been disrupted by a major collision at that time and that the remaining parent body fragments were too small to develop substantial regoliths (e.g., Heymann, 1967; Crabb and Schultz, 1981). Such a disruption would have exposed a large amount of L chondrite bedrock, some of which would consist of fragmental breccias that acquired melt-rock clasts very early in solar system history, prior to metamorphism. The exposed bedrock would serve as a potential target for sporadic meteoroid impacts to produce a few fragmental breccias with unmetamorphosed melt-rock clasts. The high proportion of genomict brecciated LL chondrites reflects a complex collisional history, probably including several episodes of parent body disruption and gravitational reassembly. Differences in the abundances of different kinds of breccias among the ordinary chondrite groups are probably due to the stochastic nature of major asteroidal collisions.  相似文献   

A method for stability determinations in the elliptic restricted problem     

Eugene Rabe 《Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy》1970,2(3):358-358

In the ordinary restricted problem of three bodies, the first-order stability of planar periodic orbits may be determined by means of their characteristic exponents, as derived from the condition of a vanishing determinant for the coefficients of an infinite system of homogenous linear equations associated with the exponential series solutionu, v representing any initially small oscillations about the periodic solutionx, y. In the elliptic restricted problem, periodic solutions are possible only for periods which are equal to, or integral multiples of, the periodP of the elliptic motion of the two primary masses. It is shown that the infinite determinant approach to the determination of the characteristic exponents can be extended to the treatment of superposed free oscillations in the elliptic problem, and that in generaltwo exponents appear in any complete solutionu, v for eachone existing in the corresponding ordinary restricted problem. The value of each exponent depends on a series proceeding in even powers of the eccentricitye of the relative orbit of the two primaries, in addition to its basic dependence on the mass ratio . For stable periodic orbits, the oscillation frequenciesn ₁ (,e ²),n ₂ (,e ²) associated with these two exponents tend, withe0, to certain limiting valuesn ₁ (),n ₂(), which differ from each other by the amount of the frequencyN=2/P of the orbital motion of the primaries. One of the two frequencies, sayn ₁(), is identical with the frequency of the corresponding oscillations in the ordinary restricted problem, while the second one gives rise to oscillations only in the elliptic restricted problem, withe0.The method will be described in more detail, together with its application to two families of small periodie librations about the equilateral points of the elliptic restricted problem (E. Rabe: Two new Classes of Periodic Trojan Librations in the Elliptic Restricted Problem and their Stabilities) in theProceedings of the Symposium on Periodic Orbits, Stability and Resonances, held at the University of São Paulo, Brasil, 4–12 September, 1969.Presented at the Conference on Celestial Mechanics, Oberwolfach, Germany, August 17–23, 1969.  相似文献   

Implications of recent numerical calculations for the fission theory of the origin of the Moon     

Richard H. Durisen  Eugene Howard Scott 《Icarus》1984,58(2):153-158

Recent numerical simulations of fission instabilities in rotating fluid masses give results which are consistent with some requirements of the fission hypothesis for the origin of the moon.  相似文献   

Ecosystem history of Mississippi River-influenced continental shelf revealed through preserved phytoplankton pigments     

Rabalais NN  Atilla N  Normandeau C  Turner RE 《Marine pollution bulletin》2004,49(7-8):537-547

Pigments determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) provide useful information concerning water column and epibenthic plant and microbial communities in both extant communities and accumulated sediments in lakes, estuaries and the ocean. Chlorophyll and its degradation products provide an estimate of overall biomass, and carotenoid pigments provide taxonomic biomarkers of phytoplankton. We examined the pigments preserved in sediment cores from the Louisiana continental shelf adjacent to the outflow of the Mississippi River system to document changes in phytoplankton community composition, phytoplankton abundance, and conditions of hypoxia over time. Carbon accumulated in sediments from water depths of 20-60 m is primarily derived from marine phytoplankton and represents the history of phytoplankton communities in the overlying water. There is a general increase in chlorophyll a, pheopigments, zeaxanthin, fucoxanthin and most carotenoids over time, with the change gradual from 1955 to 1970, followed by a fairly steady increase to 1997. The highest chloropigment concentrations are in cores from areas more likely to be exposed to seasonal hypoxia. These indicate an increase in eutrophication in the form of greater diatom and cyanobacterial production, or a worsening of hypoxia, or both. This trend expanded westward along the Louisiana shelf in the 1990s.  相似文献   

The dissolution of synthetic Na-boltwoodite in sodium carbonate solutions     

Eugene S. Ilton  Chongxuan Liu  Wassana Yantasee  Zheming Wang  Dean A. Moore  Andrew R. Felmy  John M. Zachara 《Geochimica et cosmochimica acta》2006,70(19):4836-4849

Uranyl silicates such as uranophane and Na-boltwoodite appear to control the solubility of uranium in certain contaminated sediments at the US Department of Energy Hanford site [Liu, C., Zachara, J.M., Qafoku, O., McKinley, J.P., Heald, S.M., Wang, Z. 2004. Dissolution of uranyl microprecipitates in subsurface sediments at Hanford Site, USA. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta68, 4519-4537.]. Consequently, the solubility of synthetic Na-boltwoodite, Na(UO₂)(SiO₃OH) · 1.5H₂O, was determined over a wide range of bicarbonate concentrations, from circumneutral to alkaline pH, that are representative of porewater and groundwater compositions at the Hanford site and calcareous environments generally. Experiments were open to air. Results show that Na-boltwoodite dissolution was nearly congruent and its solubility and dissolution kinetics increased with increasing bicarbonate concentration and pH. A consistent set of solubility constants were determined from circumneutral pH (0 added bicarbonate) to alkaline pH (50 mM added bicarbonate). Average or 5.85 ± 0.0.26; using the Pitzer ion-interaction model or Davies equation, respectively. These values are close to the one determined by [Nguyen, S.N., Silva, R.J., Weed, H.C., Andrews, Jr., J.E., 1992. Standard Gibbs free energies of formation at the temperature 303.15 K of four uranyl silicates: soddyite, uranophane, sodium boltwoodite, and sodium weeksite. J. Chem. Thermodynamics24, 359-376.] under very different conditions (pH 4.5, Ar atmosphere).  相似文献