2002 Kuiper prize lecture: Dust Astronomy     

Eberhard Grün  Ralf Srama  Sascha Kempf  Stefan Helfert 《Icarus》2005,174(1):1-14

Dust particles, like photons, carry information from remote sites in space and time. From knowledge of the dust particles' birthplace and their bulk properties, we can learn about the remote environment out of which the particles were formed. This approach is called “Dust Astronomy” which is carried out by means of a dust telescope on a Dust Observatory in space. Targets for a dust telescope are the local interstellar medium and nearby star forming regions, as well as comets and asteroids. Dust from interstellar and interplanetary sources is distinguished by accurately sensing their trajectories. Trajectory sensors may use the electric charge signals that are induced when charged grains fly through the detector. Modern in-situ dust impact detectors are capable of providing mass, speed, physical and chemical information of dust grains in space. A Dust Observatory mission is feasible with state-of-the-art technology. It will (1) provide the distinction between interstellar dust and interplanetary dust of cometary and asteroidal origin, (2) determine the elemental composition of impacting dust particles, and (3) monitor the fluxes of various dust components as a function of direction and particle masses.  相似文献   

New Constraints on the Proterozoic Crustal Evolution of the Eastern Ghats Belt, India     

Christoph Dobmeier  Ralf Simmat  Michael Raith 《Gondwana Research》2001,4(4):609-610

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Mapping global land system archetypes   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Tomáš Václavík  Sven Lautenbach  Tobias Kuemmerle  Ralf Seppelt 《Global Environmental Change》2013,23(6):1637-1647

Land use is a key driver of global environmental change. Unless major shifts in consumptive behaviours occur, land-based production will have to increase drastically to meet future demands for food and other commodities. One approach to better understand the drivers and impacts of agricultural intensification is the identification of global, archetypical patterns of land systems. Current approaches focus on broad-scale representations of dominant land cover with limited consideration of land-use intensity. In this study, we derived a new global representation of land systems based on more than 30 high-resolution datasets on land-use intensity, environmental conditions and socioeconomic indicators. Using a self-organizing map algorithm, we identified and mapped twelve archetypes of land systems for the year 2005. Our analysis reveals similarities in land systems across the globe but the diverse pattern at sub-national scales implies that there are no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions to sustainable land management. Our results help to identify generic patterns of land pressures and environmental threats and provide means to target regionalized strategies to cope with the challenges of global change. Mapping global archetypes of land systems represents a first step towards better understanding the global patterns of human–environment interactions and the environmental and social outcomes of land system dynamics.  相似文献   

A statistical retrieval algorithm for root zone soil moisture     

Ralf Lindau  Clemens Simmer 《Theoretical and Applied Climatology》2014,118(4):675-694

An algorithm for the estimation of root zone soil moisture is presented. Global fields of the soil moisture within the uppermost metre of soil are derived with a temporal resolution of 10 days. For calibration, long-term soil moisture observations from the former Soviet Union are used. The variance of the measurements is largely dominated by the spatial variability of the long-term mean soil moisture, while the temporal variability gives comparatively small contribution. Consequently, the algorithm is organised into two steps. The first step concentrates on the retrieval of the spatial variance of the long-term means, which comprises more than 85% of the total soil moisture variability. A major part of the spatial variance can be explained by four easily available fields: the climatological precipitation, land use, soil texture, and terrain slope. The second step of the algorithm is dedicated to the local temporal variability. This part of variability is recovered by using passive microwave data from scanning multichannel microwave radiometre (SMMR) supported by monthly averaged fields of air temperature and precipitation. The 6-GHz channel of SMMR is shown to be severely disturbed by radio frequency interference, so that information from the 10-GHz channel is used instead. The algorithm provides reasonable soil moisture fields which is confirmed by a comparison with independent measurements from Illinois.  相似文献   

Implementation of PhotoZ under Astro-WISE     

Roberto P. Saglia  Jan Snigula  Robert Senger  Ralf Bender 《Experimental Astronomy》2013,35(1-2):337-344

We describe the implementation of the PhotoZ code in the framework of the Astro-WISE package and as part of the Photometric Classification Server of the PanSTARRS pipeline. Both systems allow the automatic measurement of photometric redshifts for the millions of objects being observed in the PanSTARRS project or expected to be observed by future surveys like KIDS, DES or EUCLID.  相似文献   

Organic sedimentary deposits in Titan’s dry lakebeds: Probable evaporite     

Jason W. Barnes  Jacob Bow  Jacob Schwartz  Robert H. Brown  Jason M. Soderblom  Alexander G. Hayes  Graham Vixie  Stéphane Le Mouélic  Sebastien Rodriguez  Christophe Sotin  Ralf Jaumann  Katrin Stephan  Laurence A. Soderblom  Roger N. Clark  Bonnie J. Buratti  Kevin H. Baines  Philip D. Nicholson 《Icarus》2011,216(1):136-140

We report the discovery of organic sedimentary deposits at the bottom of dry lakebeds near Titan’s north pole in observations from the Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). We show evidence that the deposits are evaporitic, making Titan just the third known planetary body with evaporitic processes after Earth and Mars, and is the first that uses a solvent other than water.  相似文献   

New insights into the mineralogy and weathering of the Meridiani Planum meteorite,Mars     

Iris FLEISCHER  Christian SCHRÖDER  Göstar KLINGELHÖFER  Jutta ZIPFEL  Richard V. MORRIS  James W. ASHLEY  Ralf GELLERT  Simon WEHRHEIM  Sandro EBERT 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2011,46(1):21-34

Meridiani Planum is the first officially recognized meteorite find on the surface of Mars. It was discovered at and named after the landing site of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Based on its composition, it was classified as a IAB complex iron meteorite. Mössbauer spectra obtained by Opportunity are dominated by kamacite (α‐Fe‐Ni) and exhibit a small contribution of ferric oxide. Several small features in the spectra have been neglected to date. To shed more light on these features, five iron meteorite specimens were investigated as analogs to Meridiani Planum with a laboratory Mössbauer setup. Measurements were performed on (1) their metallic bulk, (2) troilite (FeS) inclusions, (3) cohenite ((Fe,Ni,Co)₃C) and schreibersite ((Fe,Ni)₃P), and (4) corroded rims. In addition to these room‐temperature measurements, a specimen from the Mundrabilla IAB‐ungrouped meteorite was measured at Mars‐equivalent temperatures. Based on these measurements, the features in Meridiani Planum spectra can be explained with the presence of small amounts of schreibersite and/or cohenite and iron oxides. The iron oxides can be attributed to a previously reported coating on Meridiani Planum. Their presence indicates weathering through the interaction of the meteorite with small amounts of water.  相似文献   

Liquid immiscibility between silicate,carbonate and sulfide melts in melt inclusions hosted in co-precipitated minerals from Kerimasi volcano (Tanzania): evolution of carbonated nephelinitic magma   总被引：3，自引：1，他引：2  

Tibor?GuzmicsEmail author  Roger?H.?Mitchell  Csaba?SzabóEmail author  Márta?Berkesi  Ralf?Milke  Kitti?Ratter 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2012,164(1):101-122

The evolution of a carbonated nephelinitic magma can be followed by the study of a statistically significant number of melt inclusions, entrapped in co-precipitated perovskite, nepheline and magnetite in a clinopyroxene- and nepheline-rich rock (afrikandite) from Kerimasi volcano (Tanzania). Temperatures are estimated to be 1,100°C for the early stage of the melt evolution of the magma, which formed the rock. During evolution, the magma became enriched in CaO, depleted in SiO₂ and Al₂O₃, resulting in immiscibility at ~1,050°C and crustal pressures (0.5–1 GPa) with the formation of three fluid-saturated melts: an alkali- and MgO-bearing, CaO- and FeO-rich silicate melt; an alkali- and F-bearing, CaO- and P₂O₅-rich carbonate melt; and a Cu–Fe sulfide melt. The sulfide and the carbonate melt could be physically separated from their silicate parent and form a Cu–Fe–S ore and a carbonatite rock. The separated carbonate melt could initially crystallize calciocarbonatite and ultimately become alkali rich in composition and similar to natrocarbonatite, demonstrating an evolution from nephelinite to natrocarbonatite through Ca-rich carbonatite magma. The distribution of major elements between perovskite-hosted coexisting immiscible silicate and carbonate melts shows strong partitioning of Ca, P and F relative to Fe_T, Si, Al, Mn, Ti and Mg in the carbonate melt, suggesting that immiscibility occurred at crustal pressures and plays a significant role in explaining the dominance of calciocarbonatites (sövites) relative to dolomitic or sideritic carbonatites. Our data suggest that Cu–Fe–S compositions are characteristic of immiscible sulfide melts originating from the parental silicate melts of alkaline silicate–carbonatite complexes.  相似文献   

Neotectonics and recent uplift at Kamchatka and Aleutian arc junction, Kamchatka Cape area, NE Russia     

Dorthe Pflanz  Christoph Gaedicke  Ralf Freitag  Matthias Krbetschek  Nikolay Tsukanov  Boris Baranov 《International Journal of Earth Sciences》2013,102(3):903-916

The tectonic position of the Kamchatka Cape Peninsula at the junction of the active Kuril–Kamchatka and Aleutian arcs exposes the coastline of the peninsula to strong neotectonic activities. Fracture zones have variable influence on uplift of the Kamchatka Cape Peninsula. Relevant morphologic indicators of neotectonic activity are multilevel, highly uplifted marine terraces and terraces displaced along active faults. Recent uplift rates of coastal sediments are determined by remote sensing via ASTER and SRTM DEM combined with optically stimulated luminescence dating (OSL). On the Kamchatka Cape Peninsula, terraces from the same generation are mapped at different elevations by remote sensing methods. After defining different areas of uplifted terraces, four neotectonic blocks are identified. According to apatite fission track data, the mean differential exhumation rates range from 0.2 to 1.2 mm year^?1 across the blocks since Late Miocene. The OSL data presented point to significant higher uplift rates of up to 3 ± 0.5 and 4.3 ± 1 mm year^?1, which indicates an acceleration of the vertical movement along the coast of Kamchatka Cape Peninsula in Upper Pleistocene and Holocene times.  相似文献   

Application of the water balance model J2000 to estimate groundwater recharge in a semi-arid environment: a case study in the Zarqa River catchment, NW-Jordan   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Stephan Schulz  Christian Siebert  Tino Rödiger  Marwan M. Al-Raggad  Ralf Merz 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2013,69(2):605-615

Pollution and overexploitation of scarce groundwater resources is a serious problem in the Zarqa River catchment, Jordan. To estimate this resource’s potential, the amount and spatial distribution of groundwater recharge was calculated by applying the hydrological model J2000. The simulation period is composed of daily values gathered over a 30-year period (July 1977 to June 2007). The figure finally obtained for estimated groundwater recharge of the Zarqa River catchment is 105 × 10⁶ m³ per year (21 mm a^?1). This is 19 % higher than the value previously assumed to be correct by most Jordanian authorities. The average ratio of precipitation to groundwater recharge is 9.5 %. To directly validate modelled groundwater recharge, two independent methods were applied in spring catchments: (1) alteration of stable isotope signatures (δ¹⁸O, δ²H) between precipitation and groundwater and (2) the chloride mass balance method. Recharge rates determined by isotopic investigations are 25 % higher, and recharge rates determined by chloride mass balance are 9 % higher than the modelled results for the corresponding headwater catchments. This suggests a reasonably modelled safe yield estimation of groundwater resources.  相似文献