Spatial patterns and replacement in ten cacti were studied on an island of the coastal desert of Sinaloa, México. Four platyopuntias had 74–92% of their individuals beneath shrub canopies, whereas three globose cacti, one columnar cactus and two cylindropuntias had similar or higher percentages of individuals in open spaces. This study advances the idea that open-space colonization is enhanced by less harsh physical and biotic conditions in coastal deserts, and by certain morphological and physiological adaptations of cacti. The absence of nurse-shrub replacement is understood as a result of induced co-existence by physical damage from cyclones in the coastal zone. 相似文献
In the present paper the morphodynamics of sand waves in the Messina Strait, Italy, is analysed by comparing data gathered during two different surveys carried out in 1991 and 2001, respectively. In particular, a morphometric analysis on the most recent data and a qualitative analysis of the differences between bottom bedform patterns, are carried out. At locations characterised by greater depths, only minor changes to the planimetric configuration of the field, i.e. crest orientation (which is seen to be orthogonal to the direction of net gross sand transport) and wave length are observed, while differences in wave length and crest direction are more evident in more shallow areas. On the other hand, wave height has significantly increased in the whole field. A possible explanation of such a change, based on the previsions of a theory which relates sand-wave growth and migration to the main components of the tidal ellipse, is provided.Responsible Editor: Jens Kappenberg 相似文献
A novel procedure is proposed to analyse continuous seismic signal on hourly scales to have a prompt discrimination among the different sources. Specifically, this approach is applied to a massive dataset recorded at Campi Flegrei caldera during the year 2006 when a swarm of volcano-tectonic earthquakes occurred. The convolutive independent component analysis is adopted to obtain a clear separation among meteo-marine microseism, anthropogenic noise, hydrothermal tremor in the absence of volcano-tectonic activity, whereas in non-stationary conditions a contribution connected to the corner frequency of the earthquakes emerges. A coarse-grained variable to be monitored continuously is introduced, i.e. the frequency associated with the maximum amplitude of the power spectral density of the deconvolutive independent components. That parameter is sensitive to the variation in the frequency bands of interest (e.g. that corresponding to the corner frequencies of volcano-tectonic events) and can be used as marker of the insurgence of seismic activity.
Abstract Slices of oceanic lithosphere belonging to the neo‐Tethys realm crop out discontinuously in the northern Calabrian Arc, Southern Apennines. They consist of high‐pressure–low‐temperature metamorphic ophiolitic sequences formed from metaultramafics, metabasites and alternating metapelites, metarenites, marbles and calcschist. Ophiolites occupy an intermediate position in the northern Calabrian Arc nappe pile, situated between overlying Hercynian continental crust and the underlying Apenninic limestone units. In the literature, these ophiolitic sequences are subdivided into several tectonometamorphic units. Geochemical characteristics indicate that metabasites were derived from subalkaline basalts with tholeiitic affinity (transitional mid‐oceanic ridge basalt type), and a harzburgitic‐lherzolitic protolith is suggested for the serpentinites. The pressure–temperature‐deformation paths of the metabasites from different outcrops display similar features: (i) the prograde segment follows a typical Alpine geothermal gradient up to a metamorphic climax at 350°C and 0.9 GPa and crystallization of the high‐pressure mineral assemblage occurs along a pervasive foliation developed during a compressive tectonic event; and (ii) the retrogression path can be subdivided in two segments, the first is characterized by nearly isothermal decompression to approximately 400°C and 0.3 GPa and the second follows a cooling trajectory. During low‐pressure conditions, a second deformation event produces millimetric to decametric scale asymmetric folds that describe west‐verging major structures. The third deformation event is characterized by brittle extensional structures. The tectonometamorphic evolution of the ophiolitic sequences from the different outcrops is similar. Both thermobarometric modeling and tectonic history indicate that the studied rocks underwent Alpine subduction and exhumation processes as tectonic slices inside a west‐verging accretionary wedge. The subduction of oceanic lithosphere was towards the present east; therefore, the Hercynian continental crust, overthrusted on the ophiolitic accretionary wedge after the neo‐Tethys closure, was part of the African paleomargin or a continental microplate between Africa and Europe. 相似文献
We study the properties of X-ray galaxy clusters in four cold dark matter models with different baryon fractions ΩBM, ranging from 5 to 20 per cent. By using an original three-dimensional hydrodynamic code based on the piecewise parabolic method, we run simulations on a box with a size of 64 h −1 Mpc and we identify the clusters by selecting the peaks in the X-ray luminosity field. We analyse these mock catalogues by computing the mass function, the luminosity function, the temperature distribution and the luminosity–temperature relation. By comparing the predictions of the different models to a series of recent observational results, we find that only the models with low baryonic content agree with the data, while models with larger baryon fraction are well outside the 1σ error bars. In particular, the analysis of the luminosity functions, both bolometric and in the energy band [0.5–2] keV, requires ΩBM ≲ 0.05 when we fix the values h = 0.5 and n = 0.8 for the Hubble parameter and the primordial spectral index, respectively. Moreover we find that, independently of the cosmological scenario, all the considered quantities have very little redshift evolution, particularly between z = 0.5 and 0. 相似文献