Creating an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum from a giant impact     

Bryant M. Wyatt  Jonathan M. Petz  William J. Sumpter  Ty R. Turner  Edward L. Smith  Baylor G. Fain  Taylor J. Hutyra  Scott A. Cook  John H. Gresham  Michael F. Hibbs  Shaukat N. Goderya 《Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy》2018,39(2):26

The giant impact hypothesis is the dominant theory explaining the formation of our Moon. However, the inability to produce an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum has cast a shadow on its validity. Computer-generated impacts have been successful in producing virtual systems that possess many of the observed physical properties. However, addressing the isotopic similarities between the Earth and Moon coupled with correct angular momentum has proven to be challenging. Equilibration and evection resonance have been proposed as means of reconciling the models. In the summer of 2013, the Royal Society called a meeting solely to discuss the formation of the Moon. In this meeting, evection resonance and equilibration were both questioned as viable means of removing the deficiencies from giant impact models. The main concerns were that models were multi-staged and too complex. We present here initial impact conditions that produce an isotopically similar Earth–Moon system with correct angular momentum. This is done in a single-staged simulation. The initial parameters are straightforward and the results evolve solely from the impact. This was accomplished by colliding two roughly half-Earth-sized impactors, rotating in approximately the same plane in a high-energy, off-centered impact, where both impactors spin into the collision.  相似文献   

Comets,Enceladus and panspermia     

N. C. Wickramasinghe  Dayal T. Wickramasinghe  Edward J. Steele 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2018,363(12):244

A growing body of evidence suggests the operation of life and life processes in comets as well in larger icy bodies in the solar system including Enceladus. Attempts to interpret such data without invoking active biology are beginning to look weak and flawed. The emerging new paradigm is that life is a cosmic phenomenon as proposed by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (Lifecloud: the Origin of Life in the Galaxy, 1978) and first supported by astronomical spectroscopy (Wickramasinghe and Allen, Nature 287:518, 1980; Allen and Wickramasinghe, Nature 294:239, 1981; Wickramasinghe and Allen, Nature 323:44, 1986). Comets are the transporters and amplifiers of microbial life throughout the Universe and are also, according to this point of view, the carriers of viruses that contribute to the continued evolution of life. Comets brought life to Earth 4.2 billion years ago and they continue to do so. Space extrapolations of comets, Enceladus and possibly Pluto supports this point of view. Impacts of asteroids and comets on the Earth as well as on other planetary bodies leads to the ejection of life-bearing dust and rocks and a mixing of microbiota on a planetary scale and on an even wider galactic scale. It appears inevitable that the entire galaxy will be a single connected biosphere.  相似文献   

Revised recommended methods for analyzing crater size-frequency distributions          下载免费PDF全文

Stuart J. Robbins  Jamie D. Riggs  Brian P. Weaver  Edward B. Bierhaus  Clark R. Chapman  Michelle R. Kirchoff  Kelsi N. Singer  Lisa R. Gaddis 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2018,53(4):891-931

Impact crater populations help us to understand solar system dynamics, planetary surface histories, and surface modification processes. A single previous effort to standardize how crater data are displayed in graphs, tables, and archives was in a 1978 NASA report by the Crater Analysis Techniques Working Group, published in 1979 in Icarus. The report had a significant lasting effect, but later decades brought major advances in statistical and computer sciences while the crater field has remained fairly stagnant. In this new work, we revisit the fundamental techniques for displaying and analyzing crater population data and demonstrate better statistical methods that can be used. Specifically, we address (1) how crater size-frequency distributions (SFDs) are constructed, (2) how error bars are assigned to SFDs, and (3) how SFDs are fit to power-laws and other models. We show how the new methods yield results similar to those of previous techniques in that the SFDs have familiar shapes but better account for multiple sources of uncertainty. We also recommend graphic, display, and archiving methods that reflect computers’ capabilities and fulfill NASA's current requirements for Data Management Plans.  相似文献   

Geology and the Allied liberation of Normandy: highlights to help mark the 75th anniversary of D‐Day, 6 June 1944     

Edward P. F. Rose 《Geology Today》2019,35(3):107-114

During the Second World War, the Allied invasion of the French coast of Normandy on D‐Day, 6 June 1944, was the greatest amphibious assault in world history. An article in Geology Today (v.11, for 1995, pp.58–63) marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, on 8 May 1945, by describing how British military geologists had participated in planning for D‐Day and in the NW Europe campaign that followed it. The work of these geologists provides a classic case history, revealing that ‘military geology’ has many potential applications. Geological factors influenced site selection for temporary airfields, predictions of trafficability for the Normandy beaches, the development of potable water supplies, and quarrying for road metal—and more besides. This new article helps to mark the 75th anniversary of D‐Day by further details of how geologists and geology contributed to Allied victory.  相似文献   

Rapid climate change-induced collapse of hunter-gatherer societies in the lower Mississippi River valley between ca. 3300 and 2780 cal yr BP     

Tristram R. Kidder  Edward R. Henry  Lee J. Arco 《中国科学:地球科学(英文版)》2018,61(2):178-189

Hunter-gatherer communities in the American Southeast reached an apogee of social and political complexity in the period between ca. 4200 and 3000 cal yr BP. In the lower Mississippi Valley(LMV) the Poverty Point culture defined this period of socio-political elaboration. However, following a significant period of climate change that led to exceptional flooding and a major reorganization of the course of the Mississippi River, this culture collapsed beginning ca. 3300–3200 cal yr BP and the LMV was abandoned for the subsequent 500 years. In this study, we use data from the Jaketown site in the Yazoo Basin of west-central Mississippi to refine the chronology of the climate event that caused the collapse of the Poverty Point culture. A large flood buried Poverty Point-era occupation deposits at Jaketown around 3310 cal yr BP. Lateral migration of the Mississippi River during flooding led to inundation of the Yazoo Basin and re-occupation of ancient river courses. A coarse sand stratum topped by a more than a meter-thick fining upward sediment package marks a crevasse deposit caused by a rupture of the natural levee at Jaketown. This levee breach was part of a larger pattern of erratic flooding throughout the LMV and is associated with major landscape evolution and the abandonment of Poverty Point sites within the valley. Early Woodland peoples re-colonized the crevasse surface after ca. 2780 cal yr BP. Following this event, the Jaketown site and the eastern Yazoo Basin witnessed a period of landscape stability that lasts to this day. These archaeological data demonstrate how climate change and natural disasters can lead to socio-political dissolution and reorganization even in relatively small-scale hunter-gatherer populations.  相似文献   

Antenna design and implementation for the future space Ultra-Long wavelength radio telescope     

Linjie Chen  Amin Aminaei  Leonid I. Gurvits  Marc Klein Wolt  Hamid Reza Pourshaghaghi  Yihua Yan  Heino Falcke 《Experimental Astronomy》2018,45(2):231-253

In radio astronomy, the Ultra-Long Wavelengths (ULW) regime of longer than 10 m (frequencies below 30 MHz), remains the last virtually unexplored window of the celestial electromagnetic spectrum. The strength of the science case for extending radio astronomy into the ULW window is growing. However, the opaqueness of the Earth’s ionosphere makes ULW observations by ground-based facilities practically impossible. Furthermore, the ULW spectrum is full of anthropogenic radio frequency interference (RFI). The only radical solution for both problems is in placing an ULW astronomy facility in space. We present a concept of a key element of a space-borne ULW array facility, an antenna that addresses radio astronomical specifications. A tripole–type antenna and amplifier are analysed as a solution for ULW implementation. A receiver system with a low power dissipation is discussed as well. The active antenna is optimized to operate at the noise level defined by the celestial emission in the frequency band 1 ? 30 MHz. Field experiments with a prototype tripole antenna enabled estimates of the system noise temperature. They indicated that the proposed concept meets the requirements of a space-borne ULW array facility.  相似文献   

Quantitative elemental mapping of granulite-facies monazite: Textural insights and implications for petrochronology     

Owen M. Weller  Simon Jackson  William G. R. Miller  Marc R. St-Onge  Nicole Rayner 《Journal of Metamorphic Geology》2020,38(8):853-880

Texturally complex monazite grains contained in two granulite-facies pelitic migmatites from southern Baffin Island, Arctic Canada, were mapped by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (using spot sizes ≤5 µm) to quantitatively determine the spatial variation in trace element chemistry (with up to 1,883 analyses per grain). The maps highlight the chemical complexity of monazite grains that have experienced multiple episodes of growth, resorption and chemical modification by dissolution–precipitation during high-grade metamorphism. Following detailed chemical characterization of monazite compositional zones, a related U–Pb data set is re-interpreted, allowing petrologically significant ages to be extracted from a continuum of concordant data. Synthesis of these data with pseudosection modelling of prograde and peak conditions allows for the temporal evolution of monazite trace element chemistry to be placed in the context of the evolving P–T conditions and major phase assemblage. This approach enables a critical evaluation of three commonly used petrochronological indicators: linking Y to garnet abundance, the Eu anomaly to feldspar content and Th/U to anatectic processes. Europium anomalies and Th/U behave in a relatively systematic fashion, suggesting that they are reliable petrochronological witnesses. However, Y systematics are variable, both within domains interpreted to have grown in a single event, between grains interpreted to be part of the same age population, and between samples that experienced similar metamorphic conditions and mineral assemblages. These observations caution against generalized petrological interpretations on the basis of Y content, as it suggests Y concentrations in monazite are controlled by domainal equilibria. The results reveal a c. 45 Myr interval between prograde metamorphism and retrograde melt crystallization in the study area, emphasizing the long-lived nature of heat flow in high-grade metamorphic terranes. Such long timescales of metamorphism would be assisted by the growth, retention and dominance of high-Th suprasolidus monazite, as observed in this study, contributing to the radiogenic heating budget of mid- to lower-crustal environments. Careful characterization of monazite grains suggests that continuum-style U–Pb data sets can be decoded to provide insights into the duration of metamorphic processes.  相似文献   

Collagen fingerprinting for the species identification of archaeological amphibian remains     

Michael Buckley  Marc Cheylan 《Boreas: An International Journal of Quaternary Research》2020,49(4):709-717

Amphibians are well known as being one of the main groups of animals today most threatened by environmental changes but they are also some of the least well understood of all terrestrial vertebrates. This gap in knowledge is much greater as we look further back into the relatively recent past, despite representing an invaluable resources in archaeological and palaeontological assemblages that are more indicative of palaeoclimate conditions than most other vertebrate taxa. This in part stems from their remains being typically much less studied, partly due to the less common forms of expertise required for identifications based on skeletal morphology – the most frequently observed tissue that remains in ancient assemblages. Here we apply a method of biomolecular species identification by collagen peptide mass fingerprinting to the British Late Pleistocene assemblage of Pin Hole Cave (Creswell Crags, UK) as well as a range of relevant extant taxa for comparison. Our results demonstrate the ability to separate at the species level with all modern taxa investigated, allowing for the identification of these archaeological remains to the amphibian taxa known to exist in Late Pleistocene Britain. Analyses of the Pin Hole assemblage found a dominance of the two species previously known from the site (common frogs and toads: Rana temporaria and Bufo bufo, respectively) and also a small number of the rarer natterjack toad (Epidalea calamita) not previously identified in the Creswell Crags region but known from other sites in the UK; additionally, one specimen appeared to yield the fingerprint of the moor frog (R. arvalis), now extinct in the UK. As such, collagen fingerprinting is here shown to widen the known palaeobiodiversity of taxa, and highlights the further potential to enhance our understanding of climate change in the past.  相似文献   

Rates of rockwall slope erosion in the upper Bhagirathi catchment,Garhwal Himalaya     

Elizabeth N. Orr  Lewis A. Owen  Sourav Saha  Marc W. Caffee 《地球表面变化过程与地形》2019,44(15):3108-3127

Rockwall slope erosion is defined for the upper Bhagirathi catchment using cosmogenic Beryllium-10 (¹⁰Be) concentrations in sediment from medial moraines on Gangotri glacier. Beryllium-10 concentrations range from 1.1 ± 0.2 to 2.7 ± 0.3 × 10⁴ at/g SiO₂, yielding rockwall slope erosion rates from 2.4 ± 0.4 to 6.9 ± 1.9 mm/a. Slope erosion rates are likely to have varied over space and time and responded to shifts in climate, geomorphic and/or tectonic regime throughout the late Quaternary. Geomorphic and sedimentological analyses confirm that the moraines are predominately composed of rockfall and avalanche debris mobilized from steep relief rockwall slopes via periglacial weathering processes. The glacial rockwall slope erosion affects sediment flux and storage of snow and ice at the catchment head on diurnal to millennial timescales, and more broadly influences catchment configuration and relief, glacier dynamics and microclimates. The slope erosion rates exceed the averaged catchment-wide and exhumation rates of Bhagirathi and the Garhwal region on geomorphic timescales (10³−10⁵ years), supporting the view that erosion at the headwaters can outpace the wider catchment. The ¹⁰Be concentrations of medial moraine sediment for the upper Bhagirathi catchment and the catchments of Chhota Shigri in Lahul, northern India and Baltoro glacier in Central Karakoram, Pakistan show a tentative relationship between ¹⁰Be concentration and precipitation. As such there is more rapid glacial rockwall slope erosion in the monsoon-influenced Lesser and Greater Himalaya compared to the semi-arid interior of the orogen. Rockwall slope erosion in the three study areas, and more broadly across the northwest Himalaya is likely governed by individual catchment dynamics that vary across space and time. © 2019 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Basement structural architecture and hydrocarbon conduit potential of polygonal faults in the Cooper‐Eromanga Basin,Australia          下载免费PDF全文

David Kulikowski  Khalid Amrouch  Dennis Cooke  Michael Edward Gray 《Geophysical Prospecting》2018,66(2):366-396

A thorough and complete understanding of the structural geology and evolution of the Cooper‐Eromanga Basin has been hampered by low‐resolution seismic data that becomes particularly difficult to interpret below the thick Permian coal measures. As a result, researchers are tentative to interpret the basement fault architecture within the basin, which is largely undefined. To provide a better understanding of the basement fault geometry, all available two‐dimensional seismic lines together with 12 three‐dimensional seismic surveys were structurally interpreted with assistance from seismic attribute analysis. The Upper Cretaceous Cadna‐owie Formation and top Permian reflectors were analysed using a common seismic attribute technique (incoherency) that was used to infer the presence of faults that may have otherwise been overlooked. Detailed basement fault maps for each seismic survey were constructed and used in conjunction with two‐dimensional seismic data interpretation to produce a regional basement fault map. Large north‐northeast–south‐southwest‐striking sinistral strike–slip faults were identified within the Patchawarra Trough appearing to splay from the main northeast–southwest‐striking ridge. These sinistral north‐northeast–south‐southwest‐striking faults, together with field‐scale southeast–northwest‐striking dextral strike–slip faults, are optimally oriented to have potentially developed as a conjugated fault set under a south‐southeast–north‐northwest‐oriented strike–slip stress regime. Geomechanical modelling for a regionally extensive system of Cretaceous polygonal faults was performed to calculate the Leakage Factor and Dilation Tendency of individual faults. Faults that extend into Lower Cretaceous oil‐rich reservoirs with strikes of between 060°N and 140°N and a high to near‐vertical dip angle were identified to most likely be acting as conduits for the tertiary migration of hydrocarbons from known Lower Cretaceous hydrocarbon reservoirs into shallow Cretaceous sediments. This research provides valuable information on the regional basement fault architecture and a more detailed exploration target for the Cooper‐Eromanga Basin, which were previously not available in literature.  相似文献