Magnetometer Evidence of a Structure within the La Venta Pyramid

The pyramid at La Venta, Tabasco, Mexico, was surveyed in May 1969 with a high-sensitivity difference magnetometer. The general pattern of the magnetic map is one of low (10-gamma) radial anomalies, which reflect the ridge and gully topography of the pyramid, with a larger magnetic high area (+30 gammas) centered 25 meters south and 10 meters east of the center of the pyramid. The anomalous region near the top has been interpreted with the aid of computer-calculated anomalies from three-dimensional rectangular blocks. The major high is probably associated with a basalt structure that rises to within 1 to 2 meters of the surface. A possible form for this structure was found to be a 10-meter-square horizontal platform with walls along its northern and eastern margin.     

Generation of megawatt optical solitons in hollow-core photonic band-gap fibers

The measured dispersion of a low-loss, hollow-core photonic band-gap fiber is anomalous throughout most of the transmission band, and its variation with wavelength is large compared with that of a conventional step-index fiber. For an air-filled fiber, femtosecond self-frequency--shifted fundamental solitons with peak powers greater than 2megawatts can be supported. For Xe-filled fibers, nonfrequency-shifted temporal solitons with peak powers greater than 5.5 megawatts can be generated, representing an increase in the power that can be propagated in an optical fiber of two orders of magnitude. The results demonstrate a unique capability to deliver high-power pulses in a single spatial mode over distances exceeding 200 meters.     

Changing climate: geothermal evidence from permafrost in the alaskan arctic

Temperature profiles measured in permafrost in northernmost Alaska usually have anomalous curvature in the upper 100 meters or so. When analyzed by heat-conduction theory, the profiles indicate a variable but widespread secular warming of the permafrost surface, generally in the range of 2 to 4 Celsius degrees during the last few decades to a century. Although details of the climatic change cannot be resolved with existing data, there is little doubt of its general magnitude and timing; alternative explanations are limited by the fact that heat transfer in cold permafrost is exclusively by conduction. Since models of greenhouse warming predict climatic change will be greatest in the Arctic and might already be in progress, it is prudent to attempt to understand the rapidly changing thermal regime in this region.     

Trace water content of salt in louisiana salt domes

The trace water content of salt in six Louisiana salt domes has been determined and has been found to be the lowest of any terrestrial rock type. The average water content of normal domal salt is on the order of 0.003 percent by weight, but anomalous zones within salt stocks can have more than ten times this amount. From the average value, the minimum amount of water in liters, W, available to collect around a radioactive waste repository is given as W = 0.28 r(3), where r is the radius in meters of the sphere in which water may be thermally activated to migrate completely to the repository.     

高原鼢鼠对低氧环境适应的生理指标研究进展

高原鼢鼠是终生生活于封闭洞道中的地下鼠,其洞道内氧浓度低,并且随着季节、土质、土壤含水量和洞道深度而发生波动。为了探讨高原鼢鼠对低氧环境的适应机制,通过对其机体调节氧转运有关的生理指标变化进行研究,综述了高原鼢鼠适应低氧环境的研究进展。     

Holocene sea-level curves for santa monica shelf, california continental borderland

A curve is constructed showing changes in sea level at the Santa Monica shelf over the past 18,000 years. The curve is based on radiocarbon dates, sedimentologic data, and high-resolution seismic stratigraphic analysis of late Quaternary terrace deposits. Sea level was 117 meters below its present position about 18,000 years ago. During the first 8000 years of the Flandrian transgression, sea level rose to at least 24 meters, fell to about 46 meters, and then rose to 20 meters, all below present sea level. Subsequently, sea level rose more slowly and without discernible interruption to its present position.     

Trace fossil evidence for late ordovician animals on land

Fossil burrows within newly recognized buried soils in the Late Ordovician Juniata Formation, near Potters Mills in central Pennsylvania, represent the oldest reported nonmarine trace fossils. They are thought to have been an original part of the soil because their greater density toward the top of the paleosols corresponds with mineralogical, microstructural, and chemical changes attributed to ancient weathering and because about half the burrows are encrusted with nodular carbonate, interpreted as caliche. Associated fossil caliche, the size distribution of the burrows, and their W-shaped backfills are evidence that the burrows may have been excavated by bilaterally symmetrical organisms that grew in well-defined growth increments and were able to withstand desiccation. Among well-known soil organisms, millipedes are burrowing animals that satisfy these requirements, but have a fossil record not quite this old. This trace fossil evidence for animals on land, together with recent palynological evidence for land plants of a bryophytic grade of evolution during Late Ordovician time, are indications of terrestrial ecosystems of slightly greater antiquity and complexity than hitherto suspected.     

Thermoregulation in the desert iguana Dipsosaurus dorsalis

The body temperature of desert iguanas implanted with miniature temperature-sensitive radio transmitters was continuously monitored in their natural habitat. Extensive thermoregulatory behavior occurred in retreat burrows prior to morning emergence. Such behavior permits the igluana to emerge from below ground at its preferred body temperature rather than suboptimal temperature at which activity in the burrow is initiated.     

Respiration and deep diving in the bottlenose porpoise

A bottlenose porpoise was trained to dive untethered in the open ocean and to exhale into an underwater collecting funnel before surfacing from prescribed depths down to 300 meters. The animal was also taught to hold its breath for periods up to 4 minutes at the surface and then blow in the funnel. Alveolar collapse is probably complete at around 100 meters, and little pulmonary respiratory exchange occurs below that depth. Thoracic collapse was observ visually at 10 to 50 meters and by underwater television to 300 meters.     

Foraminiferal ooze: solution at depths

Samples of foraminiferal ooze were exposed to ocean water at various depths for 4 months, attached to the taut wire of a buoy in the central Pacific. Appreciable solution took place below 1000 meters and increased rapidly below 3000 meters and below 5000 meters. The fact that samples from different locations appear to dissolve at different rates suggests that the previous history of a sample determines its solubility. Solution is selective; it changes species composition, size distribution, content of damaged shells, and average particle weight of an assemblage.     

神农架东南坡土壤研究初报

采自神农架小当阳桥海拔1010m 处的01剖面属黄棕壤特性,粘土矿物主要是蛭石、伊利石和绿泥石。采自铁厂河和红坪海拔1500m 和1830m 处的02、03两剖面属棕壤特性,粘土矿物主要是伊利石、绿泥石。采自天门垭海拔2200m 处的04剖面属暗棕壤特性,粘土矿物主要是伊利石、绿泥石。神农架东南坡土壤的垂直带谱分布下限:黄棕壤不应高于海拔1000m,棕壤不应高于海拔1500m,暗棕壤不应高于海拔2200m。     

Subsurface radar sounding of the south polar layered deposits of Mars

The ice-rich south polar layered deposits of Mars were probed with the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding on the Mars Express orbiter. The radar signals penetrate deep into the deposits (more than 3.7 kilometers). For most of the area, a reflection is detected at a time delay that is consistent with an interface between the deposits and the substrate. The reflected power from this interface indicates minimal attenuation of the signal, suggesting a composition of nearly pure water ice. Maps were generated of the topography of the basal interface and the thickness of the layered deposits. A set of buried depressions is seen within 300 kilometers of the pole. The thickness map shows an asymmetric distribution of the deposits and regions of anomalous thickness. The total volume is estimated to be 1.6 x 10(6) cubic kilometers, which is equivalent to a global water layer approximately 11 meters thick.     

Triploblastic animals more than 1 billion years ago: trace fossil evidence from india

Some intriguing bedding plane features that were observed in the Mesoproterozoic Chorhat Sandstone are biological and can be interpreted as the burrows of wormlike undermat miners (that is, infaunal animals that excavated tunnels underneath microbial mats). These burrows suggest that triploblastic animals existed more than a billion years ago. They also suggest that the diversification of animal designs proceeded very slowly before the appearance of organisms with hard skeletons, which was probably the key event in the Cambrian evolutionary explosion, and before the ecological changes that accompanied that event.     

The works of living social insects as pseudofossils and the age of the oldest known metazoa

Living organisms are known to create structures in ancient rocks that are indigenous but not primary and that have been mistaken for fossils. Examination of burrows recently reported as fossils from 10(9)-year-old sedimentary rocks indicates that they are not the same age as the rocks but were probably made by termites working down after water. The burrows are partially filled with material from a modern lateritic surface from which they descend into steeply dipping, decomposed silt-stones of the Zambian Copperbelt. In fact, no authentic record of Metazoa that are demonstrably coeval with rocks older than 680 million years is known.     

Measurement of fluctuating magnetic gradients originating from oceanic internal waves

Fluctuating magnetic gradients over oceans come from electric currents flowing in seawater arising from its motions across the earth's magnetic field. Gradients of 0.3 to 0.6 picoteslas per meter for each meter of internal wave displacement have been measured at frequencies of 2 to 5 millihertz with a superconductive magnetic gradiometer supported 7 meters above the surface of water 18 meters deep about 1.5 kilometers offshore from San Diego, California.     

跨度对日光温室气温和番茄生长的影响及模拟分析

【目的】研究跨度对日光温室保温性能及番茄生长的影响。【方法】对陕西杨凌地区越冬种植番茄的8,10和12 m 3种跨度西北型日光温室的气温、光照、热流等参数进行监测,以日光温室夜间传热模型为基础,通过夜间气温的变化来分析跨度对日光温室保温性能的影响,同时监测了不同跨度日光温室中番茄幼苗的生长情况。【结果】10 m跨度日光温室1月份平均气温分别较8和12 m跨度日光温室高1.9和2.6 ℃;种植番茄的平均株高分别高0.4和2.2 cm,平均茎粗分别高0.3和0.5 mm;夜间气温的模拟值与预测值吻合度均较高,其中8 m跨度日光温室夜间气温预测模型的平均相对误差为4.40%,10和12 m跨度日光温室分别为2.43%和2.38%。【结论】供试3种跨度日光温室中,以10 m跨度日光温室的保温性能最好,较适宜在杨凌地区推广应用。     

Calcite-impregnated defluidization structures in littoral sands of mono lake, california

Associated locally with well-known tufa mounds and towers of Mono Lake, California, are subvertical, concretionary sand structures through which fresh calcium-containing artesian waters moved up to sites of calcium carbonate precipitation beneath and adjacent to the lake. The structures include closely spaced calcite-impregnated columns, tubes, and other configurations with subcylindrical to bizarre cross sections and predominantly vertical orientation in coarse, barely coherent pumice sands along the south shore of the lake. Many structures terminate upward in extensive calcareous layers of caliche and tufa. Locally they enter the bases of tufa mounds and towers. A common form superficially resembles root casts and animal burrows except that branching is mostly up instead of down. Similar defluidization structures in ancient sedimentary rocks have been mistakenly interpreted as fossil burrows.     

Bilaterian burrows and grazing behavior at >585 million years ago

Based on molecular clocks and biomarker studies, it is possible that bilaterian life emerged early in the Ediacaran, but at present, no fossils or trace fossils from this time have been reported. Here we report the discovery of the oldest bilaterian burrows in shallow-water glaciomarine sediments from the Tacuarí Formation, Uruguay. Uranium-lead dating of zircons in cross-cutting granite dykes constrains the age of these burrows to be at least 585 million years old. Their features indicate infaunal grazing activity by early eumetazoans. Active backfill within the burrow, an ability to wander upward and downward to exploit shallowly situated sedimentary laminae, and sinuous meandering suggest advanced behavioral adaptations. These findings unite the paleontological and molecular data pertaining to the evolution of bilaterians, and link bilaterian origins to the environmental changes that took place during the Neoproterozoic glaciations.     

Eustatic sea level 120,000 years ago on oahu, hawaii

Extensive dating of the fossil corals associated with the Waimanalo shoreline on Oahu has shown that 120,000 years ago the ocean was approximately 7.6 meters above its present level. Corals grown during that time constitute a major portion of the subaerial reef-derived material on the island, with exposures ranging from about 10 meters to near sea level. This evidence corroborates the notion that 120,000 years before the present was the last time during which the sea stood significantly higher than it does today. The reported benches at 3.7, 1.5, and 0.6 meters, if not of Recent origin, could be features created by brief halts of the sea during rapid regression shortly after the Waimanalo high stand.