jers sar interferometry for land subsidence monitoring in this paper the potential of l band repeat pass differential synthetic aperture radar sar interferometry for land subsidence monitoring is evaluated using japanese earth resources satellite jers sar data bologna mexico city and the ruhrgebiet are selected as application sites representing slow to fast deformation velocities the investigation includes feasibility aspects such as data availability the temporal decorrelation over different landcover classes and the range of useful spatial baselines an analysis of the achieved deformation accuracy and considerations on the complementarity to european remote sensing satellite ers sar interferometry and leveling surveys in spite of the rather limited data availability land subsidence maps could be generated for the three selected application sites in contrast to ers c band sar data jers l band interferometry permitted the retrieval of subsidence values over vegetated areas and forest when using interferograms of less than one year acquisition time interval and short baseline in addition the longer l band wavelength was found to be superior in the case of large deformation gradients that lead to phase unwrapping problems in c band interferometry

enhancing weak magnetic fabrics using field impressed anisotropy application to the chinese loess summary the anisotropy of the low field magnetic susceptibility ams alternating field treated ams af ams and anisotropy of anhysteretic remanent magnetization aarm have been systematically examined for a sandwich sequence of loess palaeosols crossing the upper loess unit l2 marine oxygen isotope stage 6 mis6 to the last interglacial maximum palaeosol unit s1s3 mis5e from the yuanbao section northwestern china results show that a weak but detectable magnetic lineation is controlled by coarse grained aeolian fe3o4 magnetite because the long axes of the coarse grained magnetites are statistically parallel to the palaeowind directions the declination of the maximum susceptibility principal axis of ams can be used as an indicator of palaeowind direction in contrast fine grained pedogenic magnetic particles are responsible for the magnetic foliation we found that af ams can indicate the domain state of the magnetic particles which is consistent with potter stephenson s earlier model we also found that af demagnetization can significantly alter the ams in conclusion the angular dependence of af ams can enhance the weak ams fabrics

contributions of the siberian shelf polynyas to the arctic ocean intermediate and deep water the role of the open water regions or polynyas in the winter ice pack over the siberian continental shelves in the production of arctic ocean intermediate and deep water is examined through use of a combination of passive microwave satellite data coastal weather station data and oceanographic data the satellite data allow us to derive a time series of the open water areas of selected polynyas for the 1978 1982 winters the polynyas which occur north of svalbard around franz josef land along the west coast and north end of novaya zemlya and to the east of severnaya zemlya and the taymyr peninsula are the primary oceanographic contributors the open water time series for these polynyas are used in combination with coastal weather station data to estimate the heat loss from each polynya for the region north of svalbard which is historically known as whalers bay the study shows that the heat loss is sufficient to provide the observed cooling of the west spitsbergen current for the other polynyas the heat loss is used to compute the ice production rates and the oceanic salt flux we then use the historic oceanographic salinities with the salt fluxes to estimate the contribution of each polynya to the arctic ocean water masses if we assume that the salt contributes only to the arctic intermediate water our results show that the shelves are capable of producing about 20 60 of this water alternatively if the salt contributes only to the deep water of the eurasian basin then without consideration of the mixing of the bottom water with the greenland and norwegian sea water the contribution from the shelves yields a renewal time of about 100 years our results imply that there is insufficient water produced in the shelf polynyas to perform all of the roles that have been historically assigned to it

a short reverse polarity interval within the jaramillo subchron evidence from the jingbian section northern chinese loess plateau 1 a high resolution paleomagnetic and rock magnetic investigation supported by scanning electron microscopy observations x ray diffraction determinations and anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility analyses has been carried out on a loess paleosol sequence from jingbian 37 4 n 108 8 e at the northern extremity of the chinese loess plateau the results indicate that the magnetic assemblage is dominated by pseudo single domain magnetite with associated maghemite and traces of a higher coercivity phase probably hematite the brunhes matuyama and upper jaramillo transitions have been carefully documented and a record of a short reverse polarity interval sri entirely within the jaramillo normal polarity subchron has been obtained the duration of the sri recorded over a stratigraphic interval of 48 cm is 10 1 kyr 29 kyr if the polarity transitions are included these results seem to exclude that rock magnetic variations are adversely affecting the recording process and compel us to reconsider the jaramillo subchron as characterized by a pair of normal polarity intervals interrupted by a short reverse polarity interval

revisiting the stratigraphic position of the matuyama brunhes geomagnetic polarity boundary in chinese loess article i nfo it is commonly accepted that the climate records in chinese loess can be correlated well with that in marine sediments however discrepancies for the stratigraphic position of paleomagnetic polarity reversal boundary seriously restrict an accurate teleconnection between these two archives for example the exact stratigraphic position of the whole matuyama brunhes mb transitional polarity zone remains uncertain in chinese loess in this study an accurate transitional zone of the mb reversal from the mangshan profile southeast margin of the chinese loess plateau clp was statistically determined using multiple subsets of parallel samples by integrating results from the central clp the whole mb transitional zone is consistently located across the pedostratigraphic and climatostratigraphic transitional zones between s8 and l8 over a wide region of the clp this conclusion further supports that the paleosol unit s8 should be teleconnected to the marine oxygen isotope stage 19 rather than 21 and thus unambiguously supplies an accurate age control in constructing a new loess time scale

surface deformation and coherence measurements of kilauea volcano hawaii from sir c radar interferometry the shuttle imaging radar c x synthetic aperture radar sir c x sar radar on board the space shuttle endeavor imaged kilauea volcano hawaii in april and october 1994 for the purpose of measuring active surface deformation by the methods of repeat pass differential radar interferometry observations at 24 cm l band and 5 6 cm c band wavelengths were reduced to interferograms showing apparent surface deformation over the 6 month interval and over a succession of 1 day intervals in october a statistically significant local phase signature in the 6 month interferogram is coincident with the pu u o o lava vent interpreted as deformation the signal implies centimeter scale deflation in an area several kilometers wide surrounding the vent peak deflation is roughly 14 cm if the deformation is purely vertical centered southward of the pu u o o caldera delays in the radar signal phase induced by atmospheric refractivity anomalies introduce spurious apparent deformation signatures at the level of 12 cm peak to peak in the radar line of sight direction though the phase observations are suggestive of the wide area deformation measured by global positioning system gps methods the atmospheric effects are large enough to limit the interpretation of the result it is difficult to characterize centimeter scale deformations spatially distributed over tens of kilometers using differential interferometry without supporting simultaneous spatially distributed measurements of refractivity along the radar line of sight studies of the interferometric correlation of images acquired at different times show that l band is far superior to c band in the vegetated areas even when the observations are separated by only 1 day these results imply longer wavelength instruments are more appropriate for studying surfaces by repeat pass observations

paleorainfall reconstructions from pedogenic magnetic susceptibility variations in the chinese loess and paleosols the rock magnetic properties of the chinese loess and paleosols constitute a unique and sensitive record of east asian paleoclimate through the quaternary period systematic variations in the concentration and grain size of the magnetic minerals in these sediments have produced systematic variations in the magnetic susceptibility signal which can be easily and rapidly measured at many sites across the loess plateau variations in many other rock magnetic properties can be used to identify the key shifts in ferrimagnetic grain size but magnetic susceptibility alone is sufficiently sensitive to record stadial and interstadial climate stages as well as glaciations and interglaciations past changes in rainfall and monsoon activity for this region are reconstructed from the susceptibility variations the susceptibility record is calibrated using the modern relationship between rainfall and pedogenic susceptibility on the loess plateau our rainfall reconstructions identify enhanced summer monsoonal activity in the chinese loess plateau region in the early holocene and the last interglaciation in the presently semiarid western area of the plateau annual precipitation in interglacial times was up to 80 higher than at present in the more humid southern and eastern areas values were up to 20 higher than today s levels during the last glaciation precipitation decreased across the entire plateau typically by 25 the relationship between pedogenic susceptibility climate and weathering age was examined over the northern hemisphere temperate zone and the observed positive correlation between rainfall and susceptibility indicates that climate rather than soil age is the predominant factor that controls pedogenic susceptibility enhancement in loess soils

a database for the matuyama brunhes magnetic reversal abstract we present a paleomagnetic database designated mbd97 comprising sedimentary and lava data for the matuyama brunhes reversal transition field using criteria regarding suitability of the rock samples measurement methods and temporal resolution of the data we consider 62 different studies of the matuyama brunhes reversal of these only 11 satisfy our selection criteria four lava sites one loess site three shallow marine sedimentary sites and three deep ocean sedimentary sites we discuss our reasons for accepting or disguarding each candidate data set we investigate the distribution of transitional virtual geomagnetic poles vgps they fall along american and asian australian longitudes the spatial and temporal complexity of the data indicate that the transitional field was almost certainly nonaxisymmetric and nondipolar the directional transition of the matuyama brunhes reversal took 2300 5000 years during which time the surface intensity fell to 10 20 of its pre and post transitional value we do not find any systematic bias due to site distribution or inclination shallowing although the errors in the data do vary over the duration of the reversal mbd97 is a small database but it has a fairly good geographic distribution and is suitable for studies of the matuyama brunhes transition nonetheless it is clear that further analysis of transitions will benefit from a continued program of data collection and analysis the data in mbd97 are listed

loess stratigraphy in central china abstract loess sequences in central china provide a detailed record of climate changes during the last 2 5 million years at least 44 major shifts from glacial to interglacial conditions occurred during this time in china prolonged loess deposition lasting more than 40 millennia occurred eleven times with only four of these intervals in brunhes chron the climate oscillations took place with increased frequency between 2 4 and 0 5 ma compared to the last half million years major shifts toward cooler and drier climates occurred at about 2 4 ma 1 2 ma and 0 5 ma while less pronounced shifts are dated to 1 65 ma 0 8 ma and 0 2 ma three of the last four reversals of the earth s magnetic field whose lithostratigraphic position has been detail are recorded in a glacial deposit the low field magnetic susceptibility of loess and soils which reflects the concentration of ultrafine magnetite is related to the degree of pedogenesis and serves as a proxy measure of climate the accumulation rate of the magnetite was fairly constant throughout the last 1 2 million years and can serve as a measure of time susceptibility records from localities near xifeng and luochuan located 160 km apart are compared and used to define informal lithostratigraphic units in the loess plateau of china

stacked 2 6 ma grain size record from the chinese loess based on five sections and correlation with the deep sea δ18o record 1 this study aims to establish a stacked climate record of the quaternary period from the chinese loess sequence and to address the forcing mechanisms for the regional climate history of the loess plateau by correlating the stacked record with a composite 18o record in deep sea sediments a total of 18 352 samples were obtained from five loess sections located at baoji lingtai jingchuan puxian and pingliang in the southern and middle loess plateau these yielded high resolution grain size records between section correlation of these shows that although small depositional hiatuses are present in places within a single section most parts of the sections display near continuous dust deposition throughout the quaternary the grain size records were tuned simultaneously to the theoretical variations in obliquity and precession of the earth s orbit the grain size records plotted on their orbital timescales were then averaged to form a stacked loess grain size time series termed the chiloparts record this resolves most of the orbital timescale paleoclimate events buried in the loess soil sequences of the southern and middle loess plateau and can be used as a regional archive of the pleistocene climate history in the loess plateau comparison of the chiloparts record with a composite marine 18o record shows that for the past 1 8 ma the loess paleosol record can be correlated almost cycle by cycle with the marine record several discrepancies in the climatic events between the two records have also been identified implying that regional forcing mechanisms may have played a part in the climatic evolution of the chinese loess plateau

the chinese loess in xifeng i the primary study on magnetostratigraphy of a loess profile in xifeng area gansu province summary 1848 specimens were collected systematically from about 900 horizons in the loess profile of xifeng gansu province china the magnetostratigraphy is established on the basis of the palaeomagnetic results after thermal cleaning usually at 300 c this result has been found to be generally consistent with previous work in luochuan the susceptibility varies regularly with the appearance of loess and palaeosol in the profile and thus could be used as a criterion to classify the loess and palaeosol sequence

measurements of tidal flow around a headland with a shipboard acoustic doppler current profiler a shipboard acoustic doppler current profiler adcp and moored current meters were used to obtain detailed measurements of the spatial structure of the tidal flow around a headland in vineyard sound massachusetts where tidal currents typically range from 50 to 70 cm s 1 eight shipboard surveys were conducted each of which followed one of five trapezoidal tracks in the vicinity of the headland completing 11 12 circuits in the course of the tidal cycle 12 4 hours the measurements from the adcp compare favorably with moored velocity measurements at two locations rms deviations of 3 cm s 1 but the comparison showed more scatter at two other sites rms deviations of 7 cm s 1 the adcp measurements from separate cruises were merged to form a composite spatial representation of the tidal and residual currents providing resolution of the spatial structure of the flow around the headland at scales from several hundred meters to 10 km the semidiurnal tidal flow is relatively uniform in space roughly following the bathymetry around the headland while a residual current field consists of counterrotating eddies on either side of the headland with spatial scales of 5 8 km and velocities as high as 25 cm s 1 the instantaneous current field indicates the formation of transient eddies on the downstream side of the headland during flood and ebb with clear evidence of flow separation near the tip of the headland

are chinese loess deposits essentially continuous 1 we conducted a paleomagnetic examination of the last glacial loess of three representative profiles along an east west transect in the central loess plateau in order to assess the continuity of chinese loess the results show that the xifeng and luochuan profiles record the laschamp geomagnetic excursion but with different morphologies together with the published results from weinan southern plateau our results suggest that sedimentation of the last glacial loess in the central southern plateau was continuous at the time scale equivalent to the duration of the laschamp excursion 2 kyr but probably episodic at finer time scales 2 kyr no geomagnetic excursion was found at the yichuan profile near the yellow river valley where loess accumulation may be strongly affected by local environmental changes and thus may have been discontinuous both site location and time scale therefore need to be considered when considering continuity of chinese loess

the displacement field of the landers earthquake mapped by radar interferometry geodetic data obtained by ground or space based techniques can be used to infer the distribution of slip on a fault that has ruptured in an earthquake although most geodetic techniques require a surveyed network to be in place before the earthquake1 3 satellite images when collected at regular intervals can capture co seismic displacements without advance knowledge of the earthquake s location synthetic aperture radar sar interferometry first introduced4 in 1974 for topographic mapping5 8 can also be used to detect changes in the ground surface by removing the signal from the topography9 10 here we use sar interferometry to capture the movements produced by the 1992 earthquake in landers california11 we construct an interferogram by combining topographic information with sar images obtained by the ers 1 satellite before and after the earthquake the observed changes in range from the ground surface to the satellite agree well with the slip measured in the field with the displacements measured by surveying and with the results of an elastic dislocation model as a geodetic tool the sar interferogram provides a denser spatial sampling 100 m per pixel than surveying methods1 3 and a better precision 3 cm than previous space imaging techniques12 13

detection of aquifer system compaction and land subsidence using interferometric synthetic aperture radar antelope valley mojave desert california interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar has great potential to detect and quantify land subsidence caused by aquifer system compaction insar maps with high spatial detail and resolution of range displacement 10 mm in change of land surface elevation were developed for a groundwater basin 103 km2 in antelope valley california using radar data collected from the ers 1 satellite these data allow comprehensive comparison between recent 1993 1995 subsidence patterns and those detected historically 1926 1992 by more traditional methods the changed subsidence patterns are generally compatible with recent shifts in land and water use the insar detected patterns are generally consistent with predictions based on a coupled model of groundwater flow and aquifer system compaction the minor inconsistencies may reflect our imperfect knowledge of the distribution and properties of compressible sediments when used in conjunction with coincident measurements of groundwater levels and other geologic information insar data may be useful for constraining parameter estimates in simulations of aquifer system compaction

monitoring and modeling land subsidence at the cerro prieto geothermal field baja california mexico using sar interferometry images derived from repeat pass spaceborne interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar systems offer the possibility of mapping surface deformation of small spatial extent and monitoring its spatio temporal evolution a slow local subsidence has been detected at the cerro prieto geothermal field from images acquired by the european space agency remote sensing satellites ers 1 2 between 1993 and 1997 although agricultural activity in the area limited the investigation interferometric monitoring revealed that the ground deformation is associated with the withdrawal of geothermal fluid and agreed with the leveling data modeling of the subsidence was carried out assuming elastic deformation in a half space from simple point sources of which five were necessary to reproduce the fringe patterns observed on the interferograms the depths and locations of three of the sources are compatible with the location of the known reservoir the study improves prior knowledge of the displacement field and of the mecanisms involved in the subsidence phenomenon

ice rafting of fine grained sediment a sorting and transport mechanism beaufort sea alaska abstract the presence of turbid sediment rich fast ice in the arctic is a major factor affecting transport of fine grained sediment turbid ice was found to be present in a zone 10 to 20 km wide along the coast of the beaufort sea sediment concentrations observed in cores taken in seasonal fast ice ranged from 3 to more than 1 600 g m3 finely disseminated silt and clay sized particles dominated discoloring the upper segments of the cores in a layer up to 1 m thick in almost all of the cores the upper most 10 cm of ice was relatively less turbid and the relief at the base of the turbid layer was 10 to 20 cm over distances of 1 to 2 m observers have documented the widespread sporadic occurrence of sediment rich fast ice in both the beaufort and bering seas the known sources a d transport relations of suspended sediment did not explain this distribution of turbid ice the occurrence of sediment in only the upper part of the seasonal fast ice indicates that sediment rich ice forms early during ice growth the most likely mechanism for the formation of sediment laden ice and preferential sorting of fine sediments requires resuspension of nearshore bottom sediment during storms accompanied by formation of frazil ice and subsequent lateral advection before the fast ice is stabilized we estimate that the sediment incorporated in the beaufort ice canopy formed a significant proportion of the seasonal influx of terrigenous fine grained sediment the dominance of fine grained sediment suggests that in the arctic and sub arctic these size fractions may be ice rafted in greater volumes than the coarse fraction of traditionally recognized ice rafted sediment the incorporation and transport mechanism may be a significant factor in the transport of fine grained sediments in the arctic basin

bubble momentum plume as a possible mechanism for an early breakdown of the seasonal stratification in the northern north sea the presence of a seasonal thermocline likely plays a key role in restraining methane released from a seabed source in the deeper water column thereby inhibiting exchange to the atmosphere the bubble plume itself however generates an upward motion of fluid e g upwelling and may thereby be partially responsible for an early breakdown of the seasonal thermocline measurements at site 22 4b located at 57 550n 1 380e in the uk central north sea 200 km east of the scottish mainland where gas is still being released since a blow out in 1990 have been used to identify the generation of the seasonal thermocline and thus the depth of the upper mixed layer and its breakdown in autumn data derived from two landers containing an acoustic doppler current profiler and a conductivity temperature depth recorder were used to determine the mixed layer depth and the breakdown of the thermocline mixing of upper layer fluid into the lower layer has been inferred from large amplitude variations in the nearbottom temperature the adcps estimate velocity profiles in four beam directions using doppler shifted frequency from acoustic pings sent out and received by four different transducers in a specific configuration besides that the intensity of the backscattered sound per transducer is also recorded bubbles from the nearby plume contaminate the signal during part of the tidal cycle but in bubble free periods the mixed layer depth can be estimated using the acoustic backscatter signal as local maxima results show that the thermocline broke down between mid october and early november several weeks earlier than the breakdown of the thermocline in nearby comparable areas likely caused by bubble induced downwelling at the site the early breakdown of the thermocline was accompanied by multiple occurrence of a strong jet like structure associated with the seasonal tidal mixing front

environmental geochemistry and quality assessment of mine water of jharia coalfield india a long mining history and unscientific exploitation of jharia coalfield caused many environmental problems including water resource depletion and contamination a geochemical study of mine water in the jharia coalfield has been undertaken to assess its quality and suitability for domestic industrial and irrigation uses for this purpose 92 mine water samples collected from different mining areas of jharia coalfield were analysed for ph electrical conductivity ec major cations ca2 mg2 na k anions f cl hco3 so4 2 no3 dissolved silica h4sio4 and trace metals the ph of the analysed mine water samples varied from 6 2 to 8 6 indicating mildly acidic to alkaline nature concentration of tds varied from 437 to 1 593 mg l 1 and spatial differences in tds values reflect the variation in lithology surface activities and hydrological regime prevailing in the region so4 2 and hco3 are dominant in the anion and mg2 and ca2 in the cation chemistry of mine water high concentrations of so4 2 in the mine water of the area are attributed to the oxidative weathering of pyrites ca mg so4 and ca mg hco3 are the dominant hydrochemical facies the drinking water quality assessment indicates that number of mine water samples have high tds total hardness and so4 2 concentrations and needs treatment before its utilization concentrations of some trace metals fe mn ni pb were also found to be above the desirable levels recommended for drinking water the mine water is good to permissible quality and suitable for irrigation in most cases however higher salinity residual sodium carbonate and mg ratio restrict its suitability for irrigation at some sites

impacts of post depositional processes on rapid monsoon signals recorded by the last glacial loess deposits of northern china abstract rapid east asian monsoon oscillations recorded by chinese loess are thought to be dynamically linked to north atlantic climate however few efforts have been made to assess the effects of post depositional processes e g surface mixing and pedogenesis on loess paleoclimatic records here a detailed optically stimulated luminescence dating of a thick loess sequence from the western loess plateau is presented offering a reliable chronology for last glacial deposits magnetic susceptibility and mean grain size records from three loess paleosol sequences along a northwest southeast transect are investigated to evaluate impacts of post depositional processes on these loess based proxy records our results indicate that 1 loess sequences developed within the flat tableland of the central and western loess plateau are nearly continuous during the last glaciation and 2 post depositional processes have distinct impacts on rapid monsoon signals recorded in loess sequences from different regions in the central loess plateau rapid monsoon signals have been attenuated to various degrees depending on the sedimentation rate and pedogenic intensity in the northwestern loess plateau however due to high sedimentation rate and relatively weak pedogenesis high resolution grain size oscillations reliably record rapid monsoon changes and can be well correlated to rapid climate changes recorded in the greenland ice core and hulu cave stalagmite

evidence for the kamikatsura and santa rosa excursions recorded in eolian deposits from the southern chinese loess plateau 1 a detailed paleomagnetic investigation of a loess paleosol sequence in baoji southern chinese loess plateau reveals two distinct geomagnetic excursions accompanied by inferred relative paleointensity minima in the late matuyama chron rock magnetic experiments demonstrate that the sediments of the excursion intervals in loess unit l9 have the same magnetic properties as those from surrounding normal and reversed polarity intervals assuming constant sedimentation rate between the jaramillo matuyama and matuyama brunhes magnetic polarity boundaries the midpoint ages and durations for these two excursions are estimated at 0 89 ma and 16 kyr and 0 92 ma and 7 kyr respectively in addition these two events are separated by an interval with fully reversed polarity that had a duration of 16 kyr these estimates are supported by paleoclimatologically inferred age constraints the two excursions are probably correlated with the kamikatsura and santa rosa excursions respectively

separation of tidal and subtidal currents in ship mounted acoustic doppler current profiler observations a simple method is developed to analyze current measurements obtained from a moving platform the need for this is motivated by the now common use of the ship mounted acoustic doppler current profiler adcp to acquire absolute velocity data during an oceanographic survey of a given region the full potential of this new measurement technique is severely hindered when the presence of high frequency phenomena e g tidal or inertial motions prevents a clear visualization of the lower frequency current structure of interest our analysis method is based on a spatial interpolation scheme using arbitrary functions that allows for the tidal current time variability which then permits the tide induced motions to be subtracted from the adcp data to yield the subtidal current field the method also allows nearby moored and drifter current measurements if available to be combined with the shipboard adcp observations in a single analysis to obtain the best description of the tidal and subtidal currents to illustrate this method we present results from the analysis of adcp data taken during oceanographic surveys in two different continental shelf regions the east china sea and the amazon shelf a 5 day conductivity temperature depth ctd and adcp survey was made in the east china sea near the mouth of the yellow sea during january 1986 there the currents were essentially barotropic and dominated by the semidiurnal tide the adcp derived cotidal chart for the m2 12 42 hours component agrees well with existing charts derived empirically from sea level observations or from regional numerical models the adcp derived steady flow is also consistent with the observed density field and indicates little flow in or out of the yellow sea and a transport of about 1 sv toward the tsushima strait two ctd adcp surveys lasting 21 and 23 days were conducted over the amazon shelf during march and may 1990 simultaneously moored current observations were also obtained at three locations along a cross shelf array 200 km north of the amazon river mouth for a common period of at least 2 months february 12 to april 13 over the shelf tidal and subtidal currents were comparable in magnitude our analysis indicates that the tidal currents were essentially barotropic semidiurnal and polarized in the cross shelf direction increasing in magnitude toward the inner shelf where current values of more than 2 m s are common the adcp derived steady currents were aligned in the along shelf direction and strongly influenced by the north brazil current nbc during both adcp surveys the northwestward flowing nbc was transporting more than 2 sv over the shelf at depths shallower than 100 m

geomagnetic episodes of the last 1 2 myr recorded in chinese loess 1 the matuyama brunhes m b boundary termination of jaramillo normal subchron j m as well as three young geomagnetic excursions has been revealed in the weinan loess section zhu et al 1994 1998 1999 recently we carried out further paleomagnetic directional studies on the same section and recovered the onset of the jaramillo normal subchron m j and four geomagnetic excursions two in the brunhes and two in the late matuyama the fact that all seven excursions found in this section are in loess units and expected excursions in paleosols are not found suggests that short lived geomagnetic signals could be only recorded in loess units and may have been fully smoothed or wiped out in paleosol units by strong pedogenesis constrained by a new astronomical timescale hld00 ages of the geomagnetic excursions and reversal boundaries have been estimated we tentatively correlated these excursions with previous results indicating that a large lock in model may not be correct for the whole loess profile although some apparently big positive age discrepancies were observed for the main boundaries

mineral magnetic properties of loess paleosol couplets of the central loess plateau of china over the last 1 2 myr 1 we have conducted a multiparameter investigation of 15 loess paleosol couplets s0 l1 to s14 l15 from the jiaodao section in the central loess plateau of china using environmental magnetic approaches coupled with soil science techniques the magnetic parameters display systematic variations that seem to be closely related to paleoclimate variations and intensity of pedogenesis high temperature susceptibility curves of paleosols show a generally decreasing trend in reversibility from the base of the lishi formation to the holocene black loam possibly indicating a decrease in weathering intensity this may reflect a long term increase in aridity and or a general long term cooling trend of the interior of the asian continent from 1 2 ma to the present several samples display wasp waisted hysteresis loops these are most pronounced in moderately enhanced paleosols less pronounced in the practically unaltered loess and subdued in the well developed paleosols but wasp waistedness reappears in the most developed paleosols this wasp waistedness sequence suggests that the composition concentration and grain size of magnetic minerals all contribute to the hysteresis behavior of samples from the studied loess paleosol sequence but each factor has a different effect at different stages of pedogenesis

misleading positions of geomagnetic reversal boundaries in eurasian loess and implications for correlation between continental and marine sedimentary sequences abstract the matuyama brunhes boundary mbb where the earth s magnetic field changed to its present orientation is one of the most frequently used time markers in continental quaternary stratigraphy although magnetic signals have been successfully recovered from loess deposits and an apparently coherent magnetostratigraphy seems to be in place a close examination of the published loess records from northern mid latitudes reveals significant uncertainty and variability for the position of the mbb in asia and part of central europe the mbb has been found in loess a glacial deposit this is in contrast to the well established palaeomagnetic records in deep sea sediments where the mbb is located in the interglacial oxygen isotope stage 19 this discrepancy has caused serious confusion in stratigraphic correlation between loess and marine sequences here we examine the causes of the discrepancy between the two sedimentary environments in their records of the mbb our approach includes a comparison of the mbb in loess and other continental records and an evaluation of the stratigraphic significance of the microtektites found around the mbb based on the occurrence of the mbb in an interglacial stage in lake and continental margin sequences and the correlative stratigraphic positions of the microtektites in marine sediments and loess we demonstrate that the measured positions of the mbb in loess are erroneous and misleading and its true occurrence was during the time of formation of the palaeosol corresponding to oxygen isotope stage 19 the most plausible cause for the apparent offset i e the mbb being found in the underlying loess instead is that the acquisition of remanent magnetisation in loess occurs at a certain depth substantially below the land surface the degree of such displacement is dependent on the lithology and structure of the deposits formed prior to the reversal and the time delay is estimated to be in the order of 103 104 years we show that other geomagnetic boundaries such as those of jaramillo and cobb mountain in loess have been similarly displaced though to a varying extent we suggest that the remanence acquisition in loess is closely related to the post depositional evolution in the structure of loessic materials which is in part influenced by regional climate conditions our conclusions on the displaced remanence acquisition have implications for loess chronology magnetostratigraphy as well as the geomagnetic interpretation of detailed magnetic signatures from loess

a detailed palaeomagnetic record for the last interglacial period abstract a palaeomagnetic investigation of a late quaternary loess palaeosol sequence in central china has revealed two episodes of anomalous geomagnetic field behaviour in the lower and upper parts of soil complex s1 which spans the last interglacial interval comparison of the magnetic susceptibility record with the deep sea oxygen isotope stratigraphy provides a chronology which has been used to estimate the age and duration of these episodes the age of the younger episode has been estimated at 89 75 ka comparable with the age of a geomagnetic event recognised from sediments in the norwegian greenland sea and arctic ocean the older episode is associated with a broad low in relative palaeointensity which has been assigned to the time interval 130 110 ka this is consistent with existing age estimates of the so called blake event in contrast to a published record of the blake event from the loess at xining which shows three short episodes of almost full reversed polarity in the current record the blake event is represented by a loop in the vgp path which passes through shallow southern latitudes although both episodes occur within the same part of soil complex s1 the difference between the two records implies a greater degree of smoothing of the geomagnetic signal in the huanxian record this is probably a reflection of the lower accumulation rate at huanxian and may also indicate a greater time constant for the remanence aquisition at this site

an integrated study of the grain size dependent magnetic mineralogy of the chinese loess paleosol and its environmental significance 1 to investigate the grain size dependent properties of the magnetic minerals in chinese loess paleosol samples touxiangdao xining qinghai province china magnetic extracts were divided into two size fractions by gravitational settling on the basis of hysteresis measurements thermal demagnetization of low temperature saturation isothermal remanent magnetization and nonmagnetic studies sem and xrd we identified magnetic phases both in the grain size fractions of the magnetic extracts and in the less magnetic residues to provide more accurate and complete descriptions of all the magnetic components in the bulk natural samples the results show that the oxidation degree nonstoichiometry of magnetic minerals is strongly affected by both grain size and the paleoclimatic environment in which they were deposited and altered in ascending order of the oxidation degree of our samples we find 1 loess coarse particles lc are multidomain md magnetite with slight oxidation 2 paleosol coarse pc particles are also md magnetite but with a higher oxidation degree compared to lc 3 loess fine lf particles are pseudo single domain psd magnetite with a high oxidation degree and 4 paleosol fine pf particles are psd maghemite single domain sd and superparamagnetic sp maghemite mainly stay in the residues further thermomagnetic analysis of pf psd maghemite revealed that this natural maghemite has a curie temperature identical to that of magnetite and that the conversion efficiency of transformation from maghemite to hematite is only about 50 after a 700 c heating cooling cycle these new results identify the sources of multicomponent nrm in chinese loess sequences as well as clarify the paleoenviromental and paleoclimatic controls on the remanence components

sensing the ups and downs of las vegas insar reveals structural control of land subsidence and aquifer system deformation land subsidence in las vegas nevada united states between april 1992 and december 1997 was measured using spaceborne interferometric synthetic aperture radar the detailed deformation maps clearly show that the spatial extent of subsidence is controlled by geologic structures faults and sediment composition clay thickness the maximum detected subsidence during the 5 75 yr period is 19 cm comparison with leveling data indicates that the subsidence rates declined during the past decade as a result of rising ground water levels brought about by a net reduction in ground water extraction temporal analysis also detects seasonal subsidence and uplift patterns which provide information about the elastic and inelastic properties of the aquifer system and their spatial variability

accuracy of topographic maps derived from ers 1 interferometric radar an interferometric radar technique for topographic mapping of surfaces promises a high resolution approach to the generation of digital elevation models the authors present analyses of data collected by the synthetic aperture radar instrument on board the ers 1 satellite on successive orbits use of a single satellite in a nearly repeating orbit is attractive for reducing cost and spaceborne hardware complexity also it permits inference of changes in the surface from the correlation properties of the radar echoes the data have been reduced to correlation maps and digital elevation models the correlation maps show that temporal correlation decreases significantly with time but not necessarily at a constant well defined rate likely depending on environmental factors when correlation among passes remains high however it is possible to form digital elevation models analyses of noise expected in ers 1 interferometric data collected over alaska and the southwestern united states indicate that maps with relative errors less than 5 m rms are possible in some regions however orbit uncertainties imply that tie points are required in order to reduce absolute height errors to a similar magnitude the authors find that about 6 tie points per 40 spl times 40 km scene with 5 m rms or better height accuracy are needed to keep systematic map height errors below 5 m rms the performance of the ers 1 radar system for topographic applications though useful for a variety of regional and local discipline studies may be improved with respect to temporal decorrelation errors and absolute height acuity by modifying the orbit repeat period and incorporating precise orbit determination techniques the resulting implementation will meet many but not all objectives of a global mapping mission

subaerial and subaqueous deposition of loess experimental assessment of detrital remanent magnetization in chinese loess abstract loess and intercalated paleosols on the chinese loess plateau clp are the most extensive and continuous terrestrial archive of geomagnetic and paleoclimate variations covering the last 2 6 ma a first order time frame has been established for these sequences using paleomagnetic polarity boundaries major inconsistencies between the positioning of the matuyama brunhes polarity boundary in chinese loess paleosol sequences and marine records previously accounted for by assuming magnetization lock in depths in loess of up to 2 3 m have recently been resolved using a paleoclimatic indicator insensitive to pedogenesis that does require any major post depositional acquisition of a remanent magnetization this resolved controversy accentuates the lack of an adequate understanding of how chinese loess acquires and retains a stable remanent magnetization we report on laboratory re deposition experiments with subaerial and subaqueous simulations of natural loess to elucidate factors controlling the acquisition of magnetization in loess our work complements and extends recently published results from comparable laboratory experiments by zhao and roberts 2010 our major finding is that a stable magnetization is acquired and retained after initial wetting of dry deposited loess with no significant time lag in general accord with recent findings

representing topographic stress for large scale ocean models abstract interaction of eddies with seafloor topography can exert enormous systematic forces on the ocean circulation this interaction has been considered previously under idealized circumstances theoretical results are here simplified and extended toward practical application in large scale ocean circulation models among the suggestions is that coarse resolution models can correct a depth independent part of the velocity field toward a velocity given by z flh where z is the vertical unit vector f is coriolis form l is a length scale o 10 km and h is the total depth absence of this tendency may be implicated in a number of systematic defects that appear in present ocean models

a record of the blake event during the last interglacial paleosol in the western loess plateau of china abstract a high resolution record of the blake event has been obtained from a 40 m well dug in a loess section at jiuzhoutai in the city of lanzhou in the western loess plateau of china the paleomagnetic signal is principally carried by magnetite both in loess and paleosols the blake event is located at the boundary between paleosol s1 c of the last interglacial equivalent to mis 5e in deep sea records and loess l2 2 mis 5d and is characterized by a triple feature consisting of two short reversed intervals separated by a short normal interval the directional changes are abrupt as previously revealed in other records and suggest geocentric dipole field behavior before after and during the event but not necessarily during n r or r n transitions the age and duration of the event are estimated as between 119 97 and 114 47 kyr bp and 5 5 kyr respectively from thermoluminescence dating and astronomically tuned climate stratigraphy based on high resolution magnetic susceptibility

monitoring surface elevation changes in jharia coalfield india using synthetic aperture radar interferometry this paper investigates surface elevation changes that occurred during 1996 2004 in the jharia coalfield through the digital elevation model dem generated using synthetic aperture radar interferometry insar using ers 1 2 european remote sensing satellite tandem and radarsat 1 data the comparison of elevation values derived from the insar dem and topographic height data shows a bias of 23 08 m with root mean square error of 2 31 m 5 8 the accuracy of the dem was investigated by comparing the elevation profiles with the digitized elevation contour data at four different locations the profile comparison shows a mean bias of 22 68 m local topography shows changes in elevation up to 40 00 m due to mining activities on the 8 year time period the results of insar derived heights and topographic heights were comparable and well matched except at a few locations where topographic data were unavailable dem generated using insar due to its high spatial details is ideal for the detection and estimation of surface elevation changes in mining areas

loess stratigraphy in central china abstract the loess deposits in central china record world wide climate changes of the last 2 5 ma numerous climatic oscillations are marked by alternating loess and soil units with continuous coverage of the matuyama and brunhes epochs magnetic susceptibility of the deposits correlates closely with the oxygen isotope record of the deep sea sediments and provides an independent measure of climate and time the key marker bed of the chinese loess sequence is the paleosol s5 the time equivalent of the mid brunhes oxygen isotope stages 13 14 and 15 it marks a prolonged interval of warm humid climate lasting from approximately 615 to 470 thousand years ago several episodes of river downcutting coincide with deposition of the exceptionally thick loess units l1 oceanic oxygen isotope stages 2 to 4 l2 stage 6 l5 stage 12 l6 stage 16 l9 stage 22 l15 stage 38 about 1 15 ma and ws4 about 2 3 ma these erosional events are interpreted as a result of episodic uplift of the loess plateau the deposition of the earliest loess layers between 2 5 and 2 3 ma ago marks a first order shift from warm and humid environments toward harsh continental steppes comparable to those of the middle and late pleistocene little if any lithologic or paleontologic changes were noted within or above the olduvai magnetozone so that the proposed plio pleistocene boundary at approximately 1 65 ma has no lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic representation in the chinese loess series comparison with the deep sea drilling program core 552a in the north atlantic and with the santerno river section near bologna shows that the occurrence of the earliest loess in china coincides with the timing of the first significant ice rafting in the north atlantic and with the appearance of cold water foraminifers in the marine deposits of northern italy an extension of the stage system of the oxygen isotope signal extended back to the gauss matuyama boundary is proposed

on the derivation of coseismic displacement fields using differential radar interferometry the landers earthquake we present a map of the coseismic displacement field resulting from the landers california june 28 1992 earthquake derived using data acquired from an orbiting high resolution radar system we achieve results more accurate than previous space studies and similar in accuracy to those obtained by conventional field survey techniques data from the ers 1 synthetic aperture radar instrument acquired in april july and august 1992 are used to generate a high resolution wide area map of the displacements the data represent the motion in the direction of the radar line of sight to centimeter level precision of each 30 m resolution element in a 113 km by 90 km image our coseismic displacement contour map gives a lobed pattern consistent with theoretical models of the displacement field from the earthquake fine structure observed as displacement tiling in regions several kilometers from the fault appears to be the result of local surface fracturing comparison of these data with global positioning system and electronic distance measurement survey data yield a correlation of 0 96 thus the radar measurements are a means to extend the point measurements acquired by traditional techniques to an area map format the technique we use is 1 more automatic 2 more precise and 3 better validated than previous similar applications of differential radar interferometry since we require only remotely sensed satellite data with no additional requirements for ancillary information the technique is well suited for global seismic monitoring and analysis

magnetostratigraphy and paleoclimatic interpretation of a continuous 7 2 ma late cenozoic eolian sediments from the chinese loess plateau an almost 300m thick eolian sequence of late cenozoic sediments which includes 162 5m of quaternary loess paleosols and 126m of late tertiary eolian red clay from the central part of the chinese loess plateau was investigated to determine the magnetostratigraphy the results show that eolian dust accumulation and by inference the related east asia paleomonsoon had begun by 7 2ma as paleomonsoon are largely controlled by the tibetan plateau this implies that the plateau had reached some critical elevation by 7 2ma the section also documents a rapid increase in eolian dust accumulation in the late cenozoic at 3 2ma that is probably due to the influence of global ice volume on the east asian monsoon

inter profile correlation of the chinese loess paleosol sequences during marine oxygen isotope stage 5 and indications of pedogenesis abstract low field magnetic susceptibility has been widely used to determine the pedostratigraphy of the chinese loess paleosol sequences however uncertainties remain in correlating between the loess magnetic susceptibility and the marine oxygen isotope records because susceptibility variations are affected by both global and local paleoclimatic changes to provide a more sound paleoclimatic interpretation of magnetic susceptibility variations age models across marine oxygen isotope stage mis 5 for the jiuzhoutai jzt and yuanbao yb sections western chinese loess plateau were constructed through an integrated approach by linking the major pedostratigraphic boundaries of the loess profiles to the specmap oxygen isotope curve and by correlating relative magnetic paleointensity records with both the sint800 global paleointensity stack from marine sediments and 36cl records from the grip ice core results indicate good correlation of sirm60 mt a residual remanence of saturation isothermal remanent magnetization after a 60 mt alternating field demagnetization variations between these two sites which agree well with fluctuations in subtropical atlantic sea surface temperatures all cooling events recorded by ice core and atlantic marine sediments within mis5 have counterparts in sirm60 mt sirm60 mt is partially controlled by the degree of low temperature oxidation which is strongly temperature dependent however strong pedogenesis can decrease sirm60 mt due to further oxidation of partially oxidized magnetites above some critical points therefore we propose that sirm60 mt is best suited to record paleotemperature changes in loess profiles from the western chinese loess plateau where pedogenesis is the weakest furthermore by inter profile correlation between the yb and jzt sections we note that the seemingly uniform sub paleosol unit with a broad susceptibility peak previously assigned to mis5c between 34 4 and 37 4 m in the yb profile actually consists of two independent units lower part of s1l1 mis5b and s1s2 mis5c this indicates that susceptibility values can be strongly affected by local factors e g mainly precipitation therefore beside the simplistic traditional paleoclimatic interpretation of variations in loess susceptibility involving only cold dry and warm humid scenarios cold humid and warm dry scenarios should also be considered

baoji type pedostratigraphic section loess plateau north central china abstract the baoji section is judged to be the most complete pedostratigraphic section on the loess plateau of north central china it is located about 5 km north of the city of baoji and consists of 37 paleosols formed during more than the last 2 5 ma it is designated here as the type pedostratigraphic section with formally named geosols following the rules of the north american commission on stratigraphic nomenclature geochronological control is based largely on magnetostratigraphy with the brunhes matuyama and gauss epochs and jaramillo and olduvai events clearly recognized the baoji geosols can be correlated with equivalent pedostratigraphic units throughout the loess plateau by a combination of magnetostratigraphy and character position and the association of the pedostratigraphic units within the quaternary succession the variation of the geosols suggests climatic cycles of varying intensity and duration but generally warmer and moister conditions when compared with the loess units that suggest colder and drier periods

dependence of the duration of geomagnetic polarity reversals on site latitude an important constraint on the processes governing the geodynamo the flow in the outer core responsible for generating earth s magnetic field is the duration of geomagnetic polarity reversals that is how long it takes for earth s magnetic field to reverse1 it is generally accepted that earth s magnetic field strength drops to low levels during polarity reversals and the field direction progresses through a 180 change while the field is weak1 the time it takes for this process to happen however remains uncertain with estimates ranging from a few thousand up to 28 000 years here i present an analysis of the available sediment records of the four most recent polarity reversals these records yield an average estimate of about 7 000 years for the time it takes for the directional change to occur the variation about this mean duration is not random but instead varies with site latitude with shorter durations observed at low latitude sites and longer durations observed at mid to high latitude sites such variation of duration with site latitude is predicted by simple geometrical reversal models in which non dipole fields are allowed to persist while the axial dipole decays through zero and then builds in the opposite direction and provides a constraint on numerical dynamo models

post depositional remanent magnetization lock in and the location of the matuyama brunhes geomagnetic reversal boundary in marine and chinese loess sequences article i nfo pdrm lock in loess paleosol bioturbation disturbs detrital magnetic particles after deposition so accurate recording of the ancient geomagnetic field in bioturbated sediments is widely attributed to acquisition of a post depositional remanent magnetization pdrm whereby the geomagnetic field exerts a torque on a magnetic particle and aligns it with the field after the final mixing event experienced by the particle the relationship between the matuyama brunhes boundary mbb and oxygen isotope age tie points in marine sediments has been widely used to determine the depth at which the paleomagnetic signal is locked in however such analyses can be badly affected by age discrepancies among different paleoclimatic proxies and by varying isotopic compositions of seawater in different locations and from the presence of different water masses at different depths at the same location it is therefore necessary to separately compare paleomagnetic data with respect to either benthic or planktonic foraminiferal oxygen isotope records for sites from the same water mass to avoid inadvertently introducing age differences to the analysis when the global data set is subjected to such a rigorous analysis few reliable data remain for the mbb using two complementary approaches we estimate that the mbb is on average shifted 20 cm below its true position in marine sediments this offset is the sum of the thickness of the bioturbated surface mixed layer which is possibly dominant and the pdrm lock in depth there is also controversy concerning observed differences in the position of the mbb relative to paleoclimatic proxies in marine sediments and chinese loess deposits for the chinese loess quartz grain size is insensitive to pedogenic alteration and is a useful parameter for determining the true position of the mbb with respect to paleoclimatic boundaries we conclude that the mbb occurs late in marine oxygen isotope stage 19 and in the upper part of chinese paleosol unit s8 rather than at the mid or lower part of loess unit l8 our results require adjustment of the generally accepted positions for the mbb and resolve a longstanding chronological conundrum for marine and chinese loess sequences

paleoclimatic significance of the temperature dependent susceptibility of holocene loess along a nw se transect in the chinese loess plateau we have conducted mineral magnetic investigations of samples of modern dune sand pristine loess and present day loess along a nw se transect from the northern to the central loess plateau in china the methods used include the temperature dependence of susceptibility tds before and after citrate bicarbonate dithionite cbd treatment as well as x ray diffraction xrd analysis the xrd analyses demonstrate that magnetite and hematite both exist in the chinese loess paleosol sequence and its modem source area but the tds measurements show that magnetite is the predominant contributor to magnetic susceptibility maghemite is present in the pristine loess and the present day loess due to pedogenesis the pedogenic processes that produce the maghemite are closely linked to paleoclimate and for this transect precipitation appears to be the most important climatic variable we suggest that tds can be used as a useful method for the analysis of pedogenesis and climatic change

the interior shelves of the arctic ocean physical oceanographic setting climatology and effects of sea ice retreat on cross shelf exchange abstract the interior shelves of the arctic mediterranean are the shelves of the kara sea laptev sea east siberian sea and beaufort sea they comprise approximately 40 of the total arctic shelf area 2 5 10 6 km 2 and are distinguished from inflow and outflow shelves by their principal forcing dynamics along their southern continental boundary the interior shelves are dominated by the major arctic rivers receiving over 80 of the total freshwater input to the arctic ocean in the mid shelf region wind and ice motion surface stresses dominate mixing and circulation resulting in high variability along their northern seaward boundary they are forced by upwelling and downwelling favourable surface stresses which drive shelf basin exchanges with atlantic and pacific origin cyclonic boundary currents over the upper slope shelf basin exchange is further modified by shelf break morphometry e g canyons valleys headlands and bottom slope here we review the physical oceanographic settings and forcing of the interior shelves and then focus on shelfbreak exchange and supply of nutrients for new primary production due to upwelling across the shelfbreak as a proxy for this nutrient supply we show seasonal and annual time series of along shelfbreak surface stress due to wind and ice motion from 1979 to 2011 we apply this analysis to the shallow shelves from the kara sea to the beaufort sea and comment on recent increases due to atmospheric changes and sea ice retreat

optical properties of the kara sea this study was motivated by the need to understand dispersion processes which affect the redistribution of nuclear wastes in the arctic from dump sites in the kara sea and in the rivers which flow into the kara sea we focus on vertical profiles of light beam transmission and fluorometry made over the delta region fronting the ob and yenisey rivers and over the east novaya zemlya trough enzt the delta region fronting the ob river estuary contains a large repository of particles in a dense bottom nepheloid layer with a maximum centered 100 km in front of the estuary entrance and covering an area of roughly 200 km diameter this suspended particle mass repository appears to contain both sediments and detritus and lends credence to the lisitsyn 1995 concept of the marginal filter zone in the deep water of the enzt we found a strong increase of beam attenuation with depth indicating a relatively large increase of particle mass concentration from 50 m to the bottom depths in excess of 300 m the strongest concentration was adjacent to the southeast coast of novaya zemlya we suggest that a type of hyperpycnical flow occurs from accumulation of sediments in the bottom waters of novaya zemlya fjords which then cascades down the steep slopes adjacent to the island producing the particle mass distribution as observed by the transmissometer the accumulation of these repositories of high particle mass concentrations in suspension would suggest that the residence time is high but that storm driven events could act to disperse the material

transport processes in the kara sea field data from late summer cruises in 1993 1996 and results from a rotating laboratory model study are used to infer transport routes for contaminants in the kara sea on the western siberian coast the data show a circulation pattern that differs significantly from published concepts and contains a richer structure both the inflowing coastal water from the west and the modified atlantic water from the barents sea and the arctic ocean in the north affect the water properties of the east novaya zemlya trough through mixing intrusion and possible transformation during winter convection much of the current structure can be explained as a result of topographical steering of the throughflows weak summer winds of variable direction affect only the upper layer whereas persistent strong winds may affect long term circulation patterns and transports the main outflow routes are north to the santa anna trough and northeast to the voronin trough the outflowing surface water and ice to the north are expected to join the inflowing polar water from the arctic ocean that forms the persey current into the barents sea deeper outflows are expected to follow the continental slope to the east in the arctic ocean the laboratory model has been validated to earlier current measurements to the north and south of novaya zemlya and shows several of the features observed in the newer field measurements this suggests that the dynamic similitude and boundary forcing of the model are good two notable exceptions are the westward transport of drifting buoys to the north of novaya zemlya and the late winter hydrography to the north of the ob and yenisey estuaries both are probably due to persistent winds the conclusions from the measured and modeled currents are supported by measurements of 137cs in the seawater and sediments

investigation of the summer kara sea circulation employing a variational data assimilation technique 1 the summer circulations and hydrographic fields of the kara sea are reconstructed for mean positive and negative arctic oscillation regimes employing a variational data assimilation technique which provides the best fit of reconstructed fields to climatological data and satisfies dynamical and kinematic constraints of a quasi stationary primitive equation ocean circulation model the reconstructed circulations agree well with the measurements and are characterized by inflow of 0 63 0 8 0 51 sv through kara gate and 1 18 1 1 1 12 sv between novaya zemlya and franz josef land for mean climatologic conditions positive and negative ao indexes respectively the major regions of water outflow for these regimes are the st anna trough 1 17 1 21 1 34 sv and vilkitsky shokalsky straits 0 52 0 7 0 51 sv the optimized velocity pattern for the mean climatological summer reveals a strong anticyclonic circulation in the central part of the kara sea region of fresh water inflow rofi zone and is confirmed by adcp surveys and laboratory modeling this circulation is well pronounced for both high and low ao phases but in the positive ao phase it is shifted approximately 200 km west relatively to its climatological center during the negative ao phase the rofi locaion is close to its climatological position the results of the variational data assimilation approach were compared with the simulated data from the hamburg shelf ocean model hamsom and naval postgraduate school 18 km resolution nps 18 model to validate these models

structure of the buoyant plume formed by ob and yenisei river discharge in the southern part of the kara sea during summer and autumn this article focuses on the interaction between the ob and yenisei dominated parts of the large ob yenisei buoyant plume formed in the southern part of the kara sea during ice free periods it was shown that certain wind forcing and river discharge conditions cause the formation of a specific structure of the ob yenisei plume with significantly different properties of the ob and yenisei dominated water masses under these conditions the yenisei runoff generates a narrow coastal current propagating northward from the yenisei gulf along the taymyr peninsula which is isolated by the ob dominated water mass from ambient sea water as a result the low salinity yenisei dominated water mass occupies a relatively small area while more saline ob dominated water mass spreads over a wide area between the gulf of ob and the taymyr peninsula the formation of the isolation configuration of the ob yenisei plume described above is presumed to be caused by the eastward ekman transport and the resulting downwelling flow of the ob dominated waters under the low saline and warm yenisei dominated waters along the taymyr peninsula based on satellite imagery wind reanalysis and river discharge data collected and derived for the period of 2005 2011 it was estimated that the isolation configuration is regularly formed during late summer and autumn when the ob discharge to the kara sea exceeds the yenisei discharge and the local atmospheric circulation is dominated by the northerly wind regime assessment of the frequency and duration of the occurrence of the isolation configuration showed their synoptic time scale and significant inter annual variability

topographic mapping from interferometric synthetic aperture radar observations interferometric synthetic aperture radar observations provide a means for obtaining high resolution topographic terrain maps from data acquired simultaneously at two slightly displaced antennas calculation of the three dimensional coordinates of all the points in a radar image can be made from the combination of along track slant range and interferometer fringe measurements thus the result compensates for the layover exhibited by conventional radar maps and removes the false targets generated by multiple signal paths to a given object in the scene we have derived a topographic map of a portion of the san francisco bay area utilizing data that were recorded by a radar system mounted on a nasa cv990 aircraft and processed by a general purpose digital computer this map displays the height above sea level of a region approximately 11 km by 10 km in size sampled on an 11 m pixel grid uncertainties in the estimated height result from imprecise knowledge of the observational geometry radar bandwidth limitations and finite signal to noise ratios for our system each factor contributed approximately 3 4 m to a relative rms error of about 6 m additional global errors of the order of 10 m can result from inaccurate monitoring of aircraft attitude the statistical variation of the height measurements from the ocean portion of the map which we can presume to be quite flat is 2 10 m rms which is consistent with the theoretical estimate comparison of our results with u s geological survey contour maps indicates a high degree of correlation between the two sets of altitude data

studies of multibaseline spaceborne interferometric synthetic aperture radars the authors have utilized a set of seasat synthetic aperture radar sar data that were obtained in nearly repeat ground track orbits to demonstrate the performance of spaceborne interferometric sar insar systems an assessment of the topography measurement capability is presented a phase measurement error model is described and compared with the data obtained at various baseline separations and signal to noise ratios finally the implications of these results on future spaceborne insar design are discussed

spatio temporal analysis of ground subsidence due to underground coal mining in huainan coalfield china underground coal mining produces ground subsidence that adversely impacts the environment huainan coalfield one of the largest coalfields in east china experiences fast ground subsidence that restricts agricultural urban and rural developments in this region we used stacking and the small baseline subset interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar techniques to perform a spatio temporal analysis of ground subsidence in huainan coalfield caused by underground coal mining activities fourteen l band alos palsar images acquired during 2007 2010 were used to retrieve high resolution and high precision time series of ground deformation and the mean deformation rate the results show that subsidence with a rate of up to 15 cm year is widely spread over the studied area in response to mining operation in regions where mining lasted for many years ground subsidence continues at a steady rate during the entire observation period in regions of recent i e since 2007 2009 mining activities ground subsidence is rapidly accelerating accumulated subsidence already caused submerging of the agriculture lands limiting further mining activities and farming the insar results are consistent with the ground leveling measurements and observations it is confirmed that the l band insar can be successfully utilized for mapping long term subsidence in huainan coalfield in china caused by underground coal mining activities

latest olduvai short lived reversal episodes recorded in chinese loess 1 a duplicate high resolution magnetic record was obtained from two parallel loess sections separated by about 300 m near baoji city southern chinese loess plateau this reveals at least eight short lived reversed polarity episodes in the uppermost part of the olduvai normal polarity subchronozone rock magnetic experiments and anisotropy of low field magnetic susceptibility confirm that the multiple occurrence of short lived reversals is not due to rock magnetic and or sedimentary causes assuming a constant accumulation rate within the olduvai subchron the short episode zone was estimated to span about 24 30 ka and 24 31 ka for the two sections respectively the duration of each short episode ranges from about 0 3 ka to 2 1 ka the present results together with previous worldwide observations show that the occurrence of numerous short reversals is peculiar to the latest olduvai subchron the geodynamo may have been in an anomalous state at that time

palaeoclimatic and sedimentary history from magnetic susceptibility of loess in china the magnetostratigraphic age of the oldest loess sediments in the central chinese loess plateau investigated so far has recently been placed at ca 2 4 million years b p thus glaciations in central asia which are believed to provide the detritus for the formation of chinese loess commenced at the same time as the first ice rafted debris sank into the ocean basins of the northern hemisphere shackleton et al 1984 lithologic palaeontologic geochemical and especially rock magnetic variations throughout the loess column are indicative of palaeoclimatic fluctuations during loess deposition the variations of magnetic low field susceptibility in loess closely resemble those of the marine oxygen isotope record shackleton and opdyke 1976 and establish for the first time a continuous record of the pleistocene glacial and interglacial stages in a continental section spectral analysis of the rock magnetic time series indicates slow apparent sedimentation during interglacial periods which are characterized mainly by calcium dissolution and related compaction of the soils variable aeolic sediment influx as well as erosion and or polygenetic soil formation may also strongly influence the sedimentary history

geomagnetic palaeointensities and astrochronological ages for the matuyama brunhes boundary and the boundaries of the jaramillo subchron palaeomagnetic and oxygen isotope records from odp site 983 we have measured relative geomagnetic palaeointensity proxies palaeomagnetic directions and 18 o for the 700 1100 ka interval from odp site 983 gardar drift north atlantic where mean sedimentation rates are ca 13 cm kyr 1 the age model was generated by matching the benthic 18 o data to the ice volume model and confirmed by tuning the precessional components of both signals for the matuyama brunhes boundary mbb and the boundaries of the jaramillo subchronozone the duration of the polarity reversal process defined by virtual geomagnetic polar latitudes of less than 45 is ca 5 kyr whereas the generally accepted astrochronological estimates for the boundaries of the jaramillo subchronozone lie within the polarity transitions as recorded at site 983 the astrochronological age for the matuyama brunhes polarity transition 780 ka is ca 5 kyr older than the onset of this transition at site 983 775 ka the polarity reversals lie within palaeointensity lows with abrupt recovery of palaeointensity post reversal there is no progressive sawtooth decrease in palaeointensity within the jaramillo subchronozone or between the top of the jaramillo and the mbb but rather within polarity chrons several short intervals of low palaeointensity which sometimes coincide with high amplitude secular variation orbital 100 and 41 kyr periods are present in the palaeointensity record as they are not obviously attributable to climate lithology in these records they may be a feature of the geomagnetic field itself

how does chinese loess become magnetized despite nearly three decades of paleomagnetic research on the extensive chinese loess deposits a convincing explanation has yet to be developed for how chinese loess becomes magnetized to address this problem we conducted re deposition experiments using weakly consolidated holocene chinese loess that was disaggregated in the laboratory and compare our results with published paleomagnetic data we simulated a depositional remanent magnetization drm associated with dry deposition of eolian sediments and a post depositional remanent magnetization pdrm in which the sediment was water saturated after deposition the simulated drm faithfully records the declination of the applied field but with systematic inclination flattening addition of minor water slightly improves recording of the applied field but inclination flattening persists reliable recording of the applied field occurs for pdrm simulation in water saturated sediment our synthesis of paleomagnetic data from chinese loess indicates that time averaged paleomagnetic directions are often indistinguishable from the expected geocentric axial dipole gad field but in many cases inclinations are shallower than for a gad field we conclude that the chinese loess is magnetized by a combination of drm and pdrm mechanisms with water content providing the dominant control on which mechanism aligns the detrital mineral fraction where pedogenesis causes neoformation of magnetic minerals an additional chemical remanent magnetization crm will occur the magnetization of chinese loess therefore appears to be controlled by a complex time varying combination of drm pdrm and crm mechanisms

a comparison of techniques for tide removal from ship mounted acoustic doppler measurements along the southwest coast of vancouver island two approaches are examined for the removal of tidal currents from acoustic doppler current profiler henceforth adcp measurements the first uses predictions from a numerical model foreman and walters 1990 whose domain includes the measurement region although the numerical model is barotropic adjustments are made to correct for baroclinicity in accordance with historical observations from stationary current meters in the region the second approach originally proposed by candela et al 1990 performs a least squares polynomial or biharmonic spline fit to the adcp data in order to determine the spatially varying amplitudes and phases of major tidal constituents and the magnitude of the residual flow both tide removal techniques are applied to adcp data taken during a 3 day cruise off the southwest coast of vancouver island and their relative effectiveness is compared some of the detided currents are seen to compare well with geopotential surfaces and clearly show the juan de fuca eddy freeland and denman 1982 a discussion of the results and limitations of each technique is also presented

application of high resolution interferometric dems to geomorphic studies of fault scarps fish lake valley nevada california usa abstract recent developments in interferometric radar remote sensing provide a method for deriving detailed topographic and slope information for fault scarp detection in october 1996 the airborne topsar instrument ieee trans geosci remote sens 30 1992 933 was flown over southwest nevada and east central california topography calculated from topsar data are in the form of a high resolution 5 m spatial grid digital elevation model dem in this study we focus upon the large steep fault scarps that cut alluvium and alluvial fans in fish lake valley east of the white mountains of nevada california a series of topographic profiles extracted from the dem reveal that the larger fault scarps are greater than 40 m in height and that the average midsection slope angle for all measured scarps is approximately 23 these large scarps are the product of multiple offsets rather than a single event other relevant geomorphic features present in the digital topography include splays and benches along the main fault levees cutbanks gullies incising fault scarp slopes shutterridges offset drainage and small normal faults with scarp heights of only 4 6 m field work corroborated general geomorphologic landforms confirmed fault scarp morphometry and aided the evaluation of the accuracy of the dem we are also able to assess fault segmentation models that divide the fish lake valley fault zone flvfz into discrete segments based upon surface rupture characteristics

insar derived digital elevation models for terrain change analysis of earthquake triggered flow like landslides based on alos palsar imagery earthquakes can directly trigger multiple simultaneous slope failures in mountainous regions among these slope failures flow like landslides with high velocities and long run outs can result in damage that is more destructive than other types of landslides timely and accurate recognition of the locations and magnitudes of flow like landslides is essential for post disaster relief synthetic aperture radar sar sensors are suitable for deformation monitoring because of their capability to operate at day or night and in all weather conditions interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar is an advanced technique that extracts three dimensional terrain and changes information from the radar images at a regional scale the focus of this study is the donghekou landslide debris flow that was triggered by the 2008 wenchuan earthquake alos palsar remote satellite images were interpreted by insar to generate digital surface elevation models a comparison of data from a typical insar configuration with field survey data proves that the former is an effective method for rapidly detecting flow like landslides in a mountainous area the comparison also shows that the accuracy of the results is closely related to the correlation between the satellite radar images used and further that the study accuracy would improve with the inclusion of better correlation in this way representations of pre and post landslide terrains could be generated for use in numerical simulations the insar method has particular significance for areas without terrain data prior to slope failure and can provide basic data for landslide hazard assessments

onset of asian desertification by 22 myr ago inferred from loess deposits in china the initial desertification in the asian interior is thought to be one of the most prominent climate changes in the northern hemisphere during the cenozoic era1 2 3 4 but the dating of this transition is uncertain partly because desert sediments are usually scattered discontinuous and difficult to date here we report nearly continuous aeolian deposits covering the interval from 22 to 6 2 million years ago on the basis of palaeomagnetic measurements and fossil evidence a total of 231 visually definable aeolian layers occur as brownish loesses interbedded with reddish soils this new evidence indicates that large source areas of aeolian dust and energetic winter monsoon winds to transport the material must have existed in the interior of asia by the early miocene epoch at least 14 million years earlier than previously thought3 5 regional tectonic changes and ongoing global cooling are probable causes of these changes in aridity and circulation in asia

ultra high rates of loess sedimentation at zhengzhou since stage 7 implication for the yellow river erosion of the sanmen gorge abstract the mangshan loess plateau is located 25 km to the west of zhengzhou on the south bank of the yellow river here the river flows out through the sanmen gorge releasing most of its suspended load following a dramatic decrease in gradient the stratigraphy of the mangshan loess deposits consisting of a number of loess and palaeosol sequences was established following magnetostratigraphic studies and measurements of magnetic susceptibility and grain size distribution the bruhnes matuyama boundary was found at the depth of about 130 m indicating that this sequence at mangshan resembles what is observed elsewhere in the loess plateau the upper part of the mangshan loess displays extremely high sedimentation rates 50 m 3 per 1000 years lower susceptibility values and coarser grain size distribution unlike the lower part of the profile and other sections in the loess plateau this striking change indicates that the upper mangshan loess had a different sediment source different from the deserts that act as a common source for most of the loess deposits in central china this sediment source is believed to be the proximal yellow river floodplain and the ancient alluvial fan lying at the eastern end of the sanmen gorge the age estimation of the formation of the alluvial fan based on mangshan loess suggests that the yellow river may have eroded the sanmen gorge at approximately mis 7

can relative paleointensities be determined from the normalized magnetization of the wind blown loess of china although the wind blown loess and interbedded paleosol sequence in the loess plateau of china has been extensively studied and regarded as one of the most complete terrestrial records of both the geomagnetic field and climatic changes during the quaternary little attention has been paid to it as a source of relative paleointensity in this study we examine the malan loess l1 the last glacial sediments in the lingtai section to determine whether loess is able to reliably record the relative paleointensity toward that end both the conventional normalizing method as well as the pseudo thellier method tauxe et al 1995 were used in conjunction with the examination of the rock magnetic properties and natural remanent magnetization nrm rock magnetic properties of l1 show the uniformity in terms of magnetic mineralogy and grain size suggesting that they may be suitable for relative paleointensity studies normalized remanences derived from l1 show highs between both 72 66 ka and 62 51 ka and lows near 63 ka 42 ka and between 20 and 10 ka comparable results using different normalization parameters suggest that large amplitude variation of normalized magnetization may reflect the intensity variation of the geomagnetic field however comparisons of the normalized magnetization with contemporaneous marine records show some dissimilarities in particular the intensity low at 20 10 ka corresponding to the last glacial maximum is not compatible with the sint 800 composite record on the other hand spectral coherence analyses of middle and high frequency components of the normalized magnetizations suggest some climatic influence thus this apparent discrepancy may be explained by climatic changes in the loess plateau and the resulting effect on the nrm

new contributions to chinese plio pleistocene magnetostratigraphy abstract a new collection of over 500 orientated hand samples of which 180 are red clays from a 195 m loess red clay section near xian 109 12 e 34 12 n china has been dated by magnetic stratigraphy biostratigraphic and previous magnetostratigraphic investigations gave a maximum age for the chinese loess of 2 4 ma implying that the underlying red clay formation is pliocene in age the present study yields a clearly defined magnetic polarity stratigraphy in good agreement with a polarity time scale developed by earlier workers an interpretation of this magnetostratigraphy suggests a basal age for the loess series in this region of 2 5 ma and a minimum age for the base of the red clay formation which is also the base of the section of 5 0 ma