evidence of active ground deformation on the mid ocean ridge axial seamount juan de fuca ridge april june 1988 since september 1987 a precision bottom pressure recorder bpr has been deployed within the summit caldera of axial seamount on the central juan de fuca ridge the instrument is capable of measuring pressure to 1 mbar resolution and recording these measurements at 64 samples per hour for up to 15 months after removal of oscillatory signals due to tidal and oceanographic effects and linear trends caused by sensor drift any significant change in the pressure record should indicate a change of depth associated with vertical ground movement in subaerial volcanic systems such ground movements commonly indicate active inflation or deflation of underlying magma bodies and are frequently coincident with rift eruptions axial seamount was selected for this pilot study for three primary reasons 1 its tectonic setting 2 the presence of a well formed summit caldera and 3 observational evidence of geologically recent volcanic activity results from the first 9 months of the bpr deployment revealed a significant change in pressure which is interpreted to represent a 15 cm subsidence of the caldera floor during two 2 to 3 week periods in april june 1988 also during these periods an anomalous decline in temperature at the site was recorded that is correlated with an apparent increase in current velocity at the axial seamount hydrothermal emissions study ashes vent field suggesting vigorous advection of cold water into the caldera concurrent oceanographic data from geosat and from current meter arrays do not indicate any large scale oceanographic phenomena capable of generating these simultaneous events one mechanism to explain simultaneous ground subsidence and temperature decline at the caldera center and increased bottom current at the caldera margin is the generation of a buoyant parcel of heated water in response to the intrusion or the eruption of magma associated with volcanic deflation such a parcel must have been sufficiently buoyant and proximal to induce horizontal entrainment currents capable of producing the bottom water conditions that were observed at both sites similar volcanic events also may have generated large midwater plumes that have been described previously along the southern juan de fuca ridge

a comparison of inner and outer spiral rainbands in a numerically simulated tropical cyclone abstractthe simulated inner and outer spiral rainbands in a tropical cyclone are compared in this study the inner rainbands are generally active immediately outside the eyewall in the rapid filamentation zone while the outer rainbands are active in regions outside about 3 times the radius of maximum wind the inner rainbands are characterized by the convectively coupled vortex rossby waves the movement of the outer rainbands follows the low level vector winds associated with the azimuthally averaged low level flow and the radially outward cross band flow caused by the downdraft induced cold pool in the boundary layer convective cells in outer rainbands are typical of convective systems and move cyclonically and radially outward inward at large small radii net upward vertical mass transports vmts appear throughout the depth of the troposphere in the whole inner rainband region while net downward vmts are found below 4 km height in the outer rainband region in the whole inner rainband region on

the juan de fuca ridge hot spot propagating rift system new tectonic geochemical and magnetic data underway geophysics deep tow camera work and preliminary geochemical and magnetic studies from a 1980 cruise to the juan de fuca ridge allow the following interpretations 1 the central third between 45 5 n and 46 5 n of the ridge is now actively spreading from a zone which is 10 to 20 km west of the axis bisecting the brunhes matuyama magnetic reversal boundary 2 the apparent terminus of surficial igneous activity at the northern tip of the active cobb propagator has been identified by dredging and camera work the tip appears curved or offset slightly to the west does not correspond to the northernmost tip of the central magnetic anomaly elvers et al 1974 and spreading has been initiated beneath sediments farther north and 3 iron and titanium in fresh glasses from the active volcanic zone exhibit a progressive enrichment northward then a pronounced reversal to more normal concentrations in the vicinity of the cobb offset

fast numerical method for growth and retreat of subsurface ice on mars abstract subsurface water ice on mars evolves due to exchange of vapor with the atmosphere in the form of loss of ice to the atmosphere or in the form of the growth of interstitial ice described here is an accelerated numerical method for the long term evolution of subsurface ice this accelerated method is five orders of magnitude faster than explicit vapor transport calculations enabling fundamentally new types of climate models its speed matches that of purely thermal models the speedup is achieved primarily by solving time averaged equations for vapor transport and ice volume change processes incorporated are growth of interstitial pore ice retreat of pore ice retreat of an ice sheet and retreat of pore ice due to geothermal heating from below two example applications illustrate this numerical method s capabilities near the permafrost margin at 55 latitude ice is periodically depleted and slowly recharged leading to a pore ice layer estimated to be currently no more than a few meters thick at the phoenix landing site it shows the formation of a three layered structure whereby the layer of pore ice can be very thin

a new approach to assessing the burial depth of ground ice deposits and its application to proposed mer landing sites in isidis planitia 1 the recent results by the gamma ray spectrometer instrument on mars odyssey boynton et al 2002 indicate the possibility of ground ice deposits within a few meters of the surface even at low latitudes and midlatitudes the stability of ground ice deposits at these latitudes is a puzzling question to address this question we have developed the berlin mars near surface thermal model bmst a model for the thermal behavior of the martian surface with a special focus on the volatile transport within the subsurface material using the bmst we have performed a case study to derive limits on the burial depth of ground ice deposits stable over annual cycles at the mer landing sites in isidis planitia we have studied the temperature gradient within the subsurface assuming different structures and thermophysical properties for the surface and subsurface material while the results derived here will have no immediate consequences for the mer mission because isidis planitia has been demoted to a backup landing site the results show the potential and versatility of the model we have developed and give some results on the surface properties of isidis planitia

the magnetic structure of axial seamount juan de fuca ridge axial seamount is a large volcanically active seamount located in the eastern pacific on the central juan de fuca jdf ridge at 46 n 130 w sea surface magnetic anomaly data show that axial lies completely within crust formed during the brunhes normal polarity epoch the edifice however does not produce a simple positive magnetic anomaly related to the excess mass above mean seafloor several pronounced negative magnetic anomalies are associated with the seamount including both a circular shaped low located west of the summit and an elongate low trending nw on the southeast flank of the volcano these two anomalies form part of a nw se magnetic trough which extends across the seamount edifice oblique to the general jdf ridge trend of n20 e a third negative anomaly is observed on the northern flank of the seamount associated with north helium basin a deep elongate basin which indents the northeast flank of the seamount both inversion of sea surface magnetics data and forward modelling of topography constrained by magnetization values of dredged samples show that bathymetric effects can explain the helium basin anomaly but topography alone cannot produce the low magnetization values which extend across the seamount summit magnetization of crustal rocks does not vary spatially over the seamount so that negative anomalies at the summit can be explained by variations in the effective thickness of the magnetic source layer a simple forward model of uniform magnetization shows that the anomaly source layer would have to thin by 50 to less than 700 m thick in order to generate the observed magnetic response a thinned source layer is consistent with the presence of either a substantial magma chamber at depth beneath the summit of axial or a zone of substantial crustal alteration the shape of the anomaly implies the trend of either of these sources must be oriented obliquely to the general ridge trend but parallel to the direction of the absolute plate motion

stratigraphic relationships within martian polar cap deposits abstract deposits of layered ice and dust accumulate on the smooth and banded terrains of the north and south polar cap deposits while erosion of equator facing slopes of layered terrain expose these layers banded terrain occurs at exposures of irregular layers resulting from slight erosion of the feather edges of layers deposited on pole facing trough walls these deposits unconformably overlap onto adjacent layered terrain stripping of layers occurs in areas of strong multidirectional wind forming striped terrain local wind scour has also produced steep scarps with crescentic planform often associated with dune fields positioned immediately downwind unconformities are common within layered deposits in areas of complex topography at the north pole these indicate that episodes of deposition of 5 10 layers alternate with slight erosion of pole facing trough walls troughs that strike north south alternate between erosional widening and deepening and depositional infilling creating multiple unconformities troughs near the equatorward limit of polar deposits increase in relief by deposition on adjacent smooth terrain and locally by erosional deepening troughs may migrate poleward replacing the relief increase by depositional infilling when they near the poles

in situ electrical resistivity and bulk porosity of the oceanic crust costa rica rift in situ electrical resistivity was measured in dsdp hole 504b to a depth of 1 013 m into oceanic basement apparent resistivities are about 10 m in about 600 m of pillow lavas sharply increasing to nearly 1 000 m in the underlying dykes bulk porosities calculated from resistivities show a distinct layering apparently corresponding to geophysical layers 2a 2b and 2c

small scale spiral bands observed in hurricanes andrew hugo and erin abstract analysis of radar data taken from the three intense hurricanes that passed close to wsr 57 and wsr 88d radar sites at their point of landfall illustrate small scale spiral bands that are frequently observed within 100 km or so of the hurricane center faintly visible in the radar reflectivity images these bands have scales of 10 km across the band and can extend for 100 km as they spiral outward in a clockwise fashion they appear to move around the hurricane with speeds close to the tangential wind at the level of the bands and are characterized by enhanced updrafts with higher equivalent potential temperature in the regions of elevated reflectivity they induce wind speed variations of at least 8 m s 1 across the bands the authors suggest that these small scale hurricane spiral bands are similar to boundary layer rolls although they extend through depths of 5 6 km which is more than would be expected for rolls in the boundary layer near the sea the data presented here are not sufficient to

a seafloor and sea surface gravity survey of axial volcano seafloor and sea surface gravity measurements are used to model the internal density structure of axial volcano seafloor measurements made at 53 sites within and adjacent to the axial volcano summit caldera provide constraints on the fine scale density structure shipboard gravity measurements made along 540 km of track line above axial volcano and adjacent portions of the juan de fuca ridge provide constraints on the density over a broader region and on the isostatic compensation the seafloor gravity anomalies give an average density of 2 7 g cm 3 for the uppermost portion of axial volcano the sea surface gravity anomalies yield a local compensation parameter of 23 significantly less than expected for a volcanic edifice built on zero age lithosphere three dimensional ideal body models of the seafloor gravity measurements suggest that low density material with a density contrast of at least 0 15 g cm 3 may be located underneath the summit caldera the data are consistent with low density material at shallow depths near the southern portion of the caldera dipping downward to the north the correlation of shallow low density material and surface expressions of recent volcanic activity fresh lavas and high temperature hydrothermal venting suggests a zone of highly porous crust seminorm minimization modeling of the surface gravity measurements also suggest a low density region under the central portion of axial volcano the presence of low density material beneath axial caldera suggests a partially molten magma chamber at depth

rapid filamentation zone in a numerically simulated tropical cyclone abstract in a recent study rozoff et al proposed a possible mechanism to explain the formation and maintenance of the weak echo annulus or moat outside of the primary eyewall of a tropical cyclone observed in radar images by this mechanism the moat is determined to be a region of the strain dominated flow outside of the radius of maximum wind in which essentially all fields are filamented and deep convection is hypothesized to be highly distorted and even suppressed this strain dominated region is defined as the rapid filamentation zone wherein the filamentation time is shorter than the overturning time of deep convection an attempt has been made in this study to test the hypothesis in a full physics tropical cyclone model under idealized conditions and to extend the concept to the study of the inner core dynamics of tropical cyclones the foci of this paper are the evolution of the rapid filamentation zone during the storm intensification the potential roles of rapid filamentation in the organiz

high resolution studies of the summit of axial volcano sea beam bathymetry sea marc i side scan 30 khz towed camera and submersible data from axial volcano juan de fuca ridge jdfr have been integrated to produce detailed maps of the volcano s summit region in order to elucidate its volcanic and tectonic evolution the proximity of axial volcano the youngest edifice of the cobb eickelberg seamount chain to the jdfr superposes a hotspot derived radial stress pattern onto the linear stress field of a mid ocean ridge spreading center the morphology of the summit of axial volcano reflects the differing eruptive styles produced from this superposition long rift zones begin at the edges of the caldera and extend as much as 75 km to the north and south axial volcano has a distinct summit plateau similar to those found on many other submarine volcanos the process by which summit plateaus are constructed is illustrated by the lava flows originating from the south rift zone which have partially filled the southern half of the caldera and have smoothed the flanks the summit plateau contains penetrative ne sw fracturing that is approximately parallel to the jdfr the unusual rectangular caldera is 3 8 km in size and its trend is about 160 three possible mechanisms are discussed for the caldera s formation 1 canary island type trapdoor formation 2 overlapping spreading center interaction and 3 magma source migration although none of these models is fully compatible with the present data base the overlapping spreading center model is preferred postcaldera volcanism probably began with the formation of the central caldera eruptive complex which was characterized by relatively low volume high viscosity flows the most recent volcanism has apparently taken place along the northern and southern rift zones which have erupted more fluid lavas resulting in areally extensive flows covering up to 60 of the caldera floor extensive low temperature venting and areas of high temperature venting near the northern and southern rift zones and caldera walls suggest a shallow magmatic source beneath the summit of axial volcano

marine controlled source electromagnetic sounding 2 the pegasus experiment the marine controlled source electromagnetic sounding method developed over the past 15 years at scripps institution of oceanography employs a towed seafloor electric dipole transmitter of moment 4 104 am and multiple free vehicle seafloor electric field recorders a survey of 40 ma normal oceanic lithosphere in the northeast pacific using frequencies of 0 25 to 24 hz and synchronous stacking of 0 25 to 12 hour duration detected signals at transmitter receiver ranges between 5 and 95 km one dimensional electrical conductivity structure is recovered from the data using the occam process of nonlinear regularized inversion repeated inversion of a model terminated with an essentially infinite conductor or resistor demonstrates that the maximum depth of inference for this experiment is about 30 km well into the upper mantle with bounds placed on conductivity to depths of 60 km structure shallower than about 1 km is comparable to that obtained by a similar experiment on the east pacific rise and by borehole logging with a sharp increase in resistivity at depths of 600 800 m although strictly our experiment is sensitive only to integrated square root of conductivity or total attenuation in the surface layers the lower crust and upper mantle has a resistivity between 2 and 7 104 m and a transverse resistance of at least 109 m2 suggesting at most 0 3 volume fraction of free water in the lower crust and some form of conductivity enhancement over mineral conductivity in the uppermost mantle although resolution is weak below 30 km our data are compatible with a dry olivine model of mantle conductivity temperature

short and long baseline tiltmeter measurements on axial seamount juan de fuca ridge abstract long term observations of seismic activity and ground deformation at mid ocean ridges and submarine volcanoes are required for an understanding of the spatial and temporal characteristics of magma transport and intrusion to make precise records of tilt on the seafloor we have installed short baseline tiltmeters in six ocean bottom seismometers tilt obs and developed a long baseline 100 500 m two fluid tiltmeter lbt in the tilt obs the seismometer platform is levelled to better than 1 after deployment the tiltmeter consists of a pair of electrolytic bubble sensors mounted on a secondary levelling stage on the seismometer platform the levelling stage uses two motor driven micrometers on a triangular mounting plate to bring the sensors to null the sensitivity of these tiltmeters is 0 05 rad at a dynamic range of 0 2 mrad a long baseline instrument was developed to achieve a better spatial average of deformation most approaches used on land to measure stable long baseline tilt cannot be applied to a submarine instrument but tiltmeters in which the pressure of a fluid in tubes is measured are amenable to installation on the seafloor the development resulted in a device that is essentially a center pressure instrument folded back on itself with fluids of different densities in the two tubes during july to september 1994 these instruments were deployed on axial seamount on the juan de fuca ridge off washington state for a test of their relative performance on volcanic terrain yielding 9 weeks of continuous data seismic tilt and temperature from five tilt obs and one long baseline instrument drift on all instruments was of the order of 1 rad day with higher frequency variations of order 5 10 rad initial drift on the tilt obs is shown to be associated with platform settling rather than with the sensor or its mounting high frequency noise is coherent across instruments and tidal in character and we conclude that tidal currents moving the sensors are responsible

improved general circulation models of the martian atmosphere from the surface to above 80 km we describe a set of two new generation general circulation models of the martian atmosphere derived from the models we originally developed in the early 1990s the two new models share the same physical parameterizations but use two complementary numerical methods to solve the atmospheric dynamic equations the vertical resolution near the surface has been refined and the vertical domain has been extended to above 80 km these changes are accompanied by the inclusion of state of the art parameterizations to better simulate the dynamical and physical processes near the surface boundary layer scheme subgrid scale topography parameterization etc and at high altitude gravity wave drag in addition radiative transfer calculations and the representation of polar processes have been significantly improved we present some examples of zonal mean fields from simulations using the model at several seasons one relatively novel aspect previously introduced by wilson 1997 is that around northern winter solstice the strong pole to pole diabatic forcing creates a quasi global angular momentum conserving hadley cell which has no terrestrial equivalent within such a cell the coriolis forces accelerate the winter meridional flow toward the pole and induce a strong warming of the middle polar atmosphere down to 25 km this winter polar warming had been observed but not properly modeled until recently in fact thermal inversions are generally predicted above one and often both poles around 60 70 km however the mars middle atmosphere above 40 km is found to be very model sensitive and thus difficult to simulate accurately in the absence of observations

a numerical study of outer rainband formation in a sheared tropical cyclone abstractthe dynamical process of outer rainband formation in a sheared tropical cyclone tc is examined in this study using the fully compressible nonhydrostatic tc model after the easterly vertical wind shear of 10 m s 1 was imposed upon an intensifying strong tc an outer rainband characterized by a wavenumber 1 structure formed as a typical principal rainband downshear further analysis indicates that the outer rainband formation was closely connected to the activity of the inner rainband previously formed downshear moving radially outward the inner rainband tended to be filamented owing to the strong radial gradient of angular velocity as the inner rainband approached the outer boundary of the inner core convection in its middle and upwind segments reinvigorated and nascent convective cells formed upwind of the rainband caused mainly by the decreased filamentation and stabilization subsequently the rainband reorganized into a typical outer rainband three different scenarios are found to be

generation of moving spiral bands in tropical cyclones abstract a theory based on the shallow water equation is developed to explain the generation of moving spiral banded structures in tropical cyclones the theory proposes that fluctuation of the vorticity distribution in the compact core region can act as a source generating gravity waves that produce the banded structures this mechanism is usually called the lighthill radiation mechanism a numerical experiment using the fifth pennsylvania state university national center for atmospheric research mesoscale model mm5 code is used to test this theory the moving bands in the simulated tropical cyclone show good agreement with the theoretically calculated gravity waves that emerge from a core region with an elliptical distribution of vorticity results of the simulated cyclone also illustrate that spiral cloud bands are triggered by the propagating gravity waves

h l chondrite lapaz icefield 031047 a feather of icarus abstract antarctic meteorite lap 031047 is an ordinary chondrite composed of loosely consolidated chondritic fragments its petrography oxygen isotopic composition and geochemical inventory are ambiguous and indicate an intermediate character between h and l chondrites petrographic indicators suggest lap 031047 suffered a shock metamorphic overprint below 10 gpa which did not destroy its unusually high porosity of 27 vol metallographic textures in lap 031047 indicate heating above 700 c and subsequent cooling which caused massive transformation of taenite to kamacite the depletion of thermally labile trace elements the crystallization of chondritic glass to microcrystalline plagioclase of unusual composition and the occurrence of coarsely crystallized chondrule fragments is further evidence for post metamorphic heating to 700 750 c however this heating event had a transient character because olivine and low ca pyroxene did not equilibrate nearly complete degassing up to very high temperatures is indicated by the thorough resetting of lap 031047 s ar ar reservoir 100 55 ma ago a noble gas cosmic ray exposure age indicates it was reduced to a meter size fragment at

comment on the electrical conductivity of the oceanic upper mantle by g heinson and s constable in a recent paper heinson constable 1992 hereafter hc have attempted to construct an oceanic upper mantle electrical conductivity model by combining laboratory measurements on dry olivine as a function of temperature with a geotherm inferred from a variety of geophysical and petrological data hc argue that the 1 d magnetotelluric mt response computed from their model structure is not compatible with three sets of sea floor electromagnetic em data collected in the late 1970 s and proceed to examine those data in more detail they infer that some of the em data are not consistent with a 1 d structure on the basis of statistical tests and further conclude that the presence of an upper mantle high conductivity zone is not required by the data finally hc attempt to reconcile these disparate observations by suggesting that a high resistive upper mantle which is required by their model combined with the presence of resistive coastlines will result in significant distortion of the em response at points in the interior of the ocean they construct sample mt responses

high resolution thermal inertia mapping from the mars global surveyor thermal emission spectrometer abstract high resolution thermal inertia mapping results are presented derived from mars global surveyor mgs thermal emission spectrometer tes observations of the surface temperature of mars obtained during the early portion of the mgs mapping mission thermal inertia is the key property controlling the diurnal surface temperature variations and is dependent on the physical character of the top few centimeters of the surface it represents a complex combination of particle size rock abundance exposures of bedrock and degree of induration in this work we describe the derivation of thermal inertia from tes data present global scale analysis and place these results into context with earlier work a global map of nighttime thermal bolometer based thermal inertia is presented at 1 4 per pixel resolution with approximately 63 coverage between 50 s and 70 n latitude global analysis shows a similar pattern of high and low thermal inertia as seen in previous viking low resolution mapping significantly more detail is present in the high resolution tes thermal inertia this detail represents horizontal small scale variability in the nature of the surface correlation with albedo indicates the presence of a previously undiscovered surface unit of moderate to high thermal inertia and intermediate albedo this new unit has a modal peak thermal inertia of 180 250 j m 2 k 1 s 1 2 and a narrow range of albedo near 0 24 the unit covering a significant fraction of the surface typically surrounds the low thermal inertia regions and may comprise a deposit of indurated fine material local 3 km resolution maps are also presented as examples of eolian fluvial and volcanic geology some impact crater rims and intracrater dunes show higher thermal inertias than the surrounding terrain thermal inertia of aeolian deposits such as intracrater dunes may be related to average particle size outflow channels and valleys consistently show higher thermal inertias than the surrounding terrain generally correlations between spatial variations in thermal inertia and geologic features suggest a relationship between the hundred meter scale morphology and the centimeter scale surface layer

tracking a long lasting outer tropical cyclone rainband origin and convective transformation abstractthis study used radar and surface observations to track a long lasting outer tropical cyclone rainband tcr of typhoon jangmi 2008 over a considerable period of time 10 h from its for

dynamical consequences of compositional and thermal density stratification beneath spreading centers extraction of partial melt to form oceanic crust reduces the density of upwelling mantle beneath spreading centers this compositional buoyancy can significantly affect both the rate of upwelling and the pattern of mantle flow the relative importance of buoyant upwelling and upwelling due to plate spreading depends on the mantle viscosity for a low enough mantle viscosity buoyant upwelling can significantly enhance the thickness of the crust relative to that which would be produced by plate spreading alone for a mantle viscosity of 1022 pa s upwelling due to plate spreading is dominant and crustal thickness is predicted to be a strong function of spreading rate however for a mantle viscosity of 1019 pa s buoyancy dominates mantle upwelling and the calculated crustal thickness like the oceanic crust is nearly independent of spreading rate thermal and compositional density variations result in opposing buoyancy forces that can cause time dependent upwelling for a mantle viscosity of 1020 pa s and a low 1 cm yr spreading rate this behavior takes the form of undamped crustal thickness oscillations with a single well defined period for even slightly lower mantle viscosity the frequency increases and crustal thickness oscillations become more complex with two or more frequencies present while numerical experiments have thus far been carried out only for viscosities significantly greater than that likely to characterize the mantle beneath spreading centers we speculate that these crustal thickness oscillations may explain important aspects of seafloor structure

evidence for enhanced hydration on the northern flank of olympus mons mars in this paper we report about a small region on the northern scarp of olympus mons showing an increase of the 3 m hydration band in the omega spectra together with low superficial temperatures although water ice clouds can occurs on the flank of big martian volcanoes radiative transfer modeling indicates that atmospheric water ice alone cannot justify the shape of the observed band a fit of the 1 9 3 m absorption features is obtained by hypothesizing that the study region consists of a mixture of dust and water ice covered by an optically thin 0 08 at 3 m layer of dust thermal modeling also suggests that water ice in this region may be stable during most of the martian year due to the saturation of the atmosphere if water ice is responsible for the observed spectral behavior it might consist of a number of ice or snow patches possibly deposited in small depressions

the spatial distribution of rocks on mars abstract the spatial distribution of rocks exposed at the surface of mars has been mapped using viking infrared thermal mapper irtm observations overall there are no regions on the surface of mars at a scale of 1 1 in latitude and longitude that are rock free the modal value of rock abundance is 6 areal coverage with no areas having more than 30 35 rock cover the model developed to determine rock abundance relates the thermal emission in each of the four surface sensing irtm bands to temperature contrasts within the field of view non unit thermal emissivity due to absorption bands in the surface materials and the absorption and scattering of the outgoing energy by atmospheric dust and water ice each of these effects produce characteristic spectral and diurnal signatures allowing them to be separated the temperature contrasts provide a means to determine both the abundance of exposed rocks and the fine component thermal intertia rock abundance alone does not produce the observed variation in bulk thermal inertia of the surface low inertia fine bright surfaces have fewer rocks exposed than do high inertia coarse dark surfaces rock abundance does not correlate well with the rms slope nor reflectivity determined from delay doppler radar measurements there is however a possible correlation between rms slope determined from continuous wave radar observations dual polarization radar measurements which provide the best radar measure of small scale roughness indicate that the tharsis volcanic region is very rough whereas thermal measurements indicate very few rocks and a covering of dust together these observations suggest an approximately 1 m thick mantle of fines covering a very rough subsurface this fine material may be an aeolian deposit of dust storm fallout valles marineris together with several major channels and chaotic terrains have high rock abundances as does the acidalia planitia basin this observed distribution may reflect the initial deposition of coarse material associated with channel formation syrtis major is unique in having a high inertia but a very low rock abundance together with low radar roughness these observations are consistent with mantling of rocks by sand the observed distribution of rocks and fines indicates that aeolian processes both erosional and depositional play a dominant role in shaping the present martian surface

limits on the burial depth of glacial ice deposits on the flanks of hecates tholus mars 1 an analysis of data obtained by the hrsc camera on mars express revealed morphological evidence for the existence of glacial deposits on the flank of hecates tholus e hauber et al 2004 crater counts indicate a very young age in the range of several million years only in this study we have assessed limits for the burial depth of a still existing ice deposit protected by an overlying dust layer our first results indicate a high likelihood to find ice within only a few meters below the surface in this region

thermal and albedo mapping of the polar regions of mars using viking thermal mapper observations 1 north polar region we present the first maps of the apparent thermal inertia and albedo of the south polar region of mars the observations used to create these maps were acquired by the infrared thermal mapper irtm instruments on the two viking orbiters over a 30 day period in 1977 during the martian late southern summer season the maps cover the region from 60 s to the south pole at a spatial resolution of 1 of latitude thus completing the initial thermal mapping of the entire planet the analysis and interpretation of these maps is aided by the results of a one dimensional radiative convective model which is used to calculate diurnal variations in surface and atmospheric temperatures and brightness temperatures at the top of the atmosphere for a range of assumptions concerning dust optical properties and dust optical depths the maps show that apparent thermal inertias of bare ground regions decrease systematically from 60 s to the south pole in unfrosted regions close to the south pole apparent thermal inertias are among the lowest observed anywhere on the planet on the south residual cap apparent thermal inertias are very high due to the presence of co2 frost in most other regions of mars best fit apparent albedos based on thermal emission measurements are generally in good agreement with actual surface albedos based on broadband solar reflectance measurements however in the frost free region poleward of 75 s best fit apparent albedos are significantly higher than measured lambert albedos implying that measured brightness temperatures in this area are up to 15 k colder than would be expected for surfaces with the same measured albedos during this season the one dimensional atmospheric model calculations also predict anomalously cold brightness temperatures close to the pole during late summer and after considering a number of alternatives it is concluded that the net surface cooling due to atmospheric dust is the best explanation for this phenomenon the observed systematic decrease in apparent thermal inertia from 60 s to the south pole during this season is also consistent with the predictions of atmospheric model calculations the region of lowest apparent thermal inertia close to the pole which includes the south polar layered deposits is interpreted to be mantled by a continuous layer of aeolian material that must be at least a few millimeters thick the low thermal inertias mapped in the south polar region imply an absence of surface water ice deposits which is consistent with viking mars atmospheric water detector mawd measurements which show low atmospheric water vapor abundances throughout the summer season however these observations do not necessarily imply a complete absence of water thermal model calculations that can reproduce observed diurnal temperature variations in the south polar region show that annual maximum subsurface temperatures at depths ranging from 4 to 20 cm are cold enough to permit the stability of ground ice deposits even if they are in excellent diffusive contact with the atmosphere therefore the presence of near surface ground ice in the south polar region is not inconsistent with the viking irtm and mawd observations

hurricane spiral bands abstract the spiral bands that occur in tropical cyclones can be conveniently divided into two classes outer bands and inner bands evidence is presented here that the outer bands form as the result of nonlinear effects during the breakdown of the intertropical convergence zone itcz through barotropic instability in this process a zonal strip of high potential vorticity the itcz shear zone or monsoon trough begins to distort in a varicose fashion with the potential vorticity pv becoming pooled in local regions that are connected by filaments of high pv as the pooled regions become more axisymmetric the filaments become thinner and begin to wrap around the pv centers it is argued that inner bands form in a different manner as a tropical cyclone intensifies due to latent heat release the pv field becomes nearly circular with the highest values of pv in the cyclone center the radial gradient of pv provides a state on which pv waves the generalization of rossby waves can propagate the nonline

the organization of convection in the rainbands of tropical cyclone laurence abstract a slow moving weak tropical cyclone passed near darwin australia in december 1990 rainbands were observed by a doppler weather radar and a 50 mhz wind profiler for over 24 h the principal bands were seen to be organized on two distinct scales bands of stratiform precipitation formed at a radius of about 100 km from the center of the storm and moved outward at about 6 m s 1 these decayed after they moved past darwin over land a distinct midlevel jet extended along the bands within the bands convective lines formed at regular intervals propagated against and outward with respect to the mean flow and acted as a partial barrier to the radial inflow deep active convection was confined to these lines the vertical motion in the convection showed a distinct acceleration above the freezing level with measured updrafts of up to 10 m s 1 the convection elevated the tropopause height over the rainband it is hypothesized that an inertia gravity wave propagating from near the storm eye was resp

surface pressure features of landfalling typhoon rainbands and their possible causes abstract this study uses temporally high resolution surface observations doppler radar and micro rain radar to document the finescale features of the two landfalling rainbands associated with typhoon longwang 2005 as they passed over northern taiwan the present case allows a unique opportunity to investigate well defined convectively active tropical cyclone rainbands over land in particular the surface pressure fluctuations observed during the passage of the two rainbands and their possible causes are explored the rainbands were predominantly convective in nature with embedded stratiform precipitation outside their inner outer edge analyses of surface observations show similar surface pressure fluctuations during the rainband s passage low high pressure with relatively strong weak cross band flow and warmer colder temperature was located inside the outer inner edge maximum minimum pressure perturbations were observed to be 1 5 1 mb with smaller magnitudes 0 4 mb outside th

characteristics of inertia gravity waves over gadanki during the passage of a deep depression over the bay of bengal 1 using mst radar located at the indian tropical station of gadanki 13 5 n 79 2 e near the eastern coast of india studies have been made on the characteristics of inertia gravity waves generated in the lower troposphere during deep depression developed over the bay of bengal on 20 24 june 2007 filtering and the hodograph analyses of horizontal winds indicate that the low pressure system has generated inertia gravity waves propagating outward from the core of the depression strong enhancement of radar reflectivity snr in the heights of 4 7 km for a few days around 22 june 2007 and the upward propagation of gravity wave energy above this height range indicate that the source of the waves is located at 4 7 km this is in agreement with earlier theoretical expectations the vertical and horizontal wavelengths of gravity waves are found to be 2 2 km and 240 km respectively in the troposphere

influence of a variable thermal conductivity on the thermochemical evolution of mars 1 the influences of variations in thermal conductivity due to composition temperature and pressure in mantle and crust on the thermochemical evolution of mars have been examined with parameterized convection models we use a temperature and pressure dependent thermal conductivity in the mantle and column averaged values between 1 5 and 4 wm 1k 1 for the crust with 2 wm 1k 1 as the representative value for a basaltic crust the major characteristic of the models is a slower cooling of the upper mantle with a long existing global partial melt zone and a stronger crustal production late in the evolution compared to earlier models which assume a constant thermal conductivity of 4 wm 1k 1 to explain the observed crustal thickness and the early crustal formation on mars the formation of an enriched primordial crust is required recent volcanism can be explained by lateral temperature variations that are caused by thickness variations of the low conducting crust these melt zones which occur underneath thicker than average crust may be the source region for the observed longstanding volcanism in tharsis and elysium instead of plumes rising from the core mantle boundary the evolution of the elastic lithosphere is characterized by a transition at which the elastic strength is first provided by the crust and later also by the upper mantle this finding may explain the estimated elastic lithosphere thickness of less than 16 km in the noachian and more than 100 km in the hesperian and amazonian

near surface temperatures at proposed mars exploration rover landing sites 1 minimum nighttime temperatures at the mars exploration rover mer landing sites may limit power available for science activities and thus mission lifetime here 1 m air temperatures at the end of the nominal 90 sol primary mission are derived for the four primary and three previously considered mer landing sites based on mars global surveyor thermal emission spectrometer thermal inertia and albedo estimated opacity and predictions of air temperatures from a one dimensional atmospheric model taking these results and mapping them onto the probability density distribution of the landing ellipses shows that of the air temperatures of the primary sites sinus meridiani hematite is the coldest with an 8 chance of encountering minimum nighttime temperatures below the 176 k value considered a practical limit for operations elysium and gusev are at 7 and 3 respectively whereas isidis has no computed temperatures below 191 k for the hematite site preliminary observations and interpretations are also made using high resolution odyssey thermal imaging system predawn images

the electrical conductivity of the oceanic upper mantle summary previous inversions of sea floor magnetotelluric mt sounding data have predicted upper mantle electrical conductivities which are more than an order of magnitude higher than laboratory measurements of the conductivity of olivine would suggest and controlled source field electromagnetic csem soundings require a lithospheric mantle conductivity of 3 x lop5 sm which is so low that the electromagnetic em coast effect would produce more anisotropy in mt soundings than is observed we address these issues by constructing an olivine mantle model for conductivity and examining the inversion of mt data from three sea floor sites and show that the incompatibilities can be largely resolved if the effects of oceans and coastlines are considered our mantle model is based on recent measurements of olivine conductivity the conductivity of tholeiite melt a thermal model for the upper mantle based on lithospheric cooling and the temperature of a a 3 olivine transition the pyrolite model of mantle petrology and conductivities derived from csem sounding we propose archie s law with exponent 2 and interconnected tubes as realistic lower and upper bounds for the effect of partial melt on rock conductivity and archie s law with exponent 1 5 as the preferred estimate the 1 d forward response of this model is not compatible with observed sea floor mt data three data sets presented by oldenburg 1981 pass a test for one dimensionality based on the size of the residuals when fit with parker s d algorithm but two of the three soundings fail a test for independence of residuals we also find that the presence of the upper mantle high conductivity zone previously inferred from these data is highly dependent on data misfit and not required when the misfit criterion is relaxed a reasonable amount re inversions of the mt data produce models which are incompatible with our petrological model of mantle conductivity however by adding an ocean with various coastlines of simple geometry to our petrological model and solving the forward 3 d problem using thin sheet analysis we predict mt responses which are distorted in a manner that is remarkably similar to the observed data

unusually strong vertical motions in a caribbean hurricane abstract unusually strong updrafts and downdrafts in the eyewall of hurricane emily 1987 during its rapidly deepening phase are documented by both in situ aircraft measurements and a vertically pointing doppler radar updrafts and downdrafts as strong as 24 and 19 m s 1 respectively were found mean updrafts and downdrafts were approximately twice as strong as those found in other hurricanes updrafts had approximately the same width as downdrafts the most vigorous updrafts were located in the front quadrants of the storm and most of the strongest downdrafts were found in the rear quadrants the downdrafts could not be explained in terms of evaporative or melting cooling or precipitation drag evidence is presented that moist symmetric instability initiated by precipitation loading may have been responsible for the strong downdrafts

topography and stratigraphy of martian polar layered deposits abstract topography and stratigraphy of young sediments in the martian north polar region are being studied from high resolution viking orbiter images to test and constrain theories of terrain evolution driven by cyclical climate change several steepened slopes upon which layers are exposed in section were found to have local relief of 200 to 800 m and slopes ranging from 1 to 8 first attempts to calculate average layer thicknesses from portions of sections yielded results ranging from 14 to 46 m linearly correlated with slope in some cases under the assumption of short range lateral continuity a greater number of layers was inferred to be present than was actually resolved on a particular section when apparent layer thickness are revised accordingly the correlation with slope is destroyed we conclude that images of the shallowest sloping sections of layered deposits should yield the most stratigraphic information and layers thinner than 14 m may occur indeed they may even be common or typical because of the sensitivity of summer frost distribution to local slope and other properties of exposed strata interseasonal comparisons of images promise to enhance the capability to detect layers and differentiate them by material properties

vnir multispectral observations of aqueous alteration materials by the pancams on the spirit and opportunity mars exploration rovers multispectral visible and near infrared vnir observations from the mars exploration rover pancam multispectral stereo camera systems are consistent with materials having been subjected to various aqueous processes ferric oxides in the form of hematite in the burns and grasberg formations of meridiani planum have been well characterized by opportunity on the basis of strong 535 and 864 nm absorptions and positive 754 1009 nm and 934 1009 nm slopes on the rim of noachian aged endeavour crater opportunity has observed light toned veins with high ca and s as determined by the rover s alpha particle x ray spectrometer apxs and a negative 934 1009 nm slope in vnir spectra extracted from pancam data indicative of a 1000 nm h2o overtone absorption together these observations indicate that the veins are composed of gypsum rocks overturned by opportunity on the murray ridge portion of the endeavour crater rim display dark and light toned coatings the dark toned coatings have a red featureless slope that is consistent with the slope observed in laboratory spectra of high valence manganese oxide minerals potential mn oxide coatings may also be associated with some exposures of the grasberg formation apxs results for high mg and s in the light toned coatings of the murray ridge overturned rocks and a negative 934 1009 nm slope are consistent with hydrated mg sulfates opportunity has also observed spectral features in rocks that are consistent with orbital observations of fe smectites as well as al smectites and possible hydrated silica in light toned fracture fill materials the spirit rover observed sulfate rich light toned soils exposed by the rover s wheels several of these soil observations contained spectral features such as a broad absorption centered near 800 nm consistent with ferric sulfate minerals a finding confirmed by the rover s mossbauer spectrometer spirit also excavated light toned si rich soils these soils have a flat near infrared spectrum with a drop in reflectance from 934 1009 nm that is consistent with free water contained in voids or adsorbed onto the surface of the silica

induction arrows from offshore floating magnetometers using land reference data summary induction arrows are a traditional output of magnetovariational experiments and represent transfer functions used quantitatively in the inversion of geomagnetic depth sounding data to give earth electrical conductivity structure in this paper a technique is tested in which total eld variations are combined with horizontal eld data recorded simultaneously at remote stations in order to derive induction arrows the method is rst demonstrated using total eld data recorded on land by an aeromagnetic base station and then applied to data obtained from magnetometers oated oishore on the sea surface the oating magnetometers were deployed in two con gurations one tethered to the sea oor the second free oating

magnetotelluric observations across the juan de fuca subduction system in the emslab project a magnetotelluric mt transect has been obtained near latitude 45 n from the active juan de fuca spreading center across the subduction zone and cascades volcanic arc and into the back arc deschutes basin region this paper presents the mt data set and describes its major characteristics as they pertain to the resistivity of the subduction system in addition we discuss the measurement and processing procedures employed as well as important concerns in data interpretation broadband audiomagnetotelluric amt mt soundings approx 0 01 500 s period were collected on land with considerable redundancy in site location and from which 39 sites were selected which constrain upper crustal heterogeneity but sense also into the upper mantle fifteen long period mt recordings about 50 10 000 s on land confirm the broadband responses in their common period range and extend the depths of exploration to hundreds of kilometers on the juan de fuca plate offshore 33 out of 39 sea floor instruments at 19 locations gave good results of these locations five magnetotelluric soundings plus two additional geomagnetic variation sites covering the period range 200 105 s approximately constitute the ocean bottom segment of our profile the feature of the land observations which probably relates most closely to the subduction process is a peak in the impedance phase of the transverse magnetic mode around 30 50 s period this phase anomaly with a corresponding inflection in the apparent resistivity is continuous eastward from the seacoast and ends abruptly at the high cascades it signifies an electrically conductive layer in otherwise resistive lower crust or upper mantle with the layer conductance decreasing eastward from the coast to a minimum under the coast range but increasing suddenly to the east of the central willamette basin the higher conductance to the east is corroborated by the vertical magnetic field transfer function whose real component shows negative values in the period range 100 1000 s over the same distance the transverse electric mode apparent resistivity and phase on the land display a variety of three dimensional effects which make their interpretation difficult conversely both modes of the ocean floor soundings exhibit a smooth progression laterally from the coastal area to the spreading ridge indicating that the measurements here are reflecting primarily the large scale tectonic structures of interest and are little disturbed by small near surface inhomogeneities the impedance data near the ridge are strongly suggestive of a low resistivity asthenosphere beneath resistive juan de fuca plate lithosphere approaching the coastline to the east both impedance and vertical magnetic field responses appear increasingly affected by a thick wedge of deposited and accreted sediments and by the thinning of the seawater

seafloor magnetotelluric sounding above axial seamount axial seamount is a large active ridge axis volcano located on the central segment of the juan de fuca ridge in the northeast pacific ocean magnetotelluric mt data have been collected at three sites approximately 4 km apart around the eastern rim of the volcano during a 65 day deployment mt responses in the bandwidth of 10 105 s are almost isotropic with a weakly defined principal direction of strike parallel to the main topographic trends of axial seamount and are relatively flat over the whole bandwidth apparent resistivities are of the order of 7 20 m and phases are as low as 30 at the short periods diagonal terms of the mt tensor are an order of magnitude smaller than the off diagonal terms suggesting that three dimensional effects on the data are minimal two dimensional inversions suggest that seafloor bathymetry and the distant coastlines have a surprisingly small effect on the mt response and one dimensional inversions fit the mt data to within the errors with no serial correlation in the residuals a low crustal resistivity is the most robust part of the model probably due to seawater in fractures and possibly due to a magma chamber an electrical asthenosphere although less well constrained exists over a depth range 30 60 km and the resistivity of this region is compatible with about 8 fraction of melt

spiral rainbands in a numerical simulation of hurricane bill 2009 part ii propagation of inner rainbands abstractthis is the second part of a study that examines spiral rainbands in a numerical simulation of hurricane bill 2009 this paper evaluates whether the propagation of inner rainbands in the hurricane bill simulation is consistent with previously proposed hypotheses results indicate that the propagation of inner rainbands is not consistent with gravity waves vortex rossby waves or squall lines an alternative hypothesis is offered arguing that inner rainbands are simply convective clouds that are advected by the rapidly rotating tropical cyclone wind field while being deformed into spiral shapes a summary and a discussion of the results of both parts i and ii are provided

a diagnostic study of the intensity of three tropical cyclones in the australian region part i a synopsis of observed features of tropical cyclone kathy 1984 abstract objective streamline analyses and digitized high resolution ir satellite cloud data have been used to examine in detail the changes in the environmental circulation and in the cloud structure that took place in and around tropical cyclone kathy 1984 when it started to intensify and during its intensification and dissipation stages the change of low level circulation around tropical cyclone kathy was measured by the change in the angle of inflow 4 at a radius of 4 latitude from the cyclone center when kathy started to intensify 4 increased suddenly from 20 to 42 5 in the northerly airstream to the north and northeast of the depression and decreased to 0 to the south of the depression at that stage the low level circulation around the depression appeared as a giant swirl that started some 600 km to the north and northeast of the depression and spiraled inward toward its center while trade air which is usually cool dry and stable did not enter the cyclonic circulation the angle

global distribution of neutrons from mars results from mars odyssey global distributions of thermal epithermal and fast neutron fluxes have been mapped during late southern summer northern winter using the mars odyssey neutron spectrometer these fluxes are selectively sensitive to the vertical and lateral spatial distributions of h and co 2 in the uppermost meter of the martian surface poleward of 60 latitude is terrain rich in hydrogen probably h 2 o ice buried beneath tens of centimeter thick hydrogen poor soil the central portion of the north polar cap is covered by a thick co 2 layer as is the residual south polar cap portions of the low to middle latitudes indicate subsurface deposits of chemically and or physically bound h 2 o and or oh