Sea Trials of a Prototype of a Deep-Sea Tide Guague

In 1991, SHOM carried out trials, at sea, of a prototype deep-sea tide gauge. The trials made it possible to verify the appropriateness of a known drift model applied to the response from the PAROSCIENTTFIC pressure sensor which was fit into the prototype and to show the instrument's possibilities studies of tide and mean sea level

Light Sheet Tomography (LST) for <i>in situ</i> imaging of plant roots

The production of crops capable of efficient nutrient use is essential for addressing the problem of global food security. The ability of a plant's root system to interact with the soil micro-environment determines how effectively it can extract water and nutrients. In order to assess this ability and develop the fast and cost effective phenotyping techniques which are needed to establish efficient root systems, in situ imaging in soil is required. To date this has not been possible due to the high density of scatterers and absorbers in soil or because other growth substrates do not sufficiently model the heterogeneity of a soil's microenvironment. We present here a new form of light sheet imaging with novel transparent soil containing refractive index matched particles. This imaging method does not rely on fluorescence, but relies solely on scattering from root material. We term this form of imaging Light Sheet Tomography (LST). We have tested LST on a range of materials and plant roots in transparent soil and gel. Due to the low density of root structures, i.e. relatively large spaces between adjacent roots, long-term monitoring of lettuce root development in situ with subsequent quantitative analysis was achieved

Two Extraordinary Substellar Binaries at the T/Y Transition and the Y-Band Fluxes of the Coolest Brown Dwarfs

Using Keck laser guide star adaptive optics imaging, we have found that the T9 dwarf WISE J1217+1626 and T8 dwarf WISE J1711+3500 are exceptional binaries, with unusually wide separations (~0.8 arcsec, 8-15 AU), large near-IR flux ratios (~2-3 mags), and small mass ratios (~0.5) compared to previously known field ultracool binaries. Keck/NIRSPEC H-band spectra give a spectral type of Y0 for WISE J1217+1626B, and photometric estimates suggest T9.5 for WISE J1711+3500B. The WISE J1217+1626AB system is very similar to the T9+Y0 binary CFBDSIR J1458+1013AB; these two systems are the coldest known substellar multiples, having secondary components of ~400 K and being planetary-mass binaries if their ages are <~1 Gyr. Both WISE J1217+1626B and CFBDSIR J1458+1013B have strikingly blue Y-J colors compared to previously known T dwarfs, including their T9 primaries. Combining all available data, we find that Y-J color drops precipitously between the very latest T dwarfs and the Y dwarfs. The fact that this is seen in (coeval, mono-metallicity) binaries demonstrates that the color drop arises from a change in temperature, not surface gravity or metallicity variations among the field population. Thus, the T/Y transition established by near-IR spectra coincides with a significant change in the ~1 micron fluxes of ultracool photospheres. One explanation is the depletion of potassium, whose broad absorption wings dominate the far-red optical spectra of T dwarfs. This large color change suggests that far-red data may be valuable for classifying objects of <~500 K.Comment: ApJ, in press (accepted Aug 1, 2012). Small cosmetic changes in version 2 to match final publicatio

Origin of basalts from the Marquesas Archipelago (south central Pacific Ocean) : isotope and trace element constraints

Les auteurs abordent la genèse des basaltes des îles Marquises par l'étude conjointe des isotopes et des traces. D'après les caractéristiques géochimiques des basaltes, ils suggèrent un modèle d'interaction de magmas d'origine profonde avec le manteau supérieur appauvri

HYDROBIA ULVAE: A DEPOSIT-FEEDER FOR CLEANING LIVING HARD-SHELLED FORAMINIFERA

International audienceThis study proposes a new method for fast and inexpensive extraction of a large number of living foraminifera for laboratory cultures. The method is a significant improvement over current extraction methods, which are highly time-consuming. Several treatments were designed to test the method. Sediment bearing foraminifera from Brouage Mudflat (Atlantic coast of France) was washed through a 50-µm sieve and distributed in glass Petri dishes with 20, 40 and 80 specimens of Hydrobia ulvae, a common gastropod from European intertidal mudflats. As a control experiment, one dish was treated similarly but maintained without Hydrobia. After two days, most of the sediment in the Hydrobia treatments was compacted into small cylindrical gastropod feces and the tests of living benthic foraminifera (Ammonia tepida and Haynesina germanica) were clean and easily visible. Additional experiments showed that the foraminifera were not ingested by Hydrobia ulvae, and could be picked quickly and easily

Precise Dynamical Masses of Directly Imaged Companions from Relative Astrometry, Radial Velocities, and Hipparcos-Gaia DR2 Accelerations

We measure dynamical masses for five objects--three ultracool dwarfs, one low-mass star, and one white dwarf--by fitting orbits to a combination of the Hipparcos-Gaia Catalog of Accelerations, literature radial velocities, and relative astrometry. Our approach provides precise masses without any assumptions about the primary star, even though the observations typically cover only a small fraction of an orbit. We also perform a uniform re-analysis of the host stars' ages. Two of our objects, HD 4747B and HR 7672B, already have precise dynamical masses near the stellar/substellar boundary and are used to validate our approach. For Gl 758B, we obtain a mass of $m=38.1_{-1.5}^{+1.7}$ $M_{Jup}$, the most precise mass measurement of this companion to date. Gl 758B is the coldest brown dwarf with a dynamical mass, and the combination of our low mass and slightly older host-star age resolves its previously noted discrepancy with substellar evolutionary models. HD 68017B, a late-M dwarf, has a mass of $m=0.147\pm 0.003$ $M_\odot$, consistent with stellar theory and previous empirical estimates based on its absolute magnitude. The progenitor of the white dwarf Gl 86B has been debated in the literature, and our dynamical measurement of $m=0.595 \pm 0.010$ $M_\odot$ is consistent with a higher progenitor mass and younger age for this planet-hosting binary system. Overall, these case studies represent only five of the thousands of accelerating systems identified by combining Hipparcos and Gaia. Our analysis could be repeated for many of them to build a large sample of companions with dynamical masses.Comment: 33 pages, 24 figures, 9 tables, AJ accepted with minor revision

Subducted and recycled lithosphere as the mantle source of ocean island basalts from southern Polynesia, central Pacific

L'étude géochimique et pétrographique des basaltes des archipels volcaniques de la Polynésie Française montre que ces roches dérivent d'une lithosphère ancienne ayant subi une subduction et un recyclage. La composition chimique et isotopique des basaltes montre l'existence d'hétérogénéités géochimiques pour la source magmatique : elles s'expliquent par un mélange de la croûte océanique avec une péridotite résiduelle

Studying the Physical Diversity of Late-M Dwarfs with Dynamical Masses

We present a systematic study of the physical properties of late-M dwarfs based on high-quality dynamical mass measurements and near-infrared (NIR) spectra. We use astrometry from Keck NGS and LGS AO imaging to determine orbits for late-M binaries. We find that LP 349-25 (M7.5+M8) is a pair of young brown dwarfs (Mtot = 0.120 Msun) for which Lyon and Tucson evolutionary models jointly predict an age of 140+/-30 Myr. This is consistent with the age of the Pleiades, but at least LP 349-25A defies the empirical Pleiades lithium depletion boundary, implying that the system is in fact older and that evolutionary models underpredict the component luminosities. We find that LHS 1901AB (M6.5+M6.5) is a pair of very low-mass stars (Mtot = 0.194 Msun) with model-derived ages consistent with limits from its lack of activity (> 6 Gyr). Our improved orbit for Gl 569Bab (M8.5+M9) results in a higher mass for this binary (Mtot = 0.140 Msun) compared to previous work (0.125 Msun). We use these masses along with our published results for 2MASS J2206-2047AB (M8+M8) to test four sets of ultracool model atmospheres currently in use. Fitting these models to our NIR integrated-light spectra provides temperature estimates warmer by ~250 K than those derived independently from Dusty evolutionary models given the measured masses and luminosities. We propose that model atmospheres are more likely to be the source of this discrepancy, as it would be difficult to explain a uniform temperature offset over such a wide range of masses, ages, and activity levels in the context of evolutionary models. Our results contrast those of Konopacky et al. as we find an opposite and smaller mass discrepancy from what they report when we adopt their model-testing approach since our Teff estimates from fitting spectra are ~650 K higher than from their fitting of broadband photometry alone.Comment: 53 pages, 12 figures, accepted to Ap