Active foundering of a continental arc root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada in California

Seismic data provide images of crust–mantle interactions during ongoing removal of the dense batholithic root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada mountains in California. The removal appears to have initiated between 10 and 3 Myr ago with a Rayleigh–Taylor-type instability, but with a pronounced asymmetric flow into a mantle downwelling (drip) beneath the adjacent Great Valley. A nearly horizontal shear zone accommodated the detachment of the ultramafic root from its granitoid batholith. With continuing flow into the mantle drip, viscous drag at the base of the remaining ~35-km-thick crust has thickened the crust by ~7 km in a narrow welt beneath the western flank of the range. Adjacent to the welt and at the top of the drip, a V-shaped cone of crust is being dragged down tens of kilometres into the core of the mantle drip, causing the disappearance of the Moho in the seismic images. Viscous coupling between the crust and mantle is therefore apparently driving present-day surface subsidence

Research on Constructing a Model of Collaborative Innovation System for Equipment Manufacturing Industry

In contrast to extant researches, this paper stats from the definition and analysis of manufacturing industry collaborative innovation system. Then, the author constructed a concept model of collaborative innovation system for equipment manufacturing industry. The model consists of a sub-system of cooperation education of government, enterprise, university and scientific research organization(CEGEUSRO), a sub-system of industry chain and a supporting platform system. On the foundation of the concept model, a system dynamic model was developed and simulation experiment was conducted

Shear wave velocities in the Pampean flat-slab region from Rayleigh wave tomography: Implications for slab and upper mantle hydration

The Pampean flat-slab region, located in central Argentina and Chile between 29° and 34°S, is considered a modern analog for Laramide flat-slab subduction within western North America. Regionally, flat-slab subduction is characterized by the Nazca slab descending to ∼100 km depth, flattening out for ∼300 km laterally before resuming a more “normal” angle of subduction. Flat-slab subduction correlates spatially with the track of the Juan Fernandez Ridge, and is associated with the inboard migration of deformation and the cessation of volcanism within the region. To better understand flat-slab subduction we combine ambient-noise tomography and earthquake-generated surface wave measurements to calculate a regional 3D shear velocity model for the region. Shear wave velocity variations largely relate to changes in lithology within the crust, with basins and bedrock exposures clearly defined as low- and high-velocity regions, respectively. We argue that subduction-related hydration plays a significant role in controlling shear wave velocities within the upper mantle. In the southern part of the study area, where normal-angle subduction is occurring, the slab is visible as a high-velocity body with a low-velocity mantle wedge above it, extending eastward from the active arc. Where flat-slab subduction is occurring, slab velocities increase to the east while velocities in the overlying lithosphere decrease, consistent with the slab dewatering and gradually hydrating the overlying mantle. The hydration of the slab may be contributing to the excess buoyancy of the subducting oceanic lithosphere, helping to drive flat-slab subduction

Lost in diversity: the interactions between soil-borne fungi, biodiversity and plant productivity

There is consensus that plant species richness enhances plant productivity within natural grasslands, but the underlying drivers remain debated. Recently, differential accumulation of soil-borne fungal pathogens across the plant diversity gradient has been proposed as a cause of this pattern. However, the below-ground environment has generally been treated as a ‘black box’ in biodiversity experiments, leaving these fungi unidentified. * Using next generation sequencing and pathogenicity assays, we analysed the community composition of root-associated fungi from a biodiversity experiment to examine if evidence exists for host specificity and negative density dependence in the interplay between soil-borne fungi, plant diversity and productivity. * Plant species were colonised by distinct (pathogenic) fungal communities and isolated fungal species showed negative, species-specific effects on plant growth. Moreover, 57% of the pathogenic fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) recorded in plant monocultures were not detected in eight plant species plots, suggesting a loss of pathogenic OTUs with plant diversity. * Our work provides strong evidence for host specificity and negative density-dependent effects of root-associated fungi on plant species in grasslands. Our work substantiates the hypothesis that fungal root pathogens are an important driver of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships

Unusually deep earthquakes in the central Sierra Nevada (California, USA): Foundering ultramafic lithosphere?

Using a network of temporarily deployed broadband seismometers, we characterize an unusual region of crustal earthquakes in the west-central Sierra Nevada, California (USA). We locate 131 earthquakes, which occurred from 3.1 to 47.1 km deep during June 2005 to May 2006. We detect more events, at greater depths, than are present in the Northern California Seismic Network catalog during this period. Most of the events occur at depths of 20&ndash;35 km and cluster into two distinct groups. In addition, some of the events appear to be repeating due to the similarity of their waveforms and locations. We calculate focal mechanisms for 52 of these events, and about half exhibit reverse faulting, which represents a state of horizontal compressional stress that is distinct from the regional stress field. From first arrivals, we calculate a one-dimensional model of crustal P-wavespeeds, which resolves a gradational increase from 5.8 km/s near the surface to 6.7 km/s at 35 km depth. The events overlie a significant variation in the character of the Moho, and two long-period events occur near the seismically imaged Moho at nearly 40 km depth. We suggest that these earthquakes could be the seismogenic response of the crust to active foundering of mafic-ultramafic lithosphere and resultant asthenospheric upwelling beneath the central Sierra Nevada. </div

Argo data 1999-2019: two million temperature-salinity profiles and subsurface velocity observations from a global array of profiling floats.

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Wong, A. P. S., Wijffels, S. E., Riser, S. C., Pouliquen, S., Hosoda, S., Roemmich, D., Gilson, J., Johnson, G. C., Martini, K., Murphy, D. J., Scanderbeg, M., Bhaskar, T. V. S. U., Buck, J. J. H., Merceur, F., Carval, T., Maze, G., Cabanes, C., Andre, X., Poffa, N., Yashayaev, I., Barker, P. M., Guinehut, S., Belbeoch, M., Ignaszewski, M., Baringer, M. O., Schmid, C., Lyman, J. M., McTaggart, K. E., Purkey, S. G., Zilberman, N., Alkire, M. B., Swift, D., Owens, W. B., Jayne, S. R., Hersh, C., Robbins, P., West-Mack, D., Bahr, F., Yoshida, S., Sutton, P. J. H., Cancouet, R., Coatanoan, C., Dobbler, D., Juan, A. G., Gourrion, J., Kolodziejczyk, N., Bernard, V., Bourles, B., Claustre, H., D'Ortenzio, F., Le Reste, S., Le Traon, P., Rannou, J., Saout-Grit, C., Speich, S., Thierry, V., Verbrugge, N., Angel-Benavides, I. M., Klein, B., Notarstefano, G., Poulain, P., Velez-Belchi, P., Suga, T., Ando, K., Iwasaska, N., Kobayashi, T., Masuda, S., Oka, E., Sato, K., Nakamura, T., Sato, K., Takatsuki, Y., Yoshida, T., Cowley, R., Lovell, J. L., Oke, P. R., van Wijk, E. M., Carse, F., Donnelly, M., Gould, W. J., Gowers, K., King, B. A., Loch, S. G., Mowat, M., Turton, J., Rama Rao, E. P., Ravichandran, M., Freeland, H. J., Gaboury, I., Gilbert, D., Greenan, B. J. W., Ouellet, M., Ross, T., Tran, A., Dong, M., Liu, Z., Xu, J., Kang, K., Jo, H., Kim, S., & Park, H. Argo data 1999-2019: two million temperature-salinity profiles and subsurface velocity observations from a global array of profiling floats. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, (2020): 700, doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00700.In the past two decades, the Argo Program has collected, processed, and distributed over two million vertical profiles of temperature and salinity from the upper two kilometers of the global ocean. A similar number of subsurface velocity observations near 1,000 dbar have also been collected. This paper recounts the history of the global Argo Program, from its aspiration arising out of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, to the development and implementation of its instrumentation and telecommunication systems, and the various technical problems encountered. We describe the Argo data system and its quality control procedures, and the gradual changes in the vertical resolution and spatial coverage of Argo data from 1999 to 2019. The accuracies of the float data have been assessed by comparison with high-quality shipboard measurements, and are concluded to be 0.002°C for temperature, 2.4 dbar for pressure, and 0.01 PSS-78 for salinity, after delayed-mode adjustments. Finally, the challenges faced by the vision of an expanding Argo Program beyond 2020 are discussed.AW, SR, and other scientists at the University of Washington (UW) were supported by the US Argo Program through the NOAA Grant NA15OAR4320063 to the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) at the UW. SW and other scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) were supported by the US Argo Program through the NOAA Grant NA19OAR4320074 (CINAR/WHOI Argo). The Scripps Institution of Oceanography's role in Argo was supported by the US Argo Program through the NOAA Grant NA15OAR4320071 (CIMEC). Euro-Argo scientists were supported by the Monitoring the Oceans and Climate Change with Argo (MOCCA) project, under the Grant Agreement EASME/EMFF/2015/1.2.1.1/SI2.709624 for the European Commission

Common Genetic Polymorphisms Influence Blood Biomarker Measurements in COPD

Implementing precision medicine for complex diseases such as chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) will require extensive use of biomarkers and an in-depth understanding of how genetic, epigenetic, and environmental variations contribute to phenotypic diversity and disease progression. A meta-analysis from two large cohorts of current and former smokers with and without COPD [SPIROMICS (N = 750); COPDGene (N = 590)] was used to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with measurement of 88 blood proteins (protein quantitative trait loci; pQTLs). PQTLs consistently replicated between the two cohorts. Features of pQTLs were compared to previously reported expression QTLs (eQTLs). Inference of causal relations of pQTL genotypes, biomarker measurements, and four clinical COPD phenotypes (airflow obstruction, emphysema, exacerbation history, and chronic bronchitis) were explored using conditional independence tests. We identified 527 highly significant (p 10% of measured variation in 13 protein biomarkers, with a single SNP (rs7041; p = 10−392) explaining 71%-75% of the measured variation in vitamin D binding protein (gene = GC). Some of these pQTLs [e.g., pQTLs for VDBP, sRAGE (gene = AGER), surfactant protein D (gene = SFTPD), and TNFRSF10C] have been previously associated with COPD phenotypes. Most pQTLs were local (cis), but distant (trans) pQTL SNPs in the ABO blood group locus were the top pQTL SNPs for five proteins. The inclusion of pQTL SNPs improved the clinical predictive value for the established association of sRAGE and emphysema, and the explanation of variance (R2) for emphysema improved from 0.3 to 0.4 when the pQTL SNP was included in the model along with clinical covariates. Causal modeling provided insight into specific pQTL-disease relationships for airflow obstruction and emphysema. In conclusion, given the frequency of highly significant local pQTLs, the large amount of variance potentially explained by pQTL, and the differences observed between pQTLs and eQTLs SNPs, we recommend that protein biomarker-disease association studies take into account the potential effect of common local SNPs and that pQTLs be integrated along with eQTLs to uncover disease mechanisms. Large-scale blood biomarker studies would also benefit from close attention to the ABO blood group

Quantifying dispersal between marine protected areas by a highly mobile species, the bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus

M.N. was funded by a Crawford‐Hayes studentship and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), Department of Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht, Ireland. E.D. was supported by the Beaufort Marine Research Award in Fish Population Genetics funded by the Irish Government under the Sea Change Programme. Financial support for A.D.F. was provided by the Welsh Government and Higher Education Funding Council for Wales through the Sêr Cymru National Research Network for Low Carbon, Energy and Environment, and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement No. 663830.The functioning of marine protected areas (MPAs) designated for marine megafauna has been criticized due to the high mobility and dispersal potential of these taxa. However, dispersal within a network of small MPAs can be beneficial as connectivity can result in increased effective population size, maintain genetic diversity, and increase robustness to ecological and environmental changes making populations less susceptible to stochastic genetic and demographic effects (i.e., Allee effect). Here, we use both genetic and photo-identification methods to quantify gene flow and demographic dispersal between MPAs of a highly mobile marine mammal, the bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus. We identify three populations in the waters of western Ireland, two of which have largely nonoverlapping core coastal home ranges and are each strongly spatially associated with specific MPAs. We find high site fidelity of individuals within each of these two coastal populations to their respective MPA. We also find low levels of demographic dispersal between the populations, but it remains unclear whether any new gametes are exchanged between populations through these migrants (genetic dispersal). The population sampled in the Shannon Estuary has a low estimated effective population size and appears to be genetically isolated. The second coastal population, sampled outside of the Shannon, may be demographically and genetically connected to other coastal subpopulations around the coastal waters of the UK. We therefore recommend that the methods applied here should be used on a broader geographically sampled dataset to better assess this connectivity.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

STRUCTURE IMAGING IN THE AREA OF MT. MEAGER

According to Natural Resources Canada, South Mt. Meager project, which taken place in this area, is the most advanced geothermal power project in all Canada (Natural Resources Canada, 2017). We mainly focus on studying a background reference model in this study. Passive Seismic Tomography (PST) is the geophysical technique that I applied in this study.University of Calgary - Research Gran