976 research outputs found
Some aspects of the ecology of the leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea at Laguna Jalova, Costa Rica
The ecology and reproductive biology of the leatherback turtle (Dennochelys coriacea) was studied on a high-energy nesting beach near Laguna Jalova, Costa Rica, between 28 March and 8 June 1985. The peak of nesting was between 15
April and 21 May. Leatherbacks here measured an average 146.6 cm straightline standard carapace length and laid an average 81.57 eggs. The eggs measured a mean 52.12 mm diameter and weighed an average of 85.01 g. Significant positive relationships were found between the carapace lengths of nesters and their clutch sizes and average diameter and weight of eggs. The total clutch weighed between 4.02 and 13.39 kg, and yolkless eggs accounted for an average 12.4% of this weight. The majority of nesters dug shallow (<24 cm) body pits and spent an average
81 minutes at the nest site. A significant number of c1utcbes were laid below the berm crest. In a hatchery 42.2% of the eggs hatched, while in natural nests 70.2%
hatched. The average hatchling carapace length was 59.8 mm and weight was 44.6 g. The longevity of leatherback tracks and nests on the beach was affected by weather. One nester was recaptured about one year later off the coast of
Mississippi, U.S.A. Egg poaching was intense on some sections of the Costa Rican coast. Four aerial surveys in four different months provided the basis for comparing
density of nesting on seven sectors of the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. The beach at Jalova is heavily used by green turtles (Chelonia mydJJs) after the leatherback nesting season. The role of the Parque Nacional Tortuguero in conserving the leatherback and green turtle is discussed.(PDF file contains 20 pages.
On the incompatibility of strains and its application to mesoscopic studies of plasticity
Structural transitions are invariably affected by lattice distortions. If the
body is to remain crack-free, the strain field cannot be arbitrary but has to
satisfy the Saint-Venant compatibility constraint. Equivalently, an
incompatibility constraint consistent with the actual dislocation network has
to be satisfied in media with dislocations. This constraint can be incorporated
into strain-based free energy functionals to study the influence of
dislocations on phase stability. We provide a systematic analysis of this
constraint in three dimensions and show how three incompatibility equations
accommodate an arbitrary dislocation density. This approach allows the internal
stress field to be calculated for an anisotropic material with spatially
inhomogeneous microstructure and distribution of dislocations by minimizing the
free energy. This is illustrated by calculating the stress field of an edge
dislocation and comparing it with that of an edge dislocation in an infinite
isotropic medium. We outline how this procedure can be utilized to study the
interaction of plasticity with polarization and magnetization.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; will appear in Phys. Rev.
Upper mantle seismic anisotropy at a strike-slip boundary: South Island, New Zealand
New shear wave splitting measurements made from stations onshore and offshore the South Island of New Zealand show a zone of anisotropy 100–200 km wide. Measurements in central South Island and up to approximately 100 km offshore from the west coast yield orientations of the fast quasi-shear wave nearly parallel to relative plate motion, with increased obliquity to this orientation observed farther from shore. On the eastern side of the island, fast orientations rotate counterclockwise to become nearly perpendicular to the orientation of relative plate motion approximately 200 km off the east coast. Uniform delay times between the fast and slow quasi-shear waves of nearly 2.0 s onshore continue to stations approximately 100 km off the west coast, after which they decrease to ~1 s at 200 km. Stations more than ~300 km from the west coast show little to no splitting. East coast stations have delay times around 1 s. Simple strain fields calculated from a thin viscous sheet model (representing distributed lithospheric deformation) with strain rates decreasing exponentially to both the northwest and southeast with e-folding dimensions of 25–35 km (approximately 75% of the deformation within a zone 100–140 km wide) match orientations and amounts of observed splitting. A model of deformation localized in the lithosphere and then spreading out in the asthenosphere also yields predictions consistent with observed splitting if, at depths of 100–130 km below the lithosphere, typical grain sizes are ~ 6–7 mm.New Zealand. Ministry of Research, Science, and TechnologyNational Science Foundation (U.S.). Continental Dynamics Program (Grant EAR-0409564)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Continental Dynamics Program (Grant EAR-0409609)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Continental Dynamics Program (Grant EAR-0409835
"Cold Melting" of Invar Alloys
An anomalously strong volume magnetostriction in Invars may lead to a
situation when at low temperatures the dislocation free energy becomes negative
and a multiple generation of dislocations becomes possible. This generation
induces a first order phase transition from the FCC crystalline to an amorphous
state, and may be called "cold melting". The possibility of the cold melting in
Invars is connected with the fact that the exchange energy contribution into
the dislocation self energy in Invars is strongly enhanced, as compared to
conventional ferromagnetics, due to anomalously strong volume magnetostriction.
The possible candidate, where this effect can be observed, is a FePt disordered
Invar alloy in which the volume magnetostriction is especially large
Discrete models of dislocations and their motion in cubic crystals
A discrete model describing defects in crystal lattices and having the
standard linear anisotropic elasticity as its continuum limit is proposed. The
main ingredients entering the model are the elastic stiffness constants of the
material and a dimensionless periodic function that restores the translation
invariance of the crystal and influences the Peierls stress. Explicit
expressions are given for crystals with cubic symmetry: sc, fcc and bcc.
Numerical simulations of this model with conservative or damped dynamics
illustrate static and moving edge and screw dislocations and describe their
cores and profiles. Dislocation loops and dipoles are also numerically
observed. Cracks can be created and propagated by applying a sufficient load to
a dipole formed by two edge dislocations.Comment: 23 pages, 15 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Finite temperature molecular dynamics study of unstable stacking fault free energies in silicon
We calculate the free energies of unstable stacking fault (USF)
configurations on the glide and shuffle slip planes in silicon as a function of
temperature, using the recently developed Environment Dependent Interatomic
Potential (EDIP). We employ the molecular dynamics (MD) adiabatic switching
method with appropriate periodic boundary conditions and restrictions to atomic
motion that guarantee stability and include volume relaxation of the USF
configurations perpendicular to the slip plane. Our MD results using the EDIP
model agree fairly well with earlier first-principles estimates for the
transition from shuffle to glide plane dominance as a function of temperature.
We use these results to make contact to brittle-ductile transition models.Comment: 6 pages revtex, 4 figs, 16 refs, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Hawksbill turtle in the Caribbean Sea
29 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.Includes bibliographical references (p. 28-29)
Vortex pinning by natural defects in thin films of YBa2Cu3O7−δ
Although vortex pinning in laser-ablated YBa2Cu3O7−δ films on (100) SrTiO3 is dominated by threading dislocations, many other natural pinning sites are present. To identify the contribution from twin planes, surface corrugations and point defects, we manipulate the relative densities of all defects by post-annealing films with various as-grown dislocation densities, ndisl. While a universal magnetic field B dependence of the transport current density js(B, T) is observed (independently of ndisl, temperature T and the annealing treatment), the defect structure changes considerably. Correlating the microstructure to js(B, T), it becomes clear that surface roughness, twins and point defects are not important at low magnetic fields compared to linear defect pinning. Transmission electron microscopy indicates that threading dislocations are not part of grain boundaries nor are they related to the twin domain structure. We conclude that js(B, T) is essentially determined by pinning along threading dislocations, naturally induced during the growth process. Even in high magnetic fields, where the vortex density outnumbers ndisl, it appears that linear defects stabilize the vortex lattice by means of the vortex–vortex interaction.
Electronic structure and total energy of interstitial hydrogen in iron: Tight binding models
An application of the tight binding approximation is presented for the
description of electronic structure and interatomic force in magnetic iron,
both pure and containing hydrogen impurities. We assess the simple canonical
d-band description in comparison to a non orthogonal model including s and d
bands. The transferability of our models is tested against known properties
including the segregation energies of hydrogen to vacancies and to surfaces of
iron. In many cases agreement is remarkably good, opening up the way to quantum
mechanical atomistic simulation of the effects of hydrogen on mechanical
properties
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