The impact of vegetation on fractionation of rare earth elements(REE) during water–rock interaction

Previous studies on waters of a streamlet in the Vosges mountains (eastern France) have shown that Sr and rare earth elements (REE) principally originate from apatite dissolution during weathering. However, stream water REE patterns normalized to apatite are still depleted in light REE (LREE, La–Sm) pointing to the presence of an additional LREE depleting process. Speciation calculations indicate that complexation cannot explain this additional LREE depletion. In contrast, vegetation samples are strongly enriched in LREE compared to water and their Sr and Nd isotopic compositions are comparable with those of apatite and waters. Thus, the preferential LREE uptake by the plants at the root–water–soil (apatite) interface might lead to an additional LREE depletion of the waters in the forested catchment. Mass balance calculations indicate that the yearly LREE uptake by vegetation is comparable with the LREE export by the streamlet and, therefore, might be an important factor controlling the LREE depletion in river waters

Economic Geology Vo|

Abstract The lower Proterozoic uranium ore deposits in the Franceville basin (Gabon) are the oldest high-grade uranium accumulations known. They are unique in that they contain evidence for natural nuclear fission reactors. Sedimentologic, tectonic, petrographic, and geochemical studies have been performed in order to reconstruct the geologic conditions in which uranium mineralization took place. Uranium deposits are located in deltaic sediments overlying fiuviatile deposits of coarse sandstone and conglomerates which are the source rocks for uranium. Deltaic sediments are overlain by marine black shales (the FB formation). Petrographic observations, electron microscope studies, and geochemical and carbon isotope data indicate that these FB black shales are source rocks for petroleum trapped in the uranium deposits. Tectonic studies show that all the uranium deposits are in tectonic structures that served as traps for both petroleum and uranium. Uranium mineralization occurs in this setting when an oxidized uranium-bearing fluid has mixed with a reduced petroleum-bearing fluid. The uranium ores are affected by hydrofracturing which forms a good pathway for the oxidized uranium-bearing fluids and the reduced fluids. Hydrofracturing may be initiated by overpressured fluids coming from undercompacted zones in the FB black shales

A threshold-improved narrow-width approximation for BSM physics

A modified narrow-width approximation that allows for O(Gamma/M)-accurate predictions for resonant particle decay with similar intermediate masses is proposed and applied to MSSM processes to demonstrate its importance for searches for particle physics beyond the Standard Model.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in JHE

Disentangling Dimension Six Operators through Di-Higgs Boson Production

New physics near the TeV scale can generate dimension-six operators that modify the production rate and branching ratios of the Higgs boson. Here, we show how Higgs boson pair production can yield complementary information on dimension-six operators involving the gluon field strength. For example, the invariant mass distribution of the Higgs boson pair can show the extent to which the masses of exotic TeV-scale quarks come from electroweak symmetry breaking. We discuss both the current Tevatron bounds on these operators and the most promising LHC measurement channels for two different Higgs masses: 120 GeV and 180 GeV. We argue that the operators considered in this paper are the ones most likely to yield interesting Higgs pair physics at the LHC.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures; v2: to match JHEP versio

2004 ATLAS Combined Testbeam : Computation and Validation of the Electronic Calibration Constants for the Electromagnetic Calorimeter

From July to November 2004, a full slice of the ATLAS barrel detector was studied in testbeam. A complete electromagnetic barrel module was used, read by the final electronics and operated by ATLAS TDAQ software. This note describes in details the electronic calibration procedure and the cell energy reconstruction: each step of the procedure and its associated software is explicitly described. The general calibration procedure is very similar to the one applied in previous barrel and endcap standalone testbeams. Emphasis is put on tools developed in the context of the combined testbeam which can be used for commissioning and operation of the calorimeters in ATLAS. Many validation studies were performed on each calibration constant. Previously unobserved effects such as the FEB temperature dependence of some constants were observed. Overall, the calibration performances are at the expected level

Determining R-parity violating parameters from neutrino and LHC data

In supersymmetric models neutrino data can be explained by R-parity violating operators which violate lepton number by one unit. The so called bilinear model can account for the observed neutrino data and predicts at the same time several decay properties of the lightest supersymmetric particle. In this paper we discuss the expected precision to determine these parameters by combining neutrino and LHC data and discuss the most important observables. We show that one can expect a rather accurate determination of the underlying R-parity parameters assuming mSUGRA relations between the R-parity conserving ones and discuss briefly also the general MSSM as well as the expected accuracies in case of a prospective e+ e- linear collider. An important observation is that several parameters can only be determined up to relative signs or more generally relative phases.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Measuring the Higgs Sector

If we find a light Higgs boson at the LHC, there should be many observable channels which we can exploit to measure the relevant parameters in the Higgs sector. We use the SFitter framework to map these measurements on the parameter space of a general weak-scale effective theory with a light Higgs state of mass 120 GeV. Our analysis benefits from the parameter determination tools and the error treatment used in new--physics searches, to study individual parameters and their error bars as well as parameter correlations.Comment: 45 pages, Journal version with comments from refere

Porosity microstructures of a sandstone affected by a normal fault

Dans un système de failles normales de la bordure du fossé rhénan, les interactions eaux-roches de part et d’autre de ces failles peuvent contrôler les conditions des circulations fluides. L’objectif de ce travail est de caractériser les structures du réseau poreux dans la zone endommagée autour d’une de ces failles. Il est intéressant d’étudier la relation entre porosité et perméabilité dans cette zone. Des études pétrographiques et pétrophysiques, des mesures microthermométriques sur des inclusions fluides et la composition isotopique de l’oxygène ont permis de caractériser les structures de porosité des roches et notamment des ciments primaires et secondaires. Le couplage de ces approches montre qu’une faille normale peut à la fois jouer le rôle de drain et de barrière à la circulation des fluides. En fonction de la direction de circulation, la faille joue le rôle de drain en laissant remonter les fluides parallèlement au plan de faille et le rôle de barrière, en focalisant les circulations dans le toit. L’anisotropie, notamment des propriétés de transfert héritées des conditions de dépôts fluviatiles, est profondément modifiée par les transferts subits dans le matériau. Ainsi les modifications des transferts dépendent des modifications du réseau poreux : l’hétérogénéité de la structure du réseau et l’anisotropie d’orientation ou de connectivité. Ce modèle de circulation est contrôlé par une interaction entre les modifications des structures du réseau poreux et les circulations fluides, entraînant des modifications de l’anisotropie de certaines propriétés du matériau autour de la faille

Full order alpha electroweak corrections to double Higgs-strahlung at the linear collider

We present the full order alpha electroweak radiative corrections to the double Higgs-strahlung process e+e- --> ZHH. The computation is performed with the help of GRACE-loop. After subtraction of the initial state QED radiative corrections, we find that the genuine weak corrections in the $\alpha$-scheme are small for Higgs masses and energies where this cross section is largest and is most likely to be studied. These corrections decrease with increasing energies attaining about $\sim -10$ at $\sqrt{s}=1.5$TeV. The full order alpha correction on the other hand is quite large at threshold but small at energies around the peak. We also study changes in the shape of the invariant mass of the Higgs pair which has been shown to be a good discriminating variable for the measurement of the triple Higgs vertex in this reaction.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures and 3 table