222 research outputs found
Late Eocene to middle Miocene (33 to 13 million years ago) vegetation and climate development on the North American Atlantic Coastal Plain (IODP Expedition 313, Site M0027)
ArticleWe investigated the palynology of sediment cores from Site M0027 of IODP (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program) Expedition 313 on the New Jersey shallow shelf to examine vegetation and climate dynamics on the east coast of North America between 33 and 13 million years ago and to assess the impact of over-regional climate events on the region. Palynological results are complemented with pollen-based quantitative climate reconstructions. Our results indicate that the hinterland vegetation of the New Jersey shelf was characterized by oakâhickory forests in the lowlands and conifer-dominated vegetation in the highlands from the early Oligocene to the middle Miocene. The Oligocene witnessed several expansions of conifer forest, probably related to cooling events. The pollen-based climate data imply an increase in annual temperatures from âŒ11.5 °C to more than 16 °C during the Oligocene.
The Mi-1 cooling event at the onset of the Miocene is reflected by an expansion of conifers and mean annual temperature decrease of âŒ4 °C, from âŒ16 °C to âŒ12 °C around 23 million years before present. Relatively low annual temperatures are also recorded for several samples during an interval around âŒ20 million years before present, which may reflect the Mi-1a and the Mi-1aa cooling events. Generally, the Miocene ecosystem and climate conditions were very similar to those of the Oligocene. Miocene grasslands, as known from other areas in the USA during that time period, are not evident for the hinterland of the New Jersey shelf, possibly reflecting moisture from the proto-Gulf Stream.
The palaeovegetation data reveal stable conditions during the mid-Miocene climatic optimum at âŒ15 million years before present, with only a minor increase in deciduousâevergreen mixed forest taxa and a decrease in swamp forest taxa. Pollen-based annual temperature reconstructions show average annual temperatures of âŒ14 °C during the mid-Miocene climatic optimum, âŒ2 °C higher than today, but âŒ1.5 °C lower than preceding and following phases of the Miocene. We conclude that vegetation and regional climate in the hinterland of the New Jersey shelf did not react as sensitively to Oligocene and Miocene climate changes as other regions in North America or Europe due to the moderating effects of the North Atlantic. An additional explanation for the relatively low regional temperatures reconstructed for the mid-Miocene climatic optimum could be an uplift of the Appalachian Mountains during the Miocene, which would also have influenced the catchment area of our pollen record.We thank the entire IODP Expedition 313
Scientific Party for input, and the IODP staff for support. We thank
M. Drljepan, R. Zanatta, V. Menke, K. Reichel, and S. Namyslo
for their assistance with preparing and processing the samples, and
during photographing. Discussions with C. Bjerrum, J. Browning,
T. Donders, L. Fang, M. Katz, Y. Milker, K. Miller, and P. Sugarman
are gratefully acknowledged. Input from K. DybkjĂŠr and
anonymous reviewers was very much appreciated and contributed
to a significant condensing of the manuscript. The German Science
Foundation supported the research (DFG project KO 3944/3-1 to
U. Kotthoff). Funding was also provided by NSERC Discovery
Grants to F. M. G. McCarthy and to D. R. Greenwood respectively.
NERC supported work by S. P. Hesselbo. This research used
samples and/or data provided by the Integrated Ocean Drilling
Program (IODP)
The KASCADE-Grande Experiment and the LOPES Project
KASCADE-Grande is the extension of the multi-detector setup KASCADE to cover
a primary cosmic ray energy range from 100 TeV to 1 EeV. The enlarged EAS
experiment provides comprehensive observations of cosmic rays in the energy
region around the knee. Grande is an array of 700 x 700 sqm equipped with 37
plastic scintillator stations sensitive to measure energy deposits and arrival
times of air shower particles. LOPES is a small radio antenna array to operate
in conjunction with KASCADE-Grande in order to calibrate the radio emission
from cosmic ray air showers. Status and capabilities of the KASCADE-Grande
experiment and the LOPES project are presented.Comment: To appear in Nuclear Physics B, Proceedings Supplements, as part of
the volume for the CRIS 2004, Cosmic Ray International Seminar: GZK and
Surrounding
Ocean Acidification-Induced Food Quality Deterioration Constrains Trophic Transfer
Our present understanding of ocean acidification (OA) impacts on marine organisms caused by rapidly rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is almost entirely limited to single species responses. OA consequences for food web interactions are, however, still unknown. Indirect OA effects can be expected for consumers by changing the nutritional quality of their prey. We used a laboratory experiment to test potential OA effects on algal fatty acid (FA) composition and resulting copepod growth. We show that elevated CO2 significantly changed the FA concentration and composition of the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana, which constrained growth and reproduction of the copepod Acartia tonsa. A significant decline in both total FAs (28.1 to 17.4 fg cellâ1) and the ratio of long-chain polyunsaturated to saturated fatty acids (PUFA:SFA) of food algae cultured under elevated (750 ”atm) compared to present day (380 ”atm) pCO2 was directly translated to copepods. The proportion of total essential FAs declined almost tenfold in copepods and the contribution of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) tripled at high CO2. This rapid and reversible CO2-dependent shift in FA concentration and composition caused a decrease in both copepod somatic growth and egg production from 34 to 5 eggs femaleâ1 dayâ1. Because the diatom-copepod link supports some of the most productive ecosystems in the world, our study demonstrates that OA can have far-reaching consequences for ocean food webs by changing the nutritional quality of essential macromolecules in primary producers that cascade up the food web
Results from the KASCADE, KASCADE-Grande, and LOPES experiments
The origin of high-energy cosmic rays in the energy range from 10^14 to 10^18
eV is explored with the KASCADE and KASCADE-Grande experiments. Radio signals
from air showers are measured with the LOPES experiment. An overview on results
is given.Comment: Talk at The ninth International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle
and Underground Physics, TAUP 2005, Zaragoza, September 10-14, 200
Charmonium absorption by nucleons
dissociation in collisions with nucleons is studied within a boson
exchange model and the energy dependence of the dissociation cross section is
calculated from the threshold for production to high
energies. We illustrate the agreement of our results with calculations based on
short distance QCD and Regge theory. The compatibility between our calculations
and the data on photoproduction on a nucleon is discussed. We evaluate
the elastic cross section using a forward dispersion relation and
demonstrate the overall agreement with the predictions from QCD sum rules. Our
results are compatible with the phenomenological dissociation cross section
evaluated from the experimental data on production from ,
and collisions.Comment: 14 pages, revtex, including 13 figures, accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev.
Nonextensive perfect hydrodynamics - a model of dissipative relativistic hydrodynamics?
We demonstrate that nonextensive perfect relativistic hydrodynamics
(-hydrodynamics) can serve as a model of the usual relativistic dissipative
hydrodynamics (-hydrodynamics) facilitating therefore considerably its
applications. As illustration we show how using -hydrodynamics one gets the
-dependent expressions for the dissipative entropy current and the
corresponding ratios of the bulk and shear viscosities to entropy density,
and .Comment: Invited talk presented at SigmaPhi2008 conference, Kolymbari, Crete,
14-18 July 2008, revised version to be published in Cent. Eur. J. Phys.
(2009
Long-Term Conditioning to Elevated pCO2 and Warming Influences the Fatty and Amino Acid Composition of the Diatom Cylindrotheca fusiformis
The unabated rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions is predicted to strongly influence the ocean's environment, increasing the mean sea-surface temperature by 4°C and causing a pH decline of 0.3 units by the year 2100. These changes are likely to affect the nutritional value of marine food sources since temperature and CO2 can influence the fatty (FA) and amino acid (AA) composition of marine primary producers. Here, essential amino (EA) and polyunsaturated fatty (PUFA) acids are of particular importance due to their nutritional value to higher trophic levels. In order to determine the interactive effects of CO2 and temperature on the nutritional quality of a primary producer, we analyzed the relative PUFA and EA composition of the diatom Cylindrotheca fusiformis cultured under a factorial matrix of 2 temperatures (14 and 19°C) and 3 partial pressures of CO2 (180, 380, 750 ÎŒatm) for >250 generations. Our results show a decay of âŒ3% and âŒ6% in PUFA and EA content in algae kept at a pCO2 of 750 ÎŒatm (high) compared to the 380 ÎŒatm (intermediate) CO2 treatments at 14°C. Cultures kept at 19°C displayed a âŒ3% lower PUFA content under high compared to intermediate pCO2, while EA did not show differences between treatments. Algae grown at a pCO2 of 180 ÎŒatm (low) had a lower PUFA and AA content in relation to those at intermediate and high CO2 levels at 14°C, but there were no differences in EA at 19°C for any CO2 treatment. This study is the first to report adverse effects of warming and acidification on the EA of a primary producer, and corroborates previous observations of negative effects of these stressors on PUFA. Considering that only âŒ20% of essential biomolecules such as PUFA (and possibly EA) are incorporated into new biomass at the next trophic level, thepotential impacts of adverse effects of ocean warming and acidification at the base of the food web may be amplified towards higher trophic levels, which rely on them as source of essential biomolecules
The Pierre Auger Observatory III: Other Astrophysical Observations
Astrophysical observations of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with the Pierre
Auger ObservatoryComment: Contributions to the 32nd International Cosmic Ray Conference,
Beijing, China, August 201
A search for point sources of EeV photons
Measurements of air showers made using the hybrid technique developed with
the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory allow a
sensitive search for point sources of EeV photons anywhere in the exposed sky.
A multivariate analysis reduces the background of hadronic cosmic rays. The
search is sensitive to a declination band from -85{\deg} to +20{\deg}, in an
energy range from 10^17.3 eV to 10^18.5 eV. No photon point source has been
detected. An upper limit on the photon flux has been derived for every
direction. The mean value of the energy flux limit that results from this,
assuming a photon spectral index of -2, is 0.06 eV cm^-2 s^-1, and no celestial
direction exceeds 0.25 eV cm^-2 s^-1. These upper limits constrain scenarios in
which EeV cosmic ray protons are emitted by non-transient sources in the
Galaxy.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journa
Reconstruction of inclined air showers detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory
We describe the method devised to reconstruct inclined cosmic-ray air showers
with zenith angles greater than detected with the surface array of
the Pierre Auger Observatory. The measured signals at the ground level are
fitted to muon density distributions predicted with atmospheric cascade models
to obtain the relative shower size as an overall normalization parameter. The
method is evaluated using simulated showers to test its performance. The energy
of the cosmic rays is calibrated using a sub-sample of events reconstructed
with both the fluorescence and surface array techniques. The reconstruction
method described here provides the basis of complementary analyses including an
independent measurement of the energy spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
using very inclined events collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: 27 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of
Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP
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