Taxonomy and biostratigraphy of new and emended species of Cenozoic deep-water agglutinated foraminifera from the Labrador and North Seas

Deep marine, fine grained sedimentary strata of Maastrichtian through Miocene age in the Labrador and North Sea sedimentary basins are rich in agglutinated benthic foraminifera. Six new taxa have been found in these regions, several of which also extend to other circum-Atlantic Paleogene localities. The new taxa are: Ammomarginulina aubertae, n. sp. (Maastrichtian to Eocene), Adercotryma agterbergi, n. sp. (middle Eocene to lower Oligocene), Reticulophragmoides jarvisi (Thalmann) emended herein (Paleocene to lower Oligocene), Reticulophragmoides sp. 5 (Oligocene to Miocene), and Spiroplectammina navarroana Cushman emended herein (Maastrichtian to lower middle Eocene). The last occurrences of these taxa are important elements in the high-resolution probabilistic biozonations for the Labrador and North Sea basins

Epiphytic bryophytes of Monteverde, Costa Rica

A survey of the literature and collections in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve and adjacent pastureland yielded a total of 198 epiphytic bryophyte taxa (120 species of hepatics in 50 genera, 77 species of moss in 48 genera, and 1 hornwort): 178 in the primary forest, 63 in the secondary forest, and 84 in the pastureland

Mass mortality and extraterrestrial impacts

The discovery of iridium enrichment at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary resulted in formulation of hypothesis of a cometary or asteroid impact as the cause of the biological extinctions at this boundary. Subsequent discoveries of geochemical anomalies at major stratigraphic boundaries like the Precambrian/Cambrian, Permian/Triassic, Middle/Late Jurassic, resulted in the application of similar extraterrestrial impact theories to explain biological changes at these boundaries. Until recently the major physical evidence, as is the location of the impact crater site, to test the impact induced biological extinction was lacking. The diameter of such a crater would be in the range of 60 to 100 km. The recent discovery of the first impact crater in the ocean provide the first opportunity to test the above theory. The crater, named Montagnais and located on the outer shelf off Nova Scotia, Canada, has a minimum diameter of 42 km, with some evidence to a diameter of more than 60 km. At the Montagnais impact site, micropaleontological analysis of the uppermost 80 m of the fall-back breccia represented by a mixture of pre-impact sediments and basement rocks which fills the crater and of the basal 50 m of post-impact marine sediments which overly the impact deposits, revealed presence of diversified foraminiferal and nannoplankton assemblages. The sediments which are intercalated within the uppermost part of the fall-back breccia, had to be deposited before the meteorite impact. The post-impact deposits were laid down almost immediately after the impact as also supported by the micropaleontological data. In conclusion, micropaleontological studies of sediments from the first submarine impact crater site identified in the ocean did not reveal any mass extinction or significant biological changes at the impact site or in the proximal deep ocean basin

Theory of 4e versus 2e supercurrent in frustrated Josepshon-junction rhombi chain

We consider a chain of Josepshon-junction rhombi (proposed originally in \cite{Doucot}) in quantum regime, and in the realistic case when charging effects are determined by junction capacitances. In the maximally frustrated case when magnetic flux through each rhombi $\Phi_r$ is equal to one half of superconductive flux quantum $\Phi_0$, Josepshon current is due to correlated transport of {\em pairs of Cooper pairs}, i.e. charge is quantized in units of $4e$. Sufficiently strong deviation $\delta\Phi \equiv |\Phi_r-\Phi_0/2| > \delta\Phi^c$ from the maximally frustrated point brings the system back to usual $2e$-quantized supercurrent. We present detailed analysis of Josepshon current in the fluctuation-dominated regime (sufficiently long chains) as function of the chain length, $E_J/E_C$ ratio and flux deviation $\delta\Phi$. We provide estimates for the set of parameters optimized for the observation of $4e$-supercurrent.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure

A Jurassic to recent chronology

We present an integrated geomagnetic polarity and geologic time scale for the Jurassic to Recent interval, encompassing the age range of the modern ocean floor. The time scale is based on the most recent bio-, magneto-, and radiochronologic data available

Electronic structure of unidirectional superlattices in crossed electric and magnetic fields and related terahertz oscillations

We have studied Bloch electrons in a perfect unidirectional superlattice subject to crossed electric and magnetic fields, where the magnetic field is oriented ``in-plane'', i.e. in parallel to the sample plane. Two orientation of the electric field are considered. It is shown that the magnetic field suppresses the intersubband tunneling of the Zener type, but does not change the frequency of Bloch oscillations, if the electric field is oriented perpendicularly to both the sample plane and the magnetic field. The electric field applied in-plane (but perpendicularly to the magnetic field) yields the step-like electron energy spectrum, corresponding to the magnetic-field-tunable oscillations alternative to the Bloch ones.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

The spatial statistical properties of wave functions in a disordered finite one-dimensional sample

For a given wave function one can define a quantity $\mu_E$ having a meaning of its inverse spatial size. The Laplace transform of the distribution function $P(\mu_E)$ is calculated analytically for a 1D disordered sample with a finite length $L$.Comment: LaTEX, 7 pages, Preprint IFUM-456/FT, Milano, Jan.199

Decoherence of number states in phase-sensitive reservoirs

The non-unitary evolution of initial number states in general Gaussian environments is solved analytically. Decoherence in the channels is quantified by determining explicitly the purity of the state at any time. The influence of the squeezing of the bath on decoherence is discussed. The behavior of coherent superpositions of number states is addressed as well.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, minor changes, references adde