Ground-penetrating radar insight into a coastal aquifer: The freshwater lens of Borkum Island

Freshwater lenses, as important resource for drinking water, are sensitive to climate changes and sea level rise. To simulate this impact on the groundwater systems, hydraulic subsurface models have to be designed. Geophysical techniques can provide information for generating realistic models. The aim of our work is to show how groundpenetrating radar (GPR) investigations can contribute to such hydrological simulations. In the pilot area, Borkum island, GPR was used to map the shape of the groundwater table (GWT) and to characterise the aquifer. In total, 20 km of constant offset (CO) profiles were measured with centre frequencies of 80 and 200 MHz. Wave velocities were determined by common midpoint (CMP) measurements and vertical radar profiling (VRP) in a monitoring well. The 80MHz CO data show a clear reflection at the groundwater table, whereas the reflection is weaker for the 200MHz data. After correcting the GPR water tables for the capillary rise, they are in good accordance with the pressure heads of the observation wells in the area. In the centre of the island, the groundwater table is found up to 3.5m above sea level, however it is lower towards the coastline and marshland. Some local depressions are observed in the region of dune valleys and around pumping stations of the local water supplier. GPR also reveals details within the sediments and highly-permeable aeolian sands can be distinguished from less-permeable marine sediments. Further, a silt loam layer below the water table could be mapped on a large area. The reflection characteristics indicates scattered erosion channels in this layer that cause it to be an aquitard with some leakage. GPR provides a high resolution map of the groundwater table and insight into the stratigraphy of the sediments and their hydraulic properties. This is valuable complementary information to the observation of sparsely distributed monitoring wells as input to hydraulic simulation

Ground-penetrating radar insight into a coastal aquifer: the freshwater lens of Borkum Island

Freshwater lenses, as important resource for drinking water, are sensitive to climate changes and sea level rise. To simulate this impact on the groundwater systems, hydraulic subsurface models have to be designed. Geophysical techniques can provide information for generating realistic models. The aim of our work is to show how ground-penetrating radar (GPR) investigations can contribute to such hydrological simulations. In the pilot area, Borkum island, GPR was used to map the shape of the groundwater table (GWT) and to characterise the aquifer. In total, 20 km of constant offset (CO) profiles were measured with centre frequencies of 80 and 200 MHz. Wave velocities were determined by common midpoint (CMP) measurements and vertical radar profiling (VRP) in a monitoring well. The 80 MHz CO data show a clear reflection at the groundwater table, whereas the reflection is weaker for the 200 MHz data. After correcting the GPR water tables for the capillary rise, they are in good accordance with the pressure heads of the observation wells in the area. In the centre of the island, the groundwater table is found up to 3.5 m above sea level, however it is lower towards the coastline and marshland. Some local depressions are observed in the region of dune valleys and around pumping stations of the local water supplier. GPR also reveals details within the sediments and highly-permeable aeolian sands can be distinguished from less-permeable marine sediments. Further, a silt loam layer below the water table could be mapped on a large area. The reflection characteristics indicates scattered erosion channels in this layer that cause it to be an aquitard with some leakage. GPR provides a high resolution map of the groundwater table and insight into the stratigraphy of the sediments and their hydraulic properties. This is valuable complementary information to the observation of sparsely distributed monitoring wells as input to hydraulic simulation

Regional wave propagation using the discontinuous Galerkin method

We present an application of the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method to regional wave propagation. The method makes use of unstructured tetrahedral meshes, combined with a time integration scheme solving the arbitrary high-order derivative (ADER) Riemann problem. This ADER-DG method is high-order accurate in space and time, beneficial for reliable simulations of high-frequency wavefields over long propagation distances. Due to the ease with which tetrahedral grids can be adapted to complex geometries, undulating topography of the Earth's surface and interior interfaces can be readily implemented in the computational domain. The ADER-DG method is benchmarked for the accurate radiation of elastic waves excited by an explosive and a shear dislocation source. We compare real data measurements with synthetics of the 2009 L'Aquila event (central Italy). We take advantage of the geometrical flexibility of the approach to generate a European model composed of the 3-D <i>EPcrust</i> model, combined with the depth-dependent <i>ak135</i> velocity model in the upper mantle. The results confirm the applicability of the ADER-DG method for regional scale earthquake simulations, which provides an alternative to existing methodologies

Rapidly evolving protointrons in Saccharomyces genomes revealed by a hungry spliceosome.

Introns are a prevalent feature of eukaryotic genomes, yet their origins and contributions to genome function and evolution remain mysterious. In budding yeast, repression of the highly transcribed intron-containing ribosomal protein genes (RPGs) globally increases splicing of non-RPG transcripts through reduced competition for the spliceosome. We show that under these "hungry spliceosome" conditions, splicing occurs at more than 150 previously unannotated locations we call protointrons that do not overlap known introns. Protointrons use a less constrained set of splice sites and branchpoints than standard introns, including in one case AT-AC in place of GT-AG. Protointrons are not conserved in all closely related species, suggesting that most are not under positive selection and are fated to disappear. Some are found in non-coding RNAs (e. g. CUTs and SUTs), where they may contribute to the creation of new genes. Others are found across boundaries between noncoding and coding sequences, or within coding sequences, where they offer pathways to the creation of new protein variants, or new regulatory controls for existing genes. We define protointrons as (1) nonconserved intron-like sequences that are (2) infrequently spliced, and importantly (3) are not currently understood to contribute to gene expression or regulation in the way that standard introns function. A very few protointrons in S. cerevisiae challenge this classification by their increased splicing frequency and potential function, consistent with the proposed evolutionary process of "intronization", whereby new standard introns are created. This snapshot of intron evolution highlights the important role of the spliceosome in the expansion of transcribed genomic sequence space, providing a pathway for the rare events that may lead to the birth of new eukaryotic genes and the refinement of existing gene function

Tilt effects on moment tensor inversion in the near field of active volcanoes

Dynamic tilts (rotational motion around horizontal axes) change the projection of local gravity onto the horizontal components of seismometers. This causes sensitivity of these components to tilt, especially at low frequencies. We analyse the consequences of this effect onto moment tensor inversion for very long period (vlp) events in the near field of active volcanoes on the basis of synthetic examples using the station distribution of a real deployed seismic network and the topography of Mt. Merapi volcano (Java, Indonesia). The examples show that for periods in the vlp range of 10-30 s tilt can have a strong effect on the moment tensor inversion, although its effect on the horizontal seismograms is significant only for few stations. We show that tilts can be accurately computed using the spectral element method and include them in the Green's functions. The (simulated) tilts might be largely influenced by strain-tilt coupling (stc). However, due to the frequency dependence of the tilt contribution to the horizontal seismograms, only the largest tilt signals affect the source inversion in the vlp frequency range. As these are less sensitive to stc than the weaker signals, the effect of stc can likely be neglected in this application. In the converse argument, this is not necessarily true for longer periods, where the horizontal seismograms are dominated by the tilt signal and rotational sensors would be necessary to account for it. As these are not yet commercially available, this study underlines the necessity for the development of such instrument

Horizontal rotation signals detected by "G-Pisa" ring laser for the Mw=9.0, March 2011, Japan earthquake

We report the observation of the ground rotation induced by the Mw=9.0, 11th of March 2011, Japan earthquake. The rotation measurements have been conducted with a ring laser gyroscope operating in a vertical plane, thus detecting rotations around the horizontal axis. Comparison of ground rotations with vertical accelerations from a co-located force-balance accelerometer shows excellent ring laser coupling at periods longer than 100s. Under the plane wave assumption, we derive a theoretical relationship between horizontal rotation and vertical acceleration for Rayleigh waves. Due to the oblique mounting of the gyroscope with respect to the wave direction-of-arrival, apparent velocities derived from the acceleration / rotation rate ratio are expected to be always larger than, or equal to the true wave propagation velocity. This hypothesis is confirmed through comparison with fundamental-mode, Rayleigh wave phase velocities predicted for a standard Earth model.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Seismolog

A Large Area Fiber Optic Gyroscope on multiplexed fiber network

We describe a fiber optical gyroscope based on the Sagnac effect realized on a multiplexed telecom fiber network. Our loop encloses an area of 20 km2 and coexists with Internet data traffic. This Sagnac interferometer achieves a sensitivity of about (10-8 rad/s)/sqrt(Hz), thus approaching ring laser gyroscopes without using narrow linewidth laser nor sophisticated optics. The proposed gyroscope is sensitive enough for seismic applications, opening new possibilities for this kind of optical fiber sensors

Plant functional type affects composition and degradation of peat along a temperature gradient

Peatlands, storing significant amounts of carbon (C), are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Indirect effects of climate change are projected to lead to a growing dominance of vascular plants in moss dominated peatlands with unknown effects on peat decomposition. In this study we investigated the influence of different plant functional types (moss, graminoid, shrub) on peat composition and decomposition. Peat cores (20 cm depth) and plant material (Sphagnum sp., Calluna vulgaris, Eriophorum vaginatum) of two ombrotrophic moss dominated peatlands on a temperature gradient in the Italian Alps were analyzed. Peat cores were taken under shrub and graminoid coverage at the low temperature site (Low-T-Site) and the high temperature site (High-T-Site). We used carbon to nitrogen ratios, C-13 and N-15 and pyrolysis gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (py-GC/MS) to assess the influence of vascular plants on peat composition and degradation. In these moss dominated peatlands, methoxyphenols from lignin indicated highest contribution of vascular plant material at 2-5 cm under shrub coverage and 5-12 cm depth under graminoid coverage. Increasing C-13 ratios with depth could be related to increasing peat decomposition. This increase was higher for peat cores under graminoid coverage than under shrub coverage. Furthermore, the enrichment in C-13 with depth was higher at the High-T-Site than at the Low-T-Site. More detailed effects of plant functional type on peat degradation were established using species specific pyrolysis products as e.g. methoxyphenols from lignin (marker compounds for vascular plants) and 4-isopropenylphenol reflecting degradation of the sphagnum peat matrix. Comparing depth records of these molecular parameters indicated higher peat degradation in the presence of graminoids compared to shrubs and at the High-T-Site compared to the Low-T-Site confirming conclusions from C-13 data. Consequently, plant functional types are very likely to influence peat composition and degradation especially at elevated temperatures, while the projected vegetation shifts from graminoids to shrubs should counteract increasing peat degradation with increasing temperature. Therefore, vegetation shifts in response to climate change may play a crucial role in determining peat composition and degradation