The White Stone Band of the Kimmeridge Clay Formation, an integrated high resolution approach to understanding environmental change

The Kimmeridge Clay is a Jurassic mudrock succession that shows Milankovitch Band climatic cyclicity. A key issue is to determine how the subtle changes that define this cyclicity result from climatic change. Using material from the Natural Environment Research Council Rapid Global Geological Events (RGGE) Kimmeridge Drilling Project boreholes, the White Stone Band was investigated at the lamination scale using backscattered electron imagery and quantitative palynofacies. Fabric analysis shows the lamination to represent successive deposition of coccolith-rich and organic-matter-rich layers. Individual laminae contain unsorted palynological debris with a consistent ratio of marine and terrestrial components. Such mixed organic matter input is interpreted as the result of storm transport. Linking water column processes to laminae deposition suggests seasonal input with a coccolith bloom followed by a more diverse assemblage including dinoflagellates and photosynthetic chlorobiacean bacteria. As the photic zone extended into the euxinic water column organic matter export to the sea bed underwent minimal cycling through oxidation and subsequently became preserved through sulphurization with greatly increased sequestration of carbon. This was significantlyincreased by late season storm-driven mixing of euxinic water into the photic zone. Increased frequency ofstorm systems would therefore dilute the coccolith input to give an oil shale. Hence climatically induced changes in storm frequency would progressively vary the organic content of the sediment and generate the climate cycle signal. Keywords: Milankovitch theory, Kimmeridge Clay, organic matter, high-resolution methods, climate change

Detecting 6 MV X-rays using an organic photovoltaic device

An organic photovoltaic (OPV) device has been used in conjunction with a flexible inorganic phosphor to produce a radiation tolerant, efficient and linear detector for 6 MV Xrays. The OPVs were based on a blend of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). We show that the devices have a sensitivity an order of magnitude higher than a commercial silicon detector used as a reference. Exposure to 360 Grays of radiation resulted in a small (2%) degradation in performance demonstrating that these detectors have the potential to be used as flexible, real-time, in vivo dosimeters for oncology treatments. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Inter-element fractionation of highly siderophile elements in the Tonga Arc due to flux melting of a depleted source

Highly siderophile element concentrations (HSEs: Os, Ir, Ru, Pt, Pd, and Re) have been determined for a suite of fresh, submarine mafic lavas from the northern Tonga Arc front and the nascent backarc Fonualei Spreading Centre (FSC). Prior melt depletion of the Tongan mantle wedge combined with a high degree of fluid fluxed melting is thought to have produced boninitic magmas at several arc and FSC locations. As such, this arc system provides an opportunity to assess the fluid mobility of HSEs and to investigate the effects of fluid-induced melting and prior melt depletion on HSE behaviour during both mantle melting and magma evolution. Tongan lavas display extreme enrichment of Pt (2.5–32 ng/g) and Pd over Os (0.002–0.6 ng/g), Ir, and Ru, significantly greater than basalts from mid-ocean ridges. Magma evolution increases the degree of fractionation, resulting in the highest recorded Pt/Ru ratios (>300) in arc front samples with MgO <8 wt.%. This increasing fractionation is due to the mild incompatibility of Pt and Pd, and concurrent compatibility of Ru, during sulphide undersaturated magma evolution. However, the fractionation of Pt and Pd from Os, Ir, and Ru is observed in the highest MgO samples, indicating source inheritance. Prior melt depletion of the mantle and elevated oxygen fugacity both increase the likelihood of complete consumption of sulphide in the source during melting, which typically leads to melts with high concentrations of all the HSE. Indeed, modelling indicates that 25% aggregate partial melting of a depleted MORB-mantle source, proposed for the Tonga Arc, will lead to complete base-metal sulphide consumption unless there is considerable addition of S by the slab flux (at least 200 μg/g). Although source enrichment of Pt, Pd, and Re by slab fluids may take place, the fractionation of Pt and Pd from Os, Ir, and Ru can largely be explained by relatively low-temperature, yet high-degree, melting of fluid-fluxed melt-depleted mantle. The high Pt and Pd contents can be produced by the exhaustion of sulphide in the source, while the presence of Ru–Os–(Ir) alloys or sulphides (e.g. laurite) associated with Cr-spinel can explain Os, Ir, and Ru retention in the source residue. Such phases have been documented in fluid-fluxed sub-arc mantle from ophiolites. Osmium isotopes co-vary negatively with Os abundance and thus appear to be dominated by shallow level contamination. The most Os-rich samples, however, have 187Os/188Os ratios (0.126–0.132) which are typical of DMM and MORB, suggesting an indistinguishable flux of radiogenic Os from the slab. The significant fractionation of Pt and Re from Os in arc settings will lead, over time, to elevated 186Os and 187Os which may be relevant to the observed enrichments of these isotopes in some mantle regions. In addition, the differing behaviour of Ru and Ir, and the implication of a mantle source containing Ru-rich microphases, may have consequences for the estimation of the HSE composition of primitive upper mantle

Continent stabilisation by lateral accretion of subduction zone-processed depleted mantle residues; insights from Zealandia

To examine how the mantle lithosphere stabilises continents, we present a synthesis of the mantle beneath Zealandia in the SW Pacific Ocean. Zealandia, Earth's “8th continent”, occurs over 4.9 M km2 and comprises a fore-arc, arc and back-arc fragment rifted from the Australia–Antarctica Gondwana margin 85 Myr ago. The oldest extant crust is ∼500 Ma and the majority is Permian–Jurassic. Peridotitic rocks from most known locations reveal the underpinning mantle to comprise regional domains varying from refractory (Al2O3 &lt; 1 wt%, olivine Mg# &gt; 92, spinel Cr# up to 80, Pt/Ir &lt; 1) to moderately depleted (Al2O3 = 2–4 wt%, olivine Mg# ∼90.5, spinel Cr# &lt; ∼60). There is no systematic distribution of these domains relative to the former arc configuration and some refractory domains underlie crust that is largely devoid of magmatic rocks. Re-depletion Os model ages have no correlation with depletion indices but do have a distribution that is very similar to global convecting mantle. Whole rock, mineral and isotopic data are interpreted to show that the Zealandia mantle lithosphere was constructed from isotopically heterogeneous convecting mantle fragments swept into the sub-arc environment, amalgamated, and variably re-melted under low-P hydrous conditions. The paucity of mafic melt volumes in most of the overlying crust that could relate to the depleted domains requires melting to have been followed by lateral accretion either during subduction or slab rollback. Recent Australia–Pacific convergence has thickened portions of the Zealandia mantle to &gt;160 km. Zealandia shows that the generation of refractory and/or thick continental lithosphere is not restricted to the Archean. Since Archean cratons also commonly display crust–mantle age decoupling, contain spinel peridotites with extreme Cr# numbers that require low-P hydrous melting, and often have a paucity of mafic melts relative to the extreme depletion indicated by their peridotitic roots, they too may – in part – be compilations of peridotite shallowly melted and then laterally accreted at subduction margins

Comparison of case note review methods for evaluating quality and safety in health care

Objectives: To determine which of two methods of case note review – holistic (implicit) and criterion-based (explicit) – provides the most useful and reliable information for quality and safety of care, and the level of agreement within and between groups of health-care professionals when they use the two methods to review the same record. To explore the process–outcome relationship between holistic and criterion-based quality-of-care measures and hospital-level outcome indicators. © 2010 Crown Copyrigh

Surface Incompressibility from Semiclassical Relativistic Mean Field Calculations

By using the scaling method and the Thomas-Fermi and Extended Thomas-Fermi approaches to Relativistic Mean Field Theory the surface contribution to the leptodermous expansion of the finite nuclei incompressibility has been self-consistently computed. The validity of the simplest expansion, which contains volume, volume-symmetry, surface and Coulomb terms, is examined by comparing it with self-consistent results of the finite nuclei incompressibility for some currently used non-linear sigma-omega parameter sets. A numerical estimate of higher-order contributions to the leptodermous expansion, namely the curvature and surface-symmetry terms, is made.Comment: 18 pages, REVTeX, 3 eps figures, changed conten

The Dirac system on the Anti-de Sitter Universe

We investigate the global solutions of the Dirac equation on the Anti-de-Sitter Universe. Since this space is not globally hyperbolic, the Cauchy problem is not, {\it a priori}, well-posed. Nevertheless we can prove that there exists unitary dynamics, but its uniqueness crucially depends on the ratio beween the mass $M$ of the field and the cosmological constant $\Lambda>0$ : it appears a critical value, $\Lambda/12$, which plays a role similar to the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound for the scalar fields. When $M^2\geq \Lambda/12$ there exists a unique unitary dynamics. In opposite, for the light fermions satisfying $M^2<\Lambda/12$, we construct several asymptotic conditions at infinity, such that the problem becomes well-posed. In all the cases, the spectrum of the hamiltonian is discrete. We also prove a result of equipartition of the energy.Comment: 33 page

Proton Differential Elliptic Flow and the Isospin-Dependence of the Nuclear Equation of State

Within an isospin-dependent transport model for nuclear reactions involving neutron-rich nuclei, we study the first-order direct transverse flow of protons and their second-order differential elliptic flow as a function of transverse momentum. It is found that the differential elliptic flow of mid-rapidity protons, especially at high transverse momenta, is much more sensitive to the isospin dependence of the nuclear equation of state than the direct flow. Origins of these different sensitivities and their implications to the experimental determination of the isospin dependence of the nuclear equation of state by using neutron-rich heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. Phys. Rev. C (2001) in pres