USE OF PLASTIC DRIFT CARDS AS INDICATORS OF POSSIBLE DISPERSAL OF PROPAGULES OF THE MANGROVE AVICENNIA MARINA BY OCEAN CURRENTS

Plastic drift cards with the same buoyancy as propagules of Avicennia marina (Forssk.) Vierh. were used as an indicator of possible mangrove dispersal by ocean currents. The cards were dropped from an aircraft into the sea at the mouths of the Mhlathuze River off Richards Bay, the Mgeni River off Durban and the Nxaxo-Ngqusi rivers off Wavecrest on the east coast of South Africa. Details of the time and locality of strandings were recorded from cards returned. Of the 4 500 cards released, 133 (8.9&#37), 146 (9.7&#37) and 280 (18.7&#37) were returned respectively from the above locations. The high returns from Wavecrest were attributable to cards being washed ashore in the immediate vicinity of the dropping point. A high percentage of the cards dropped at Durban were transported northwards by the inshore counter-current. Approximately 68 and 32&#37 of the cards recovered for Richards Bay and Durban respectively were transported by the Agulhas Current and were stranded farther south along the East and South-East coasts. Cards that reached the Agulhas mixing area were deposited ashore on the Cape Peninsula and the West Coast (3&#37), or were transported either across the Atlantic Ocean to South America or the Indian Ocean to Australasia (4&#37). Estimated transport rates of cards to South America and Australasia were similar to previously published values. The results indicate that the northern estuaries could provide propagative material over a considerable portion of the South African coast, which could result in a wider distribution of mangroves in the Eastern Cape.Afr. J. mar. Sci. 25: 169–17

Absolute calibration of GafChromic film for very high flux laser driven ion beams.

We report on the calibration of GafChromic HD-v2 radiochromic film in the extremely high dose regime up to 100 kGy together with very high dose rates up to 7 × 1011 Gy/s. The absolute calibration was done with nanosecond ion bunches at the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment II particle accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and covers a broad dose dynamic range over three orders of magnitude. We then applied the resulting calibration curve to calibrate a laser driven ion experiment performed on the BELLA petawatt laser facility at LBNL. Here, we reconstructed the spatial and energy resolved distributions of the laser-accelerated proton beams. The resulting proton distribution is in fair agreement with the spectrum that was measured with a Thomson spectrometer in combination with a microchannel plate detector

Dynamics of Nanometer-Scale Foil Targets Irradiated with Relativistically Intense Laser Pulses

In this letter we report on an experimental study of high harmonic radiation generated in nanometer-scale foil targets irradiated under normal incidence. The experiments constitute the first unambiguous observation of odd-numbered relativistic harmonics generated by the $\vec{v}\times\vec{B}$ component of the Lorentz force verifying a long predicted property of solid target harmonics. Simultaneously the observed harmonic spectra allow in-situ extraction of the target density in an experimental scenario which is of utmost interest for applications such as ion acceleration by the radiation pressure of an ultraintense laser.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Thermal and flow analysis of the Fluor Daniel, Inc., Nuclear Material Storage Facility renovation design (initial 30% effort of Title 1)

The computational fluid dynamics code CFX4.2 was used to evaluate steady-state thermal-hydraulic conditions in the Fluor Daniel, Inc., Nuclear Material Storage Facility renovation design (initial 30% of Title 1). Thirteen facility cases were evaluated with varying temperature dependence, drywell-array heat-source magnitude and distribution, location of the inlet tower, and no-flow curtains in the drywell-array vault. Four cases of a detailed model of the inlet-tower top fixture were evaluated to show the effect of the canopy-cruciform fixture design on the air pressure and flow distributions

Efficient ion acceleration by collective laser-driven electron dynamics with ultra-thin foil targets

Experiments on ion acceleration by irradiation of ultra-thin diamond-like carbon (DLC) foils, with thicknesses well below the skin depth, irradiated with laser pulses of ultra-high contrast and linear polarization, are presented. A maximum energy of 13MeV for protons and 71MeV for carbon ions is observed with a conversion efficiency of > 10%. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations reveal that the increase in ion energies can be attributed to a dominantly collective rather than thermal motion of the foil electrons, when the target becomes transparent for the incident laser pulse

Spatial and temporal variability of biogenic isoprene emissions from a temperate estuary

[1] Isoprene is important for its atmospheric impacts and the ecophysiological benefits it affords to emitting organisms; however, isoprene emissions from marine systems remain vastly understudied compared to terrestrial systems. This study investigates for the first time drivers of isoprene production in a temperate estuary, and the role this production may play in enabling organisms to tolerate the inherently wide range of environmental conditions. Intertidal sediment cores as well as high and low tide water samples were collected from four sites along the Colne Estuary, UK, every six weeks over a year. Isoprene concentrations in the water were significantly higher at low than high tide, and decreased toward the mouth of the estuary; sediment production showed no spatial variability. Diel isoprene concentration increased with light availability and decreased with tidal height; nighttime production was 79% lower than daytime production. Seasonal isoprene production and water concentrations were highest for the warmest months, with production strongly correlated with light (r2 = 0.800) and temperature (r2 = 0.752). Intertidal microphytobenthic communities were found to be the primary source of isoprene, with tidal action acting as a concentrating factor for isoprene entering the water column. Using these data we estimated an annual production rate for this estuary of 681 μmol m−2 y−1. This value falls at the upper end of other marine estimates and highlights the potentially significant role of estuaries as isoprene sources. The control of estuarine isoprene production by environmental processes identified here further suggests that such emissions may be altered by future environmental change