443 research outputs found
K-Ar age determinations of some Miocene-Pliocene basalts in Israel: their significance to the tectonics of the Rift Valley
Thirty samples of Upper Tertiary basalts intruding marine and continental sequences were by the K-Ar method. Four volcanic phases are recorded: (a) 24.8±1.5 Ma of the Raqabat e Na'ame dike in Central Sinai; (b) 20.4±0.7 Ma of basalt intrusions in Central Sinai and the Arava. Some of these are offset by E-W to NE-SW dextral faults of the Central Sinai - Negev Shear Zone; (c) 14.5±0.3 to 4.9±1.3 Ma of basalt flows in the Eastern Galilee and the Coastal Plain; (d) 2.7±0.6 Ma of âEn Yahav dike. These results contribute to the correlation between Tertiary continental formations from different areas, and put limits on the age of tectonic events, such as folding in the Syrian arc, faulting in the Central Sinai - Negev Shear Zone and shearing along the Jordan Rif
Lake regionalization and diatom metacommunity structuring in tropical South America
Lakes and their topological distribution across Earthâs surface impose ecological and evolutionary constraints on aquatic metacommunities. In this study, we group similar lake ecosystems as metacommunity units influencing diatom community structure. We assembled a database of 195 lakes from the tropical Andes and adjacent lowlands (8°Nâ30°S and 58â79°W) with associated environmental predictors to examine diatom metacommunity patterns at two different levels: taxon and functional (deconstructed species matrix by ecological guilds). We also derived spatial variables that inherently assessed the relative role of dispersal. Using complementary multivariate statistical techniques (principal component analysis, cluster analysis, nonmetric multidimensional scaling, Procrustes, variance partitioning), we examined diatomâenvironment relationships among different lake habitats (sediment surface, periphyton, and plankton) and partitioned community variation to evaluate the influence of niche-and dispersal-based assembly processes in diatom metacommunity structure across lake clusters. The results showed a significant association between geographic clusters of lakes based on gradients of climate and landscape configuration and diatom assemblages. Six lake clusters distributed along a latitudinal gradient were identified as functional metacommunity units for diatom communities. Variance partitioning revealed that dispersal mechanisms were a major contributor to diatom metacommunity structure, but in a highly context-dependent fashion across lake clusters. In the Andean Altiplano and adjacent lowlands of Bolivia, diatom metacommunities are niche assembled but constrained by either dispersal limitation or mass effects, resulting from area, environmental heterogeneity, and ecological guild relationships. Topographic heterogeneity played an important role in structuring planktic diatom metacommunities. We emphasize the value of a guild-based metacommunity model linked to dispersal for elucidating mechanisms underlying latitudinal gradients in distribution. Our findings reveal the importance of shifts in ecological drivers across climatic and physiographically distinct lake clusters, providing a basis for comparison of broad-scale community gradients in lake-rich regions elsewhere. This may help guide future research to explore evolutionary constraints on the rich Neotropical benthic diatom species pool
Lake Regionalization and Diatom Metacommunity Structuring in Tropical South America
Lakes and their topological distribution across Earth\u27s surface impose ecological and evolutionary constraints on aquatic metacommunities. In this study, we group similar lake ecosystems as metacommunity units influencing diatom community structure. We assembled a database of 195 lakes from the tropical Andes and adjacent lowlands (8°Nâ30°S and 58â79°W) with associated environmental predictors to examine diatom metacommunity patterns at two different levels: taxon and functional (deconstructed species matrix by ecological guilds). We also derived spatial variables that inherently assessed the relative role of dispersal. Using complementary multivariate statistical techniques (principal component analysis, cluster analysis, nonmetric multidimensional scaling, Procrustes, variance partitioning), we examined diatomâenvironment relationships among different lake habitats (sediment surface, periphyton, and plankton) and partitioned community variation to evaluate the influence of nicheâ and dispersalâbased assembly processes in diatom metacommunity structure across lake clusters. The results showed a significant association between geographic clusters of lakes based on gradients of climate and landscape configuration and diatom assemblages. Six lake clusters distributed along a latitudinal gradient were identified as functional metacommunity units for diatom communities. Variance partitioning revealed that dispersal mechanisms were a major contributor to diatom metacommunity structure, but in a highly contextâdependent fashion across lake clusters. In the Andean Altiplano and adjacent lowlands of Bolivia, diatom metacommunities are niche assembled but constrained by either dispersal limitation or mass effects, resulting from area, environmental heterogeneity, and ecological guild relationships. Topographic heterogeneity played an important role in structuring planktic diatom metacommunities. We emphasize the value of a guildâbased metacommunity model linked to dispersal for elucidating mechanisms underlying latitudinal gradients in distribution. Our findings reveal the importance of shifts in ecological drivers across climatic and physiographically distinct lake clusters, providing a basis for comparison of broadâscale community gradients in lakeârich regions elsewhere. This may help guide future research to explore evolutionary constraints on the rich Neotropical benthic diatom species pool
Two-sided combinatorial volume bounds for non-obtuse hyperbolic polyhedra
We give a method for computing upper and lower bounds for the volume of a
non-obtuse hyperbolic polyhedron in terms of the combinatorics of the
1-skeleton. We introduce an algorithm that detects the geometric decomposition
of good 3-orbifolds with planar singular locus and underlying manifold the
3-sphere. The volume bounds follow from techniques related to the proof of
Thurston's Orbifold Theorem, Schl\"afli's formula, and previous results of the
author giving volume bounds for right-angled hyperbolic polyhedra.Comment: 36 pages, 19 figure
Six topics on inscribable polytopes
Inscribability of polytopes is a classic subject but also a lively research
area nowadays. We illustrate this with a selection of well-known results and
recent developments on six particular topics related to inscribable polytopes.
Along the way we collect a list of (new and old) open questions.Comment: 11 page
Theory of commensurable magnetic structures in holmium
The tendency for the period of the helically ordered moments in holmium to
lock into values which are commensurable with the lattice is studied
theoretically as a function of temperature and magnetic field. The
commensurable effects are derived in the mean-field approximation from
numerical calculations of the free energy of various commensurable structures,
and the results are compared with the extensive experimental evidence collected
during the last ten years on the magnetic structures in holmium. In general the
stability of the different commensurable structures is found to be in accord
with the experiments, except for the tau=5/18 structure observed a few degrees
below T_N in a b-axis field. The trigonal coupling recently detected in holmium
is found to be the interaction required to explain the increased stability of
the tau=1/5 structure around 42 K, and of the tau=1/4 structure around 96 K,
when a field is applied along the c-axis.Comment: REVTEX, 31 pages, 7 postscript figure
Irreducible triangulations of surfaces with boundary
A triangulation of a surface is irreducible if no edge can be contracted to
produce a triangulation of the same surface. In this paper, we investigate
irreducible triangulations of surfaces with boundary. We prove that the number
of vertices of an irreducible triangulation of a (possibly non-orientable)
surface of genus g>=0 with b>=0 boundaries is O(g+b). So far, the result was
known only for surfaces without boundary (b=0). While our technique yields a
worse constant in the O(.) notation, the present proof is elementary, and
simpler than the previous ones in the case of surfaces without boundary
Additional experimental evidence for a solar influence on nuclear decay rates
Additional experimental evidence is presented in support of the recent
hypothesis that a possible solar influence could explain fluctuations observed
in the measured decay rates of some isotopes. These data were obtained during
routine weekly calibrations of an instrument used for radiological safety at
The Ohio State University Research Reactor using Cl-36. The detector system
used was based on a Geiger-Mueller gas detector, which is a robust detector
system with very low susceptibility to environmental changes. A clear annual
variation is evident in the data, with a maximum relative count rate observed
in January/February, and a minimum relative count rate observed in July/August,
for seven successive years from July 2005 to June 2011. This annual variation
is not likely to have arisen from changes in the detector surroundings, as we
show here.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Brachionus rotundiformis tschugunoff, 1921 from the brachionus plicatilis species complex (Rotifera: Monogononta): A new record from galĂĄpagos archipelago, Ecuador
The presence of the rotifer species Brachionus rotundiformis from the B. plicatilis species complex in Lake Arcturo, a saline lake in the Genovesa Island of the GalĂĄpagos Islands, is here reported. This is the first record of the species for the rotifer fauna of Ecuador as well as of the species complex to the GalĂĄpagos Islands. This finding is consistent with the idea of high dispersion capacity, and of cosmopolitan distribution of this species complex. Because Genovesa Island is uninhabited, passive transport by wind currents and zoochory by migrant birds seem to emerge as the most plausible factors in this process of colonization. Integrative studies on the morphological variations, genetic, molecular, and ecological aspects are still required to further understand the process of dispersion and the ecology of this member of the B. plicatilis species complex in this remote and isolated locality, and the exact taxonomical position of the islandâs population to the other members of the complex.</p
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