A geological fence diagram for England and Wales

This report contains a brief description of the data and methodology used to compile the National Geological Fence Diagram (NGFD). The NGFD comprises a network of intersecting geological cross-sections covering England and Wales, to a minimum depth of 1 km and a total section length of approximately 5,500 km. It was compiled by the British Geological Survey (BGS) on behalf of the Environment Agency (EA) and is based upon lines of section agreed between both parties at the inception of the project. The model includes generalised bedrock strata based principally on the BGS 1:625 000 scale digital geological data and superficial deposits greater than 10m in thickness. Additional sources of model data were also considered, largely taken from published BGS data holdings. In total 41 cross-sections were constructed and geologically correlated within the GSI3D software

The construction of a bedrock geology model for the UK: UK3D_v2015

This report is available for download on the BGS UK3D web page to allow the reader to better understand the context and development of UK3D, a national network, or ‘fence diagram model’, of bedrock geology cross-sections. It also explains the development of the metadata underpinning the model and therefore supports use and understanding of UK3D. The pre-existing BGS GB3D model provided the only nationally consistent representation of the bedrock geology of Great Britain to depths of at least 1 km. The latest version of this model was released in 2014 as the GB3D_v2014 and accompanying report (Mathers et al. 2014b). However, the existing GB3D_v2014 model lacked equivalent scale presentation of a fence diagram model for Northern Ireland. It was recognised that in order to provide comparable geological information across the United Kingdom it was necessary to upgrade the model to a UK3D fence diagram model incorporating Northern Ireland, with rigorous peer review performed to enable an enhanced dataset. The objective of this study was therefore to further develop the GB3D model, outlined by Mathers et al. (2014a and b), into a UK3D model by the incorporation of 36 deep boreholes and a framework of 15 cross-sections for Northern Ireland. The appropriate applications for the revised model are for geoscience communication and education to illustrate the national and regional bedrock geology of the United Kingdom to a depth of at least 1 km with an intended resolution of use in the 1:250 000 to 1:1 million scale range. Limitations inherent in the model preclude such applications as detailed geological assessments, resource-reserve estimation and exploration, and any representation or use outside the intended resolution range. The new model produced by this study UK3D_v2015 supersedes the earlier 2014 version for England and Wales, for which areas of the fence diagrams remain the same. The Scottish portion of the model remains unchanged from the earlier 2012 version. The new dataset is a wholly owned BGS product and as with its forerunners it is freely available from the BGS website http://bgs.ac.uk as downloads in a variety of formats

Quantifying anthropogenic modification of the shallow geosphere in central London, UK

The veneer of artificial (anthropogenic) deposits present beneath contemporary cities is commonly markedly heterogeneous, particularly in cities such as London with a history of two millennia of development. To what extent can the analysis of borehole data, historical land use maps and digital terrain models provide adequate assessment of such heterogeneity? Two adjacent London boroughs, City of London and Tower Hamlets, are selected because of their contrasting historical development and current land use. Statistical comparison of the variations in deposit thickness is related to the natural Holocene topography, underlying geological deposits (non-anthropogenic deposits) and heights of overlying buildings. Estimates of the volume (~67 million m3) and mass (~100 million tonnes) of the deposits and additional volume (~359 million m3) and mass (~25 million tonnes) of buildings provides indication of additional loading that may cause local compaction or regional subsidence, a concern during a time of rising global sea level. Extrapolated across Greater London, the mass of anthropogenic deposits is estimated at ~6 billion tonnes. Assessment of the compositional variations within the artificial deposits provides an approximation of accumulation rates post-World War II. A potential event horizon, coincident with the early 1940s Blitz, could not be demonstrated as an extensive marker, but distinct lithological compositions for post-World War II strata are broadly coincident with the globally resolved signals marking the start of the Anthropocene Epoch

Natural and sail-displaced doubly-symmetric Lagrange point orbits for polar coverage

This paper proposes the use of doubly-symmetric, eight-shaped orbits in the circular restricted three-body problem for continuous coverage of the high-latitude regions of the Earth. These orbits, for a range of amplitudes, spend a large fraction of their period above either pole of the Earth. It is shown that they complement Sun-synchronous polar and highly eccentric Molniya orbits, and present a possible alternative to low thrust pole-sitter orbits. Both natural and solar-sail displaced orbits are considered. Continuation methods are described and used to generate families of these orbits. Starting from ballistic orbits, other families are created either by increasing the sail lightness number, varying the period or changing the sail attitude. Some representative orbits are then chosen to demonstrate the visibility of high-latitude regions throughout the year. A stability analysis is also performed, revealing that the orbits are unstable: it is found that for particular orbits, a solar sail can reduce their instability. A preliminary design of a linear quadratic regulator is presented as a solution to stabilize the system by using the solar sail only. Finally, invariant manifolds are exploited to identify orbits that present the opportunity of a ballistic transfer directly from low Earth orbit

A Spitzer mid-infrared spectral survey of mass-losing carbon stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud

‘The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.’ Copyright Blackwell Publishing DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10623.xPeer reviewe

UARS MLS O3 soundings compared with lidar measurements using the conservative coordinates reconstruction technique

A technique based on conservative properties of certain meteorological fields is used to compare ozone measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) with soundings from a lidar system operated at midlatitudes by the University of L'Aquila, Italy. A few typical cases are analyzed in connection with the position of the vortex relative to the observing station, and it is shown that in general lidar observations taken within the vortex compare well with the UARS data,regardless of whether they are coincident with a satellite overpass.It is shown that such analysis may be useful for comparing measurements of the same quantity taken at different sites using different measurement techniques.NASA, INGPublished1535-15381.8. Osservazioni di geofisica ambientaleJCR Journalope

Metatranscriptomics analysis reveals a novel transcriptional and translational landscape during Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection

Among all RNA viruses, coronavirus RNA transcription is the most complex and involves a process termed “discontinuous transcription” that results in the production of a set of 3′-nested, co-terminal genomic and subgenomic RNAs during infection. While the expression of the classic canonical set of subgenomic RNAs depends on the recognition of a 6- to 7-nt transcription regulatory core sequence (TRS), here, we use deep sequence and metagenomics analysis strategies and show that the coronavirus transcriptome is even more vast and more complex than previously appreciated and involves the production of leader-containing transcripts that have canonical and noncanonical leader-body junctions. Moreover, by ribosome protection and proteomics analyses, we show that both positive- and negative-sense transcripts are translationally active. The data support the hypothesis that the coronavirus proteome is much vaster than previously noted in the literature