Geophysical and Geochemical Evidence for a New Mafic Magmatic Province Within the Northwest Shelf of Australia

The formation of mafic magmatic provinces are significant geological events that can drive mass extinctions and continental rifting and can influence basin evolution, petroleum prospectivity and mineralization. Buried magmatic provinces, however, are rarely identified and difficult to define. The Northwest Shelf of Australia contains large volumes of potentially interconnected mafic igneous material across several sedimentary basins. However, limited study and a lack of surface exposure have prevented detailed description and classification of these rocks. In this study, the distribution and composition of these mafic igneous rocks are described using an integrated geophysical and geochemical approach, which included over 10,000 km line length of 2D seismic data, well log data and chemical analysis of samples from 14 wells across the Browse, Roebuck, Canning and North Carnarvon basins. Using this combined data set, we demonstrate interconnectivity of buried mafic igneous rocks across the Northwest Shelf and calculate a total surface area exceeding 280,000 km2 and a cumulative minimum volume of ∼140,000 km3. Petrology and geochemistry of samples indicate they are basaltic and doleritic with alkaline and sub-alkaline compositions and formed in a continental rift setting. Collectively, the igneous rocks meet the criteria for classification as a mafic magmatic province (MMP) and closely match the criteria required for classification as a large igneous province (LIP). Emplacement of the newly defined Northwest Shelf MMP may represent hotspot magmatism that could have initiated rifting of the Cimmerian Block from NW Australia during the Permian and could have potential for future, large scale CO2 sequestration and storage

Re Burrard Yarrows Corporation, Vancouver Division, and International Brotherhood of Painters, Local 138

Union Grievance alleging improper contracting out. The union which is the grievor here is one of 11 unions signatory to the collective agreement with Burrard Yarrows Corporation — Vancouver Division. As an industrial collective agreement this poly-party agreement is somewhat unusual in that it provides for a form of closed shop union security with a role for the union hiring hall. At the same time it makes provision for seniority

Immigration Legislation and Issues in the 111th Congress

[Excerpt] The Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader have pledged to take up comprehensive immigration reform legislation at some point in the 111th Congress. Efforts to enact broad immigration reform in the 109th and 110th Congresses were unsuccessful. It is unclear what the components of any immigration reform proposals that the 111th Congress may consider will be. In the past, comprehensive bills have addressed border security, enforcement of immigration laws within the United States (interior enforcement), employment eligibility verification, temporary worker programs, permanent admissions and, most controversially, unauthorized aliens in the United States. The 111th Congress has considered various immigration issues and has enacted a number of targeted immigration provisions. It has passed legislation (P.L. 111-8, P.L. 111-9, P.L. 111-68) to extend the life of several immigration programs—the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system, the Immigrant Investor Regional Center Program, the Conrad State J-1 Waiver Program, and the special immigrant visa for religious workers—all of which are currently authorized until October 31, 2009. With respect to these programs, the House-passed and Senate-passed versions of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010 (H.R. 2892), include different provisions to further extend E-Verify. The Senate-passed bill also would extend the other three programs. Among the other subjects of legislation enacted by this Congress are refugees (P.L. 111-8) and border security (P.L. 111-5, P.L. 111-32). This report discusses these and other immigration-related issues that have seen legislative action or are of significant congressional interest. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations are addressed in CRS Report R40642, Homeland Security Department: FY2010 Appropriations, and, for the most part, are not covered here. This report will be updated as legislative developments occur

Dates, Caries, and Early Tooth Loss During the Iron Age of Oman

Eine Ernährung aus fermentierbaren Kohlenhydraten ist bekannterweise hoch kariogen, besonders im Falle von zuckerhaltigem Essen wie zum Beispiel Datteln. Diese Ernährung ist bei der späteisenzeitlichen Samad-zeitlichen Bevölkerung Omans zu beobachten. 32 Erwachsene und 5 Jugendliche dienten für diese Studie als Erhebung. Vorzeitiger Zahnverlust war in allen Fällen nachweisbar

Detailed investigation of a vaporising fuel spray. Part 1: Experimental investigation of time averaged spray

A laser tomographic light scattering technique provides rapid and accurate high resolution measurements of droplet sizes, concentrations, and vaporization. Measurements using a computer interfaced thermocouple are presented and it is found that the potential exists for separating gas and liquid temperature measurements and diagnosing local spray density by in situ analysis of the response characteristics of the thermocouple. The thermocouple technique provides a convenient means for measuring mean gas velocity in both hot and cold two phase flows. The experimental spray is axisymmetric and has carefully controlled initial and boundary conditions. The flow is designed to give relatively insignificant transfer of momentum and mass from spray to air flow. The effects of (1) size-dependent droplet dispersion by the turbulence, (2) the initial spatial segregation of droplet sizes during atomization, and (3) the interaction between droplets and coherent large eddies are diagnosed

Local majority dynamics on preferential attachment graphs

Suppose in a graph $G$ vertices can be either red or blue. Let $k$ be odd. At each time step, each vertex $v$ in $G$ polls $k$ random neighbours and takes the majority colour. If it doesn't have $k$ neighbours, it simply polls all of them, or all less one if the degree of $v$ is even. We study this protocol on the preferential attachment model of Albert and Barab\'asi, which gives rise to a degree distribution that has roughly power-law $P(x) \sim \frac{1}{x^{3}}$, as well as generalisations which give exponents larger than $3$. The setting is as follows: Initially each vertex of $G$ is red independently with probability $\alpha < \frac{1}{2}$, and is otherwise blue. We show that if $\alpha$ is sufficiently biased away from $\frac{1}{2}$, then with high probability, consensus is reached on the initial global majority within $O(\log_d \log_d t)$ steps. Here $t$ is the number of vertices and $d \geq 5$ is the minimum of $k$ and $m$ (or $m-1$ if $m$ is even), $m$ being the number of edges each new vertex adds in the preferential attachment generative process. Additionally, our analysis reduces the required bias of $\alpha$ for graphs of a given degree sequence studied by the first author (which includes, e.g., random regular graphs)

Genome sequencing and annotation of Cellulomonas sp. HZM

We report the draft genome sequence of Cellulomonas sp. HZM, isolated from a tropical peat swamp forest. The draft genome size is 3,559,280 bp with a G + C content of 73% and contains 3 rRNA sequences (single copies of 5S, 16S and 23S rRNA)