13,868 research outputs found
Impact of soil tillage and land use on soil organic carbon decline under Mediterranean conditions
Soils under Mediterranean climate conditions frequently have low to very low levels of soil organic matter (SOM), as a result of low biomass production under the predominantly rainfed conditions and the intensive tillage operations commonly practiced. In order to assess both short and long-term impacts of soil tillage and land use on soil organic carbon, two sets of experiments were performed. One consisted in the identification and soil analysis of 3 pairs of sites under different soil types and land use over 5 to 30 years; in the second experiment a long-term fallow area was repeatedly submitted to different types of soil tillage management (mouldboard plough + disc harrow; non-inversion tine cultivation; no-till) over 3 years. Soil texture, bulk density and SOM were analysed along the whole soil profile in the first experiment, whereas bulk density and SOM to a depth of 30 cm was measured before the first tillage operations and at the end of the observation period in the second experiment.
The results clearly indicate that tillage based land use, irrespective of the type of land use, caused a considerable decline in SOM content in the tilled soil layer. Very small and inconsistent differences in SOM between paired soil profiles were observed in the lower part of the profiles. In the second experiment with three types of tillage systems, SOM content decreased with tillage intensity. Avoidance of soil disturbance is an important step towards halting SOM decline under Mediterranean climate conditions
The Equivalence Principle Revisited
A precise formulation of the strong Equivalence Principle is essential to the
understanding of the relationship between gravitation and quantum mechanics.
The relevant aspects are reviewed in a context including General Relativity,
but allowing for the presence of torsion. For the sake of brevity, a concise
statement is proposed for the Principle: "An ideal observer immersed in a
gravitational field can choose a reference frame in which gravitation goes
unnoticed". This statement is given a clear mathematical meaning through an
accurate discussion of its terms. It holds for ideal observers (time-like
smooth non-intersecting curves), but not for real, spatially extended
observers. Analogous results hold for gauge fields. The difference between
gravitation and the other fundamental interactions comes from their distinct
roles in the equation of force.Comment: RevTeX, 18 pages, no figures, to appear in Foundations of Physic
Gravitation as Anholonomy
A gravitational field can be seen as the anholonomy of the tetrad fields.
This is more explicit in the teleparallel approach, in which the gravitational
field-strength is the torsion of the ensuing Weitzenboeck connection. In a
tetrad frame, that torsion is just the anholonomy of that frame. The infinitely
many tetrad fields taking the Lorentz metric into a given Riemannian metric
differ by point-dependent Lorentz transformations. Inertial frames constitute a
smaller infinity of them, differing by fixed-point Lorentz transformations.
Holonomic tetrads take the Lorentz metric into itself, and correspond to
Minkowski flat spacetime. An accelerated frame is necessarily anholonomic and
sees the electromagnetic field strength with an additional term.Comment: RevTeX4, 10 pages, no figures. To appear in Gen. Rel. Gra
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