Nature and origin of secondary mineral coatings on volcanic rocks of the Black Mountain, Stonewall Mountain, and Kane Springs Wash volcanic centers, southern, Nevada

The following subject areas are covered: (1) genetic, spectral, and LANDSAT Thematic Mapper imagery relationship between desert varnish and tertiary volcanic host rocks, southern Nevada; (2) reconnaissance geologic mapping of the Kane Springs Wash Volcanic Center, Lincoln County, Nevada, using multispectral thermal infrared imagery; (3) interregional comparisons of desert varnish; and (4) airborne scanner (GERIS) imagery of the Kane Springs Wash Volcanic Center, Lincoln County, Nevada

Nature and origin of mineral coatings on volcanic rocks of the Black Mountain, Stonewall Mountain, and Kane Springs Wash volcanic centers, Southern Nevada

Comparative lab spectra and Thematic Mapper imagery investigations at 3 Tertiary calderas in southern Nevada indicate that desert varnish is absorbant relative to underlying host rocks below about 0.7 to 1.3 microns, depending on mafic affinity of the sample, but less absorbant than mafic host rocks at higher wavelengths. Desert varnish occurs chiefly as thin impregnating films. Distribution of significant varnish accumulations is sparse and localized, occurring chiefly in surface recesses. These relationships result in the longer wavelength bands and high 5/2 values over felsic units with extensive desert varnish coatings. These lithologic, petrochemical, and desert varnish controlled spectral responses lead to characteristic TM band relationships which tend to correlate with conventionally mappable geologic formations. The concept of a Rock-Varnish Index (RVI) is introduced to help distinguish rocks with a potentially detectable varnish. Felsic rocks have a high RVI, and those with extensive desert varnish behave differently, spectrally, from those without extensive varnish. The spectrally distinctive volcanic formations at Stonewall Mountain provide excellent statistical class segregation on supervised classification images. A binary decision rule flow-diagram is presented to aid TM imagery analysis over volcanic terrane in semi-arid environments

Nature and origin of mineral coatings on volcanic rocks of the Black Mountain, Stonewall Mountain, and Kane Springs, Wash volcanic centers, Southern Nevada

LANDSAT Thematic Mapper imagery was evaluated over 3 Tertiary calderas in southern Nevada. Each volcanic center derived from a highly evolved silici magmatic system represented today by well exposed diverse lithologies. Distinctive imagery contrast between some of the late ash flows and earlier units follows from the high relative reflectance in longer wavelength bands (bands 5 and 7) of the former. Enhancement techniques provide color composite images which highlight some of the units in remarkable color contrast. Inasmuch as coatings on the tuffs are incompletely developed and apparently largely dependent spectrally on rock properties independent of petrochemistry, it is felt that the distinctive imagery characteristics are more a function of primary lithologic or petrochemical properties. Any given outcrop is backdrop for a variety of cover types, of which coatings, at various stages of maturity, are one. Petrographic and X-ray diffraction analysis of the outer air-interface zone of coatings reveal they are composed chiefly of amorphous compounds, probably with varying proportions of iron and manganese. Observations support an origin for some outer (air-interface) coating constituents exogenous to the underlying host

An experimental study on Γ\Gamma(2) modular symmetry in the quantum Hall system with a small spin-splitting

Magnetic-field-induced phase transitions were studied with a two-dimensional electron AlGaAs/GaAs system. The temperature-driven flow diagram shows the features of the $\Gamma$(2) modular symmetry, which includes distorted flowlines and shiftted critical point. The deviation of the critical conductivities is attributed to a small but resolved spin splitting, which reduces the symmetry in Landau quantization. [B. P. Dolan, Phys. Rev. B 62, 10278.] Universal scaling is found under the reduction of the modular symmetry. It is also shown that the Hall conductivity could still be governed by the scaling law when the semicircle law and the scaling on the longitudinal conductivity are invalid. *corresponding author:[email protected]: The revised manuscript has been published in J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

Spawning rings of exceptional points out of Dirac cones

The Dirac cone underlies many unique electronic properties of graphene and topological insulators, and its band structure--two conical bands touching at a single point--has also been realized for photons in waveguide arrays, atoms in optical lattices, and through accidental degeneracy. Deformations of the Dirac cone often reveal intriguing properties; an example is the quantum Hall effect, where a constant magnetic field breaks the Dirac cone into isolated Landau levels. A seemingly unrelated phenomenon is the exceptional point, also known as the parity-time symmetry breaking point, where two resonances coincide in both their positions and widths. Exceptional points lead to counter-intuitive phenomena such as loss-induced transparency, unidirectional transmission or reflection, and lasers with reversed pump dependence or single-mode operation. These two fields of research are in fact connected: here we discover the ability of a Dirac cone to evolve into a ring of exceptional points, which we call an "exceptional ring." We experimentally demonstrate this concept in a photonic crystal slab. Angle-resolved reflection measurements of the photonic crystal slab reveal that the peaks of reflectivity follow the conical band structure of a Dirac cone from accidental degeneracy, whereas the complex eigenvalues of the system are deformed into a two-dimensional flat band enclosed by an exceptional ring. This deformation arises from the dissimilar radiation rates of dipole and quadrupole resonances, which play a role analogous to the loss and gain in parity-time symmetric systems. Our results indicate that the radiation that exists in any open system can fundamentally alter its physical properties in ways previously expected only in the presence of material loss and gain

Inhibition of SARS-CoV 3C-like Protease Activity by Theaflavin-3,3′-digallate (TF3)

SARS-CoV is the causative agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The virally encoded 3C-like protease (3CL(Pro)) has been presumed critical for the viral replication of SARS-CoV in infected host cells. In this study, we screened a natural product library consisting of 720 compounds for inhibitory activity against 3CL(Pro). Two compounds in the library were found to be inhibitive: tannic acid (IC(50) = 3 µM) and 3-isotheaflavin-3-gallate (TF2B) (IC(50) = 7 µM). These two compounds belong to a group of natural polyphenols found in tea. We further investigated the 3CL(Pro)-inhibitory activity of extracts from several different types of teas, including green tea, oolong tea, Puer tea and black tea. Our results indicated that extracts from Puer and black tea were more potent than that from green or oolong teas in their inhibitory activities against 3CL(Pro). Several other known compositions in teas were also evaluated for their activities in inhibiting 3CL(Pro). We found that caffeine, (—)-epigallocatechin gallte (EGCg), epicatechin (EC), theophylline (TP), catechin (C), epicatechin gallate (ECg) and epigallocatechin (EGC) did not inhibit 3CL(Pro) activity. Only theaflavin-3,3′-digallate (TF3) was found to be a 3CL(Pro) inhibitor. This study has resulted in the identification of new compounds that are effective 3CL(Pro) inhibitors

Evidence for Static Magnetism in the Vortex Cores of Ortho-II YBa2_2Cu3_3O6.50_{6.50}

Evidence for static alternating magnetic fields in the vortex cores of underdoped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ is reported. Muon spin rotation measurements of the internal magnetic field distribution of the vortex state of YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.50}$ in applied fields of $H = 1$ T and $H = 4$ T reveal a feature in the high-field tail of the field distribution which is not present in optimally doped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.95}$ and which fits well to a model with static magnetic fields in the vortex cores. The magnitude of the fields is estimated to be 18(2) G and decreases above $T = 10$ K. We discuss possible origins of the additional vortex core magnetism within the context of existing theories.Comment: Submitted to PRL; corresponding author: [email protected]

The Principle of Valence Bond Amplitude Maximization in Cuprates: How it breeds Superconductivity, Spin and Charge Orders

A simple microscopic principle of `Valence bond (nearest neighbor singlet) amplitude maximization '(VBAM) is shown to be present in undoped and optimally doped cuprates and unify the very different orderings such as antiferromagnetism in the Mott insulator and the robust superconductivity accompanied by an enhanced charge and stripe correlations in the optimally doped cuprates. VBAM is nearly synonymous with the energy minimization principle. It is implicit in the RVB theory and thereby makes the predictions of RVB mean field theory of superconductivity qualitatively correct.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe