Ion Implants as Matrix‐Appropriate Calibrators for Geochemical Ion Probe Analyses

Ion microprobe elemental and isotopic determinations can be precise but difficult to quantify. Error is introduced when the reference material and the sample to be analysed have different compositions. Mitigation of such ‘matrix effects’ is possible using ion implants. If a compositionally homogeneous reference material is available which is ‘matrix‐appropriate’ (i.e., close in major element composition to the sample to be analysed, but having an unknown concentration of the element, E, to be determined) then ion implantation can be used to introduce a known amount of an E isotope, calibrating the E concentration and producing a matrix‐appropriate calibrator. Nominal implant fluences (ions cm^?2) are inaccurate by amounts up to approximately 30%. However, ion implantation gives uniform fluences over large areas; thus, it is possible to ‘co‐implant’ an additional reference material of any bulk composition having known amounts of E, independently calibrating the implant fluence. Isotope ratio measurement standards can be produced by implanting two different isotopes, but permil level precision requires postimplant calibration of the implant isotopic ratio. Examples discussed include (a) standardising Li in melilite; (b) calibrating a ²⁵Mg implant fluence using NIST SRM 617 glass and (c) using Si co‐implanted with ²⁵Mg alongside NIST SRM 617 to produce a calibrated measurement of Mg in Si.     

Red snapper discards in the Gulf of Mexico: Fishermen's perceptions following the implementation of Individual Fishing Quotas

In 2007, an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) program was introduced to the valuable red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) fishery in the US Gulf of Mexico. This study assessed the current perceived scale and causes of red snapper discarding in the Gulf in recent years within the commercial reef fish fishery, according to commercial fishermen. Data were collected through interviews, which took place with fishermen in April and May 2010, and which were unexpectedly halted due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred in late April 2010. Results suggest that for those fishermen fully participating in the IFQ program, snapper discarding has decreased since program implementation. For those not fully involved in the program (e.g., due to participation costs), discarding has likely since increased.     

Ocean urea fertilization for carbon credits poses high ecological risks

The proposed plan for enrichment of the Sulu Sea, Philippines, a region of rich marine biodiversity, with thousands of tonnes of urea in order to stimulate algal blooms and sequester carbon is flawed for multiple reasons. Urea is preferentially used as a nitrogen source by some cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates, many of which are neutrally or positively buoyant. Biological pumps to the deep sea are classically leaky, and the inefficient burial of new biomass makes the estimation of a net loss of carbon from the atmosphere questionable at best. The potential for growth of toxic dinoflagellates is also high, as many grow well on urea and some even increase their toxicity when grown on urea. Many toxic dinoflagellates form cysts which can settle to the sediment and germinate in subsequent years, forming new blooms even without further fertilization. If large-scale blooms do occur, it is likely that they will contribute to hypoxia in the bottom waters upon decomposition. Lastly, urea production requires fossil fuel usage, further limiting the potential for net carbon sequestration. The environmental and economic impacts are potentially great and need to be rigorously assessed.     

Seismic behavior assessment for design of integral abutment bridges in Illinois

Integral abutment bridges(IABs)minimize deterioration and degradation of the abutment seats and bearings due to water,dirt,and deicing chemicals by eliminating ...     

Effect of oil composition on fluid substitution in heavy oil reservoirs

Unlike light oils, heavy oils do not have a well‐established scheme for modelling elastic moduli from dynamic reservoir properties. One of the main challenges in the fluid substitution of heavy oils is their viscoelastic nature, which is controlled by temperature, pressure, and fluid composition. Here, we develop a framework for fluid substitution modelling that is reliable yet practical for a wide range of cold and thermal recovery scenarios in producing heavy oils and that takes into account the reservoir fluid composition, grounded on the effective‐medium theories for estimating elastic moduli of an oil–rock system. We investigate the effect of fluid composition variations on oil–rock elastic moduli with temperature changes. The fluid compositional behaviour is determined by flash calculations. Elastic moduli are then determined using the double‐porosity coherent potential approximation method and the calculated viscosity based on the fluid composition. An increase in temperature imposes two opposing mechanisms on the viscosity behaviour of a heavy‐oil sample: gas liberation, which tends to increase the viscosity, and melting, which decreases the viscosity. We demonstrate that melting dominates gas liberation, and as a result, the viscosity and, consequently, the shear modulus of the heavy oils always decrease with increasing temperature. Furthermore, it turns out that one can disregard the effects of gas in the solution when modelling the elastic moduli of heavy oils. Here, we compare oil–rock elastic moduli when the rock is saturated with fluids that have different viscosity levels. The objective is to characterize a unique relation between the temperature, the frequency, and the elastic moduli of an oil–rock system. We have proposed an approach that takes advantage of this relation to find the temperature and, consequently, the viscosity in different regions of the reservoir.     

尼日利亚西部大陆边缘海底峡谷下部结构研究

Multi-beam,sub-bottom and multichannel seismic data acquired from the western Nigerian continental margin are analysed and interpreted to examine the architectural characteristics of the lower parts of the submarine canyons on the margin.The presence of four canyons: Avon,Mahin,Benin,and Escravos,are confirmed from the multi-beam data map and identified as cutting across the shelf and slope areas,with morphological features ranging from axial channels,moderate to high sinuosity indices,scarps,terraces and nickpoints which are interpreted as resulting from erosional and depositional activities within and around the canyons.The Avon Canyon,in particular,is characterised by various branches and sub-branches with complex morphologies.The canyons are mostly U-shaped in these lower parts with occasional V-shapes down their courses.Their typical orientation is NE–SW.Sedimentary processes are proposed as being a major controlling factor in these canyons.Sediments appear to have been discharged directly into the canyons by rivers during the late Quaternary low sea level which allows river mouths to extend as far as the shelf edge.The current sediment supply is still primarily sourced from these rivers in the case of the Benin and Escravos Canyons,but indirectly in the case of the Avon and Mahin Canyons where the rivers discharge sediments into the lagoons and the lagoons bring the sediments on to the continental shelf before they are dispersed into the canyon heads.Ancient canyons that have long been buried underneath the Avon Canyon are identified in the multichannel seismic profile across the head of the Avon Canyon,while a number of normal faults around the walls of the Avon and Mahin Canyons are observed in the selected sub-bottom profiles.The occurrence of these faults,especially in the irregular portions of the canyon walls,suggests that they also have some effect on the canyon architecture.The formation of the canyons is attributed to the exposure of the upper marginal area to incisions from erosion during the sea level lowstand of the glacial period.The incisions are widened and lengthened by contouric currents,turbidity currents and slope failures resulting in the canyons.     

Coordinated EDX and micro‐Raman analysis of presolar silicon carbide: A novel,nondestructive method to identify rare subgroup SiC

We report the development of a novel method to nondestructively identify presolar silicon carbide (SiC) grains with high initial ²⁶Al/²⁷Al ratios (>0.01) and extreme ¹³C‐enrichments (¹²C/¹³C ≤ 10) by backscattered electron‐energy dispersive X‐ray (EDX) and micro‐Raman analyses. Our survey of a large number of presolar SiC demonstrates that (1) ~80% of core‐collapse supernova and putative nova SiC can be identified by quantitative EDX and Raman analyses with >70% confidence; (2) ~90% of presolar SiC are predominantly 3C‐SiC, as indicated by their Raman transverse optical (TO) peak position and width; (3) presolar 3C‐SiC with ¹²C/¹³C ≤ 10 show lower Raman TO phonon frequencies compared to mainstream 3C‐SiC. The downward shifted phonon frequencies of the ¹³C‐enriched SiC with concomitant peak broadening are a natural consequence of isotope substitution. ¹³C‐enriched SiC can therefore be identified by micro‐Raman analysis; (4) larger shifts in the Raman TO peak position and width indicate deviations from the ideal 3C structure, including rare polytypes. Coordinated transmission electron microscopy analysis of one X and one mainstream SiC grain found them to be of 6H and 15R polytypes, respectively; (5) our correlated Raman and NanoSIMS study of mainstream SiC shows that high nitrogen content is a dominant factor in causing mainstream SiC Raman peak broadening without significant peak shifts; and (6) we found that the SiC condensation conditions in different stellar sites are astonishingly similar, except for X grains, which often condensed more rapidly and at higher atmospheric densities and temperatures, resulting in a higher fraction of grains with much downward shifted and broadened Raman TO peaks.     

The Biscuit Brook and Neversink Reservoir watersheds: Long-term investigations of stream chemistry,soil chemistry and aquatic ecology in the Catskill Mountains,New York,USA, 1983–2020

This data note describes the Biscuit Brook and Neversink Reservoir watershed long-term monitoring data that includes: 1) stream discharge, (1983–2020 for Biscuit Brook and 1937–2020 for the Neversink Reservoir watershed), 2) stream water chemistry, 1983–2020, at 4 stations, 3) fish survey data from 16 locations in the watershed 1990–2019, 4) soil chemistry data from 2 headwater sub-watersheds, 1993–2012 and 5) periodic stream water chemistry sampling data from 364 locations throughout the watershed, 1983–2020. The Neversink Reservoir watershed in the Catskill Mountains of New York, USA drains an area of 172.5 km². The watershed feeds one of six reservoirs in New York City's West of Hudson water supply, which accounts for about 90% of the city's water supply. Biscuit Brook is a 9.63 km² tributary sub-watershed within the Neversink Reservoir watershed.     

Numerical modeling of fracturing in permeable rocks via a micromechanical continuum model

The paper presents a micromechanical approach to describe the failure of low-permeability brittle rocks as a multiscale fracturing process based on a poroelastic microcrack-damage model. Failure is formulated deep down at the fine pore scale as a material degradation phenomenon driven by microcrack growth that also impacts upon hydromechanical properties. A set of damage tensors describes the effect of dual-scale porosities (nanopores and microcracks) on both the hydraulic and poroelastic rock properties. Essentially, the multiscale model reconstructs the coupling effect of hydromechanical forces at the continuum level from the ground up through the upscaling of multiphase interactions at the fundamental structural level of the material. As a result, many macroscopic characteristics emerge naturally such as friction angle, fracture properties, and most importantly, Biot's coefficient taking on a tensorial form that is generally anisotropic. The model is validated within the framework of finite elements to illustrate various baseline constitutive features such as the effect of microcrack growth on the nonlinear stress-strain response and the induced anisotropy in the context of lab experimental tests and boundary value problems. Heterogeneities of the rock samples were incorporated by choosing material properties to be stochastic following Weibull and lognormal distributions. Numerical results appropriately replicated typical experimental observations where fracture localization and propagation are shown to be a multiscale phenomenon emerging from microcrack growth and coalescence at the microscale, with concomitant enhancement in fluid conductivity.     

Presolar grains in primitive ungrouped carbonaceous chondrite Northwest Africa 5958

We report a correlated NanoSIMS‐transmission electron microscopy study of the ungrouped carbonaceous chondrite Northwest Africa (NWA) 5958. We identified 10 presolar SiC grains, 2 likely presolar graphite grains, and 20 presolar silicate and/or oxide grains in NWA 5958. We suggest a slight modification of the commonly used classification system for presolar oxides and silicates that better reflects the grains’ likely stellar origins. The matrix‐normalized presolar SiC abundance in NWA 5958 is ppm (2σ) similar to that seen in many classes of unmetamorphosed chondrites. In contrast, the matrix‐normalized abundance of presolar O‐rich phases (silicates and oxides) is ppm (2σ), much lower than seen in interplanetary dust particles and the least‐altered CR, CO, and ungrouped C chondrites, but close to that reported for CM chondrites. NanoSIMS mapping also revealed an unusual ¹³C‐enriched (δ¹³C≈100–200‰) carbonaceous rim surrounding a 1.4 μm diameter phyllosilicate grain. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis of two presolar grains with a likely origin in asymptotic giant branch stars identified one as enstatite and one as Al‐Mg spinel with minor Cr. The enstatite grain amorphized rapidly under the electron beam, suggesting partial hydration. TEM data of NWA 5958 matrix confirm that it has experienced aqueous alteration and support the suggestion of Jacquet et al. (34) that this meteorite has affinities to CM2 chondrites.