Arctic sea-ice variations from time-lapse passive microwave imagery
W. J. Campbell, R.O. Ramseier, H.J. Zwally, P. Gloersen
1980, Boundary-Layer Meteorology (18) 99-106
This paper presents: (1) a short historical review of the passive microwave research on sea ice which established the observational and theoretical base permitting the interpretation of the first passive microwave images of Earth obtained by the Nimbus-5 ESMR; (2) the construction of a time-lapse motion picture film of a...
Water resources of the People's Republic of China
N.C. Matalas, C.F. Nordin Jr.
1980, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (61) 891-901
At the invitation of the Society of Hydraulic Engineers of the People's Republic of China (PRC), a delegation of U.S. hydrologists and hydraulic engineers visited the PRC in the fall of 1978.* From discussions with officials of both the Society and the Ministry of Water Conservancy and Power (MWCP), and...
Debris-flow deposits of Early Miocene age, Deadman Stream, Marlborough, New Zealand.
D.W. Lewis, M.G. Laird, R.D. Powell
1980, Sedimentary Geology (27) 83-118
Detailed analysis is presented of a conformable succession of conglomerates and sandstones lying between massive marine mudstones. The coarse sediments reflect deposition by a spectrum of subaqueous debris-flow mechanisms during an early pulse of tectonism that ultimately resulted in Plio-Pleistocene eversion of the Kaikoura Mountains. Sparse pebbly mudstones and rare...
Late Wisconsin and Holocene tectonic stability of the United States mid-Atlantic coastal region
B. W. Blackwelder
1980, Geology (8) 534-537
Deposits that formed in the intertidal zone during sea-level rise 12,000 to 9,000 yr ago have undergone very little differential vertical deformation in the area between New York City and South Carolina. The lack of north-south vertical deformation contrasts with tide-gauge and with...
Quantile estimation with more or less floodlike distributions
J. Maciunas Landwehr, N.C. Matalas, J.R. Wallis
1980, Water Resources Research (16) 547-555
The desirable properties of an estimator relative to a hypothetical population may be irrelevant in practice unless the population at issue more or less resembles the hypothetical population. Evidence that floods are distributed with long, stretched upper tails suggests that use of the more common distributions results in a rather...
Hydrocarbon gas in sediment from the shelf, slope and basin of the Bering Sea.
K.A. Kvenvolden, G.D. Redden
1980, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (44) 1145-1150
Methane, ethane, ethene, propane, propene, isobutane and n-butane are present in low concentrations in the top 2m of sediment. Methane is most abundant and its concentration increases with depth in the sediment. Ethane, ethene, propane and propene are present in almost all samples, but the concentrations of these gases are...
The provenance of rutile.
E. R. Force
1980, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology (50) 485-488
Most coarse detrital rutile is derived from high-grade metamorphic rocks. Contrary to a conventional assumption, independent rutile grains are particularly rare in igneous rocks except alkalic rocks. The use of rutile in the ZTR (zircon-tourmaline-rutile) index of mineralogic maturity is only partially valid,...
Implications of regional gravity for state of stress in the earth's crust and upper mantle
M. McNutt
1980, Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth (85) 6377-6396
Topography is maintained by stress differences within the earth. Depending on the distribution of the stress we classify the support as either local or regional compensation. In general, the stresses implied in a regional compensation scheme are an order of magnitude larger than those corresponding to local isostasy. Gravity anomalies,...
Ocean eddy structure by satellite radar altimetry required for iceberg towing
W. J. Campbell, R. E. Cheney, J. G. Marsh, N. M. Mognard
1980, Cold Regions Science and Technology (1) 211-221
Models for the towing of large tabular icebergs give towing speeds of 0.5 knots to 1.0 knots relative to the ambient near surface current. Recent oceanographic research indicates that the world oceans are not principally composed of large steady-state current systems, like the Gulf Stream, but that most of the...
Rate of mercury loss from contaminated estuarine sediments
Michael H. Bothner, R.A. Jahnke, M. L. Peterson, R. Carpenter
1980, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (44) 273-285
The concentration of mercury in contaminated estuarine sediments of Bellingham Bay, Washington was found to decrease with a half-time of about 1.3 yr after the primary anthropogenic source of mercury was removed. In situ measurements of the mercury flux from sediments, in both dissolved and volatile forms, could not account...
Computational methods for inverse problems in geophysics: Inversion of travel time observations
V. Pereyra, H.B. Keller, W.H.K. Lee
1980, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors (21) 120-125
General ways of solving various inverse problems are studied for given travel time observations between sources and receivers. These problems are separated into three components: (a) the representation of the unknown quantities appearing in the model; (b) the nonlinear least-squares problem; (c) the direct, two-point ray-tracing problem used to compute...
Gas and hydrogen isotopic analyses of volcanic eruption clouds in Guatemala sampled by aircraft
W.I. Rose Jr., R.D. Cadle, L.E. Heidt, I. Friedman, A.L. Lazrus, B.J. Huebert
1980, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (7) 1-10
Gas samples were collected by aircraft entering volcanic eruption clouds of three Guatemalan volcanoes. Gas chromatographic analyses show higher H2 and S gas contents in ash eruption clouds and lower H2 and S gases in vaporous gas plumes. H isotopic data demonstrate lighter isotopic distribution of water vapor in ash...
Secular, annual, and semiannual changes in the baseline level of the earth's magnetic field at North American locations
W.H. Campbell
1980, Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth (85) 6557-6571
Secular, annual, and semiannual changes were obtained from the midnight values of field on specially determined days of quiet magnetospheric conditions. From a selection of North American observatories the latitude variation of these changes was evaluated from 20° to 65°. Results for the active and quiet sun years (1958 and...
Treasures from the deep ( Metallic nodules).
D.Z. Piper
1980, Water Spectrum (13) 8-15
The composition, distribution, metric growth rates and variations in sea-floor metallic nodules are outlined and discussed The considerable age, slow accretion and relationship to underlying sediments are problems of origin which are yet to be solved and some speculative answers are discussed. Mining of the nodules is reviewed and its...
Fission-track age of the Mangaroa ash and tectonic implications at Wellington, New Zealand.
C. W. Naeser, S. Nishimura, Te Punga
1980, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics (23) 615-621
Three samples of zircon from the Mangaroa Ash, an important marker bed in the late Pleistocene deposits of the Wellington area, have been dated by fission-track analysis. The average age of the 3 zircon samples is 380 000 years. Since this tephra fell, vertical uplift at Tinakori Hill on the...
Lithospheric loading by the 1896 Riku-u earthquake, northern Japan: Implications for plate flexure and asthenospheric rheology
W. Thatcher, T. Matsuda, T. Kato, J. B. Rundle
1980, Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth (85) 6429-6435
Under favorable circumstances the time-dependent aseismic deformation resulting from the loading of the lithosphere by the stress drop of large dip slip earthquakes can be used to determine both the effective elastic plate thickness and the asthenospheric viscosity. The deformation has several similarities with the deflection of the lithosphere by...
Direct computation of the sensible heat flux
K. Watson
1980, Geophysical Research Letters (7) 616-618
An algorithm to determine the sensible heat flux from simple field measurements (wind speed, air and ground temperatures) has been developed. It provides a direct solution, in parametric form, which can be displayed graphically or tabularly. This method has an advantage over the previous iterative solution...
Shallow, low-permeability reservoirs of northern Great Plains: Assessment of their natural gas resources.
Dudley D. Rice, George W. Shurr
1980, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin (64) 969-987
Major resources of natural gas are entrapped in low-permeability, low-pressure reservoirs at depths less than 4,000 ft (1,200 m) in the northern Great Plains. This shallow gas is the product of the immature stage of hydrocarbon generation and is referred to as biogenic gas. Prospective low-permeability, gas-bearing reservoirs range in...
Littoral transport in the surf zone elucidated by an Eulerian sediment tracer
D.B. Duane, W.R. James
1980, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology (50) 929-942
An Eulerian, or time integration, sand tracer experiment was designed and carried out in the surf zone near Pt. Mugu, California on April 19, 1972. Data indicate that conditions of stationarity and finite boundaries required for proper application of Eulerian tracer theory exist...
Heat flow and energetics of the San Andreas fault zone
A.H. Lachenbruch, J.H. Sass
1980, Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth (85) 6185-6223
Approximately 100 heat flow measurements in the San Andreas fault zone indicate (1) there is no evidence for local factional heating of the main fault trace at any latitude over a 1000-km length from Cape Mendocino to San Bernardino, (2) average heat flow is high (∼2 HFU, ∼80 mW m−2)...
Geothermal system at 21°N, East Pacific Rise: physical limits on geothermal fluid and role of adiabatic expansion
J. L. Bischoff
1980, Science (207) 1465-1469
Pressure-volume-temperature relations for water at the depth of the magma chamber at 21°N on the East Pacific Rise suggest that the maximum subsurface temperature of the geothermal fluid is about 420°C. Both the chemistry of the discharging fluid and thermal balance considerations indicate that the effective water/rock ratios in the...
Distribution of Quaternary rhyolite domes of the Coso Range, California: implications for extent of the geothermal anomaly.
C. R. Bacon, W. A. Duffield
1980, Journal of Geophysical Research (85) 2425-2433
38 separate domes and flows of phenocryst-poor, high-silica rhyolite of similar major element chemical composition were erupted over the past 1My from vents arranged in a crudely S-shaped array atop a granitic horst in the Coso Range, California. Most of the extrusions are probably less than about 0.3My old. The...
Some factors controlling the concentration of uranium in the world ocean
S. Bloch
1980, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (44) 373-377
Low-temperature alteration of the oceanic crust is a major sink for the U supplied to the oceans and may account for about 50% of the estimated present-day input of this element. Uranium uptake by organic-rich sediments and coexisting phosphorites on continental margins is also important and may remove in excess...
Calculation of uncertainties of U-Pb isotope data
K.R. Ludwig
1980, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (46) 212-220
Equations are derived for the estimation of errors and error correlations for various types of U-Pb isotope data, taking into account ion-beam instabilities, run-to-run variability in mass-discrimination, uncertainties in Pb and U concentrations, and uncertainties in initial-Pb and blank-Pb amount and isotopic composition. Equations are also given for the calculation...
Aerial photography summary record system - five years later.
T.J. Lauterborn
1980, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (46) 1537-1539
Describes the APSRS, an automated information system for conventional aerial photography projects, established after the formation of the National Cartographic Information Center in the US Geological Survey in 1974. -after Author...
