Search results for "impact crater"
showing 10 items of 134 documents
Clues to the nature of the impacting bodies from platinum-group elements (rhenium and gold) in borehole samples from the Clearwater East crater (Cana…
1997
— Seven large (10 g) impact melt rock samples from boreholes from the Boltysh impact crater (Ukraine) and six samples from the East Clearwater crater (Canada) were analyzed for Os, Ir, Ru, Rh, Pd, Re and Au by the nickel sulfide technique in combination with neutron activation. Earlier analyses of Clearwater East impact melt rocks have shown that they are strongly enriched in Ir, Os, Pd and Re. In this work, I confirm earlier findings and demonstrate similarly high enrichments of Rh and Ru. The average Os/Ir, Ru/Ir, Pd/Ir, Rh/Ir and Ru/Rh ratios of the melt rock samples from Clearwater East are CI-chondritic and yield an average Ir content of 25.2 ± 6.5 ng/g relative to an average upper cru…
Impact Energy Flux on Earth in the Last 150 Ma as Inferred from the Cratering Records
1998
We have used a compilation of 30 well-dated large impact craters on Earth (i.e., diameters larger than 5 km) younger than 150 Ma, their diameters, geochronologic ages, and the corresponding uncertainties to construct a graph summarizing our current knowledge on the influx of the impact energy onto the Earth as a function of time. From the crater diameters, we estimated the corresponding impact energies through suitable scaling laws. Then to each crater we associated a gaussian (bell) function of time centered at its age. Finally, all the bell functions corresponding to different craters were summed up and the resulting curve was plotted. From this curve, it is apparent that the 65 Ma old Ch…
Ernst Julius Öpik’s (1916) note on the theory of explosion cratering onthe Moon’s surface—The complex case of a long-overlooked benchmark paper
2014
High-velocity impact as a common phenomenon in planetary evolution was ignored until well into the twentieth century, mostly because of inadequate understanding of cratering processes. An eight-page note, published in Russian by the young Ernst Julius Opik, a great Estonian astronomer, was among the key selenological papers, but due to the language barrier, it was barely known and mostly incorrectly cited. This particular paper is here intended to serve as an explanatory supplement to an English translation of Opik's article, but also to document an early stage in our understanding of cratering. First, we outline the historical–biographical background of this benchmark paper, and second, a …
The Hydrothermal System of Solfatara Crater (Campi Flegrei, Italy) Inferred From Machine Learning Algorithms
2019
Two machine learning algorithms were applied to three multivariate datasets acquired at Solfatara volcano. Our aim was to find an unbiased and coherent synthesis among the large amount of data acquired within the crater and along two orthogonal vertical NNE- and WNW-trending cross-sections. The first algorithm includes a new approach for a soft K-means clustering based on the use of the silhouette index to control the color palette of the clusters. The second algorithm which uses the self-organizing maps incorporates an alternative method for choosing the number of nodes of the neural network which aims to avoid the need for downstream clustering of the results of the classification. Both m…
Rapid chemical evolution of tropospheric volcanic emissions from Redoubt Volcano, Alaska, based on observations of ozone and halogen-containing gases
2013
Abstract We report results from an observational and modeling study of reactive chemistry in the tropospheric plume emitted by Redoubt Volcano, Alaska. Our measurements include the first observations of Br and I degassing from an Alaskan volcano, the first study of O 3 evolution in a volcanic plume, as well as the first detection of BrO in the plume of a passively degassing Alaskan volcano. This study also represents the first detailed spatially-resolved comparison of measured and modeled O 3 depletion in a volcanic plume. The composition of the plume was measured on June 20, 2010 using base-treated filter packs (for F, Cl, Br, I, and S) at the crater rim and by an instrumented fixed-wing a…
Dynamics of outgassing and plume transport revealed by proximal Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) measurements at Volcán Villarrica, Chile
2019
Volcanic gas emissions are intimately linked to the dynamics of magma ascent and outgassing, and, on geological timescales, constitute an important source of volatiles to the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements of gas composition and flux are therefore critical to both volcano monitoring and to determining the contribution of volcanoes to global geochemical cycles. However, significant gaps remain in our global inventories of volcanic emissions, (particularly for CO2, which requires proximal sampling of a concentrated plume) for those volcanoes where the near‐vent region is hazardous or inaccessible. Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) provide a robust and effective solution to proximal sampling of …
Magmatic gas percolation through the old lava dome of El Misti volcano
2017
International audience; The proximity of the major city of Arequipa to El Misti has focused attention on the hazards posed by the active volcano. Since its last major eruption in the fifteenth century, El Misti has experienced a series of modest phreatic eruptions and fluctuating fumarolic activity. Here, we present the first measurements of the compositions of gas emitted from the lava dome in the summit crater. The gas composition is found to be fairly dry with a H2O/SO2 molar ratio of 32 ± 3, a CO2/SO2 molar ratio of 2.7 ± 0.2, a H2S/SO2 molar ratio of 0.23 ± 0.02 and a H2/SO2 molar ratio of 0.012 ± 0.002. This magmatic gas signature with minimal evidence of hydrothermal or wall rock int…
Helium and CO2 soil gas emission from Santorini (Greece)
1994
Soil gas investigation is a useful tool to detect active faults. The sudden appearance of soil gas anomalies in zones of deep-reaching faults represents a promising potential precursor of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In volcanic areas the development of soil gas monitoring techniques is particularly important, as they can represent, together with remote sensing techniques, the only geochemical methods that can be safely applied during volcanic unrest, when it becomes impossible or too dangerous to sample crater fumaroles. A soil gas survey was carried out in June 1993 at the main island of Thera, in the Santorini volcanic complex. CO2 flux and CO2 and helium concentrations were measu…
Water alteration of rocks and soils on Mars at the Spirit rover site in Gusev crater
2005
The cover shows part of the Larry's Lookout panorama, seen from the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Spirit during its drive up Husband Hill: the summit is about 200 metres from the rover. Six papers this week report in detail on the MER mission. An Analysis compares predictions used to select a landing site with the conditions actually encountered. This ‘ground truth’ will be invaluable for interpreting future remote-sensing data. Surface chemistry suggests that the upper layer of soil may contain 1% meteoritic material. MER provides a unique glimpse of solar transits of the moons Phobos and Deimos. Rover Opportunity examined wind-related processes, and spectroscopy indicates a dry origin for …
Deviation from threshold model in ultrafast laser ablation of graphene at sub-micron scale
2015
International audience; We investigate a method to measure ultrafast laser ablation threshold with respect to spot size. We use structured complex beams to generate a pattern of craters in CVD graphene with a single laser pulse. A direct comparison between beam profile and SEM characterization allows us to determine the dependence of ablation probability on spot-size, for crater diameters ranging between 700 nm and 2.5 μm. We report a drastic decrease of ablation probability when the crater diameter is below 1 μm which we interpret in terms of free-carrier diffusion.