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Job submission to grid computing environments
No full textThe problem of enabling scientist users to submit jobs to grid computing environments
will eventually limit the usability of grids. The eMinerals project has tackled this
problem by developing the “my_condor_submit” (MCS) tool, which provides a simple
scriptable interface to Globus, a flexible interaction with the Storage Resource Broker,
metascheduling with load balancing within a grid environment, and automatic metadata
harvesting. This paper provides an overview of MCS together with some use cases. We
also describe the use of MCS within parameter-sweep studies
Comment on "Epitaxial BiFeO3 multiferroic thin film heterostructures"
No full textWang et al recently reported multiferroic behavior, with ferromagnetic and ferroelectric polarizations that are both large at room temperature, in thin strained films of BiFeO3 (BFO). Although at room temperature, bulk BFO is ferroelectric and anti-ferromagnetic , Wang et al. reported that a 70-nm film shows both an enhanced ferroelectric polarization (90 μC cm–2) and a substantial magnetization (1 μB/Fe). This remains the only report of a robust room-temperature multiferroic and suggests the potential for novel devices that exploit the anticipated strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling between the two ordered ground states. In this Comment, we argue that epitaxial strain does not enhance the magnetization and polarization in BiFeO
An astrobiological perspective on Meridiani Planum
No full textSedimentary rocks exposed in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars record aqueous and eolian deposition in ancient dune and interdune playa-like environments that were arid, acidic, and oxidizing. On Earth, microbial populations have repeatedly adapted to low pH and both episodic and chronic water limitation, suggesting that, to a first approximation, the Meridiani plain may have been habitable during at least part of the interval when deposition and early diagenesis took place. On the other hand, the environmental conditions inferred for Meridiani deposition would have posed a challenge for prebiotic chemical reactions thought to have played a role in the origin of life on Earth. Orbital observations suggest that the combination of sulfate minerals and hematite found in Meridiani rocks may be unusual on the martian surface; however, there is reason to believe that acidity, aridity, and oxidizing conditions were broadly distributed on ancient Mars. When these conditions were established and how much environmental heterogeneity existed on early Mars remain to be determined. Because sulfates and iron oxides can preserve detailed geochemical records of environmental history as well as chemical, textural and microfossil signatures of biological activity, Meridiani Planum is an attractive candidate for Mars sample return. B) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Early-Middle Pleistocene deep circulation in the western subtropical Atlantic: southern hemisphere modulation of the North Atlantic Ocean
No full textEarly-Middle Pleistocene climate and deep ocean hydrography have been reconstructed using oxygen and carbon isotope ratio measurements in planktonic and benthic foraminifera from a high-deposition-rate sedimentary succession recovered at the Bermuda Rise, in the northern Sargasso Sea (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 172, Site 1063). The site’s water depth makes it sensitive to changes in the balance between North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) and Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) in the deep North Atlantic, allowing the evaluation of perturbations in deep water production at different timescales. Millennial-scale fluctuations, superimposed on the longer period oscillations of orbital origin, occurred during all the observed climate states. The highest amplitude sub-Milankovitch fluctuations were mainly associated with interglacials, particularly after the intensification of the glacial regime at c. 900 ka. Using the benthic carbon isotope signal as a water mass tracer, and by comparing the δ13C record to a suite of drill sites in the North Atlantic and Pacific oceans, it has been possible to infer that the relative strength of AABW production varied through time, as did that of NADW. A scenario in which the two different source components of deep water can undergo dramatic changes in their circulation regime through time should be taken into consideration when evaluating the role of thermohaline circulation in global climate change
Dynamics from diffraction
No full textA model-independent approach for the extraction of detailed
lattice dynamical information from neutron powder diffraction data is described. The technique is based on a statistical analysis of atomistic configurations generated using reverse Monte Carlo structural refinement.
Phonon dispersion curves extracted in this way are shown to
reproduce many of the important features found in those determined independently using neutron triple-axis spectroscopy. The extent to which diffraction data are sensitive to lattice dynamics is explored in a
range of materials. The prospect that such detailed dynamical information might be accessible using comparatively facile experiments such as neutron
powder diffraction is incredibly valuable when studying systems for which established spectroscopic methods are prohibitive or
inappropriate
Water alteration of rocks and soils on Mars at the Spirit rover site in Gusev crater
No full textGusev crater was selected as the landing site for the Spirit rover because of the possibility that it once held a lake. Thus one of the rover's tasks was to search for evidence of lake sediments. However, the plains at the landing site were found to be covered by a regolith composed of olivine-rich basaltic rock and wind-blown 'global' dust. The analyses of three rock interiors exposed by the rock abrasion tool showed that they are similar to one another, consistent with having originated from a common lava flow. Here we report the investigation of soils, rock coatings and rock interiors by the Spirit rover from sol (martian day) 1 to sol 156, from its landing site to the base of the Columbia hills. The physical and chemical characteristics of the materials analysed provide evidence for limited but unequivocal interaction between water and the volcanic rocks of the Gusev plains. This evidence includes the softness of rock interiors that contain anomalously high concentrations of sulphur, chlorine and bromine relative to terrestrial basalts and martian meteorites; sulphur, chlorine and ferric iron enrichments in multilayer coatings on the light-toned rock Mazatzal; high bromine concentration in filled vugs and veins within the plains basalts; positive correlations between magnesium, sulphur and other salt components in trench soils; and decoupling of sulphur, chlorine and bromine concentrations in trench soils compared to Gusev surface soils, indicating chemical mobility and separation
Provenance and diagenesis of the evaporite-bearing Burns formation, Meridiani Planum, Mars
No full textImpure reworked evaporitic sandstones, preserved on Meridiani Planum, Mars, are mixtures of roughly equal amounts of altered siliciclastic debris, of basaltic provenance (40 B1 10% by mass), and chemical constituents, dominated by evaporitic minerals (jarosite, Mg-, Ca-sulfates B1 chlorides B1 Fe-, Na-sulfates), hematite and possibly secondary silica (60 B1 10%). These chemical constituents and their relative abundances are not an equilibrium evaporite assemblage and to a substantial degree have been reworked by aeolian and subaqueous transport. Ultimately they formed by evaporation of acidic waters derived from interaction with olivine-bearing basalts and subsequent diagenetic alteration. The rocks experienced an extended diagenetic history, with at least two and up to four distinct episodes of cementation, including stratigraphically restricted zones of recrystallization and secondary porosity, non-randomly distributed, highly spherical millimeter-scale hematitic concretions, millimeter-scale crystal molds, interpreted to have resulted from dissolution of a highly soluble evaporite mineral, elongate to sheet-like vugs and evidence for minor synsedimentary deformation (convolute and contorted bedding, possible teepee structures or salt ridge features). Other features that may be diagenetic, but more likely are associated with relatively recent meteorite impact, are meter-scale fracture patterns, veins and polygonal fractures on rock surfaces that cut across bedding. Crystallization of minerals that originally filled the molds, early cement and sediment deformation occurred syndepositionally or during early diagenesis. All other diagenetic features are consistent with formation during later diagenesis in the phreatic (fluid saturated) zone or capillary fringe of a groundwater table under near isotropic hydrological conditions such as those expected during periodic groundwater recharge. Textural evidence suggests that rapidly formed hematitic concretions post-date the primary mineral now represented by crystal molds and early pore-filling cements but pre-date secondary moldic and vug porosity. The second generation of cements followed formation of secondary porosity. This paragenetic sequence is consistent with an extended history of syndepositional through post-depositional diagenesis in the presence of a slowly fluctuating, chemically evolving, but persistently high ionic strength groundwater system
Mars exploration rover geologic traverse by the spirit rover in the plains of Gusev crater, Mars
No full textThe Spirit rover completed a 2.5 km traverse across gently sloping plains on the floor of Gusev crater from its location on the outer rim of Bonneville crater to the lower slopes of the Columbia Hills, Mars. Using the Athena suite of instruments in a transect approach, a systematic series of overlapping panoramic mosaics, remote sensing observations, surface analyses, and trenching operations documented the lateral variations in landforms, geologic materials, and chemistry of the surface throughout the traverse, demonstrating the ability to apply the techniques of field geology by remote rover operations. Textures and shapes of rocks within the plains are consistent with derivation from impact excavation and mixing of the upper few meters of basaltic lavas. The contact between surrounding plains and crater ejecta is generally abrupt and marked by increases in clast abundance and decimeter-scale steps in relief. Basaltic materials of the plains overlie less indurated and more altered rock types at a time-stratigraphic contact between the plains and Columbia Hills that occurs over a distance of one to two meters. This implies that regional geologic contacts are well preserved and that Earth-like field geologic mapping will be possible on Mars despite eons of overturn by small impacts. B) 2005 Geological Society of America
Water alteration of rocks and soils on Mars at the Spirit rover site in Gusev crater
No full textGusev crater was selected as the landing site for the Spirit rover because of the possibility that it once held a lake. Thus one of the rover's tasks was to search for evidence of lake sediments. However, the plains at the landing site were found to be covered by a regolith composed of olivine-rich basaltic rock and wind-blown 'global' dust. The analyses of three rock interiors exposed by the rock abrasion tool showed that they are similar to one another, consistent with having originated from a common lava flow. Here we report the investigation of soils, rock coatings and rock interiors by the Spirit rover from sol (martian day) 1 to sol 156, from its landing site to the base of the Columbia hills. The physical and chemical characteristics of the materials analysed provide evidence for limited but unequivocal interaction between water and the volcanic rocks of the Gusev plains. This evidence includes the softness of rock interiors that contain anomalously high concentrations of sulphur, chlorine and bromine relative to terrestrial basalts and martian meteorites; sulphur, chlorine and ferric iron enrichments in multilayer coatings on the light-toned rock Mazatzal; high bromine concentration in filled vugs and veins within the plains basalts; positive correlations between magnesium, sulphur and other salt components in trench soils; and decoupling of sulphur, chlorine and bromine concentrations in trench soils compared to Gusev surface soils, indicating chemical mobility and separation
An arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian method for moving-boundary problems and its application to jumping over water
No full textWe develop an ALE (Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian) moving mesh method suitable for solving two-dimensional
and axisymmetric moving-boundary problems, including the interaction between a free-surface and a solid structure.
This method employs a body-fitted grid system where the gas–liquid interface and solid–liquid interface are lines of
the grid system, and complicated dynamic boundary conditions are incorporated naturally and accurately in a
Finite-Volume formulation. The resulting nonlinear system of mass and momentum conservation is then solved by a
fractional step (projection) method. The method is validated on the uniform flow passing a cylinder (a two-dimensional flow with a solid structure) and several problems of bubble dynamics (axi-symmetrical flows with a free surface) for both steady and unsteady flows. Good agreement with other theoretical, numerical and experimental results is obtained.
A further application is the investigation of a two-dimensional mechanical strider (a mass-spring system) interacting with a water surface, demonstrating the ability of the method in handling the interaction between a solid structure and a free surface. We find that the critical compression required to jump off the water surface varies linearly with spring constant for stiff springs and algebraically with exponent 0.7 for weak springs.
2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve