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At least 37 records · Page 2

Characterizing the uppermost 100 m structure of the San Jacinto fault zone southeast of Anza, California, through joint analysis of geological, topographic, seismic and resistivity data

We present results from complementary geological, topographic, seismic and electrical resistivity surveys at the Sagebrush Flat (SGB) site along the Clark fault (CF) strand of the San Jacinto fault zone trifurcation area southeast of Anza, California. Joint interpretation of these data sets, each with unique spatiotemporal sensitivities, allow us to better characterize the shallow (<100 m) fault zone at this structurally complex site. Geological mapping at the surface shows the CF has three main subparallel strands within a <100 m zone with varying degrees of rock damage. These strands intersect units of banded gneiss and tonalite, and various sedimentary units. Near the surface, the weathered but more intact tonalite and gneiss to the southwest have relatively high VP. The low-lying flat sedimentary basins around the two southwestern-most CF strands and elevated damaged gneiss to the northeast have lowest VP <500 m s–1. The high relief of the northeast gneiss unit may in part be explained by its extensive damage and inferred increased relative rock uplift. Resistivity imaging shows the unconsolidated dry basin sediments (maximum >1300 Ohm.m) contrasted against the compacted fine-grained (potentially wet) materials within the CF core and the Bautista Formation (minimum <40 Ohm.m), which is slightly elevated above the flat basins. The inverse relationship between VP (increases) and resistivity (decreases) in the uppermost ~15 m can be characterized as log–log linear with slopes of –2.6 to –4. At depths >30 m, the velocity heterogeneity near the surface merges into larger-scale structures that are generally slower on the northeast side of the CF core compared to the southwest side (as much as ~40 per cent reduction in average VP). A previous study revealed a 20–37 per cent variability in peak ground velocities across the SGB site from local earthquakes. The upper end of that range is associated with the near-surface unconsolidated sedimentary basins and northeast damaged gneiss unit. Preliminary analysis of time-dependent topography mostly shows effects of changing vegetation and anthropogenic activity.

Geochemistry & Geophysics↗

Silicon Tetrafluoride Vapor Pressure Study

The vapor pressure (VP) of silicon tetrafluoride (SiF4) was evaluated using three different cryogenic cold baths and multiple pressure transducers (PTs). Through this experiment, the known range of VP has been extended to a low temperature of 122 K. A functional relationship for the VP has been developed for the range between 122 and 159.6 K. This relationship was also used to estimate a VP value at 88 K, which was below observable levels with a 0.1 torr gauge.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Enkephalin inhibition of angiotensin-stimulated release of oxytocin and vasopressin

The effect of intracerebroventricular (ICV) pretreatment with 100 ng/5 microliter leucine(5)-enkephalin (LE) on the increase in plasma oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) caused by ICV injection of 10, 50, or 100 ng/5 microliter of angiotensin II (AII) is investigated experimentally in conscious adult male Sprague-Dawley rats; the effects of water-deprivation dehydration and lactation/suckling (in female rats) are also studied. An OT radioimmunoassay (RIA) with a sensitivity of 800 fg/ml (described in detail) and the VP RIA technique of Keil and Severs (1977) are employed. Administration of AII or dehydration for 48 or 72 h cause a significant increase in OT and VP without affecting the ratio, while lactation and suckling increase OT only. LE pretreatment inhibits significantly but does not suppress the AII-stimulated OT-VP response.

Keil, L. C.↗

Pituitary oxytocin and vasopressin content of rats flown on Cosmos 2044

Preliminary studies in rats (COSMOS 1887) suggested that levels of posterior pituitary hormones were reduced by exposure to spaceflight. To confirm these preliminary findings, pituitary tissue from rats flown for 14 days on Cosmos 2044 is obtained. Posterior pituitary content of oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) were measured in these tissues as well as those from ground-based controls. The synchronous control group had feeding and lighting schedules synchronized to those in the spacecraft and were maintained in flight-type cages. Another group was housed in vivarium cages; a third group was tail suspended (T), a method used to simulate microgravity. Flight rats showed an average reduction of 27 in pituitary OT and VP compared with the three control groups. When hormone content was expressed in terms of pituitary protein (microg hormone/mg protein), the average decrease in OT and VP for the flight animals ranged from 20 to 33 percent compared with the various control groups. Reduced levels of pituitary OT and VP were similar to preliminary measurements from the Cosmos 1887 mission and appear to result from exposure to spaceflight. These data suggest that changes in the rate of hormone secretion or synthesis may have occurred during exposure to microgravity.

Keil, L.↗

Modeling and Analysis of Wrinkled Membranes: An Overview

Thin-film membranes are basic elements of a variety of space inflatable/deployable structures. Wrinkling degrades the performance and reliability of these membrane structures, and hence has been a topic of continued interest. Wrinkling analysis of membranes for general geometry and arbitrary boundary conditions is quite challenging. The objective of this presentation is two-fold. Firstly, the existing models of wrinkled membranes and related numerical solution methods are reviewed. The important issues to be discussed are the capability of a membrane model to characterize taut, wrinkled and slack states of membranes in a consistent and physically reasonable manner; the ability of a wrinkling analysis method to predict the formation and growth of wrinkled regions, and to determine out-of-plane deformation and wrinkled waves; the convergence of a numerical solution method for wrinkling analysis; and the compatibility of a wrinkling analysis with general-purpose finite element codes. According to this review, several opening issues in modeling and analysis of wrinkled membranes that are to be addressed in future research are summarized, The second objective of this presentation is to discuss a newly developed membrane model of two viable parameters (2-VP model) and associated parametric finite element method (PFEM) for wrinkling analysis are introduced. The innovations and advantages of the proposed membrane model and PFEM-based wrinkling analysis are: (1) Via a unified stress-strain relation; the 2-VP model treat the taut, wrinkled, and slack states of membranes consistently; (2) The PFEM-based wrinkling analysis has guaranteed convergence; (3) The 2-VP model along with PFEM is capable of predicting membrane out-of-plane deformations; and (4) The PFEM can be integrated into any existing finite element code. Preliminary numerical examples are also included in this presentation to demonstrate the 2-VP model and PFEM-based wrinkling analysis approach.

Yang, B.↗

Graviresponsiveness and abscisic-acid content of roots of carotenoid-deficient mutants of Zea mays L

The abscisic-acid (ABA) content of roots of the carotenoid-deficient w-3, vp-5, and vp-7 mutants of Z. mays was analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with an analysis sensitivity of 6 ng ABA g-1 fresh weight (FW). Roots of normal seedlings of the same lines were characterized by the following amounts of ABA (as ng ABA g-1 FW, +/- standard deviation): w-3, 279 +/- 43; vp-5, 237 +/- 26; vp-7, 338 +/- 61. We did not detect any ABA in roots of any of the mutants. Thus, the lack of carotenoids in these mutants correlated positively with the apparent absence of ABA. Primary roots of normal and mutant seedlings were positively gravitropic, with no significant differences in the curvatures of roots of normal as compared with mutant seedlings. These results indicate that ABA 1) is synthesized in maize roots via the carotenoid pathway, and 2) is not necessary for positive gravitropism by primary roots of Z. mays.

NASA Discipline Plant Biology↗

A Local Macroscopic Conservative (LoMaC) Low Rank Tensor Method for the Vlasov Dynamics

Abstract In this paper, we propose a novel Local Macroscopic Conservative (LoMaC) low rank tensor method for simulating the Vlasov-Poisson (VP) system. The LoMaC property refers to the exact local conservation of macroscopic mass, momentum and energy at the discrete level. This is a follow-up work of our previous development of a conservative low rank tensor approach for Vlasov dynamics ( arXiv:2201.10397 ). In that work, we applied a low rank tensor method with a conservative singular value decomposition to the high dimensional VP system to mitigate the curse of dimensionality, while maintaining the local conservation of mass and momentum. However, energy conservation is not guaranteed, which is a critical property to avoid unphysical plasma self-heating or cooling. The new ingredient in the LoMaC low rank tensor algorithm is that we simultaneously evolve the macroscopic conservation laws of mass, momentum and energy using a flux-difference form with kinetic flux vector splitting; then the LoMaC property is realized by projecting the low rank kinetic solution onto a subspace that shares the same macroscopic observables by a conservative orthogonal projection. The algorithm is extended to the high dimensional problems by hierarchical Tuck decomposition of solution tensors and a corresponding conservative projection algorithm. Extensive numerical tests on the VP system are showcased for the algorithm’s efficacy.

Guo, Wei↗

High-Pressure Melting Experiments of Fe 3 C and a Thermodynamic Model of Fe-C Liquids for the Earth's Core

Melting experiments of Fe 3 C were conducted to 85 GPa in laser-heated diamond anvil cells with in situ X-ray diffraction and post-experiment textural observation. From the determined pressure-temperature conditions of the melting curve for Fe 3 C, together with literature data on the melting point of diamond and eutectic point of the system Fe-Fe 3 C/Fe 7 C 3 under high pressures, we established a self-consistent thermodynamic model for high-pressure melting of the system Fe-C including the mixing parameters for liquids. The results show that mixing of Fe and C liquids is negatively nonideal from 1 bar to the pressure at the center of the Earth. The departure from ideal mixing becomes progressively larger with increasing pressure, which leads to greatly stabilized liquids under core pressures. The modeled carbon content in eutectic melts under core pressures is 3.3–4.4 wt%. From the Gibbs free energy, we derived an internally consistent parameters for Fe-C outer cores which included the crystallizing points at their bottoms, isentropic thermal profiles, and densities and longitudinal seismic wave speeds (Vp). While the addition of carbon in excess of the eutectic melt composition effectively reduces the density of iron liquid, the Vp of iron liquid is not greatly changed. Therefore, the low density and high Vp of PREM relative to pure iron cannot be reconciled by an Fe-C liquid. Therefore, the Earth's core cannot be approximated by the system Fe-C and should include another light element.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Random-exchange Heisenberg behavior in the electron-doped quasi-one-dimensional spin-1 chain compound AgVP 2 ⁢S 6

Recent theoretical work suggests that a pair-density wave superconducting state can be realized by doping a one-dimensional spin-1 chain. Here, we report the physical properties of single crystals of Mg x Ag 1–x VP 2 S 6 [x = 0, x = 0.017(6), x = 0.067(8), and 0.098(11)] prepared by solid-state synthesis. Single-crystal x-ray-diffraction measurements confirm that Mg 2+ is substituting for Ag + to electron dope the V 3+ zigzag chains. Magnetization measurements reveal that electron doping breaks up the V 3+ chains, resulting in unpaired spins at the chain ends. The Mg x Ag 1–x VP 2 S 6 series is consistent with random-exchange Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain behavior and can be well described by the exchange-coupled pair model at low temperatures. As a result, transport measurements show Mg x Ag 1–x VP 2 S 6 remains insulating in the range 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.098(11), with the band gap decreasing to ~ 0.2 eV at x = 0.098(11).

1-dimensional spin chains↗

Current-Induced Reversal of Anomalous Hall Conductance in Twisted Bilayer Graphene

It is observed experimentally that the sign of the Hall resistance can be flipped by a dc electric current in the twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) at 3/4 filling of the fourfold degenerate conduction flat bands. The experiment implies a switching of the valley polarization (VP) and topology in TBG. In this work, we present a theory on the current-induced switching of VP and topology. The presence of current in the bulk causes the redistribution of electron occupation in bands near the Fermi energy, which then deforms and shifts the band dispersion due to the Coulomb interaction. Above a critical current, the original occupied and empty bands can be swapped, resulting in the switching of VP and topology.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Utah FORGE: Slide-Hold-Slide Experiments on Gneiss at Increased Temperature

Included are data from triaxial, single-inclined-fracture friction experiments. The experiments were performed with slide-hold-slide protocol on Utah FORGE gneiss at increased temperature. With a ~10 MPa normal stress, temperatures vary between experiments from room temperature up to 163 Celsius. Hold times vary during experiment from ~10^1 to ~10^5 seconds. Measured are the frictional response upon reactivation after a hold period, active acoustic data (P-wave velocity and amplitude) and passive acoustic data (acoustic emission occurrence and amplitude). There are two types of datafiles: (1) Datafiles containing the friction data, including the temperature and the active acoustic data measured during the experiment (AEXX_Gneiss_Vp_mixref4). The underscore _Vp means that it includes the Vp or P-wave velocity data, with _mixref meaning that we use a mixed reference point for calculating the P-wave velocity. And (2) the datafiles containing the passive acoustics data, a catalog of the acoustic emissions (AE's) measured during the experiment (AEcatalog_AEXX_runX), where AEXX matches the experiment number and runX denotes which part of the experiment the data was collected, matching the times where active acoustic data was collected. AE catalogs are split in two parts when the file size exceeds 1 GB to aid download/opening times.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Temperature-induced densification in compressed basaltic glass revealed by in-situ ultrasonic measurements

Abstract Acoustic velocities of a model basalt glass (64 mol% CaMgSi2O6 + 36 mol% CaAl2Si2O8) were measured along different pressure-temperature (P-T) paths. One set of experiments involved isothermal compression-decompression cycles, performed at temperatures of 300, 641, 823, and 1006 K and pressures up to 12.2 GPa. The other set of experiments involved constant-load heating-cooling cycles at temperatures up to 823 K and pressures up to 7.5 GPa. Both sets of experiments were performed in a multi-anvil apparatus using a synchrotron-based ultrasonic technique. Our results show that the glass compressed isothermally at 300 K (cold-compression) displays anomalously decreasing compressional (VP) and shear (VS) wave velocities with increasing pressure until ~8 GPa. Beyond 8 GPa, both VP and VS start to increase sharply with pressure and irreversible densification of the glass occurred, producing large hysteresis loops of velocities upon decompression. However, for the glass compressed isothermally at increasingly higher temperatures (hot-compression), the velocity minima gradually shift to lower pressures. At temperature close to the glass transition temperature Tg, the velocity minima disappear completely, displaying a monotonic increase of velocities during compression and higher VP and VS during decompression. In addition, constant-load heating-cooling experiments show that velocities generally decrease slightly with increasing temperature, but start to increase once heated above a threshold temperature (~650 K). During cooling the velocities increase almost linearly with decreasing temperature, resulting in higher velocities (~1.5–2.5% higher) when returned to 300 K. This implies that a temperature-induced densification may have occurred in the glass at high pressures. Raman spectra on recovered samples show that the hot-compressed and high-P heated glasses contain distinctly densified and depolymerized structural signatures compared to the initial glass and the cold-compressed glass below the velocity transition pressure PT (~8 GPa). Such densification may be attributed to the breaking of bridging oxygen bonds and compaction in the intermediate-range structure. Our results demonstrate that temperature can facilitate glass densification at high pressures and point out the importance of P-T history in understanding the elastic properties of silicate glasses. Comparison with melt velocity suggests that hot-compressed glasses may better resemble the pressure dependence of velocity of silicate melts than cold-compressed glasses, but still show significantly higher velocities than melts. If the abnormal acoustic behaviors of cold-compressed glasses were used to constrain melt fractions in the mantle low-velocity regions, the melt fractions needed to explain a given velocity reduction would be significantly underestimated at high pressures.

Geochemistry & Geophysics↗

Deep Learning for Full Waveform Inversion of Elastic Active-Source Seismic Data to Estimate P-Wave Velocity Models

Seismic imaging methods are critical for Global Security and Energy & Homeland Security missions and activities that rely on subsurface characterization, but traditional methods remain computationally expensive and require significant labor hours and expertise to execute. Within the past few years, machine learning (ML), namely deep learning (DL), has been used to develop data-driven end-to-end full waveform inversion (FWI) methods to estimate 2D P-wave velocity (Vp) models in a fraction of the time as conventional FWI. These methods, however, are trained on simplistic acoustic wave seismic data and Vp models that are not realistic nor representative of real-world observations, leaving a large gap between the state-of-the-art and deployable, feasible, and practical DL FWI methods. Here, we generate a synthetic active-source, 3D, elastic wave seismic data set and a variety of Vp models with realistic geologic structure for training DL FWI methods. We evaluate six different methods that have performed well for acoustic DL FWI or medical imaging tasks using our more realistic dataset. We find that these six trained models do not match the performance of published acoustic end-to-end DL FWI methods, indicating more training data may be needed, physics may need to be incorporated to achieve good accuracy at the sacrifice of the end-to-end advantage, and/or novel methods need to be developed to enable end-to-end DL FWI methods to perform well for real-world seismic data.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

Fabrication and Evaluation of Large Alumina Crucibles by Vat Photopolymerization Additive Manufacturing for High-Temperature Actinide Chemistry

Additive manufacturing (AM) offers opportunities to advance the design and function of ceramic tooling in high temperature actinide pyrochemistry. In technical ceramics such as alumina, conventional forming techniques often restrict design flexibility and can limit experimental progress. In this study, we investigate the use of vat photopolymerization (VP) with commercial resins to fabricate large-scale alumina crucibles, reaching dimensions up to 125 mm, which is significantly larger than typically reported for dense VP ceramics. Notably, these additively manufactured components are produced using consumer-grade hardware, which limits process control, but offers significant upside in scalability and accessibility. Using microscopy and X-ray computed tomography, the VP alumina parts have high bulk densities above 95%, but also the prevalence of AM-induced artifacts and surface defects. Mechanical testing showed these defects to significantly reduce flexural strength and compromise part reliability. Electrorefining trials under sustained exposure to molten salts and metals reveal mixed results, with the AM material exhibiting high chemical compatibility, but mechanical failures due to the reduced strength were prevalent. Our findings illustrate both the promise and current limitations of AM ceramics for actinide chemistry, and point toward future improvements in process optimization, design strategies, and part screening to enhance performance and reliability.

Materials science↗

Seismic velocity structure of the lunar mantle

The recently completed set of seismic arrival times from the Apollo lunar seismic network are inverted to estimate the average seismic velocities in three sections of the lunar mantle: two for the upper mantle and one for the middle mantle. The method used is a variation of the linearized least squares inversion where the inversion is accomplished in steps. The estimated average velocities in the upper mantle decrease from Vp = 7.74 km/sec and Vs = 4.49 km/sec in the section above 270-km depth to Vp = 7.46 km/sec and Vs = 4.25 km/sec in the section between 270- and 500-km depth, confirming the earlier finding of negative gradients based on seismic amplitude variations. The average velocities in the middle mantle between the depths of 500 km and 1000 km of Vp = 8.26 km/sec and Vs = 4.65 km/sec are significantly higher than those in the upper mantle, contradicting earlier estimates based on more limited data. The higher velocities may suggest initial melting of the moon down to at least 1000-km depth.

Nakamura, Y.↗

A low-cost vector processor boosting compute-intensive image processing operations

Low-cost vector processing (VP) is within reach of everyone seriously engaged in scientific computing. The advent of affordable add-on VP-boards for standard workstations complemented by mathematical/statistical libraries is beginning to impact compute-intensive tasks such as image processing. A case in point in the restoration of distorted images from the Hubble Space Telescope. A low-cost implementation is presented of the standard Tarasko-Richardson-Lucy restoration algorithm on an Intel i860-based VP-board which is seamlessly interfaced to a commercial, interactive image processing system. First experience is reported (including some benchmarks for standalone FFT's) and some conclusions are drawn.

Adorf, Hans-Martin↗

Experiment K-7-20: Pituitary Oxytocin and Vasopressin Content of Rats Flown on Cosmos 2044

Pituitary levels of oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) were measured in rats exposed to 14 days of spaceflight (FLT) as well as in ground-based controls; one group synchronously maintained in flight-type cages with similar feeding schedules (SYN), one group in vivarium cages (VIV), and a group of tail suspended (SUS) animals. Flight rats had significantly less (p less than 0.05) pituitary OT and VP (4.48 +/- 0.31 and 7.48 +/- 0.53 mg hormone / mg protein, n = 5) than either the SYN (6.66 +/- 0..59 and 10.98 + 1.00, n = 5), VIV (6.14 +/- 0.40 and 10.98 +/- 0..81, n = 5) or SUS (5.73 +/- 0.24, n = 4) control groups, respectively. The reduced levels of pituitary OT and VP are similar to measurements made on rats from the previous 12.5 day Cosmos 1887 mission and appear to be a direct result of exposure to spaceflight.

Keil, L.↗

Langmuir Probe Measurements of Inductively Coupled Plasmas in CF4/Ar/O2 Mixtures

Fluorocarbon gases, such as CF4, and their mixtures are widely used in contemporary low-pressure and high-density plasma processing techniques. In such plasmas Langmuir probe is one of the most commonly employed diagnostic techniques to obtain electron number density (ne), electron temperature (Te), electron energy distribution function (EEDF), mean electron energy (Ee), ion number density (ni), and plasma potential (Vp). In this paper we report probe data for planar inductively coupled plasmas in CF4/O2/Ar mixtures. By varying the relative concentrations in the mixture, radial profiles of ne, ni, Te, Ee, Vp, EEDF were measured in the mid-plane of the plasma at 10 mTorr and 20 mTorr of gas pressures, and 200 W and 300 W of RF powers. Data show that ne and ni decrease with increase of CF4 content and decrease of gas-pressure but they increase with increase of RF-power, whereas Vp increases with decrease of gas-pressure and remains independent of RF-power. However, they all peak at the center of the plasma and decrease towards the edge while Te follows the other way and increases a little with increase of power. The measured EEDFs exhibit Druyvesteyn-like distribution at all pressures and powers. Data are analyzed and will be presented.

Rao, M. V. V. S.↗