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At least 1,063 records · Page 59

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DOE OSTI2025

Greenhouse gas flux response in biochar- and compost-amended urban soils under simulated soil hydrologic dynamics

Understanding greenhouse gas emission dynamics in lawn soils is essential for improving climate change mitigation strategies in urban and suburban environments. This project measured fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) fluxes from turfgrass soil columns amended with biochar, compost, biochar-compost blend, control (no amendment) in a controlled greenhouse mesocosm experiment. This project simulated contrasting water saturation regimes consisting of normal irrigation with sprinkler, transient half or full saturation by water table manipulation, and subsequent drying phase under both sod or seeded grass conditions. Compost-amended columns (compost or biochar-compost blend) exhibited higher average CO 2 fluxes (6 µmol m-2 s-1) compared to biochar or control columns (4.5 – 5.0 µmol m-2 s-1) across all saturation levels under sod conditions. Seeded grass conditions generally resulted in less CO 2 emissions. The CO 2 fluxes were positively correlated with air temperature and negatively correlated with soil moisture. Biochar-amended columns retained high soil moisture (~95 %) throughout experiments, demonstrating superior moisture retention compared to compost. CH 4 and N 2 O fluxes exhibited temporal increases (5-8 nmol m-2 s-1) during saturation and drainage phases, indicating their sensitivity to hydrologic conditions. These findings suggest that temperature and amendment types are primary driver of CO 2 emissions, while CH 4 and N 2 O fluxes are more responsive to water saturation dynamics in lawn soils.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Large spatiotemporal variability in aerosol properties over central Argentina during the CACTI field campaign

Abstract. Few field campaigns with extensive aerosol measurements have been conducted over continental areas in the Southern Hemisphere. To address this data gap and better understand the interactions of convective clouds and the surrounding environment, extensive in situ and remote sensing measurements were collected during the Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain Interactions (CACTI) field campaign conducted between October 2018 and April 2019 over the Sierras de Córdoba range of central Argentina. This study describes measurements of aerosol number, size, composition, mixing state, and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) collected on the ground and from a research aircraft during 7 weeks of the campaign. Large spatial and multiday variations in aerosol number, size, composition, and CCN were observed due to transport from upwind sources controlled by mesoscale to synoptic-scale meteorological conditions. Large vertical wind shears, back trajectories, single-particle measurements, and chemical transport model predictions indicate that different types of emissions and source regions, including biogenic emissions and biomass burning from the Amazon and anthropogenic emissions from Chile and eastern Argentina, contribute to aerosols observed during CACTI. Repeated aircraft measurements near the boundary layer top reveal strong spatial and temporal variations in CCN and demonstrate that understanding the complex co-variability of aerosol properties and clouds is critical to quantify the impact of aerosol–cloud interactions. In addition to quantifying aerosol properties in this data-sparse region, these measurements will be valuable to evaluate predictions over the midlatitudes of South America and improve parameterized aerosol processes in local, regional, and global models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2018

The Impact of Prior Biosphere Models in the Inversion of Global Terrestrial CO2 Fluxes by Assimilating OCO-2 Retrievals

Atmospheric mixing ratios of carbon dioxide (CO2) are largely controlled by anthropogenic emissions and biospheric fluxes. The processes controlling terrestrial biosphere-atmosphere carbon exchange are currently not fully understood, resulting in terrestrial biospheric models having significant differences in the quantification of biospheric CO2 fluxes. Atmospheric transport models assimilating measured (in situ or space-borne) CO2 concentrations to estimate "top-down" fluxes, generally use these biospheric CO2 fluxes as a priori information. Most of the flux inversion estimates result in substantially different spatio-temporal posteriori estimates of regional and global biospheric CO2 fluxes. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) satellite mission dedicated to accurately measure column CO2 (XCO2) allows for an improved understanding of global biospheric CO2 fluxes. OCO-2 provides much-needed CO2 observations in data-limited regions facilitating better global and regional estimates of "top-down" CO2 fluxes through inversion model simulations. The specific objectives of our research are to: 1) conduct GEOS-Chem 4D-Var assimilation of OCO-2 observations, using several state-of-the-science biospheric CO2 flux models as a priori information, to better constrain terrestrial CO2 fluxes, and 2) quantify the impact of different biospheric model prior fluxes on OCO-2-assimilated a posteriori CO2 flux estimates. Here we present our assessment of the importance of these a priori fluxes by conducting Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSE) using simulated OCO-2 observations with known "true" fluxes.

Biosphere↗

DOE OSTI2024

Temporal contrast degradation from mid-spatial-frequency surface error on stretcher mirrors

Temporal contrast degradation due to mid-spatial-frequency error in chirped-pulse amplification stretcher optics is studied. Third-order cross-correlation measurements reveal a temporal peak that appears when using two different mirrors processed by magnetorheological finishing, despite an improvement in rms roughness compared to a third unprocessed mirror. Simulations based on measured power spectral density show how the actual impact on contrast is different from measurements using a typical bandwidth-limited third-order cross correlator. Furthermore, strategies are proposed to avoid this type of contrast degradation while exploiting computer numerically controlled polishing techniques for enhancement of surface figure and roughness.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Metaoptics Enabled Multifunctional Imaging

Despite the fact that most microorganisms occupy two- and three-dimensional space in heterogeneous arrangements and in proximity to other microorganisms of different species, much of our current knowledge about their metabolic processes is derived from homogenizing, then analyzing, the chemical content of cultures containing a single microbial species. This project addressed this fundamental dichotomy by developing a set of optical imaging principles combining multiple new technologies. The imaging strategies developed in this project combine metaoptics structures with active in situ nanoscale control of the chemical environment and applied them to a microbial system, Myxococcus xanthus, with particular relevance to the DoE mission. The combination of metaoptical architectures and nanoscale control over the molecular environment enables: (a) precise control over the electromagnetic (EM) field at length scales smaller than the wavelength of light; (b) control of the interaction of the EM field with critical molecular systems in DOE relevant microbes; (c) control over the chemical environment – especially the presence and quantity of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can affect redox homeostasis; and (d) the ability to ask new kinds of questions not accessible to ‘omics’ approaches or standard methods of biological imaging. These capabilities are applicable to detailed studies of metabolic pathways in microbes and to lignocellulosic biomass deconstruction. To accomplish these objectives, we pursued two over-arching technical goals: (1) the development of new metaoptics-enabled approaches to imaging and spectroscopic characterization; and (2) the development of tools to control the chemical environment of a microbial sample with nanometer-scale precision. Goal 1 was addressed through the design, fabrication, and characterization of new metasurfaces capable of super-resolution imaging through extreme confinement of the optical field. Goal 2 was addressed by controlling the redox potential on the nanoscale in microbial communities and characterizing their effect on intrinsic bacterial fluorophores which act as molecular sentinels and through characterization of soluble factors secreted by Myxococcus xanthus by confocal Raman imaging. The optical imaging/sensing approaches developed here make it possible to use these powerful new imaging and sensing modalities in metabolic studies by making it possible to visualize and track the spatial and temporal expression patterns of natural or engineered pathways in microorganisms.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2026

An Integrated Framework for Memory-Centric Analysis: From Trace Collection to Co-Design

The memory wall phenomenon—where advances in processor performance significantly outpace those in memory subsystems—poses a fundamental challenge for contemporary computing systems. In memory-bound applications, memory subsystem behavior dominates performance, yet existing analysis approaches present significant limitations: detailed microarchitectural simulators require days to weeks to simulate modest workloads; hardware performance counters provide only aggregate statistics that obscure temporal and spatial access patterns; and scaled simulation approaches face challenges in capturing certain behaviors that emerge at larger scales. These limitations reflect a processor-centric design philosophy increasingly misaligned with memory-bound workloads where detailed understanding of memory access patterns, cache hierarchy interactions, and contention is critical for effective optimization. This paper presents an integrated framework for memory-centric analysis that enables effective hardware-software co-design. We describe practical trace collection techniques, including hardware-assisted processor tracing with minimal overhead and portable software-based instrumentation with statistical sampling. We present multi-perspective analysis methods that examine memory behavior from temporal, sequential, spatial, and relational viewpoints, revealing distinct optimization opportunities invisible in aggregate metrics. We detail an architectural modeling framework that uses sampled traces with temporal interpolation and confidence-based filtering to evaluate cache and memory configurations. Evaluation on representative benchmarks demonstrates that this framework achieves practical accuracy (L2 cache errors of 2.64\%, confidence-filtered L3 errors of 9.92\%, bandwidth errors of 7.33\%) while providing substantial speedup (26.8×) over cycle-accurate simulation, enabling rapid design space exploration. We demonstrate how this integrated framework enables systematic identification of both hardware optimizations (memory controller tuning, bank partitioning, NUMA configuration) and software optimizations (data layout restructuring, prefetching strategies, memory-aware scheduling). Through this comprehensive treatment of the memory-centric analysis pipeline—from trace collection through architectural modeling to co-design application—we provide researchers and practitioners with practical techniques for addressing memory bottlenecks in contemporary computing systems.

Gajaria, Dhruv Mayur↗

NASA NTRS1990

Thermal advection and stratification effects on surface winds and the low level meridional mass transport

Statistical tests are performed on the Seasat scatterometer observations to examine if and to what degree thermal advection and stratification effects manifest themselves in these remotely sensed measurements of mean wind and wind stress over the ocean. On the basis of a two layer baroclinic boundary layer model which is presented, it is shown that the thermal advection and stratification of the entire boundary layer as well as the geostrophic forcing influence the modeled near surface wind and wind stress profiles. Evidence of diurnal variation in the stratification under barotropic conditions is found in the data, with the daytime marine boundary layer being more convective than its nighttime counterpart. The temporal and spacial sampling pattern of the satellite makes it impossible to recover the full diurnal cycle, however. The observed effects of the thermal advection are shown to be statistically significant during the day (and presumed more convective) hours, causing a systematic increase in the poleward transport of mass and heat. The statistical results are in a qualitative agreement with the model simulations and cannot be reproduced in randomized control tests.

Levy, Gad↗

NASA NTRS1992

Lithological and textural controls on radar and diurnal thermal signatures of weathered volcanic deposits, Lunar Crater region, Nevada

Radar backscatter intensity as measured by calibrated synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems is primarily controlled by three factors: local incidence angle, wavelength-scale roughness, and dielectric permittivity of surface materials. Radar observations may be of limited use for geological investigations of surface composition, unless the relationships between lithology and the above characteristics can be adequately understood. In arid terrains, such as the Southwest U.S., weathering signatures (e.g. soil development, fracturing, debris grain size and shape, and hill slope characteristics) are controlled to some extent by lithologic characteristics of the parent bedrock. These textural features of outcrops and their associated debris will affect radar backscatter to varying degrees, and the multiple-wavelength capability of the JPL Airborne SAR (AIRSAR) system allows sampling of textures at three distinct scales. Diurnal temperature excursions of geologic surfaces are controlled primarily by the thermal inertia of surface materials, which is a measure of the resistance of a material to a change in temperature. Other influences include albedo, surface slopes affecting insolation, local meteorological conditions and surface emissivity at the relevant thermal wavelengths. To first order, thermal inertia variations on arid terrain surfaces result from grain size distribution and porosity differences, at scales ranging from micrometers to tens of meters. Diurnal thermal emission observations, such as those made by the JPL Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) airborne instrument, are thus influenced by geometric surface characteristics at scales comparable to those controlling radar backscatter. A preliminary report on a project involving a combination of field, laboratory and remote sensing observations of weathered felsic-to basaltic volcanic rock units exposed in the southern part of the Lunar Crater Volcanic Field, in the Pancake Range of central Nevada is presented. Focus is on the relationship of radar backscatter cross sections at multiple wavelengths, apparent diurnal temperature excursions identified in multi-temporal TIMS images, surface geometries related to weathering style, and parent bedrock lithology.

Plaut, Jeffrey J.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Special-Purpose High-Torque Permanent-Magnet Motors

Permanent-magnet brushless motors that must provide high commanded torques and satisfy unusual heat-removal requirement are developed. Intended for use as thrust-vector-control actuators in large rocket engines. Techniques and concepts used to design improved motors for special terrestrial applications. Conceptual motor design calls for use of rotor containing latest high-energy-product rare-earth permanent magnets so that motor produces required torque while drawing smallest possible currents from power supply. Torque generated by electromagnetic interaction between stator and permanent magnets in rotor when associated electronic circuits applied appropriately temporally and spatially phased currents to stator windings. Phase relationships needed to produce commanded torque computed in response to torque command and to electronically sensed angular position of rotor relative to stator.

Doane, George B., III↗

DOE OSTI2024

Event-Based Energy Impact Tracking and Forecasting with Limited Measurements for Rooftop Units

Packaged air conditioning units and heat pumps, also known as rooftop units (RTUs), are responsible for almost 133 billion kWh of electricity usage annually on site for space cooling U.S. commercial buildings. In addition, the use of heat pumps is a trend we expect to accelerate as buildings transition from fossil fuel-based heating to electricity as a key step for decarbonizing the U.S. commercial buildings sector. However, the operation conditions and energy use of RTUs and heat pumps are usually not well monitored as they are not commonly integrated with building automation systems and lack exposed sensing and control points. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a framework for tracking and forecasting energy impacts resulting from degradation of performance and improved performance for unit servicing using limited data. The proposed framework makes use of a constrained dataset, specifically measurements of the outdoor air temperature and the power demand of individual RTUs, to track and forecast changes in energy use associated with changes in performance over various temporal horizons ranging from days to weeks. Following the detection of an RTU fault, performance degradation, or performance improvement, the framework employs a prediction model to assess the cumulative energy impact. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method with field-collected data for servicing and degradation examples and compare the predicting accuracy of Gradient Boosting Decision Tree (GBDT) Regression models to Support Vector Regression and Linear Regression models. The results show that GBDT achieved the best accuracy for time-series validation datasets for the servicing and degradation cases, and the prediction model was able to track the cumulative energy impacts of events. The proposed framework can inform building owners of the cumulative change in energy usage of RTUs associated with performance degradation, performance improvement, or a fault.

packaged air conditioners, packaged heat pumps, ro↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An Approach for Defining IASMS Services, Functions, and Capabilities

Assuring safety in the NAS with the inclusion of new entrants, such as Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), will require overcoming unique safety challenges that result from combining innovative technologies with novel airspace concepts for moving people and cargo using autonomous vehicles. The focus of the In-time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) is to overcome AAM’s safety assurance challenges. The IASMS Concept of Operations (ConOps) describes an interconnected set of services, functions, and capabilities (SFCs) designed to manage operational risks, identify unknown risks, and inform system designs. This paper describes an approach for defining SFCs based on technology trends in research, assessment of known and unknown risks in voluntary safety reports, and causal and contributing factors in aviation accidents and incidents. This approach would identify potential SFCs that further expand the Monitor, Assess, and Mitigate (M-A-M) functionality that represents the enabling framework of the IASMS. Safety implications that will result from integration of AAM in the transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS) were addressed in National Academies committees reports on AAM and IASMS. Development of a ConOps for IASMS was a top recommendation and can be represented as a reframing of safety assurance that builds on real-time alerting such as the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, and adds the more encompassing in-time temporal parameter in recognition of the different timelines for collecting and assessing safety data for risk mitigations. For example, mining for safety trends from data sources such as the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing system occurs over a longer time period. Research on AAM operations poses that SFCs can be designed to monitor the safety margin appropriate for AAM including with regards to the distance between current flight parameters and nominal ideal conditions. These in-time comparisons will become more complex as the density of operations increases at least in certain areas and can include planned and actual 4D trajectory, and in-time comparisons having implications on conflict modeling and prediction including expected and actual departure time, fix/waypoint crossing times, and arrival time. These comparisons would be integrated as part of SFCs that redefine and inform new safety margin. An increased safety margin improves management of operational risks while reducing the potential for anomalies. An increased safety margin also has implications for operator confidence in the certainty of its operations and trust in automation. Technology trends in research could be used to refine existing SFCs and define needs for additional SFCs that provide safety improvements to the design and operation of vehicles, airspace design, and operator performance requirements. NASA is developing innovative approaches to safeguard against major accidents and incidents that have occurred in the NAS and those anticipated with the inclusion of envisioned AAM operations. The innovations use operational performance data to monitor, detect, and predict flight variations exceeding safe nominal patterns, such as would be caused by navigational error, severe weather complications, or hijacking of UAS controls. These innovative approaches have high potential to prevent accidents and incidents in the new AAM era. It is anticipated that elements of the innovations will evolve into SFCs for the IASMS. Voluntary safety reports can be monitored to identify anomalies related to design or operational performance risks. Reports could be periodically monitored and assessed for specific topics. Reports might serve as weak signals or precursors indicative of emergent risk such as when combined with other safety information. The architecture could include SFCs that are based on voluntary safety reports recognizing the periodic temporal nature of data analysis. As previously mentioned, aviation accidents with their causal and contributing precursors can inform the need for SFCs in the IASMS. Accidents and incidents at San Francisco International Airport such as Asiana 214 and Air Canada 759 illustrate how combinations of different factors lead to increased risk. These types of precursors and different factors have implications on the types of SFCs that could be needed to monitor and manage different sources and types of design and operational risk. Continuing to assure the safety of AAM as designs and operations gain in complexity can be accompanied by defining SFCs that also increase in complexity. These SFCs can leverage information from findings and recommendations synthesized across on-going research, voluntary safety reports, and accident and incident reports. These SFCs can serve to refine accuracy of algorithms and resolve limitations with current practices. The IASMS architecture represents the framework for the SFCs and their critical role in safety assurance.

In-Time Aviation Safety Management System↗

DOE OSTI2024

PPI DataHub Project Data Package: S. elongatus PCC 7942 Circadian Control Bioproduction Metabolomics (PB-DP5)

The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate how circadian clock regulation impacts carbon partitioning between storage, growth, and product synthesis in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 in providing insights to strategies for enhanced bioproduction. Culture samples were collected at 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours for extracellular sucrose analysis. Circadian metabolomics data was acquired using a Agilent single quadrupole gas chromatography-mass spectrometer and processed using Agilent Mass Hunter for targeted sucrose quantification. Metabolomic analysis of PCC 7942 light-dark cycle cultures transitioned to constant light revealed distinct temporal patterns in sucrose production. Processed metabolomic datasets are openly accessible from the PNNL DataHub project dataset download page and contain secondary processed GC-MS results files and supporting metadata materials linked to relevant source code information supporting data transparency and reuse.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

T3CO (Transportation Technology Total Cost of Ownership) Open Source [SWR-21-54]

T3CO (Transportation Technology Total Cost of Ownership), is open source software for modeling total cost of ownership for commercial vehicles with advanced powertrains. T3CO is a modeling framework for determining geospatially and temporally optimized total cost of ownership (TCO) for vehicle powertrain technologies. T3CO runs NREL's FASTSim™ software for a representative set of operating conditions to minimize TCO based on vehicle parameters that affect purchase and operating costs (e.g., fuel/electricity consumption, asset depreciation, opportunity costs associated with charging time) while simultaneously ensuring that firm performance constraints (e.g. zero-to-sixty time, gradeability) are satisfied. T3CO will enable the user to control which powertrain parameters are used in optimizing TCO, and these parameters will be modified by a multi-objective optimization (MOO) algorithm to identify a Pareto-optimal solution set. The optimization algorithm will be modular so that users can choose from many different MOO options or insert their own user-defined optimization tool. NREL T3CO Homepage: https://www.nrel.gov/transportation/t3co.html PyPI package: https://pypi.org/project/t3co/

Lustbader, Jason↗

DOE OSTI2021

Physics Goals of DWA Experiments at FACET-II

The dielectric wakefield acceleration (DWA) program at FACET produced a multitude of new physics results that range from GeV/m acceleration to the discovery of high field-induced conductivity in THz waves, and beyond, to a demonstration of positron-driven wakes. Here we review the rich program now developing in the DWA experiments at FACET-II. With increases in beam quality, a key feature of this program is extended interaction lengths, near 0.5 m, permitting GeV-class acceleration. Detailed physics studies in this context include beam breakup and its control through the exploitation of DWA structure symmetry. The next step in understanding DWA limits requires the exploration of new materials with low loss tangent, large bandgap, and improved thermal characteristics. Advanced structures with photonic features for mode confinement and exclusion of the field from the dielectric, as well as quasi-optical handling of coherent Cerenkov signals is discussed. Use of DWA for laser-based injection and advanced temporal diagnostics is examined.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

NASA NTRS1997

Lignin Formation and the Effects of Gravity: A New Approach

Two aspects of considerable importance in the enigmatic processes associated with lignification have made excellent progress. The first is that, even in a microgravity environment, compression wood formation, and hence altered lignin deposition, can be induced upon mechanically bending the stems of woody gymnosperms. It now needs to be established if an organism reorientating its woody stem tissue will generate this tissue in microgravity, in the absence of externally applied pressure. If it does not, then gravity has no effect on its formation, and instead it results from alterations in the stress gradient experienced by the organism impacted. The second area of progress involves establishing how the biochemical pathway to lignin is regulated, particularly with respect to selective monolignol biosynthesis. This is an important question since individual monomer deposition occurs in a temporally and spatially specific manner. In this regard, the elusive metabolic switch between E-p-coumaryl alcohol and E-coniferyl alcohol synthesis has been detected, the significance of which now needs to be defined at the enzyme and gene level. Switching between monolignol synthesis is important, since it is viewed to be a consequence of different perceptions by plants in the gravitational load experienced, and thus in the control of the type of lignification response. Additional experiments also revealed the rate-limiting processes involved in monolignol synthesis, and suggest that a biological system (involving metabolite concentrations, as well as enzymatic and gene (in)activation processes) is involved, rather than a single rate-limiting step.

Lewis, Norman G.↗

DOE OSTI2020

A phase transition model and temporal logic specifications for smart energy systems - revisited

In this paper, we revisit the method of a phase transition model for representing hybrid systems and temporal logic specifications (TLSs) for specifying desired behaviors of systems, and discuss their usefulness for smart energy systems. On the one hand, the phase transition model incorporates the continuous model of the relay device action with a particular structural form that allows for the construction of a single, global differential-algebraic equation for hybrid systems (thus smoothed hybrid systems). On the other hand, the TLS allows sophisticated descriptions of control specifications addressing both magnitude and time simultaneously, which has recently been applied to the control strategy of several types of continuous and hybrid systems. We provide high-level descriptions of each of the two techniques and present simulation results in the context of smart energy systems.

Park, Byungkwon↗

DOE OSTI2023

A Graph Dynamical neural network approach for decoding dynamical states in ferroelectrics.

Ferroelectric materials such as BaTiO 3 show tremendous potential for emerging advances in memory devices, particular neuromorphic type devices. High density of memory can be obtained by stabilising polar domain walls at the nanoscale, regions of discontinuity between the well-defined polarization order parameter, but little is known about what controls their structure and dynamics in real nanoscale materials. Indeed, chiral polar domain walls have been observed in heterogeneous ferroelectrics, such as oxygen-deficient BaTiO 3 , but very little is known about how such polar-domains walls interact with defects. Indeed, a critical understanding of how dynamics of domain-walls depend on point-defects is crucial to create engineered ferroelectric memory devices. For this work, we perform large-scale simulations of nansocale domain-wall dynamics in pristine and defective BaTiO 3 using reactive force-field developed by us earlier (Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2019, 21, 18240–18249), and capture their dynamical dependence on point defects using a graph dynamical neural-network approach, which we adapted to interrogate solids with well-defined order-parameters, and implemented using Pytorch based libraries. Our machine learning (ML) approach goes beyond the traditional post-processing methods to capture both spatial and temporal heterogeneities of large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of complex defective ferroelectric oxide materials. We crucially find that isolated oxygen vacancies introduce very localized spatial regions (~1–2 unit-cell in length) that show slow dipole relaxation due to formation of defect-dipoles, and that these defect-dipoles in turn slow the intrinsic dynamics of domain walls. Further, the roughness of domain walls, also influenced by vacancies, introduce dynamic heterogeneity along the domain-wall. As such we find a novel mechanism by which quenched disorder due to defects introduce dynamic heterogeneity thereby influencing response to external fields (particularly time varying fields) in a ferroelectric. Our study also emphasizes the need for creating digital twins of dynamical quantities to achieve autonomous in operando control of nanoscale switching.

42 ENGINEERING↗

NASA NTRS2016

Spatial and Temporal Trends in Precambrian Nitrogen Cycling: A Mesoproterozoic Offshore Nitrate Minimum

Fixed nitrogen is an essential nutrient for eukaryotes. As N2 fixation and assimilation of nitrate are catalyzed by metalloenzymes, it has been hypothesized that in Mesoproterozoic oceans nitrate was limited in offshore environments by low trace metal concentrations and high rates of denitrification in anoxic and episodically euxinic deep water masses, restricting eukaryotes to near-shore environments and limiting their evolutionary innovation. To date this hypothesis has only been tested in the Belt Supergroup (∼1.4 Ga), with results that support an onshore-offshore nitrate gradient as a potential control on eukaryote ecology. Here we present bulk nitrogen and organic carbon isotopic data from non-isochronous cross-basinal facies across the Bangemall (∼1.5 Ga) and the Roper (∼1.4–1.5 Ga) basins to better understand the extent and variability of onshore-offshore nitrogen isotope gradients in the Mesoproterozoic. Both basins show an average ∼1-2‰ enrichment in δ-15N(sub bulk) from deep to shallow facies, with a maximum range from ~1‰ offshore to +7.5‰ onshore. Unlike the Belt basin, the Bangemall and Roper basins show some offshore δ-15N(sub bulk) values that are enriched beyond the isotopic range associated with biological N2 fixation alone. This suggests a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic metabolisms offshore. In shallow waters, where δ-15N(sub bulk) enrichment peaks, an aerobic nitrogen cycle was evidently operating. Even though isotopic signatures of aerobic nitrogen cycling are seen in all parts of the Bangemall and Roper basins, our data are consistent with a lateral gradient in nitrate availability within the photic zone, with higher concentrations in near-shore environments than offshore. The variability in δ-15N(sub bulk) values in each depositional environment and the consistently low δ-15N(sub bulk) values from Mesoproterozoic units compared to the Paleoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic suggest that nitrate concentrations in the global ocean were likely low. This trend is now seen in all three Mesoproterozoic basins so far examined, and contrasts with the Paleoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic where nearly all δ-15N(sub bulk) data plot above the N2 fixation window. Thus, we propose that the Mesoproterozoic ocean was characterized by a nitrate minimum, with the lowest concentrations in offshore environments. This inference is consistent with a Mesoproterozoic O2 decline following a temporary Paleoproterozoic O2 peak, and it further supports the idea that nitrate limitation offshore may have contributed to the restriction of photosynthetic eukaryotes to near-shore environments, delaying their rise to ecological dominance until the Neoproterozoic Era.

Mesoproterozoic↗