scholarly journals Review and test of reproducibility of subdecadal resolution palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from microfossil assemblages

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard James Telford

Very high, even annual, resolution quantitative palaeoenvironmental reconstructions have been generated from microfossil assemblage data using transferfunctions. Evidence of the utility of some of these reconstructions is given by thehigh correlations between the reconstructions and instrumental records. Suchperformance is despite several ecological and taphonomic issues that can becomemore problematic at sub-decadal resolution than at multidecadal resolution. Thispaper explores these timescale dependent issues and tests the reproducibility ofthe reconstructions. It demonstrates that the exceptionally good performance ofseveral published reconstructions is not reproducible.

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 2055-2071
Author(s):  
Paul D. Zander ◽  
Maurycy Żarczyński ◽  
Wojciech Tylmann ◽  
Shauna-kay Rainford ◽  
Martin Grosjean

Abstract. Varved lake sediments are exceptional archives of paleoclimatic information due to their precise chronological control and annual resolution. However, quantitative paleoclimate reconstructions based on the biogeochemical composition of biochemical varves are extremely rare, mainly because the climate–proxy relationships are complex and obtaining biogeochemical proxy data at very high (annual) resolution is difficult. Recent developments in high-resolution hyperspectral imaging (HSI) of sedimentary pigment biomarkers combined with micro X-ray fluorescence (µXRF) elemental mapping make it possible to measure the structure and composition of varves at unprecedented resolution. This provides opportunities to explore seasonal climate signals preserved in biochemical varves and, thus, assess the potential for annual-resolution climate reconstruction from biochemical varves. Here, we present a geochemical dataset including HSI-inferred sedimentary pigments and µXRF-inferred elements at very high spatial resolution (60 µm, i.e. > 100 data points per varve year) in varved sediments of Lake Żabińskie, Poland, over the period 1966–2019 CE. We compare these data with local meteorological observations to explore and quantify how changing seasonal meteorological conditions influenced sediment composition and varve formation processes. Based on the dissimilarity of within-varve multivariate geochemical time series, we classified varves into four types. Multivariate analysis of variance shows that these four varve types were formed in years with significantly different seasonal meteorological conditions. Generalized additive models (GAMs) were used to infer seasonal climate conditions based on sedimentary variables. Spring and summer (MAMJJA) temperatures were predicted using Ti and total C (Radj2=0.55; cross-validated root mean square error (CV-RMSE) = 0.7 ∘C, 14.4 %). Windy days from March to December (mean daily wind speed > 7 m s−1) were predicted using mass accumulation rate (MAR) and Si (Radj2=0.48; CV-RMSE = 19.0 %). This study demonstrates that high-resolution scanning techniques are promising tools to improve our understanding of varve formation processes and climate–proxy relationships in biochemical varves. This knowledge is the basis for quantitative high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions, and here we provide examples of calibration and validation of annual-resolution seasonal weather inference from varve biogeochemical data.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Zander ◽  
Maurycy Żarczyński ◽  
Wojciech Tylmann ◽  
Shauna-kay Rainford ◽  
Martin Grosjean

Abstract. Varved lake sediments are exceptional archives of paleoclimatic information due to their precise chronological control and annual resolution. However, quantitative paleoclimate reconstructions based on the biogeochemical composition of biochemical varves are extremely rare mainly because the climate-proxy relationships are complex, and obtaining biogeochemical proxy data at very high (annual) resolution is difficult. Recent developments in high-resolution hyperspectral imaging (HSI) of sedimentary pigment biomarkers combined with micro X-ray fluorescence (μXRF) elemental mapping make it possible to measure the structure and composition of varves at unprecedented resolution. This provides opportunities to explore (seasonal) climate signals preserved in biochemical varves and, thus, assess the potential for annual resolution climate reconstruction from biochemical varves. Here, we present a geochemical dataset including HSI-inferred sedimentary pigments and uXRF-inferred elements at very high spatial resolution (60 μm, i.e. > 100 data points per varve year) in varved sediments of Lake Żabińskie, Poland over the period 1966–2019 CE. We compare this data with local meteorological observations to explore and quantify how changing seasonal meteorological conditions influenced sediment composition and varve formation processes. Based on the dissimilarity of within-varve multivariate geochemical time series, we classified varves into four types. Multivariate analysis of variance shows that these four varve types were formed in years with significantly different seasonal meteorological conditions. Generalized additive models (GAMs) were used to infer seasonal climate conditions based on sedimentary variables. Spring and summer (MAMJJA) temperature were predicted using Ti and total C (R2adj = 0.55; cross-validated root mean square error (CV-RMSE) = 0.7 °C, 14.4%). Windy days from March to December (mean daily wind speed > 7 m/s) were predicted using mass accumulation rate (MAR) and Si (R2adj = 0.48; CV-RMSE = 19.0%). This study demonstrates that high-resolution scanning techniques are promising tools to improve our understanding of varve formation processes and climate-proxy relationships in biochemical varves. This knowledge is the basis for quantitative high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions, and here we provide examples of calibration and validation of annual resolution seasonal weather inference from varve biogeochemical data.


1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 593-596
Author(s):  
O. Bouchard ◽  
S. Koutchmy ◽  
L. November ◽  
J.-C. Vial ◽  
J. B. Zirker

AbstractWe present the results of the analysis of a movie taken over a small field of view in the intermediate corona at a spatial resolution of 0.5“, a temporal resolution of 1 s and a spectral passband of 7 nm. These CCD observations were made at the prime focus of the 3.6 m aperture CFHT telescope during the 1991 total solar eclipse.


1988 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 79-81
Author(s):  
A. Goldberg ◽  
S.D. Bloom

AbstractClosed expressions for the first, second, and (in some cases) the third moment of atomic transition arrays now exist. Recently a method has been developed for getting to very high moments (up to the 12th and beyond) in cases where a “collective” state-vector (i.e. a state-vector containing the entire electric dipole strength) can be created from each eigenstate in the parent configuration. Both of these approaches give exact results. Herein we describe astatistical(or Monte Carlo) approach which requires onlyonerepresentative state-vector |RV> for the entire parent manifold to get estimates of transition moments of high order. The representation is achieved through the random amplitudes associated with each basis vector making up |RV>. This also gives rise to the dispersion characterizing the method, which has been applied to a system (in the M shell) with≈250,000 lines where we have calculated up to the 5th moment. It turns out that the dispersion in the moments decreases with the size of the manifold, making its application to very big systems statistically advantageous. A discussion of the method and these dispersion characteristics will be presented.


Author(s):  
Y. L. Chen ◽  
S. Fujlshiro

Metastable beta titanium alloys have been known to have numerous advantages such as cold formability, high strength, good fracture resistance, deep hardenability, and cost effectiveness. Very high strength is obtainable by precipitation of the hexagonal alpha phase in a bcc beta matrix in these alloys. Precipitation hardening in the metastable beta alloys may also result from the formation of transition phases such as omega phase. Ti-15-3 (Ti-15V- 3Cr-3Al-3Sn) has been developed recently by TIMET and USAF for low cost sheet metal applications. The purpose of the present study was to examine the aging characteristics in this alloy.The composition of the as-received material is: 14.7 V, 3.14 Cr, 3.05 Al, 2.26 Sn, and 0.145 Fe. The beta transus temperature as determined by optical metallographic method was about 770°C. Specimen coupons were prepared from a mill-annealed 1.2 mm thick sheet, and solution treated at 827°C for 2 hr in argon, then water quenched. Aging was also done in argon at temperatures ranging from 316 to 616°C for various times.


Author(s):  
J. Temple Black

Tool materials used in ultramicrotomy are glass, developed by Latta and Hartmann (1) and diamond, introduced by Fernandez-Moran (2). While diamonds produce more good sections per knife edge than glass, they are expensive; require careful mounting and handling; and are time consuming to clean before and after usage, purchase from vendors (3-6 months waiting time), and regrind. Glass offers an easily accessible, inexpensive material ($0.04 per knife) with very high compressive strength (3) that can be employed in microtomy of metals (4) as well as biological materials. When the orthogonal machining process is being studied, glass offers additional advantages. Sections of metal or plastic can be dried down on the rake face, coated with Au-Pd, and examined directly in the SEM with no additional handling (5). Figure 1 shows aluminum chips microtomed with a 75° glass knife at a cutting speed of 1 mm/sec with a depth of cut of 1000 Å lying on the rake face of the knife.


Author(s):  
Cecil E. Hall

The visualization of organic macromolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, viruses and virus components has reached its high degree of effectiveness owing to refinements and reliability of instruments and to the invention of methods for enhancing the structure of these materials within the electron image. The latter techniques have been most important because what can be seen depends upon the molecular and atomic character of the object as modified which is rarely evident in the pristine material. Structure may thus be displayed by the arts of positive and negative staining, shadow casting, replication and other techniques. Enhancement of contrast, which delineates bounds of isolated macromolecules has been effected progressively over the years as illustrated in Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4 by these methods. We now look to the future wondering what other visions are waiting to be seen. The instrument designers will need to exact from the arts of fabrication the performance that theory has prescribed as well as methods for phase and interference contrast with explorations of the potentialities of very high and very low voltages. Chemistry must play an increasingly important part in future progress by providing specific stain molecules of high visibility, substrates of vanishing “noise” level and means for preservation of molecular structures that usually exist in a solvated condition.


Author(s):  
P. E. Batson ◽  
C. H. Chen ◽  
J. Silcox

Electron energy loss experiments combined with microscopy have proven to be a valuable tool for the exploration of the structure of electronic excitations in materials. These types of excitations, however, are difficult to measure because of their small intensity. In a usual situation, the filament of the microscope is run at a very high temperature in order to present as much intensity as possible at the specimen. This results in a degradation of the ultimate energy resolution of the instrument due to thermal broadening of the electron beam.We report here observations and measurements on a new LaB filament in a microscope-velocity spectrometer system. We have found that, in general, we may retain a good energy resolution with intensities comparable to or greater than those available with the very high temperature tungsten filament. We have also explored the energy distribution of this filament.


Author(s):  
R. Gonzalez ◽  
L. Bru

The analysis of stacking fault tetrahedra (SFT) in fatigued metals (1,2) is somewhat complicated, due partly to their relatively low density, but principally to the presence of a very high density of dislocations which hides them. In order to overcome this second difficulty, we have used in this work an austenitic stainless steel that deforms in a planar mode and, as expected, examination of the substructure revealed planar arrays of dislocation dipoles rather than the cellular structures which appear both in single and polycrystals of cyclically deformed copper and silver. This more uniform distribution of dislocations allows a better identification of the SFT.The samples were fatigue deformed at the constant total strain amplitude Δε = 0.025 for 5 cycles at three temperatures: 85, 293 and 773 K. One of the samples was tensile strained with a total deformation of 3.5%.


Author(s):  
N.J. Long ◽  
M.H. Loretto ◽  
C.H. Lloyd

IntroductionThere have been several t.e.m. studies (1,2,3,4) of the dislocation arrangements in the matrix and around the particles in dispersion strengthened single crystals deformed in single slip. Good agreement has been obtained in general between the observed structures and the various theories for the flow stress and work hardening of this class of alloy. There has been though some difficulty in obtaining an accurate picture of these arrangements in the case when the obstacles are large (of the order of several 1000's Å). This is due to both the physical loss of dislocations from the thin foil in its preparation and to rearrangement of the structure on unloading and standing at room temperature under the influence of the very high localised stresses in the vicinity of the particles (2,3).This contribution presents part of a study of the Cu-Cr-SiO2 system where age hardening from the Cu-Cr and dispersion strengthening from Cu-Sio2 is combined.


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