Cavernous Weathering in the Taylor Dry Valley, Victoria Land, Antarctica
TAYLOR VALLEY (77° 33′ S., 163° 25′ E.) is part of a deglaciated valley complex called the McMurdo Oasis, which is located about 80 km to the west of Ross Island across McMurdo Sound. Since the IGY many New Zealand and American geological parties have worked in this area1–3, which is easily accessible by helicopter from Scott Base and McMurdo Station at the southern end of Ross Island. Now that the topographical and geological reconnaissance stage has been completed and adequate maps cover the 2,500 km2 of the McMurdo Oasis, more attention is being devoted to the study of various anomalies and problems.
Salt diffusion in brick structures Part II The effect of temperature, concentration and salt
This is our second article concerning salt diffusion measurements in porous brick materials. In the first article a method for measuring the rate of diffusion of salt in ceramic material was presented and applied to the measurement of diffusivity of NaCl in different brick materials. In this work the same method was applied to other water-soluble salts commonly found in building materials. The binary diffusion coefficients were measured for KCl, NaNO3, CaCl2, Na2SO4, MgCl2 and Na2CO3. The result for the diffusivity of 0.05 molar salts in water in new Finnish red brick varied between (0.271–0.544)*10−5 cm2/s at a temperature of 25 ± 0.05°C. The effect of temperature and concentration on the diffusivity of NaCl in new red brick was also measured. The rate of change of diffusivity as a function of temperature, concentration and the type of salt was very similar to that in free solutions. However, the values of the diffusion coefficients were lower in the porous medium than in solution. A mutual relation between the binary diffusion coefficient and the viscosity of the salt-water solution was observed in the porous brick.
Archaeological Survey of Dangoyama Kofun by 3DGPR
We presented a three-dimensional ground penetrating radar (3DGPR) system for the archeological investigation in a harsh site, where we have to deal with many trees and/or great topographic variations. This system consists of a commercial GPR system with a laser positioning system. With this system, we can move the GPR antenna freely, on which a positioning detector can record accurate position for each GPR data trace. We applied our 3DGPR system at Dangoyama Kofun, a burial mound, in Fukushima prefecture, Japan. A lot of trees and bushes covered the survey area and cannot be cut. We acquired six datasets in two days in this area. We successfully imaged the boundary between the original surface of the burial mound and the covering soil clearly at about 0.3 m depth around the mound. Furthermore, we found some strong reflections appeared at 0.8 m depth in the top area of the mound, which can be from the artificial parts of the burial mound. The results would greatly aid the following archaeological excavation. In addition, we compared the non-interpolated depth slice with interpolated depth slice at same position and demonstrated that the interpolation process on threedimensional GPR data may introduce some artifacts which might mislead our interpretation.