Atmosphere, mass, thickness, volume

The TRAPI was developed by Matsuoka and co-workers " and has been used to determine the rate constants of about a dozen IM reactions at atmospheric pressure. As a first approximation, the TRAPI experiment might be described as an atmospheric pressure version of the PHPMS with initial ionization caused by a pulsed X-ray source. The X-rays cause relatively even ionization throughout the 6.4-cm ion source volume by penetrating through thin sections of the ion source walls formed by 25- im thick molybdenum foil. A 16-pm ion-sampling aperture is located at the center of one of these thin walls. The ions that pass through this aperture are measured by an associated mass spectrometer as a function of time after the X-ray pulse. 

The vesicles (bubbles) in basaltic lava flows can be used to determine paleoelevation at the time of eruption. In the repertoire of paleoelevation proxies presently available to the research community, it represents one of very few direct proxies of elevation. The technique is based on the sizes of vesicles at the tops and bottoms of lava flows. We assume that bubbles do not know a priori that they will reside in one part of the flow or another when they are erupted from a volcanic vent. As such, the mass of gas is evenly distributed throughout the flow. The volume of the bubbles will therefore depend on pressure, which at the top of the flow is just atmospheric pressure, and at the bottom is atmospheric plus hydrostatic pressure from lava overburden. Since lava thickness can be measured in the field, and bubble size distributions (most notably the modal size) can be measured in the lab, a simple relation can be solved for atmospheric pressure, and using the standard atmosphere, elevation can be determined. 

Figure 9 Early Paleozoic changes in (a) soil differentiation as indicated by clay content (volume percent) and alumina/bases (molar ratio) of the most weathered horizon of calcareous red paleosols (b) soil bioturbation as indicated by proportion of transect in paleosols occupied by roots or burrows (percent) and by measured rooting depth (m) (c) atmospheric CO2 levels (PAL) calculated from a sedimentary mass balance model (d) maximum coal seam thickness and average thickness of at least 10 consecutive seams (m) (e) diameter of fossil plant stems and roots (m) (f) diversity of fossil land plants (number of species) (g) diversity of soil animals (number of families) (Retallack, 1997c) (reproduced from Dinofest, 1997, pp. 345-359).

From Triton s 5.866 day period of revolution around Neptune and its 220,000 mi (354,300 km) mean distance from it, astronomers estimated Neptune s mass to be 17.14 Earth masses, according to Kepler s third law. From Neptune s mean radius of 15,290 mi (24,625 km), a mean density (mass divided by volume) of 1.64 grams/cm was found. These values are similar to the ones found for Uranus. Uranus is slightly larger than Neptune, but Neptune is considerably more massive and denser than Uranus. Thus, Neptune is one of the Jovian planets, which are characterized by large sizes and masses but low mean densities (compared with Earth). The last characteristic implies that Jovian planets have extremely thick atmospheres and are largely or mostly composed of gases. 

The content of nitrogen in the upper 16 km thick earth s crust is assessed at a mass fraction of about 0.03%. Thus, it belongs to the more frequently found elements. The atmosphere with a N2-content of 78.1% volume fraction or 75.51% mass... 

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