Heavy rare earth elements (HREE) are dominantly mined from the weathering crusts of granites in South China. Although weathering processes occur globally, no economic HREE resources of this type have yet been found outside China. Here, we report the occurrence of unidentified REE minerals in the granites from South Chinese deposits. They contain high levels of both HREE and light REE, but are s...

Neutrino emissivity from the electron νν̄ bremsstrahlung in the liquid layers of the neutron star crusts is studied. Nuclear composition of matter in neutron star crusts is considered for various scenarios of neutron star evolution. For the deep layers of the crust, the compositions of cold catalyzed matter, accreted matter and hot matter (T >∼ 5 × 10 9 K) are shown to be very different, and thi...

12 Hydrogenetic ferromanganese crusts are iron-manganese oxide chemical 13 precipitates on the seafloor that grow over periods of tens of millions of years. Their 14 secular records of chemical, mineralogical, and textural variations are archives of deep15 sea environmental changes. However, environmental reconstruction requires reliable 16 high-resolution age dating. Earlier chronological meth...

Electrostatic potential of electrons near the surface of static strange stars at zero temperature is studied within the frame of the MIT bag model. We find that for QCD parameters within rather wide ranges, and if the nuclear crust on the strange star is at a density leading to neutron drip, the electrostatic potential is insufficient to establish an outwardly directed electric field, which is ...

[1] Surface structures on ’a’ā and blocky lavas reflect the internal flow dynamics during emplacement and also influence the dynamics of developing flows. To investigate the effects of brittle, clinkery ’a’ā flow crusts on flow dynamics and surface structures, we conducted sand and silicone laboratory experiments that simulated the advance of lava into a preexisting channelized flow with a surf...

The study of species coexistence and community assembly has been a hot topic in ecology for decades. Disentangling the hierarchical role of abiotic and biotic filters is crucial to understand community assembly processes. The most critical environmental factor in semi-arid environments is known to be water availability, and perennials are usually described as nurses that create milder local con...

This study investigated the effects of soil crust development on the underlying soil properties. The field sampling work was conducted in June 2016 in the Hobq Desert in Inner Mongolia, North China. Soil crust samples and 0–6, 6–12, 12–18, 18–24, 24–30 cm deep underlying soil samples were taken from five representative areas of different soil crust development stages. All samples were analyzed ...