EVALUATION OF THE MANGANESE ESR METHOD OF MARBLE CHARACTERIZATION

Results suggest that ESR studies of Mn⁺² in marble can provide an excellent discriminator for the determination of marble provenance. In comparison with other methods of quantitative analysis for manganese such as AA or NAA, the ESR method determines only Mn⁺² rather than total Mn, is inexpensive and rapid with no chemical preparation required, and does not consume the sample.     

PROVENIENCE STUDY OF MEDIEVAL BULGARIAN GLASSES BY NAA AND CLUSTER ANALYSIS

The neutron activation analysis results from 30 glass samples were subjected to cluster analysis. The reliable localization of part of the medieval glass finds from Preslav enabled the evaluation of the variety of the production of a medieval glass workshop (ninth-tenth century), allowing conclusions to be made about the technological level of glass-making in Bulgaria during the Middle Ages. The work proved that NAA followed by cluster analysis is a successful approach to finding the local and chronological features of the investigated glasses.     

Day-to-day variations in nearshore bar patterns on a small sandy beach through a lunar tidal cycle

Nearshore water circulation and bar patterns at Coledale, New South Wales, were surveyed daily over thirty-six consecutive days, from 3 November to 8 December 1978, to identify sequences of changes that might occur in response to spring-to-spring tide cycles of fourteen days, changing barometric and wind conditions associated with the passage of anticyclonic weather systems across the coast, and day to day variation in the nearshore wave regime. During the survey the bar patterns tended to vary from transverse bars, through a composite arrangement incorporating longshore and transverse bars, to a longshore bar pattern as the tide changed from its spring to neap tide phase. However, this sequence was too brief to unequivocally establish variations in nearshore bar pattern that might be attributed to the fourteen day, spring-to-spring tide cycle. Nevertheless, morphologic changes occurring in response to wave regime fluctuation at Coledale were broadly in accord with studies from elsewhere by Dolan et al. (1979, 1982), and Clarke and Eliot (1982, 1983) in that bars and rips were systematically distributed along the beach. At Coledale, bars tended to relocate approximately 0.4 and 0.75 of the distance along the beach from its southern end. The preferred bar spacing closely matches hypothetical standing waves trapped between the headlands of the Coledale embayment. Temporally, the nearshore morphology is highly responsive to wave regime changes such that, as primary breaker heights decrease and remain below H_max=1.0m, the bar pattern changes from longshore through mixed to transverse bar patterns within three to five days. On one occasion the bar pattern switched from a longshore to a transverse bar pattern within twenty-four hours.