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The first shallow hydrate sample off southwest Taiwan has been collected at core site MD18-3542 in cruise MD214. Attractive features are present at ~5.5 m core depth where an unconformity lies, and sediment properties are distinctively different above and below the layer. In the work, we perform rock magnetic analyses to study the core magnetic behavior, including magnetic susceptibility (MS), hysteresis parameters, and X-ray diffraction spectra. Combining the core features and rock magnetic results with the shallow hydrate formation off southwest Taiwan, we consider that variation of the core magnetic property could relate to the pyritization of magnetic minerals caused by the dissociated gas, and summarize the gas distribution at the shallow strata: Abundant methane with hydrogen sulfide trapped below the unconformity could form an anoxic setting and activate the pyritization. Dissociated gas may have also leaked to its above layer, featuring the MS anomaly at ~3.5 m core depth. Magnetite appears in addition to iron sulfides at the depth between ~6.5 and ~10.0 m, indicating a transition layer and implying the insufficiency of the dissociated gas to complete the pyritization. Iron sulfides become dominant again at the core bottom, revealing that the dissociated gas mainly migrates from deep strata.

In this study, we compiled recently collected (from 2005 to 2015) and previously reported (published and open access) gravity data, including land, shipborne and satellite-derived data, for Taiwan and its surrounding regions. Based on the cross-over error analysis, all data were adjusted; and, new Free-air gravity anomalies were obtained, shedding light on the tectonics of the region. To obtain the Bouguer gravity anomalies, the densities of land terrain and marine sediments were assumed to be 2.53 and 1.80 g/cm3, respectively. The updated gravity dataset was gridded with a spacing of one arc-minute. Several previously unnoticed gravity features are revealed by the new maps and can be used in a broad range of applications: (1) An isolated gravity high is located between the Shoushan and the Kaoping Canyon off southwest Taiwan. (2) Along the Luzon Arc, both Free-air and Bouguer gravity anomaly maps reveal a significant gravity discontinuity feature at the latitude of 21°20′N. (3) In the southwestern Okinawa Trough, the NE-SW trending cross-back-arc volcanic trail (CBVT) marks the low-high gravity anomaly (both Free-air and Bouguer) boundary.

Understanding the strength of a plate coupling is critical for assessing potential seismic and tsunamic hazards in subduction zones. The interaction between an overriding plate and the associated subducting plate can be used to evaluate the strength of plate coupling by examining the mantle lithospheric buoyancy. Here, we calculate the mantle lithosphere buoyancy across the northern portion of the southern Ryukyu subduction zone based on gravity modeling with the constraints from a newly derived P-wave seismic velocity model. The result indicates that the strength of the plate coupling in the study area is relatively strong, which is consistent with previous observations in the southernmost Ryukyu subduction zone. Because few large earthquakes (Mw > 7) have occurred in the southern Ryukyu subduction zone, a large amount of energy is locked and accumulated by plate coupling, that could be released in the near future.

Arc-continent collision and post-orogenic extension are both currently in progress in different parts of the Taiwan mountain belt. In particular, the junction of eastern Taiwan and the southernmost Ryukyu arc-trench system is a complex tectonic region where the Philippine Sea Plate (PSP) changes from overriding the Eurasian Plate (EUP) to subducting beneath the EUP. The Taiwan Integrated Geodynamic Research (TAIGER) program collected two wide-angle and multi-channel seismic transects (T5 and T6) across the Taiwan mountain belt and the western end of the Ryukyu arc-trench system, which provide good constraints on the seismic velocity structure of the crust. However, due to the resolution problems, the detailed deep structures are not fully understood, especially offshore eastern Taiwan and in the southernmost Ryukyu fore-arc area, where seismic activity is frequent. In this study, we perform 2-D gravity modeling along these two P-wave (Vp) transects, which not only helps to reduce the non-unique problem but also provides a possible solution for the deeper structures where the velocity model is not well constrained. Conversion of the P-wave velocity to density allows us to model the gravity anomaly and then provide a likely density model for the study area. Gravity modeling along profile T5 shows relatively high-density (3.10 g/cm3) material beneath eastern Taiwan under the Longitudinal Valley between the Central Range and the Coastal Range. The source of this high-density material could be serpentinized mantle, with serpentinization caused by the dehydration of the subducting Eurasian Plate. Along profile T6, the revised density model indicates that the subducting Gagua Ridge has a deep crustal root and extends northward to the Ryukyu fore-arc area.

Marginal areas off southwestern Taiwan have been widely considered a high potential reservoir of gas hydrates based on several geophysical, geological, and geochemical investigations since the past decades. First gas hydrate sample has been collected on 21 June 2018 during the cruise MD214 at the core site MD18-3542 on the South Yung-An East Ridge. In the study, we focus on magnetic properties of this MD core. The most attractive feature in the magnetic susceptibility is an abrupt drop recorded at about 4 meters core depth. To clarify and identify the dominant magnetic mineral in the core, hysteresis loop parameters were first measured and then presented on the Day Plot, and further the X-ray diffraction analysis was applied to the selected core samples. Based on the magnetic results, the clear drop in the magnetic susceptibility is related to the change of dominant magnetic minerals in core sediments. Before about 4 meters core depth, the dominant magnetic mineral remains detrital magnetite. Below the depth, however, core sediments should have been infected by methane released by gas hydrate dissociation. Authigenic greigite and pyrite have become dominant, and therefore low magnetic susceptibility appears below 4 meters core depth.

Summary The distribution of historic earthquakes in the Sumatra subduction zone reveals, in the fore-arc region, the intense seismic activity and frequent occurrences of Mw > 8 earthquakes throughout the whole area. In contrast, the neighboring region has less dense seismicity, and no large earthquake greater than Mw8 has been observed in the Java subduction zone. Such different seismic behaviors may be due to distinct degrees of the stress accumulation and release. In this study, the strength of plate coupling inferred from mantle lithosphere buoyancy (Hm) estimation is used to explain the seismogenic behavior in the Sunda-Andaman subduction zone. Strong and weak plate coupling status are obtained in the Sumatra and Java subduction zones, respectively. These results can explain the significant differences in seismogenic behaviors in the Sunda-Andaman subduction zone. In assessing the global implications of this finding, we observe that uplifted serpentinized fore-arc mantle peridotite is the critical phenomenon in weak plate coupling cases and leads to a limit on the width of the coupling zone. Strong plate coupling can cause a relatively low gravity anomaly as well as a negative trench-parallel gravity anomaly (TPGA) in the fore-arc regions and correlates well with the occurrence of large earthquakes, whereas weak plate coupling can cause a positive TPGA and constrain the potential occurrence of large earthquakes.

The charge transport properties of tetrathia[22]annulene-[2,1,2,1] derivatives (DPTTA, $$\hbox {DPTTACH}_{3}$$ and DPTTACl) were investigated by the density functional theory coupled with incoherent charge-hopping model at the molecular and crystal levels to shed light on the relationship between the charger carrier mobility and substitution effects. It is found that that the low-lying and delocalized LUMOs and larger adiabatic electron affinities of these compounds are beneficial to their stability when acting as n-type organic semiconductors. The reorganization energy and transfer integral can significantly influence the charge carrier mobility. The $$\hbox {DPTTACH}_{3}$$ has large electron mobility ( $$0.177\hbox { cm}^{2}\cdot \hbox { V}^{-1}\cdot \hbox { s}^{-1}$$ ) owing to the small reorganization energy and larger transfer integral originating from the face-to-face $$\uppi $$ – $$\uppi $$ stacking among the three compounds. From the viewpoint of transfer integral, the transfer integral among the dominant hopping pathways indicates that the charge transport occurs in the parallel dimers with $$\uppi $$ – $$\uppi $$ interaction. On the basis of the angular resolution anisotropic mobility investigation, the $$\hbox {DPTTACH}_{3}$$ exhibit remarkable anisotropic behavior. We hope that our work can help the experimenters understand how to tune charge transport through a small molecular modification.

To study the Holocene paleomagnetic field in Taiwan area, we performed a series of magnetic experiments to a marine sediment core OR1-715-21 obtained from the offshore of eastern Taiwan during the OR1-715 cruise. Analyzed magnetic properties show that the remanent magnetization carriers of the core are uniformly dominated by single-domain and pseudo-single-domain magnetite, revealing a suitable material for relative paleointensity (RPI) estimation. The stable and well defined characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) provides the reliable determination of the inclination and declination. Dipole moments were further calculated by using the RPI and inclination data. The variation of the dipole moments compares well to the CALS10k.1b model (a continuous model of archaeomagnetic and lake sediment data for the past 10000 years), implying the dominance of the dipole field in Taiwan area. Though the real declination is unavailable because of lacking core orientation during coring, we could correct the values based on some critical conditions. If the paleosecular variation (PSV) is considered, the virtual geomagnetic pole (VGP) is generally suggested to vary between 80°N and 90°N instead of coinciding with the geography North Pole. To fit the condition considering the PSV effect, the ChRM declination had to be rotated 180° to get the corrected declination. As a result, variation patterns of the paleo-inclination, -declination, and paleointensity could be suitably determined in the study. Outcomes of these analyses reveal that the paleomagnetic field in Taiwan region should be dominantly driven from the dipole field under the PSV effect for the last 7500 years.

Heat sink does affect on the performance of thermoelectirc generator according to the studies of many authors. In this paper, an analytical model inculding the number of thermocouples and the thermal resistance of heat sink is derived. The match between the thermoelectric module and heat sink is discussed by numerical calculation also. The results show that the thermal resistance of thermoelectric module should be designed to match that of heat sink in order to get the highest output power for a given heat sink. But for a given thermoelectric module, the output power increases with the decrease of heat sink thermal resistance, and there is a suitable heat sink due to the limit of the temperature difference between the heat source and coolant.

Polynitro cage compound 4-trinitroethyl-2,6,8,10,12-pentanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane has the same framework with but higher stability than CL-20 and is a potential new high energy density compound (HEDC). In this paper, the B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) method of density functional theory (DFT) has been used to study its heat of formation, IR spectrum, and thermodynamic properties. The stability of the compound was evaluated by the bond dissociation energies. The calculated results show that the first step of pyrolysis is the rupture of the N-NO(2) bond in the side chain and verify the experimental observation that the title compound has better stability than CL-20. The crystal structure obtained by molecular mechanics belongs to the P2(1)2(1)2(1) space group, with lattice parameters a = 12.59 Å, b = 10.52 Å, c = 12.89 Å, Z = 4, and ρ = 2.165 g·cm(-3). Both the detonation velocity of 9.767 km·s(-1) and the detonation pressure of 45.191 GPa estimated using the Kamlet-Jacobs equation are better than those of CL-20. Considering that this cage compound has a better detonation performance and stability than CL-20, it may be a superior HEDC.

We describe the environmental variation in the Banda Sea over the past 820 ka by using the magnetic parameters and oxygen isotope data from the core MD012380. Overall, characteristics of the magnetic parameters show simultaneous variation with marine isotope stage (MIS), especially in the last 420 ka. There are fewer, coarser and more oxidative magnetic minerals in glacial periods, and turn to opposite conditions in interglacial periods. Spectral results clearly present the Milankovitch periods over the last 820 ka, especially the eccentricity period (400-ka and 100-ka). However, the magnetic data shows different pattern before and after 420 ka. Thus, we segmented the time-series data into two periods: MIS 20 to MIS 12 and MIS 11 to MIS 1. During MIS 20 to MIS 12, the spectra of magnetic data show clear periods related to the obliquity (41-ka) and precession (23-ka and 19-ka), while they present only the eccentricity period (100-ka) during MIS 11 to MIS 1. This feature, which splits the late Pleistocene at around 420 ka, could be attributed to the mid-Brunhes event (MBE). In the Banda Sea, main factor controlling the variation of the magnetic minerals is considered as the fluctuation of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) intensity due to sea-level change. Thus, the magnetic data show clear 400-ka and 100-ka periods (main MIS cycle). Besides, the eccentricity signals are relatively dominant in the last ∼420 ka, implying that the ITF might become more important after the MBE in the Banda Sea.

SUMMARY The Poisson theorem provides a simple relationship between the gravity and magnetic potentials, which is useful in interpreting joint data sets of gravity and magnetic data. Based on the simple Poisson theorem, magnetization/density ratio (MDR) can be estimated. However, potential field data is often ambiguous in datum level and multisources interference that may cause bias in interpretation. Here, we propose an improved Poisson theorem to estimate MDR by using analytic signals of gravity and magnetic data. The major advantage of using the analytic signal is that we can also determine the sources locations and boundaries supposing that we know the ambient magnetic parameters. Besides, we can also avoid the determination error from uncertain datum levels. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method in 2-D and 3-D synthetic models. The proposed method is also applied to a profile across the offshore area of northern Taiwan. Comparing with the reflection seismic profile, our result can help identify the existence of a deep-seated igneous body beneath the area of Mienhuayu and Pengchiagu islands off northern Taiwan.

We reconstruct the earth magnetic field in the Brunhes epoch at the Banda Sea by studying the paleomagnetic data from core MD012380, collected during the International Marine Global Change Study (IMAGES) VII Cruise in 2001. Magnetic analysis is carried out for whole core with a sampling spacing of 1 cm by using u-channel. Magnetic susceptibility (χ), nature remanent magnetization (NRM), anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM), and isothermal remanent magnetization (IRM) are measured in our paleomagnetic experiment. Results show the low latitude geomagnetic field variation at the Banda Sea during the last ∼820 kyr. Except for the Brunhes/Matuyama boundary (BMB), there is no clear signal of reverse events in paleo- inclination and paleo-declination patterns. However, the synthetic paleointensity curve displays the asymmetrical saw-tooth pattern that can be used for determining reverse events, and shows a maximum intensity drop at the BMB. The characteristics of paleointensity provide a useful tool to identify reverse signals and improve the difficulties from only using inclination and declination patterns, especially at low latitude. With the help of paleointensity, inclination and declination, we have identified five reverse events. Furthermore if we consider the secular variation effect, we think that the strong negative inclination observed in our study may be the zonal time-averaged field with paleo secular variation, rather than non-dipole effect within the Brunhes epoch.

The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of the ZnTe/ZnSe quantum dot (QD) structure which has a type II band alignment was investigated. A broader structure peaking at 2.180 eV together with the features of the ZnSe buffer layer located at 2.820 eV in the PL spectrum at 10 K were observed. The broadness of the PL attributes to the spatial inhomogeneity of the QD sizes. The PL spectrum was a normal distribution with a variance of 0.002 eV 2 . However, the dot size distribution was a deformed Gaussian. Using only one set of data of dot size distribution measured by the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), the statistical estimates with standard errors were evaluated using the bootstrap methodology. The probability distribution was inferred by calculating the means, percentiles and correlation coefficients of the base diameter and the height of the QDs. We concluded that the dot distributions were indeed a deformed Gaussian and the correlation coefficient of the diameter and the height of the QDs was 0.49 ± 0.01. The uniformity of the dot size distribution was poor. To infer the dot size distribution from the PL spectrum, we numerically solved the Schrodinger equation by elaborating on the orthogonal periodic functions (OPF) approximation for the type II lens shaped QDs. The convergence of the probability density was discussed in a great detail. We found that the band edge discontinuities inside the dot acts as a barrier with ΔE c = 315 meV for the conduction band and as a well with ΔE v = 735 meV for the valence band. In the AFM measurement, the offset in dot height is 14 A and the aspect ratio is 0.04. We employed the Schrodinger equation to correlated the PL spectrum (intensity versus optical energy) to the AFM data (number of QDs versus dot size) and the agreement was excellent.

A new polynitro cage compound with the framework of HNIW and a tetrazole unit, i.e., 10-(1-nitro-1, 2, 3, 4-tetraazol-5-yl)) methyl-2, 4, 6, 8, 12-hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (NTz-HNIW) has been proposed and studied by density functional theory (DFT) and molecular mechanics methods. Properties such as IR spectrum, heat of formation, thermodynamic properties, and crystal structure were predicted. The compound belongs to the Pbca space group, with the lattice parameters a = 15.07 Å, b = 12.56 Å, c = 18.34 Å, Z = 8, and ρ = 1.990 g·cm(-3). The stability of the compound was evaluated by the bond dissociation energies and results showed that the first step of pyrolysis is the rupture of the N-NO(2) bond in the side chain. The detonation properties were estimated by the Kamlet-Jacobs equations based on the calculated crystal density and heat of formation, and the results were 9.240 km·s(-1) for detonation velocity and 40.136 GPa for detonation pressure. The designed compound has high thermal stability and good detonation properties and is probably a promising high energy density compound (HEDC).