The determination of level populations and detailed population mechanisms in dense plasmas has become an increasingly important problem in atomic physics. In this work, the density variation of line intensities and level populations in aluminum K-shell and molybdenum and silver L-shell emission spectra have been measured from high-powered, laser-produced plasmas. For each case, the density dependence of the observed line emission is due to the effect of high frequency electron-ion collisions on metastable levels. The density dependent line intensities vary greatly in laser-produced plasmas and can be used to extract detailed information concerning the population kinetics and level populations of the ions. The laser-plasmas had to be fully characterized in order to clearly compare the observed density dependence with atomic theory predictions. This has been achieved through the combined use of new diagnostic instruments and microdot targets which provided simultaneously space, time, and spectrally resolved data. The plasma temperatures were determined from the slope of the hydrogen-like recombination continuum. The time resolved electron density profiles were measured using multiple frame holographic interferometry. Thus, the density dependence of K-shell spectral lines could be clearly examined, independent of assumptions concerning the dynamics of the plasma. In aluminum, the electron density dependence of …

Eruption of the Rainier Mesa and Ammonia Tanks Members Timber Mountain Tuff at about 11.5 and 11.3 Ma, respectively, resulted in formation of the timber Mountain (TM) caldera; new K-Ar ages show that volcanism within and around the TM caldera continued for about 1 m.y. after collapse. Some TM age magmatic activity took place west and southeast of the TM caldera in the Beatty -- Bullfrog Hills and Shoshone Mountain areas, suggesting that volcanic activity at the TM caldera was an intense expression of an areally extensive magmatic system active from about 11.5 to 10Ma. Epithermal Au-Ag, Hg and fluorite mineralization and hydrothermal alteration are found in both within and surrounding the Timber Mountain -- Oasis Valley caldera complex. New K-Ar ages date this hydrothermal activity between about 13 and 10 Ma, largely between about 11.5 and 10 Ma, suggesting a genetic relation of hydrothermal activity to the TM magmatic system.