Managing land-use effects on Northland dune lakes: lessons from the past

The Northland region of New Zealand includes numerous high-value, macrophyte-dominated dune lakes. Recent water policy reforms offer limited guidance on managing for aquatic macrophytes. In addition, dune lake histories are poorly known as regular monitoring dates to 2005 AD. Here, ca. 4000 years of lake functional behaviour is reconstructed from sedimentary archives in two Northland dune lakes (Humuhumu and Rotokawau). Results demonstrated that macrophyte dominance is sensitive to catchment erosion and hydrological drawdown. Degradation of macrophyte communities occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, earlier at Lake Humuhumu than Lake Rotokawau (post-1880 AD and post-1930 AD, respectively). In both lakes, increased erosional influx reduced macrophyte productivity, before later increases to wider trophic state (post-1970 AD). Lake-level decline is linked to increased nutrient loading at Lake Rotokawau but less so, Lake Humuhumu which is more strongly groundwater-fed. In Northland dune lakes, water-level reduction and erosional influx from land use have driven macrophyte degradation.     

Salt tectonics in the Cap Boujdour Area,Aaiun Basin,NW Africa

Seismic reflection data indicate the Moroccan salt basin extends to the Cap Boujdour area in the Aaiun Basin. Two salt diapir structures have been identified and several areas of collapsed strata indicate probable salt removal at the shelf edge. The presence of salt in this area correlates to the conjugate southern George's Bank Basin and the Baltimore Canyon area, and it is suggested that the salt extends southward from the known salt diapir province in the George's Bank Basin southward to the Great Stone Dome. The paucity of salt diapirs is attributed to the thick carbonate and anhydrite sequence, which was deposited soon after salt deposition that inhibited halokinesis. The presence of salt along this large segment of the Atlantic margin should increase its hydrocarbon potential with traps created around salt diapirs and provision of migration pathways from deep potential source rocks in the early Cretaceous and Jurassic strata to shallower levels.     

Guiding ecological principles for marine spatial planning

The declining health of marine ecosystems around the world is evidence that current piecemeal governance is inadequate to successfully support healthy coastal and ocean ecosystems and sustain human uses of the ocean. One proposed solution to this problem is ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (MSP), which is a process that informs the spatial distribution of activities in the ocean so that existing and emerging uses can be maintained, use conflicts reduced, and ecosystem health and services protected and sustained for future generations. Because a key goal of ecosystem-based MSP is to maintain the delivery of ecosystem services that humans want and need, it must be based on ecological principles that articulate the scientifically recognized attributes of healthy, functioning ecosystems. These principles should be incorporated into a decision-making framework with clearly defined targets for these ecological attributes. This paper identifies ecological principles for MSP based on a synthesis of previously suggested and/or operationalized principles, along with recommendations generated by a group of twenty ecologists and marine scientists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives on MSP. The proposed four main ecological principles to guide MSP—maintaining or restoring: native species diversity, habitat diversity and heterogeneity, key species, and connectivity—and two additional guidelines, the need to account for context and uncertainty, must be explicitly taken into account in the planning process. When applied in concert with social, economic, and governance principles, these ecological principles can inform the designation and siting of ocean uses and the management of activities in the ocean to maintain or restore healthy ecosystems, allow delivery of marine ecosystem services, and ensure sustainable economic and social benefits.     

Geochemistry and Petrogenesis of Late Ediacaran Rare-metalAlbite Granites of the Arabian-Nubian Shield

The Abu Dabbab albite granite(ADAG), in the central Eastern Desert of Egypt, hosts the most significant rare metal ore deposit in the northern part of the Neoproterozoic Arabian-Nubian Shield. Here, we report detailed field,petrographic, mineralogical and geochemical investigation of the ADAG, an isolated stock-like granitic body with sharp intrusive contacts against metamorphic country rocks, probably emplaced at about 600 Ma. The fine-grained porphyritic upper unit is a preserved remnant of the shallowly-emplaced apex of the magma chamber, whereas the medium-grained lower unit crystallized at deeper levels under subvolcanic conditions. The peraluminous leucocratic ADAG shares common geochemical characteristics with post-collisional intraplate A-type magmas. In addition to the conspicuous enrichment in Na2 O, the ADAG is remarkable for its anomalous concentrations of Ta, Nb, Li, Hf, Ga, Sn, Zn and heavy rare-earth elements. Nb-Ta minerals in the ADAG are mixed with Fe-Mn oxides, forming black patches that increase in abundance toward of the base of the intrusion. Columbite-tantalite, cassiterite and wolframite are the most important ore minerals.Pronounced negative Eu anomalies(Eu/Eu* = 0.10–0.24) reflect extreme magmatic fractionation and perhaps the effects of late fluid-rock interaction. The ADAG was most likely generated by partial melting of the juvenile middle crust of the ANS as the geotherm was elevated by erosional uplift following lithospheric delamination and it was emplaced at the intersection of lineations of structural weakness. Although formation of the ADAG and its primary enrichment in rare metals are essentially due to magmatic processes, late-stage metasomatism caused limited redistribution of rare metals. Fluid-driven subsolidus modification was limited to the apex of the magma chamber and drove development of greisen, amazonite, and quartz veins along fracture systems.     

The Bataan orogene: Eastward subduction, tectonic rotations, and volcanism in the western Pacific (Philippines)

The Philippine mobile belt represents a crustal fragment, wedged between two subduction systems exhibiting opposite polarity. The eastern (Philippine—Quezon) system probably originated in the Eocene during northwest—southeast spreading of the west Philippine basin. Westward subduction is continued, probably as a result of northward motion of the Philippine basin crust. The western (Manila—Bataan) system originated in the Oligocene by spreading and formation of the South China Sea basin. Eastward subduction dominates the tectonics in the northern part of the archipelago and resulted in the formation of the Bataan orogene, a sequence of three parallel volcanic arcs emplaced in obducted oceanic crust. Geochemical and radiometric data indicate that the arcs migrated eastward with time (Miocene to Present) while changing composition from tholeiitic via calc-alkaline to shoshonitic. Centers of the latter two types are presently active. Depocenters behind the arcs also migrated eastward with time, suggesting correction of the isostatic disequilibrium caused by geanticlinal uplift of the orogene. Paleomagnetic evidence suggests that central Luzon is rotating counterclockwise probably due to differential spreading in the South China Sea basin. The west Philippine basin rotates clockwise. This results in significant “Einengung” in the southern part of the archipelago.     

Experimental investigation of the metamorphism of siliceous dolomites

For the reaction: 1 diopside+3 dolomite ?2 forsterite+4 calcite+2 CO₂ (14) the following P _total?T-brackets have been determined experimentally in the presence of a gasphase consisting of 90 mole%CO₂ and 10 mole%H₂O∶1 kb, 544°±20° C; 3kb, 638°±15° C; 5kb, 708°±10° C; 10kb, 861°±10° C. The determination was carried out with well defined synthetic minerals in the starting mixture. The MgCO₃-contents of the magnesian calcites formed by the reaction in equilibrium with dolomite agree very well with the calcite-dolomite miscibility gap, which can be recalculated from the activities and the activity coefficients of MgCO₃ as given by Gordon and Greenwood (1970). The equilibrium constant K _14b was calculated with respect to the reference pressure P ₀=1 bar using the experimentally determined \(P_{total} TX_{CO_2 }\) brackets, the activities of MgCO₃ and CaCO₃ (Gordon and Greenwood 1970; Skippen 1974) and the fugacities of CO₂ Holloway (1977) considering the correction of Flowers (1979). Results are plotted as function of the absolute reciprocal temperature in Fig. 1. For the temperature range of 530° to 750° C the following linear expression can be given for the natural logarithm of K_14b: (g) $$[ln K_{14b} ]_T^P = - \frac{{18064.43}}{{T\left( {^\circ K} \right)}} + 38.58 + \frac{{0.308(P - 1 bar)}}{{T\left( {^\circ K} \right)}}$$ where P is the total pressure in bars and T the temperature in degrees Kelvin. Combining Equation (g) with the activities of MgCO₃ and CaCO₃ gives the equilibrium fugacity \(f_{CO_2 }\) : (i) $$[ln f_{CO_2 } ]_T^P = - \frac{{11635.44}}{{T\left( {^\circ K} \right)}} + 21.09 + \frac{{0.154(P - 1 bar)}}{{T\left( {^\circ K} \right)}}$$ Equation (i) and the fugacities of CO₂ permit to calculate the equilibrium data in terms of \(P_{CO_2 }\) and T (see Fig. 3) or P _total, T and \(X_{CO_2 }\) (see Fig. 5). Combining the \(P_{total} TX_{CO_2 }\) equilibrium data of the above reaction with those of the previously investigated reaction (Metz 1976): 1 tremolite+11 dolomite ?8 forsterite+13 calcite+9 CO₂+1 H₂O yields the stability conditions of the four-mineral assemblage: diopside+calcian dolomite+forsterite +magnesian calcite and the stability conditions of the five-mineral assemblage: tremolite+calcian dolomite+forsterite +magnesian calcite+diopside both shown in Fig. 6. Since these assemblages are by no means rare in metamorphic siliceous dolomites (Trommsdorff 1972; Suzuki 1977; Puhan 1979) the data of Fig. 6 can be used to determine the pressure of metamorphism and to estimate the composition of the CO₂-H₂O fluid provided the temperature of the metamorphic event was determined using the calcite-dolomite geothermometer.     

Pyrolysis-high resolution gas chromatography and pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of kerogens and kerogen precursors

A series of kerogens and kerogen precursors isolated from DSDP samples, oil shales and Recent algal mats have been examined by Curie point pyrolysis-high resolution gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. This study has shown that the three main types of kerogens (marine, terrestrial and mixtures of both) can be characterized using these techniques. The marine (algal) kerogens yield principally aliphatic products and the terrestrial kerogens yield more aromatic and phenolic products with some n-alkanes and n-alkenes. The yields of n-alkanes and n-alkenes increase and phenols decrease with increasing geologic age, however, pyrolysis-GC cannot be used to characterize the influence of short term diagenesis on the kerogen structure.     

Long base line tilt and strain measurement

Two types of noise afflict strain and tilt measurement. They may be categorized as “active” noise, which is due to atmospheric pressure variations, temperature variations, water-table variations and so forth; and “passive” or signal-generated noise which is a consequence of the interaction of the strain field of interest with inhomogeneities of material properties local to the measurement site.The reason why both types of noise are normally reduced by the use of long base line instruments is explained and a simple, practical long base line tiltmeter is described.