Preliminary observations of solar radio sources with the Culgoora radioheliograph operating at four frequencies

The Culgoora radioheliograph has been modified for observing at 327.4 MHz, which is in addition to the three frequencies (43.25, 80, and 160 MHz) previously available. At the new frequency the array beamwidth is 56, which represents the highest resolution yet available for metre-wavelength solar mapping.At 327.4 MHz the sources of radio emission are mainly in the lowest layers of the corona. Some preliminary four-frequency observations have been made of type I storms. It is found that the source size generally decreases with increasing observing frequency. This result confirms earlier suggestions that the sources of both type I and type III emission are contained in structures whose boundaries diverge outwards in the corona.     

Partitioning of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons between water and particles compared to bioaccumulation in mussels: a harbour case

Water and particles from three sites located in Halifax Harbour, near and further away from combined municipal sewage effluents (CMSE) were analysed for parental and alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (par and alkPAH). Bioavailability of PAH was compared for inter-tidal mussels collected at the same sites in April and November. The PAH fingerprint determined over 9 sampling times covering a period of 19 months differed more between phases (water and particles) and seasons, than between sites. In the spring, more alkPAH associated with diesel and gasoline were detected in the soluble phase, along with more bioaccumulation of alkPAH in inter-tidal mussels. A broader number of parPAH were detected in mussels collected in the fall. The mean sum of dissolved alkPAH concentrations was higher in water at the site closer to raw CMSE than at the other two sites and particles of that site. However, lowest bioconcentration factors (BCF) were determined in mussels of this more contaminated site. Similar biota-particle accumulation factors (BPAF) were determined for parPAH in mussels from the three sites, all lower than the BCF of alkPAH. The study indicates that sewage treatment plants will reduce the amount of parPAH especially larger than fluoranthene and pyrene from being deposited in the harbour; that alk naphthalenes and fluorenes present in water will continue to be discharged; that the disturbance of sediments can make particle-bound PAH available to mussels.     

Quantitative analysis of variations in depositional sequence thickness from submarine channel levees

Abstract Thickness variations across‐levee and downchannel in acoustically defined depositional sequences from six submarine channel‐levee systems show consistent and quantifiable patterns. The thickness of depositional sequences perpendicular to the channel trend, i.e. across the levee, decreases exponentially, as characterized by a spatial decay constant, k. Similarly, the thickness of sediment at the levee crest decreases exponentially down the upper reaches of submarine channels and can be characterized by a second spatial decay constant, λ. The inverse of these decay constants has units of length and defines depositional length scales such that k^?1 is a measure of levee width and λ^?1 is a measure of levee length. Quantification of levee architecture in this way allowed investigation of relationships between levee architecture and channel dimensions. It was found that these measures of levee e‐folding width and levee e‐folding length are directly related to channel width and relief. The dimensions of channels and levees are thus intimately related, thereby limiting the range of potential channel‐levee morphologies, regardless of allocyclic forcing. A simple sediment budget model relates the product of the levee e‐folding width and e‐folding length to through‐channel volume discharge. A classification system based on the quantitative downchannel behaviour of levee architecture allows identification of a ‘mid‐channel’ reach, where sediment is passively transferred from the through‐channel flow to the levees as an overspilling flow. Downstream from this reach, the channel gradually looses its control on guiding turbidity currents, and the resulting flow can be considered as an unconfined or spreading flow.     

Understanding Climatic Impacts, Vulnerabilities, and Adaptation in the United States: Building a Capacity for Assessment

Based on the experience of the U.S. National Assessment, we propose a program of research and analysis to advance capability for assessment of climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and adaptation options. We identify specific priorities for scientific research on the responses of ecological and socioeconomic systems to climate and other stresses; for improvement in the climatic inputs to impact assessments; and for further development of assessment methods to improve their practical utility to decision-makers. Finally, we propose a new institutional model for assessment, based principally on regional efforts that integrate observations, research, data, applications, and assessment on climate and linked environmental-change issues. The proposed program will require effective collaboration between scientists, resource managers, and other stakeholders, all of whose expertise is needed to define and prioritize key regional issues, characterize relevant uncertainties, and assess potential responses. While both scientifically and organizationally challenging, such an integrated program holds the best promise of advancing our capacity to manage resources and the economy adaptively under a changing climate.     

The neoliberalization of ecosystem services: wetland mitigation banking and problems in environmental governance

Wetland mitigation banking is an American neoliberal environmental policy that has created a functioning market in `ecosystem services', commodities defined using the holistic measures of ecological science. The development of this market is discussed as a project of environmental governance, defined as the nation-state's regulation of ecological relations within its territory towards stabilizing capitalist relations of power and accumulation. I argue that the wetland banking industry serves as a bellwether that presages problems that other strategies of neoliberal environmental governance will experience. Ethnographic, economic and ecological data from the Chicago-area wetland banking industry inform a discussion of two major obstacles to neoliberal strategy: the problem of relying on ecological science to define the unit of trade, and the problem of aligning the somewhat independent relations of law, politics, markets and ecosystems across an array of spatial scales. Theoretical guidance is sought from recent work on `social natures' and from the Regulationist approach to institutional political economics.     

The effect of Ca-Tschermaks component on trace element partitioning between clinopyroxene and silicate melt

We have studied the influence of Ca-Tschermaks (Calcium Tschermaks or CaTs) content of clinopyroxene on the partitioning of trace elements between this phase and silicate melt at fixed temperature and pressure. Ion probe analyses of experiments carried out in the system Na₂O–CaO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂, at 0.1 MPa and 1218°C, produced crystal-melt partition coefficients (D) of 36 trace elements (Li, Cl, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Fe, Co, Ge, Sr, Y, Zr, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh, In, Sn, Sb, Ba, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu, Hf, Ta and W), for clinopyroxene compositions between 10 and 32 mol% CaTs. Partition coefficients for 2+ to 5+ cations show, for each charge, a near parabolic dependence of log D on ionic radius of the substituting cation, for partitioning into both the M1 and M2 sites of clinopyroxene. Fitting the results to the elastic strain model of Blundy and Wood [Blundy, J.D., Wood, B.J., 1994. Prediction of crystal-melt partition coefficients from elastic moduli. Nature 372, 452–454] we obtain results for the strain-free partition coefficients of theoretical cations (D₀), with site radius r₀, and for the site's Young's Modulus (E).

In agreement with earlier data our results show that increasing ^ivAl concentration in cpx is matched by increasing D, E_M1, E_M2 and D₀ for tri-, tetra- and pentavalent cations. The degree of fractionation between chemically similar elements (i.e. Ta/Nb, Zr/Hf) also increases. In contrast, D values for mono-, di- and hexavalent cations decrease with increasing ^ivAl in the cpx. The large suite of trace elements used has allowed us to study the effects of cation charge on D₀, r₀ and E. We have found that D₀ and r₀ decrease with increasing cation charge, e.g. r₀=0.66 Å for 4+ cations and 0.59 Å for 5+ cations substituting into M1. Values of E_M1 and E_M2 increase with cation charge as well as with increasing ^ivAl content. The increase in E_M2 is linear and close to the trend set by Hazen and Finger [Hazen, R.M., Finger, L.W., 1979. Bulk modulus-volume relationship for cation–anion polyhedra. J. Geophys. Res. 84 (10) 6723–6728] for oxides. E_M1 values are much higher and do not fit the trend predicted by the Hazen and Finger relationship.     

Inter-annual variability in larval supply to populations of three invertebrate taxa in the northern California Current

We investigated sources of inter-annual variability in larval supply to crab and sea urchin populations at Bodega Head and Point Reyes in northern California. During the spring and summer upwelling seasons of the years 1992 through 1997 we monitored the weekly settlement rates of nine species of crabs and two species of sea urchins. As observed in previous studies, daily values of alongshore windstress, temperature and salinity provided evidence for the poleward flow of relatively warm, low salinity water from south of Point Reyes, an apparent retention zone, during upwelling relaxation events. In years dominated by these events (1992, 1993, 1995 and 1996) we observed that alongshore windstress, temperature and salinity were coherent and temperature was significantly correlated with cancrid crab settlement. During these years the magnitude of cancrid crab settlement and the fraction of cancrid crabs relative to other crab species settling were high. Over four years of concurrent sampling there was consistently greater cancrid crab settlement at the Point Reyes site, within the retention zone, than at Bodega Head. Settlement of non-cancrid crabs (porcellanids, grapsids, pagurids and majids) was not as closely linked to intra-annual patterns of upwelling and relaxation, possibly due to the shorter seasonal availability of larvae allowing for the influence of fewer relaxation events. Settlement of this group among years was positively correlated with environmental indicators of strong seasonal upwelling; high salinity, Bakun upwelling index and low temperature. Sea urchin settlement events were observed in June and July of 1992, 1994 and 1997 during warming periods when salinity and temperature were increasing and alongshore windstress was low. Across the six years of the study, we found that cancrid crab larvae had a more even seasonal availability than larvae of non-cancrid species, which settled in greatest numbers during the early portion of the upwelling season. Sea urchins settled in greatest numbers during the later part of the upwelling season. Together these patterns demonstrate the taxon-specific way that inter-annual variability in larval supply is forced by the coincidence of larval availability with favorable physical transport mechanisms.     

Pattern,style and timing of British–Irish Ice Sheet advance and retreat over the last 45 000 years: evidence from NW Scotland and the adjacent continental shelf

Predicting the future response of ice sheets to climate warming and rising global sea level is important but difficult. This is especially so when fast-flowing glaciers or ice streams, buffered by ice shelves, are grounded on beds below sea level. What happens when these ice shelves are removed? And how do the ice stream and the surrounding ice sheet respond to the abruptly altered boundary conditions? To address these questions and others we present new geological, geomorphological, geophysical and geochronological data from the ice-stream-dominated NW sector of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS). The study area covers around 45 000 km² of NW Scotland and the surrounding continental shelf. Alongside seabed geomorphological mapping and Quaternary sediment analysis, we use a suite of over 100 new absolute ages (including cosmogenic-nuclide exposure ages, optically stimulated luminescence ages and radiocarbon dates) collected from onshore and offshore, to build a sector-wide ice-sheet reconstruction combining all available evidence with Bayesian chronosequence modelling. Using this information we present a detailed assessment of ice-sheet advance/retreat history, and the glaciological connections between different areas of the NW BIIS sector, at different times during the last glacial cycle. The results show a highly dynamic, partly marine, partly terrestrial, ice-sheet sector undergoing large size variations in response to sub-millennial-scale climatic (Dansgaard–Oeschger) cycles over the last 45 000 years. Superimposed on these trends we identify internally driven instabilities, operating at higher frequency, conditioned by local topographic factors, tidewater dynamics and glaciological feedbacks during deglaciation. Specifically, our new evidence indicates extensive marine-terminating ice-sheet glaciation of the NW BIIS sector during Greenland Stadials 12 to 9 – prior to the main ‘Late Weichselian’ ice-sheet glaciation. After a period of restricted glaciation, in Greenland Interstadials 8 to 6, we find good evidence for rapid renewed ice-sheet build-up in NW Scotland, with the Minch ice-stream terminus reaching the continental shelf edge in Greenland Stadial 5, perhaps only briefly. Deglaciation of the NW sector took place in numerous stages. Several grounding-zone wedges and moraines on the mid- and inner continental shelf attest to significant stabilizations of the ice-sheet grounding line, or ice margin, during overall retreat in Greenland Stadials 3 and 2, and to the development of ice shelves. NW Lewis was the first substantial present-day land area to deglaciate, in the first half of Greenland Stadial 3 at a time of globally reduced sea-level c. 26 kabp , followed by Cape Wrath at c. 24 kabp. The topographic confinement of the Minch straits probably promoted ice-shelf development in early Greenland Stadial 2, providing the ice stream with additional support and buffering it somewhat from external drivers. However, c. 20–19 kabp , as the grounding-line migrated into shoreward deepening water, coinciding with a marked change in marine geology and bed strength, the ice stream became unstable. We find that, once underway, grounding-line retreat proceeded in an uninterrupted fashion with the rapid loss of fronting ice shelves – first in the west, then the east troughs – before eventual glacier stabilization at fjord mouths in NW Scotland by ~17 kabp. Around the same time, ~19–17 kabp , ice-sheet lobes readvanced into the East Minch – possibly a glaciological response to the marine-instability-triggered loss of adjacent ice stream (and/or ice shelf) support in the Minch trough. An independent ice cap on Lewis also experienced margin oscillations during mid-Greenland Stadial 2, with an ice-accumulation centre in West Lewis existing into the latter part of Heinrich Stadial 1. Final ice-sheet deglaciation of NW mainland Scotland was punctuated by at least one other coherent readvance at c. 15.5 kabp , before significant ice-mass losses thereafter. At the glacial termination, c. 14.5 kabp , glaciers fed outwash sediment to now-abandoned coastal deltas in NW mainland Scotland around the time of global Meltwater Pulse 1A. Overall, this work on the BIIS NW sector reconstructs a highly dynamic ice-sheet oscillating in extent and volume for much of the last 45 000 years. Periods of expansive ice-sheet glaciation dominated by ice-streaming were interspersed with periods of much more restricted ice-cap or tidewater/fjordic glaciation. Finally, this work indicates that the role of ice streams in ice-sheet evolution is complex but mechanistically important throughout the lifetime of an ice sheet – with ice streams contributing to the regulation of ice-sheet health but also to the acceleration of ice-sheet demise via marine ice-sheet instabilities.     

Deformation measurements on Kilauea volcano,Hawaii

Repeated electronic distance measurements across Kilauea Caldera with Tellurometers and Geodimeter show definite horizontal expansion related to the vertical uplift and outward tilting of the summit prior to an eruption, and contraction during and after a flank eruption. Measurements started in October 1964, along a 3098 meter line between Uwekahuna and Keanakakoi, indicate a relatively uniform lengthening of 12 centimeters during the interval October 22, 1964 to March 1, 1965. Rapid shortening of the line by 28 centimeters was measured 4 days after the beginning of a flank eruption which involved emission of approximately 29 million cubic meters of lava during the period March 5 to March 15, 1965. During the expansion, the standard deviation of 10 Tellurometer measurements from a least-squares srtaight line solution is ± 2.0 centimeters (6.5 ppm) whereas 9 Geodimeter measurements have a standard deviation of ± 1.1 (3.6 ppm) centimeters. Absolute distance readings between the two instruments differ by 4 centimeters (13 ppm), but relative changes in distance were the same on both instruments. Changes in distance across Kilauea Caldera can, therefore, be easily measured to accuracies of 4 to 7 parts per million with standard electronic distance measuring systems. On active volcanoes where ground surface deformation exceeds 10–100 parts per million with changes in subsurface magma pressure or volume, repeated horizontal distance measurements can be a most useful technique.