Compositional classification of “kimberlitic” and “non-kimberlitic” ilmenite

Ilmenite is one of the common kimberlitic indicator minerals recovered during diamond exploration, and its distinction from non-kimberlitic rock types is important. This is particularly true for regions where these minerals are present in relatively low abundance, and they are the dominant kimberlitic indicator mineral recovered. Difficulty in visually differentiating kimberlitic from non-kimberlitic ilmenite in exploration concentrates is also an issue, and distinguishing kimberlitic ilmenite from those derive from other similar rocks, such as ultramafic lamprophyres, is practically impossible. Ilmenite is also the indicator mineral whose compositional variety has the most potential to resolve provenance issues related to mineral dispersions with contributions from multiple kimberlite sources.

Various published data sets from selected kimberlitic (including kimberlites, lamproites, and various ultramafic lamprophyres) and non-kimberlitic rock types have been compiled and evaluated in terms of their major element compositions. Compositional fields and bounding reference lines for ilmenites derived from kimberlites (sensu stricto), ultramafic lamprophyres, and other non-kimberlitic rock types have been defined primarily on MgO–TiO₂ graphs as well as MgO–Cr₂O₃ relationships.     

Low-latitude “dusty events” vs. high-latitude “icy Heinrich events”

It has been proposed that tropical events could have participated in the triggering of the classic, high-latitude, iceberg-discharge Heinrich events (HE). We explore low-latitude Heinrich events equivalents at high resolution, in a piston core recovered from the tropical north-western African margin. They are characterized by an increase of total dust, lacustrine diatoms and fibrous lacustrine clay minerals. Thus, low-latitude events clearly reflect severe aridity events that occurred over Africa at the Saharan latitudes, probably induced by southward shifts of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. At a first approximation, it seems that there is more likely synchronicity between the high-latitude Heinrich Events (HEs) and low-latitude events (LLE), rather than asynchronous behaviours.     

“Traditional” women, “modern” water: Linking gender and commodification in Rajasthan, India

In this paper, I analyze the connections made between women and water in a Rajasthani drinking water supply project as a significant part of drinking water’s commodification. For development policy makers, water progressing from something free to something valued by price is inevitable when moving economies toward modernity and development. My findings indicate that water is not commodified simply by charging money for it, but through a series of discourses and acts that link it to other “modern” objects and give it value. One of these objects is “women”. I argue that through women’s participation activities that link gender and modernity to new responsibilities and increased mobility for village women involving the clean water supply, a “traditional” Rajasthani woman becomes “modern”. Water, in parallel, becomes “new”, “improved” and worth paying for. Women and water resources are further connected through project staff’s efforts to promote latrines by targeting women as their primary users. The research shows that villagers applied their own meanings to latrines, some of which precluded women using them. This paper fills a gap in feminist political ecology, which often overlooks how gender is created through natural resource interventions, by concerning itself with how new meanings of “water” and “women” are mutually constructed through struggles over water use and its commodification. It contributes to critical development geography literatures by demonstrating that women’s participation approaches to natural resource development act as both constraints and opportunities for village constituents. It examines an under-explored area of gender and water research by tracing village-level struggles over meanings of latrines.     

What is A “Method”?

Using a recently published compilation of analytical data on reference samples SY-2, SY-3 and MRG-1 as an example, a case is presented in favor of more precise terminology in describing analytical methods used in reporting data in collaborative programs. The technique of final measurement in a particular method is often less important than earlier operations, such as sample attack or technique of separation.     

First results of precise gravity measurements on the “A-B-C” profile

Repeated high-precision gravity measurements on a north-south profile between La Paz and Santiago de Chile and east-west profiles between the coastline and the high Cordilleras are conducted in order to determine vertical motion of the ground. Geophysical considerations and results of the first campaign in October 1984 are presented.     

Isoprenoid alkanes with irregular “head-to-head” linkages

A lightly biodegraded crude oil from the Tolkinsk field (Upper Jurassic), situated in north-west Siberia, was found to contain a series of C₂₈–C₃₉ isoprenoid alkanes. Most of these components contain a pristane unit linked head-to-head with other isoprenoid units. The structures of these components were elucidated by mass spectral interpretations, comparisons with a synthesised standard and by reference to data published previously in the literature. These results extend the carbon number range, the variety of structural types, and the number of reported occurrences of these compounds in geological samples. These results provide further evidence for a contribution of bacterial cell-wall lipids to crude oils.     

The National Geodetic Survey project “POLARIS”

The National Geodetic Survey (N.G.S.) of the National Ocean Survey has undertaken a new project called POLar-motion Analysis by Radio Interferometric Surveying (POLA-RIS). The premier goal of the project is to establish a fully operational polar motion monitoring network, with a spatial resolution and accuracy of 10 cm and a temporal resolution of 24 hours. The new network will utilize radio interferometric techniques. The fixed POLARIS observatories may also serve as base stations to be used in conjunction with small-aperture, 3–10-m, mobile units for positional surveys for geodetic and geo-dynamic applications. The N.G.S. plans to cooperate fully with other governmental organizations having related responsibilities and interest in polar motion, earth rotation and geodynamics [e.g., National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.), United States Naval Observatory (U.S.N.O.)] as well as academic and private researchers.     

The indigenous origin of Witwatersrand “carbon”

In the Witwatersrand approximately 40% of the gold is intimately associated with so-called “carbon” in “carbon seam reefs”, which occur in over a dozen paleoplacers, many of them concentrated at two stratigraphic levels in the 7000-m-thick succession of Archean siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. This is reduced carbon, present as kerogen admixed in various proportions with derivative (now solid) bitumen(s). Oil generation and migration were active geological processes during Early Earth history. Numerous possible source rocks for oil generation, including the carbon seams themselves, occur within the Witwatersrand basin. In the Witwatersrand ore, oil-bearing fluid inclusions are also present, derived like the bitumen, by thermal maturation of the kerogen. The presence of kerogen and bitumen in the Witwatersrand sedimentary rocks, together with a wealth of observations on the spatial distribution of the carbon seams confirm that the carbon originated in situ from living organisms in microbial mat cover, as opposed to flowing in from elsewhere as liquid hydrocarbons as some researchers have suggested. Paleochannels, which truncated auriferous carbon seams early in the depositional history, are of widespread occurrence, and micro-synsedimentary faults offset carbon seams. The carbon seams are thus indigenous biogenic markers that grew contemporaneously with placer development. The various features highlighting the nature and spatial distribution of Witwatersrand carbon seams provide a classic case where field evidence trumps laboratory data in the reconstruction of geological processes.     

Methane-induced dolomite “chimneys” on the Kuroshima Knoll, Ryukyu islands, Japan

The Kuroshima Knoll is about 26 km south of Ishigaki Island in the southern part of the Ryukyu Arc. The area is considered to be the source area of “The 1771 Yaeyama Earthquake Tsunami”, which was due to the submarine landslide caused by an earthquake. It has been cleared from some investigations using “Dolphin 3K” and “Shinkai 2000” that there are large-scale dead Calyptogena colonies, many gravels of fallen dolomite chimneys and carbonates on the top of the Knoll [Matsumoto, T., Uechi, C., Kimura, M., 1997; Machiyama, H., Matsumoto, T., Matsumoto, R., Hattori, M., Okano, M., Iwase, R., Tomaru, H., 2001b.]. Carbonates of Kuroshima Knoll have various shapes and macroscopic textures. These have been classified into 4 types; shell crust (pavement), chimney, burrow, and nodule. It is clear that all chimney and burrow carbonates are composed of dolomite, while shell curst and nodule are composed of calcite, sometimes both calcite and dolomite. These carbonates are considered to have been formed by cold seep, because they are characterized by the light carbon isotopic ratio (semi-biogenic) and the heavy oxygen isotopic ratio. This suggests that methane hydrate layers develop under this survey area and the water that has the heavy oxygen and the light carbon isotopic ratio is derived from the dissociation of methane hydrate.     

Response to Thrift's “The future of geography”

Reviews and observations about the status of the discipline of geography, no matter how positive, invariably raise programmatic concerns. These concerns have a long history that arise from geography's struggles to find an identity that embraces its many parts and yet are consistent with the logic by which the academy partitions knowledge. Pedagogy and research historically claimed by geography is currently being reinvented and relabeled under such headings as “integrated environmental science” and “spatial science”, and these developments have the potential to change the breadth of the “geographic imagination”. Several observations about dominant explanatory perspectives and substantive domains of geographic enquiry are also provided.     

Platform subsidence mechanisms and “eustatic” sea-level changes

The boundaries between major world-wide sequences of sediments on continental platforms are due primarily to either eustatic changes or to systematic uplift of the continental interior. If thermal contraction of the lithosphere controls basin subsidence, basins would continue to subside during times of low eustatic sea level. Calculations indicate that significant gaps in the geological record could be produced by modest eustatic sealevel changes even in rapidly subsiding basins. For example, a 95 m withdrawal could have produced the sub-Devonian unconformity in the Michigan Basin. The vertical amplitude of eustatic variations can be determined directly from the depth of paleotopographic valleys (135m for sub-Pennsylvanian of Illinois Basin) and from the present elevation of sediments deposited during highstands (300 m above present sea level). The Illinois Basin aparently continued to subside during the sub-Pennsylvanian regression.     

The political-economy of Blair’s “New Regional Policy”

The “region” and “regional change” have been elusive ideas within political and economic geography, and in essence require a greater understanding of their dynamic characteristics. Trailing in the backwaters of the devolution to the Celtic nations of Britain, the contemporary era of New Labour’s political-economic ideology, manifest through “third-way” governance in England places the region and its functional capacity into the heart of geographical inquiry. Drawing upon a new regionalist epistemology, this paper seeks to recover a sense of (regional) political economy through a critical investigation of the development and formulation of Blair’s “New Regional Policy” (NRP). I address how New Labour has attempted to marry economic regionalisation on the one hand, and democratic regionalism on the other. This paper specifically questions the wisdom of such a marriage of politically distinct ideologies through a critical investigation of the underlying contradictions of their strategy from both a theoretical and empirical standpoint. Demonstrated both in the North East “no” vote in 2004, and in the post-mortem undertaken by the ODPM Select Committee in 2005, the paper illustrates how a loss of political drive gradually undermined the capacity of devolution to deliver in England. Finally, I argue that through the lens of the NRP we can speculate on some of the wider issues and implications for the study of regional governance.