HUMBOLDT'S NODES AND MODES OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE IN THE ANDEAN WORLD*

ABSTRACT. Alexander von Humboldt engaged in a staggering array of diverse experiences in the Andes and adjoining lowlands of northwestern South America between 1801 and 1803. Yet examination of Humboldt's diaries, letters, and published works shows how his principal activities in the Andes centered on three interests: mining and geological landscapes; communications and cartography; and use and distribution of the quinine‐yielding cinchona trees. Each node represented a pragmatic concern dealing with environmental resources in the context of the Andes. To pursue these interests in his Andean field studies, Humboldt relied on varied cultural interactions and vast social networks for knowledge exchange, in addition to extensive textual comparisons. These modes of inquiry dovetailed with his pragmatic interests and his open‐ended intellectual curiosity. Fertile combinations in his Andean studies provided the foundation and main testing ground for Humboldt's fused nature‐culture approach as well as his contributions to early geography and interdisciplinary environmental science.     

Detrital zircon age spectra of middle and upper Eocene outcrop belts,U.S. Gulf Coast region

Recently reported detrital zircon (DZ) data help to associate the Paleogene strata of the Gulf of Mexico region to various provenance areas. By far, recent work has emphasised upper Paleocene‐lower Eocene and upper Oligocene strata that were deposited during the two episodes of the highest sediment supply in the Paleogene. The data reveal a dynamic drainage history, including (1) initial routing of western Cordilleran drainages towards the Gulf of Mexico in the Paleocene, (2) an eastward shift of the western continental divide, from the Jura‐Cretaceous cordilleran arc to the eastern edge of the Laramide province after the Paleocene and (3) a southward shift, along the eastern Laramide province, of the headwaters of river systems draining to the Mississippi and Houston embayments at some time between the early Eocene and Oligocene. However, DZ characterisation of most (~20 Myr) of the middle Eocene‐lower Oligocene section remains limited. We present 60 DZ age spectra, most of which are from the middle or upper Eocene outcrop belts, with 50–200‐km spacing. We define six to eight distinct groups of DZ age spectra for middle and upper Eocene strata. Data from this and other studies resolve at least six substantial temporal changes in age spectra at various positions along the continental margin. The evolving age spectra constrain the middle and upper Eocene drainage patterns of large parts of interior North America. The most well‐resolved aspects of these drainage patterns include (1) persistent rivers that flowed from erosional landscapes across the Paleozoic Appalachian orogen either into the low‐lying Mississippi embayment or directly into the eastern Gulf; (2) at least during marine regressions, a trunk channel that likely flowed southward along the axial part of Mississippi Embayment and integrated tributaries from the east and west; and (3) rivers that flowed to the Houston embayment in the middle Eocene that likely originated in the Laramide province in central Colorado and southern Wyoming, as Precambrian basement highs in those source areas were being unroofed.     

HILLS AS RESOURCES AND RESISTANCES IN SYRACUSE,NEW YORK*

In an example of what William Freudenburg and his colleagues called the “conjoint construction” of nature and society, hills may represent either assets or liabilities for urban settlement, depending on the period and the activities involved. The relationships between terrain and land use in Syracuse, New York, since the late eighteenth century fall into three major eras. The initial phase, in which settlement largely shunned the lowlands, gave way in the 1820s to one in which canals and railroads stimulated development of the lowlands and in which most land uses, save those of the classic urban fringe, avoided the uplands. A new pattern appeared in the late nineteenth century with the arrival of the electric trolley and the automobile and with provision of a municipal water supply able to reach the city's high ground. Development since then has been consistent with Ernest Burgess's 1929 model of “the poor in the valleys, the well‐to‐do on the hillslopes, and the rich on the hilltops.”     

Watching the East: Constructions of ‘otherness’ in TV representations of East Germany

Coming from a socio-cultural geography perspective this paper sets out to question the ‘essentiality’ of East/West German differences, often said to persist in Germany despite (re)unification, by analysing the way in which they are socially constructed in German television reports and films today. Particular emphasis is placed upon the social and spatial positioning of the TV producers, of those represented, and of the audience. It is suggested that television representations such as those analysed in the paper effect a marginalization of East Germans and East Germany that can be partially resisted on the basis of contradictions ‘within’ and ‘outside’ filmic texts.     

Trajectories of protection: Protectorates of Aborigines in early 19th century Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract: This article tracks the passage of Aboriginal protection, as a contested imperial institution, from the Caribbean to Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand via the Cape Colony and Britain. In doing so, it reconfigures the historical geographies of colonial philanthropy, and of those individuals who sought to implement and resist it, as a set of specific, intersecting trajectories. These trajectories, of people, ideas and texts, both connected and remade multiple colonial places. The article also advocates positioning the contemporary politics of the colonial past in Britain, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, within a wider, trans‐imperial, set of connections.     

Kiwi Icons and the Re‐Settlement of New Zealand1 as Colonial Space

This article offers a critical reading of the celebratory biographical and autobiographical texts for three ‘kiwi icons’. It argues that kiwi icons signal the enduring influence of British colonialism upon national imaginings – through a process that I term ‘re‐settlement’. I demonstrate how representations of Barry Crump, Sir Edmund Hillary and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, prominent New Zealanders during the 1990s, are entwined with dominant constructions of New Zealand society. Further, I explore how these kiwi icons are constructed to serve the quest for nationhood; an endeavour, it is argued, that is about the reinvention of settlement mythology that involves the continuation of particular narratives of colonisation from the past.     

Tectonic and climatic control on the Late Messinian sedimentary evolution of the Nijar Basin (Betic Cordillera,Southern Spain)

The Late Messinian fill of the Nijar Basin (Betic Cordillera, southeastern Spain) mainly consists of clastic deposits of the Feos Formation that at basin margins rest unconformably above the primary evaporites of the Yesares Formation, the local equivalent of the Mediterranean Lower Gypsum. The Feos Fm. records the upward transition towards non‐marine environments before the abrupt return to fully marine conditions at the base of the Pliocene. The Feos Fm. is clearly two‐phase, with ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ members, which exhibit substantial differences in terms of facies, thickness, depositional trends and cyclical organization. These members record two distinct sedimentary and tectonic stages of Nijar Basin infilling. A high‐resolution, physical‐stratigraphic framework is proposed based on key beds and stratigraphic cyclicity and patterns that differ largely from those of most previously published studies. The predominant influence on stratigraphic cyclicity is interpreted to be precessionally driven climate changes, allowing their correlation to the Late Messinian astronomically calibrated chronostratigraphic framework. Detailed correlations suggest a phase of enhanced tectonic activity, possibly related to the Serrata‐Carboneras strike‐slip fault zone, during the first stage (‘lower’ member), resulting in a strongly articulated topography with structural lows and highs controlling sediment thickness and facies variation. Tectonic activity decreased during the second stage (‘upper’ member), which is characterized by (1) a progressively dampened and homogenized, (2) overall relative base‐level rise and (3) gradual establishment of hypohaline environments. Facies characteristics, overall stacking patterns and depositional trends of the Feos Fm. are analogous with uppermost Messinian successions of the Northern Apennines, Piedmont Basin and Calabria. Despite minor differences related to the local geodynamic setting, these basins experienced a common Late Messinian history that supports the development of a single, large Mediterranean water body characterized by high‐frequency, climatically‐driven changes in sediment flux and base‐level.     

The Legacy of Jedidiah Morse in Early American Geography Education: Forgotten and/or Forgettable Geographer?

Despite numerous and significant writings by historians of geography and biographers from other disciplines, and his authorship of the first geography textbooks written in and for the new American republic, most geographers are largely unaware of the contributions of Jedidiah Morse in academic geography. Writings about Morse suggest that he had alienated himself from many of his contemporaries early in his career through his authoritarian brand of Calvinistic republicanism, a perceived contradiction of that style with his entrepreneurial ambitions, his role in the controversial Bavarian Illuminati, and a dispute with a noted New England historian. But subsequent, broader intellectual movements sealed Morse's fate as a forgotten geographer (to most), including the end of the Second Great Awakening, Transcendentalism, Darwinism, and the “new,” process‐based geographical thinking inspired by Carl Ritter, Alexander von Humboldt, and Arnold Guyot. Regardless of the reasons for Morse's lost legacy, his contributions to geographical education are important and should be remembered.     

Patterns of disaster commemoration in long‐term recovery

The postdisaster landscape is replete with memorials that help communities collectively remember destructive events and recover psychologically. Although commemoration is intrinsic to all stages of recovery, little research from the disaster‐science field engages memorial texts across disasters. Meanwhile, a rich body of work on memorials and their functions exists in the cultural geographic tradition. Drawing from this literature, the current study examines a sample of U.S.‐based memorials to discern patterns within the postdisaster commemorative landscape. This research leverages discourse analysis to interrogate the meanings and mechanics of postdisaster memory work. Findings revealing that disasters catalyze remembrances that remake places, postdisaster memorial texts construct wide‐ranging degrees of intimacy, and memorials distilling survivor memories impel community recovery differently than memorials that reconstruct imagined pasts. These identified patterns in postdisaster commemoration enable further systematic exploration of memory work in the long‐term recovery process.     

Tectonic uplift of the Xichang Basin (SE Tibetan Plateau) revealed by structural geology and thermochronology data

The Xichang Basin in southeastern Tibet provides crucial information about formation and tectonic processes affecting the eastern Tibetan Plateau. To determine when and how the uplift developed, we conducted detailed studies of structures and obtained thermochronology data from the Xichang Basin and its periphery. The Xichang Basin is characterized by gentle deformation of the strata, segmented by an E‐vergent boundary thrust fault. Two stages of deformation, strike‐slip followed by an E‐W oriented shortening resulted in oblique shortening between the southeastern Tibetan Plateau and the Sichuan Basin. New apatite fission‐track data interpreted together with (U‐Th)/He data confirm a simple burial/heating and exhumation/cooling history across the Xichang Basin and its periphery. Subsidence and burial of the Xichang Basin peaked between 80–30 Ma, followed by mountain building with a protracted cooling starting at around 40–20 Ma, with rates of ca. 2.0–8.0 °C Myr⁻¹ (i.e. 0.1–0.3 mm year⁻¹). Our data indicate that the Xichang Basin has experienced ca. 2.5–5 km of exhumation, much more intensive than the ca. 1–2 km of exhumation inferred for the southwestern Sichuan Basin. Restored balanced cross‐sections of post‐Late‐Triassic strata along a ca. 250 km traverse indicate ca. 10–20% east‐west shortening strain (i.e. ca. 20–30 km) at the southeastern Tibetan Plateau during Cenozoic time. Study of crustal thickening and erosion supports a tectonic shortening mechanism to account for the uplift of the Xichang Basin on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau.     

Timing of Late Cretaceous shortening and basin development,Little Hatchet Mountains,southwestern New Mexico,USA – implications for regional Laramide tectonics

Laser ablation‐multi collector‐inductively coupled mass spectrometry U‐Pb geochronology, detailed field mapping and stratigraphic data offer improved insights into the timing and style of Laramide deformation and basin development in the Little Hatchet Mountains, southwestern New Mexico, USA, a key locality in the ‘southern Laramide province.’ The Laramide synorogenic section in the northern Little Hatchet Mountains comprises upper Campanian to Maastrichtian strata consisting of the Ringbone and Skunk Ranch formations, with a preserved maximum thickness of >2400 m, and the correlative Hidalgo Formation with a total thickness >1700 m. The Ringbone Formation and superjacent Skunk Ranch Formation are each generally composed of (1) a basal conglomerate member; (2) a middle member consisting of lacustrine shale, limestone, sandstone, and interbedded ash‐fall tuffs; and (3) an upper sandstone and conglomerate member. Basaltic andesite flows are intercalated with the upper member of the Ringbone Formation and the middle member of the Skunk Ranch Formation. The Hidalgo Formation, which crops out in the northern part of the range, is dominantly composed of basaltic andesite breccias and flows equivalent to those of the Ringbone and Skunk Ranch formations. The Laramide section was deposited in an intermontane basin partitioned across intrabasinal thrust structures, which controlled growth‐stratal development. U‐Pb zircon ages from five tuffs indicate that the age range of the Laramide sedimentary succession is ca. 75–70 Ma. U‐Pb detrital‐zircon age data (n = 356 analyses) from the Ringbone Formation and a Lower Cretaceous unit indicate sediment contribution from uplifted Lower and Upper Cretaceous rocks adjacent to the basin and the contemporary Tarahumara magmatic arc in nearby northern Sonora, Mexico. The new ages, combined with published data, indicate that uplift, basin development, and magmatism in the region proceeded diachronously northeastwards as the subducting Farallon slab flattened under northern Mexico and southern New Mexico from Campanian to Palaeogene time.     

Drainage reorganization and Laramide tectonics in north-central New Mexico and downstream effects in the Gulf of Mexico

The El Rito and Galisteo depocenters in north-central New Mexico archive tectonically-driven Paleogene drainage reorganization, the effects of which influenced sedimentation along the northwestern margin of the Gulf of Mexico. Although separated by ~100 km and lacking depositional chronology for the El Rito Formation, the two aforementioned New Mexican depocenters are commonly considered remnants of a single basin with coeval deposition and shared accommodation mechanism. Detrital zircon U-Pb maximum depositional ages indicate that the El Rito and Galisteo formations are not coeval. Moreover, stratigraphic thickness trends and mapping relationships indicate different accommodation mechanisms for the Galisteo and El Rito depocenters; tectonically-induced subsidence versus infilling of incised topography, respectively. The regional unconformity that bounds the base of both the El Rito and Galisteo formations is a correlative surface induced by local tectonic activity and associated drainage reorganization in the early Eocene, and was diachronously buried by northward onlap of fluvial sediments. Detrital zircon distributions in both depocenters indicate increased recycling of Mesozoic strata above the unconformity, but diverge upsection as topographic prominence of local basement-involved uplifts waned. Sediment capture in these depocenters is coeval with deposition in other externally-drained Laramide basins. Further, it corresponds to a period of low Laramide province-derived sediment input and replacement by Appalachian-sourced sediment along the northwestern margin of the Gulf of Mexico during a basin-wide transgression. This illustrates the potential effect that pockets of sediment storage within the catchment of a transcontinental drainage system can have over the sedimentary record in the receiving marine basin.     

Faulting, seismic-stratigraphic architecture and Late Quaternary evolution of the Gulf of Alkyonides Basin–East Gulf of Corinth, Central Greece

Swath bathymetry, single‐channel seismic profiling, gravity and box coring, ²¹⁰Pb down‐core radiochemical analyses and sequence stratigraphic analysis in the Gulf of Alkyonides yielded new data on the evolution of the easternmost part of the Gulf of Corinth. Three fault segments, the South Strava, West Alkyonides and East Alkyonides faults, dipping 45, 30 and 45°, respectively, northwards, form the southern tectonic boundary of the Alkyonides Basin. Two 45° southwards dipping segments, the Domvrena and Germeno Faults, form the northern tectonic margin. The Alkyonides Basin architecture is the result of a complex interaction between fault dynamics and the effects of changes in climate and sea/lake level. Chrono‐stratigraphic interpretation of the seismic stratigraphy through correlation of the successive seismic packages with lowstands and highstands of the Late Quaternary indicates that the evolution of the basin started 0.40–0.45 Ma BP and can be divided in two stages. Subsidence of the basin floor during the early stage was uniform across the basin and the mean sedimentation rate was 1.0 m kyear^?1. Vertical slip acceleration on the southern tectonic margin since 0.13 Ma BP resulted in the present asymmetric character of the basin. Subsidence concentrated close to the southern margin and sedimentation rate increased to 1.4 m kyear^?1 in the newly formed depocentre of the basin. Actual (last 100 year) sedimentation rates were calculated to >2 mm year^?1, but are significantly influenced by the presence of episodic gravity flow deposits. Total vertical displacement of 1.1 km is estimated between the subsiding Alkyonides Basin floor and the uplifting Megara Basin since the onset of basin subsidence at a mean rate of 2.4–2.75 m kyear^?1, recorded on the East Alkyonides Fault. Gravity coring in the Strava Graben and in the lower northern margin of Alkyonides Basin proved the presence of whitish to olive grey laminated mud below thin marine sediments. Aragonite crystals and absence of the marine coccolithophora Emiliania huxleyi indicate sedimentation in lacustrine environment during the last lowstand glacial interval.     

Man and Nature: George Perkins Marsh and Alexander Von Humboldt

George Perkins Marsh's book Man and Nature was the first work of natural history to fundamentally influence American politics. This paper establishes the powerful impact that Alexander von Humboldt's writings had on Marsh. Marsh took ideas that Humboldt introduced across his books and synthesized them into a single powerful argument regarding the dangers of deforestation. These warnings eventually led to policies that sought to more carefully manage forestland, plant trees, and spawn the 20^th century conservation movement.     

A Geosystem Perspective in Landscape Archaeology Studies: Ancestors' Occupations in Ilhéus,Brazil

Past occupations in the Brazilian geographic area showed experiences of particular relations with natural resources. In this sense, landscape archaeology attempts to have a better understanding of the lifestyle of ancestral populations by analyzing archaeological traces. The study approach that translates the natural systems and their relations with the anthropic systems is known as geosystem theory, which helps landscape archaeology in patterns of past occurrences resulting from environmental characteristics. The objective of this study was to show the geosystem landscapes of Ilhéus, in Bahia, Brazil, that defined land occupation since the precolonial period in Brazil. Four geosystems have been identified; they defined how precolonial groups lived in the area and favored colony growth starting in the nineteenth century with local sugarcane production in sugarcane mills. Key Words: geoarchaeology, GIS, natural systems, northeastern Brazil.     

Sediment and Water Discharge Assessment on Santiago and Pánuco Rivers (Central Mexico): The Importance of Topographic and Climatic Factors

This study explores the main factors controlling sediment and water discharge in the Santiago and Pánuco Rivers, the two largest rivers of central Mexico. Both Santiago and Pánuco Rivers are sourced in the Central Plateau of Mexico and flow in an opposite direction. Santiago River flows over a tectonically active margin draining to the Pacific Ocean, and Pánuco River flows into the passive margin of the Gulf of Mexico. Mean annual and monthly values of suspended sediment load and water discharge spanning around 50 years were used to evaluate sediment load and water discharge in these two rivers. Our findings indicated that Santiago River delivers to the ocean around 45% more sediment than Pánuco River. However, we found that Santiago River has about half the water discharge of Pánuco River. The high river gradient along Santiago River is likely to enhance the net erosion and sediment transport capacity. Water discharge at Pánuco Basin is higher than in Santiago Basin because the annual rainfall is higher for the former. The difference in sediment and water discharge for both rivers are also related to El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Our results indicated that water discharge in Santiago River increases during El Niño and La Niña events. In contrast, Pánuco River is mostly affected by La Niña events.     

Geology and tectonics of Neoproterozoic salt diapirs and salt sheets in the eastern Willouran Ranges,South Australia

Allochthonous salt structures and associated primary and secondary minibasins are exposed in Neoproterozoic strata of the eastern Willouran Ranges, South Australia. Detailed geologic mapping using high‐quality airborne hyperspectral remote‐sensing data and satellite imagery, combined with a qualitative structural restoration, are used to elucidate the evolution of this complex, long‐lived (>250 Myr) salt system. Field observations and interpretations at a resolution unobtainable from seismic or well data provide a means to test published models of allochthonous salt emplacement and associated salt‐sediment interaction derived from subsurface data in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Salt diapirs and sheets are represented by megabreccias of nonevaporite lithologies that were originally interbedded with evaporites that have been dissolved and/or altered. Passive diapirism began shortly after deposition of the Callanna Group layered evaporite sequence. A primary basin containing an expulsion‐rollover structure and megaflap is flanked by two vertical diapirs. Salt flowed laterally from the diapirs to form a complex, multi‐level canopy, now partly welded, containing an encapsulated minibasin and capped by suprasalt basins. Salt and minibasin geometries were modified during the Late Cambrian–Ordovician Delamerian Orogeny (ca. 500 Ma). Small‐scale structures such as subsalt shear zones, fractured or mixed ‘rubble zones’ and thrust imbricates are absent beneath allochthonous salt and welds in the eastern Willouran Ranges. Instead, either undeformed strata or halokinetic drape folds that include preserved diapir roof strata are found directly below the transition from steep diapirs to salt sheets. Allochthonous salt first broke through the diapir roofs and then flowed laterally, resulting in variable preservation of the subsalt drape folds. Lateral salt emplacement was presumably on roof‐edge thrusts or, because of the shallow depositional environment, via open‐toed advance or extrusive advance, but without associated subsalt deformation.     

Challenges Of Elephant Conservation: Insights From Oral Histories Of Colonialism And Landscape In Tsavo,Kenya

Understanding the reasons for conflict between elephants and people who live adjacent to conservation areas remains key to recruiting them as allies in preserving elephant populations. The Tsavo region of Kenya has become a notable battleground for elephant conservation in East Africa, characterized by ivory poachers, crop damages by elephants in communities adjacent to parks, and electric fencing to control human and wildlife mobility. Oral histories of six ethnic groups reveal how such human‐elephant conflict emerged during colonial times through a landscape transformation process involving elephants, livestock, people, and vegetation. The general trend over the past two centuries involves a transition from a precolonial modality characterized by human and elephant mobility to their increasing immobility, spatial separation, and conflict. Understanding of the historical emergence of that conflict forces recommendation of a change in policy direction, from further reducing mobility to restoration of mobility and spatial reintegration of people in parks. Keywords: colonialism and landscape, East Africa, elephant conservation, historical political ecology.     

西辽河流域历史早期的文化景观格局

考古发现表明 ,西辽河流域自历史早期以来 ,先后演绎了多期文化 ,文明一直延续至今。本文根据大量的野外考古调查资料 ,在典型考古遗址、教来河流域、敖汉旗三个空间尺度上建立了本区历史早期文化景观的DEM模型 ,分析了赤峰全境历史早期文化遗址点的水平分布格局 ,从四个不同的空间尺度探讨了西辽河流域历史早期文化景观的演变过程 ,概括出本区历史时期文化景观垂向变迁和水平变迁两种模式 ,为进一步深入研究本区人地系统的相互作用机制提供了基础。     

Spatial (re)organization and places of the Brao in southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia

Initiatives designed to bring about social and spatial change, whether implemented by governments, international agencies, nongovernment organizations or private companies, invariably have an impact on how people perceive ‘places’– defined as spaces with particular meanings. In southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia the ethnic Brao peoples are facing rapid social and spatial changes as a result of a wide range of initiatives, many of which are associated with ‘development’. Case studies on internal resettlement from the uplands to the lowlands, the redesigning of living spaces, and the implications of protected national park establishment and management are discussed in relation to a four‐point typology of what is required to constitute place. The role of social and spatial (re)organization on place amongst the Brao is considered, including how peoples' conceptions of place are being altered and how the Brao are variously responding to efforts to (re)organize them and reconstitute their places.