European space agency’s strategic contribution to seismology

The impacts of disaster events such as earthquakes on economic and human lives are increasing every year, in particular due to the growing urbanization. Until recently, stakeholders involved in disaster risk management focused their efforts mainly on the response phase, immediately after the crisis. Following the recommendations of several recent studies and in order to minimize the increasing impacts of natural disasters, decision-makers and major stakeholders have showed an increasing interest in mitigation activities. Earth Observation (EO) data from space could bring a significant added value to the various phases of the seismic risk management cycle from the mitigation and preparedness phases. Space agencies need to better contribute to the management of geohazards in response to the growing request from the community of users (e.g. seismologists, insurance companies, urban planners). To foster the use of EO remote sensing data, satellite data providers have to take the appropriate measures to remove the policy and technical barriers related to the data access. They have also to increase the awareness of the community of users on the potential benefits that could be gained from the use of EO satellite data. This paper will provide examples of areas where EO remote sensing data from space could bring an added value to the current management of risks and crisis related to earthquakes. Then, the paper will describe the strategic measures undertaken by the European Space Agency in an international framework, to foster the use of satellite data by the various relevant stakeholders.     

Gravitational redshift test with the space radio telescope “RadioAstron”

The space radio telescope “RadioAstron” is equipped with a high performance hydrogen maser frequency standard and thus provides a unique opportunity for a gravitational redshift test. We consider various modes of operation of the on-board scientific equipment and their impact on accuracy of the anticipated experiment. We find that the accuracy of the test is limited by ～10^?2 for the hardware configuration routinely used in radio astronomical observations, which is a consequence of using ballistic data to remove the nonrelativistic Doppler frequency shift from the analyzed signal. On the other hand, the so-called “Semi-coherent” mode of the on-board hardware provides for combining the space and ground maser signals in such a way that the resulting signal carries information about the useful effect but is free from the nonrelativistic Doppler and tropospheric frequency shifts. The proposed compensation scheme, which is different from the one used in the Gravity Probe A experiment, allows for testing the gravitational redshift effect with ～10^?6 accuracy.     

Young people’s voiceless politics in the struggle over urban space

This article discusses the particularity of young people’s politics as it unfolds in the practice of everyday life. By exploring a conflict concerning the use of a public park in the City of Oulu, Finland, we discuss how young people may participate in struggles over urban space trough politics that is not based on voice but voicelessness. This political engagement can be understood as a form of nonparticipatory politics that is easily left unnoticed—politics that shirks civic involvement, customary participatory practices and articulated resistance. We deem it important to acknowledge such action as political for two reasons. First, voiceless politics is a weapon of the weak: It is used when other political agencies are not feasible e. Viewing non-participation as apolitical will only further marginalize those who practice politics in such ways. Second, it is important to find ways of acknowledging nonparticipatory action because, while not commonly understood as politics, it is not easily bypassed in political struggles either. By distinguishing political aspects from young people’s urban behaviors, instead of hearing their presence as mere noise, provides tools for bringing their politics to the public agenda and thus developing more democratic urban spaces.     

‘Making space’ in Cairo: Expatriate movements and spatial practices

This paper examines what it means to be an ‘expatriate’ in Cairo through the lens of movement and space-making. Inquiring into a set of migrant (im)mobilities, spatial practices, relations, and imaginations, it argues that as a ‘spatialised’ identity category ‘expatriate’ narrates and enacts migratory privileges linked to wider hierarchies of social difference. It contributes to a growing literature examining the social and political dimensions of ‘expatriate’ migration and further engages scholarship thinking space and movement in relational and socio-historical terms. Rather than denoting an easily distinguishable group of migrants, ‘expatriate’ emerged as a contingent and ambiguous category of practice. As such, ‘expatriate’ stands in a productive relationship with privileged movement and socio-spatial processes. Like other migrants, respondents skillfully navigated the global differences in wealth, power and status they were presented with. Yet, unlike many other migrants, they did so from a privileged position within the global power-geometries of international migration. Migrants’ personal geographies were further shaped by how bodies were racialised and gendered in entangled, intersecting and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. This diversity and complexity of ‘expatriate’ geographies highlights the necessity of intersectional and situated analyses of privilege.     

Rethinking space: an outsider’s view of the spatial turn

Geographical concerns with space and place have escaped the confines of the discipline of geography. Many humanities scholars now invoke such conceptions as a means to integrate diverse sources of information and to understand how broad social processes play out unevenly in different locations. The social production of spatiality thus offers a rich opportunity to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogues between different schools of critical theory. Following a brief assessment of the spatial turn in history, history of science, and political philosophy, this paper explores its implications for literary and cultural studies. It invokes a detailed case study of late 18th century Lima, Peru to explicate the dynamics of colonialism, the construction of racial identities, and different power/knowledge configurations within a particular locale. Space in this example appears as both matter and meaning, i.e., as simultaneously tangible and intangible, as a set of social circumstances and physical landscapes and as a constellation of discourses that simultaneously reflected, constituted, and at times undermined, the hegemonic social order. The intent is to demonstrate how multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship can be facilitated by paying attention to the unique of circumstances that define places within given historical moments. As seen in this example from literary colonial studies, other disciplines, therefore, can both draw from and contribute to poststructuralist interpretations of space as a negotiated set of situated practices.     

Time and space in stratigraphy: The ‘3-m gap’ story

Even for earth scientists it appears difficult to keep in mind that a sedimentary succession does not form due to accumulation at a constant rate, but that long periods of slow accumulation may alternate with short phases of event sedimentation and/or shorter or longer time-spans of non-deposition or even erosion. An example of this incorrect way of thinking is a recently published article in which it is postulated that the find of a ceratopsian brow horn only 13 cm below the K/T boundary in the Hell Creek Formation (Montana, USA) proves that dinosaurs did not become extinct before the K/T impact. It is argued why the postulated consequence (closure of the so-called 3-m gap: a zone of some metres thick underneath the K/T boundary in which, thus far, no dinosaur remnants had been found in the USA) is based on incorrect presumptions, particularly the relationship between time and space.     

Splendid isolation: ‘Philosopher’s islands’ and the reimagination of space

This paper argues that the metaphorical figure of the island plays an important but profoundly ambiguous role in the imagination of social space. The paper argues that ‘utopic’ islands have historically provided a fictional domain of experimentation that has informed the constitution of ‘real’ state spaces. From the 16th to 20th centuries this took the form of an increasingly consolidated and ‘global’ endotopia: a world, exemplified by the ‘political’ map, full of state spaces constituted as interiors. More recently, islands have served a very different metaphoric function, being used to create and legitimise spaces of exteriority – ‘xenospaces’ such as the online worlds of the ‘metaverse’ and the arcane legal/financial spaces of offshore – which in combination constitute an emergent xenotopia. The ‘philosopher’s island’ (Mackay, 2010), therefore, represents a complex and polyvalent spatial form that serves to continuously and expediently redefine the nature of social space.     

Spreading change of Africa–South America plate: insights from space geodetic observations

The results derived from geological data show that the half-spreading rate between the African and South American plates has remained relatively constant at 2 cm/year over the past 80 million years (Silver et al. in Science 279:60–63, 1998). In this paper, we have reestimated a new relative angular velocity of Africa–South America plates using the selected space geodetic station data through a new method. Our angular velocity estimates the spreading rates of Africa–South America plate over several years that are similar in azimuth but significantly slower in rate than the NUVEL-1A predictions averaged over the past 3 million years. The implied rates of deceleration coincide with longer-term trends over the past 35 million years and may reflect the effects of plate interaction and coupling of Africa–South America plates. An erratum to this article can be found at     

A prototype system for space–time assessment of rainfall-induced shallow landslides in Italy

In the last decades, physically based distributed models turned out rather promising to achieve the space–time assessment of shallow landslides at large spatial scale. This technical note deals with the application of a physically based stability model named Shallow Landslides Instability Prediction (SLIP), which has been adopted by the Department of National Civil Protection of Italy as a prototype early warning system for rainfall-induced shallow landslides on national scale. The model is used as a main methodology to create space–time shallow landslide susceptibility maps based on a simple deterministic slope-stability approach, combined with high-resolution rainfall information and geographic information system-based geospatial datasets. The safety factor as an index to measure slope instability is modeled as function of topographic, geologic, geotechnical and hydrologic variables. Although the main aim of this work was to prove the operational viability of such model on a nationwide domain and some simplification are adopted at this stage, hind cast tests on some relevant case histories of shallow landslides occurred between October 2009 and October 2011 showed that the model has skill in representing both timing and location of those shallow landslides.     

Types,characteristics, and time–space distribution of molybdenum deposits in China

Molybdenum exploration activity in China has accelerated tremendously during the past decade owing to the continuous, increasing demand for Earth resources. China possesses the largest Mo reserves in the world (exceeding 19.6 Mt). The major ore deposits are of porphyry, porphyry–skarn, skarn, vein, and sedimentary types. Porphyry molybdenum deposits contain 77.5% of the Chinese Mo reserves, with lesser amounts in porphyry–skarns (13%), skarns (5.1%), and veins (4.4%). Exploitation of sedimentary-type molybdenum deposits thus far has been uneconomical. The six Mo provinces are in the Northeast China, Yanliao, Qinling–Dabie, middle–lower Yangtze River Valley, South China, and Sanjiang areas. We recognize six ore-forming periods: (1) Precambrian (>541 Ma), (2) Palaeozoic (541–250 Ma), (3) Triassic (250–200 Ma), (4) Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (190–135 Ma), (5) Cretaceous (135–90 Ma), and (6) Cenozoic (55–12 Ma). The abundance of Mo ore deposits in China reflects the occurrence of multiple periods of tectonism, involving interactions between the Siberian, North China, Yangtze, India, and Palaeo-Pacific plates. Precambrian molybdenum deposits are related to Mesoproterozoic volcanism in an extensional setting. Palaeozoic Cu–Mo deposits are related to calc-alkaline granitic plutons in an island arc or a continental margin setting. Triassic Mo deposits formed in the syn-collision–postcollision tectonic setting between the Siberian and North China plates and between the North China and Yangzi plates. Jurassic–Early Cretaceous molybdenum deposits formed along the eastern margin of Asia and are associated with the palaeo-Pacific plate-subduction tectonic setting. Cretaceous Mo deposits are related to high-K calc-alkaline granitic rocks and formed in a lithospheric thinning setting. Cenozoic molybdenum deposits formed in a collision setting between the Indian and Eurasian continents and the subsequent extensional setting.     

Desalination,space and power: The ramifications of Israel’s changing water geography

Desalination alters a basic premise of water geography – fresh water flows from the sea inward, rather than the other way around. But, is this observation important? To address this question it is necessary to identify the potential ramifications of the changes in the water geography brought about by desalination. Israel is used as a basis for identifying these ramifications as it has recently embarked on a large-scale desalination program. The direct readily observable implications of the three main attributes of desalination, the reversal of flow direction, the continuity of water production, regardless of weather and climate vagrancies, and its cost are first spelled out. Then the potential ramifications for internal power structures, pricing and transboundary water agreements are discussed for the Israeli and Israeli–Arab scene. It is shown that the spatial flexibility introduced by desalination may undermine existing power relations within the water sector, which were based on the previous water geography. In the Israeli case these changes may be used to undermine the monopoly power of the national water company and of its organized labor, thereby advancing a neoliberal agenda. Desalination may have also significant distributional implications, as a function of the pricing effects it may have. Finally, the new water geography raises new issues in the Israeli–Arab water scene. The general insights gained from the Israeli case are then spelled out.     

Sibling caringscapes: Time–space practices of caring within youth-headed households in Tanzania and Uganda

This paper investigates the time–space practices of young people caring for their siblings in youth-headed households affected by AIDS in Tanzania and Uganda. Based on qualitative exploratory research with young people heading households, their siblings, NGO workers and community members, the article develops the notion of sibling ‘caringscapes’ to analyse young people’s everyday practices and caring pathways through time and space. Participatory time-use data reveals that older siblings of both genders regularly undertake substantial caring tasks at the very high end of the caregiving continuum. Drawing on rhythmanalysis, the paper explores how young people negotiate emotional geographies and temporalities of caring. The competing rhythms of bodies, schooling, work and seasonal agricultural production can result in ‘arrhythmia’ and time scarcity, which has detrimental effects on young people’s health, education, future employment prospects and mobility. Young people’s lifecourse transitions are shaped to a large extent by their caring responsibilities, resulting in some young people remaining in a liminal position for considerable periods, unable to make ‘successful’ transitions to adulthood. Despite structural constraints, however, young people are able to exercise some autonomy over their caring pathways and lifecourse transitions. The research sheds light on the ways that individuals embody the practices, routines and rhythms of everyday life and exercise agency within highly restricted broader landscapes of care.     

In situ Lu–Hf phosphate geochronology: Progress towards a new tool for space exploration

Geochronology is fundamental to understanding planetary evolution. However, as space exploration continues to expand, traditional dating methods, involving complex laboratory processes, are generally not realistic for unmanned space applications. Campaign-style planetary exploration missions require dating methods that can (1) rapidly resolve age information on small samples, (2) be applied to minerals common in mafic rocks, and (3) be based on technologies that could be installed on future rover systems. We demonstrate the application of rapid in situ microanalytical Lu–Hf phosphate geochronology using samples of pallasite meteorites, which are representative examples of the deep interiors of differentiated planetoids that are generally difficult to date. Individual pallasites were dated by laser ablation tandem mass-spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS/MS), demonstrating a rapid novel method for exploring planetary evolution. Derived formation ages for individual pallasites agree with traditional methods and have <2% uncertainty, opening an avenue of opportunity for remote micro-analytical space exploration.     

Influence of underground space development mode on the groundwater flow field in Xiong’an new area

The degree and scale of underground space development are growing with the continuous advancement of urbanization in China. The lack of research on the change of the groundwater flow field before and after the development of underground space has led to various problems in the process of underground space development and operation. This paper took the key development zone of the Xiong’an New Area as the study area, and used the Groundwater modeling system software (GMS) to analyse the influence on the groundwater flow field under the point, line, and surface development modes. The main results showed that the underground space development would lead to the expansion and deepening of the cone of depression in the aquifer. The groundwater level on the upstream face of the underground structure would rise, while the water level on the downstream face would drop. The “line” concurrent development has the least impact on the groundwater flow field, and the maximum rise of water level on the upstream side of the underground structure is expected to be approximately 3.05 m. The “surface” development has the greatest impact on the groundwater flow field, and the maximum rise of water level is expected to be 7.17 m.     

Major types and time–space distribution of Mesozoic ore deposits in South China and their geodynamic settings

The ore deposits of the Mesozoic age in South China can be divided into three groups, each with different metal associations and spatial distributions and each related to major magmatic events. The first event occurred in the Late Triassic (230–210 Ma), the second in the Mid–Late Jurassic (170–150 Ma), and the third in the Early–Mid Cretaceous (120–80 Ma). The Late Triassic magmatic event and associated mineralization is characterized by peraluminous granite-related W–Sn–Nb–Ta mineral deposits. The Triassic ore deposits are considerably disturbed or overprinted by the later Jurassic and Cretaceous tectono-thermal episodes. The Mid–Late Jurassic magmatic and mineralization events consist of 170–160 Ma porphyry–skarn Cu and Pb–Zn–Ag vein deposits associated with I-type granites and 160–150 Ma metaluminous granite-related polymetallic W–Sn deposits. The Late Jurassic metaluminous granite-related W–Sn deposits occur in a NE-trending cluster in the interior of South China, such as in the Nanling area. In the Early–Mid Cretaceous, from about 120 to 80 Ma, but peaking at 100–90 Ma, subvolcanic-related Fe deposits developed and I-type calc-alkaline granitic intrusions formed porphyry Cu–Mo and porphyry-epithermal Cu–Au–Ag mineral systems, whereas S-type peraluminous and/or metaluminous granitic intrusions formed polymetallic Sn deposits. These Cretaceous mineral deposits cluster in distinct areas and are controlled by pull-apart basins along the South China continental margin. Based on mineral assemblage, age, and space–time distribution of these mineral systems, integrated with regional geological data and field observations, we suggest that the three magmatic–mineralization episodes are the result of distinct geodynamic regimes. The Triassic peraluminous granites and associated W–Sn–Nb–Ta mineralization formed during post-collisional processes involving the South China Block, the North China Craton, and the Indo-China Block, mostly along the Dabie-Sulu and Songma sutures. Jurassic events were initially related to the shallow oblique subduction of the Izanagi plate beneath the Eurasian continent at about 175 Ma, but I-type granitoids with porphyry Cu and vein-type Pb–Zn–Ag deposits only began to form as a result of the breakup of the subducted plate at 170–160 Ma, along the NNE-trending Qinzhou-Hangzhou belt (also referred to as Qin-Hang or Shi-Hang belt), which is the Neoproterozoic suture that amalgamates the Yangtze Craton and Cathaysia Block. A large subduction slab window is assumed to have formed in the Nanling and adjacent areas in the interior of South China, triggering the uprise of asthenospheric mantle into the upper crust and leading to the emplacement of metaluminous granitic magma and associated polymetallic W–Sn mineralization. A relatively tectonically quiet period followed between 150 and 135 Ma in South China. From 135 Ma onward, the angle of convergence of the Izanagi plate changed from oblique to parallel to the coastline, resulting in continental extensional tectonics and reactivation of regional-scale NE-trending faults, such as the Tan-Lu fault. This widespread extension also promoted the development of NE-trending pull-apart basins and metamorphic core complexes, accompanied by volcanism and the formation of epithermal Cu–Au deposits, granite-related polymetallic Sn–(W) deposits and hydrothermal U deposits between 120 and 80 Ma (with a peak activity at 100–90 Ma).     

Identifying space–time clustering properties of the 1983–1997 Irpinia–Basilicata (Southern Italy) seismicity

The fractality of the earthquake sequence (1983–1997) of Irpinia–Basilicata (Southern Italy), one of the most seismically active regions of the Mediterranean area, has been analysed by temporal and spatial fractal tools. The fractal exponent α, estimated by the Allan Factor method, characterises the time-clustering behaviour of the set of earthquakes, while the correlation dimension D_C, calculated by means of the correlation integral method, gives information on the space-clustering behaviour of the sequence of seismic events. Analysing the variations of both the parameters, we recognised the presence of a strong space–time clusterisation associated with the major events that occurred in the investigated area.     

Quartzose–mafic spectral feature space model: A methodology for extracting felsic rocks with ASTER thermal infrared radiance data

The original spectral features of felsic rocks are often intermingled with other surface objects, which results in difficulty of detecting felsic rocks using remote sensing techniques. Few felsic rock indices were proposed and visual interpretation with RGB false color composition is widely used to detect felsic rocks. This paper aims to construct a two-dimensional spectral feature space model to extract felsic rocks using ASTER thermal infrared radiance data. The study area is located in northern Qinghai Province, western China with average altitude of approximately 4200 m. A large number of training pixels of mafic–ultramafic rock, quartz-rich rock, felsic rock, carbonate rock and vegetation were selected from the ASTER images as samples of these surface objects. Then we used a quartz-rich rock index (QI, QI = band14 − 0.844 × band12 − 1.897) and a mafic–ultramafic rock index (MI, MI = 0.915 × band10 − band13 + 1.437) to generate a two-dimensional scatter plot. The plot was named after quartzose–mafic spectral feature space (QMFS). The samples show an approximate triangular shape in the QMFS. Mafic–ultramafic rock, quartz-rich rock and carbonate rock are located in separate locations in the three vertex regions, respectively, while felsic rock is located in the central region of the triangle. Next, we calculated a linear belt of silicate rocks in which silicate rocks vary regularly by using a linear regression analysis in the QMFS. Statistical characteristics of the felsic rock samples are analyzed. Afterwards, a polygon which delineates the distribution of felsic rock samples was constructed from the linear belt of silicate rocks. Then we generated a system of inequalities based on the equations of the edges of the polygon. The application of the inequalities to the ASER images shows a good performance of the QMFS for extracting felsic rocks.