Sediment supply to the Orange sedimentary system over the last 150 My: An evaluation from sedimentation/denudation balance

The South African plateau is bordered by passive margin basins preserving the terrigeneous sediment produced during onshore erosion. As such, these basins potentially provide a record of the variation in onshore elevation and relief over time. Here we bring new constraints on the uplift and erosion of the Southern African plateau over the last 150 Ma from the perspective of the stratigraphic architecture of these basins. We review published data to quantify the terrigeneous supply eroded in the drainage area and preserved in the basins. The novel aspect of our approach is the integration of the evolution of the whole domain in sedimentation (i.e. not only the platform) as well as the onshore eroding region.     

Modeling the Subsurface Structure of Sunspots

While sunspots are easily observed at the solar surface, determining their subsurface structure is not trivial. There are two main hypotheses for the subsurface structure of sunspots: the monolithic model and the cluster model. Local helioseismology is the only means by which we can investigate subphotospheric structure. However, as current linear inversion techniques do not yet allow helioseismology to probe the internal structure with sufficient confidence to distinguish between the monolith and cluster models, the development of physically realistic sunspot models are a priority for helioseismologists. This is because they are not only important indicators of the variety of physical effects that may influence helioseismic inferences in active regions, but they also enable detailed assessments of the validity of helioseismic interpretations through numerical forward modeling. In this article, we provide a critical review of the existing sunspot models and an overview of numerical methods employed to model wave propagation through model sunspots. We then carry out a helioseismic analysis of the sunspot in Active Region 9787 and address the serious inconsistencies uncovered by Gizon et al. (2009a, 2009b). We find that this sunspot is most probably associated with a shallow, positive wave-speed perturbation (unlike the traditional two-layer model) and that travel-time measurements are consistent with a horizontal outflow in the surrounding moat.     

Hydrological processes of a rainforest headwater swamp from natural chemical tracing in Nsimi watershed,Cameroon

The hydrological role of a headwater swamp in a tropical rainforest is studied using chloride mass balance (CMB) and end‐member mixing analysis. There are three main contributions to streamflow: (1) the hillside bedrock aquifer, (2) overland flow from the swamp during storm events and (3) groundwater flow from the swamp aquifer. Before rainfall events of the wet season, the pre‐event water comprises a mix of 80% of bedrock aquifer and 20% of swamp aquifer. During storms, the relative contribution of overland flow increases according to the rainfall intensity and the initial saturation rate of the pre‐event water reservoirs. The yearly contribution of overland flow from the swamp to the stream is about 31%. The relationship between the swamp and the stream fluctuates with space and time. Generally, the swamp is drained by the stream; however, at the end of long dry seasons, after the first rains, indirect recharge occurs from the stream to the swamp with a hydraulic gradient inversion in the swamp aquifer. The net contribution of the swamp aquifer to the stream is only 4%, which is much lower than the hillside aquifer contribution of about 65%. Recharge on the swamp being very low, these results suggest that, except for a few storms at the end of the dry season, the Nsimi swamp does not contribute to flood attenuation. Evapotranspiration is higher on the hillside than in the swamp. Nevertheless, depletion of water stored within the swamp is dominated by evaporation rather than by its contribution to streamflow. The export of solutes through swamp groundwater flow below the weir is low (<7%). Nevertheless, the swamp is the most active area of weathering in the watershed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling karst denudation on a synthetic landscape

This contribution presents the results of a numerical study of karst denudation on limestone plateaux. The landscape evolution model used incorporates not only long-range fluvial and short-range hill-slope processes, but also large-scale chemical dissolution of limestone surfaces. The relative efficiencies of fluvial and chemical processes are of equal importance to the landscape evolution of a plateau dropping to sea level along an escarpment. While fluvial processes have an impact confined mostly to river channels, the karst denudation process is more uniform, removing material also from the plateau surface. The combined effect of both processes results in a landscape evolution almost twice as effective as the purely erosional evolution of an insoluble landscape.     

应力激活电流与软化岩石

当岩石受到机械应力作用时,隐藏的电子缺陷就被激活.这种激活会产生通过释放高移动性的缺陷电子使岩石电导率增加的电子空穴对,相当于O~2-点阵中存在的O-,叫做正空穴,用符号h˙表示.这种电荷载体h˙能够从受到应力作用的岩石中扩散到周围未受应力作用的岩石中.阻止h˙流出改变了岩石的力学属性:使它们得到软化和弱化.进行中的研...     

Deep groundwater flow as the main pathway for chemical outputs in a small headwater watershed (Mule Hole,South India)

This study examined the water and chemical cycles of a small forested head catchment. Application of Cl^? mass balance lead to the identification of a groundwater baseflow located into the active zone of the crystalline aquifer, below the weir. These findings indicate that groundwater contributes to a large part of chemical outputs at the catchment scale. This study shows that groundwater should not be ignored in most small watershed studies because this flow path and associated solutes are strongly significant for chemical balance assessment.     

Predicting Pesticide Attenuation in a Fractured Aquifer Using Lumped‐Parameter Models

Neighboring springs draining fractured‐rock aquifers can display large differences in water quality and flow regime, depending on local variations of the connectivity and the aperture size distribution of the fracture network. Consequently, because homogeneous equivalent parameters cannot be assumed a priori for the entire regional aquifer, the vulnerability to pollution of such springs has to be studied on a case by case basis. In this paper, a simple lumped‐parameter model usually applied to estimate the mean transit time of water (or tracer) is presented. The original exponential piston‐flow model was modified to take land‐use distribution into account and applied to predict the evolution of atrazine concentration in a series of springs draining a fractured sandstone aquifer in Luxembourg, where despite a nationwide ban in 2005, atrazine concentrations still had not begun to decrease in 2009. This persistence could be explained by exponentially distributed residence times in the aquifer, demonstrating that in some real world cases, models based on the groundwater residence time distribution can be a powerful tool for trend reversal assessments as recommended for instance by current European Union guidelines.     

The Multiscale TROPIcal CatchmentS critical zone observatory M-TROPICS dataset I: The Nyong River Basin,Cameroon

Simultaneously acquiring time series of climate, hydrology and hydrochemical data over decades on river systems is pivotal to understand the complex interactions involving rock, soil water, air and biota in the Critical Zone, to build integrated modelling and to propose predictive scenarios. Among the Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) implemented in the past 25 years, only a few are located in the humid Tropics despite the importance of these regions in terms of population density, fast-changing land use, biodiversity hotspots, biomass stock on continents, size of river systems, etc. Since 1994, weathering and erosion processes and fluxes have been investigated at both local (experimental watershed) and regional scales in the Nyong River Basin (Cameroon) which belongs to the Critical Zone Observatories network named Multiscale TROPIcal CatchmentS (M-TROPICS). The data shared by M-TROPICS in Cameroon are: (1) rainfall; (2) air temperature, air relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and global radiation; (3) stream and river water level; (4) pH, electrical conductivity, water temperature and suspended particulate matter (SPM) concentration; (5) major ion, alkalinity and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations. The dataset already contributed to describe the water partitioning in these tropical humid watersheds, to better understand the factors controlling chemical weathering and physical erosion in tropical ecosystems, particularly the role of organic matter. The dataset also contributed to calculate elemental weathering fluxes and saprolite production rate and to propose denudation rates on tropical cratonic landscapes. Hydrological modelling allowed quantification of the geographical water sources contributing to streamflow. DOC data were used to determine greenhouse-gas emissions and carbon budgets from African inland waters. However, long-term solute concentrations at the outlet of a small tributary of the Nyong River exhibit non-stationary behaviour over the last 26 years. The processes governing those fluctuations are not yet fully understood and might be related to changes in the hydrological regime, land-cover and land-use. The latter highlights the need for longer time-series and continued support for CZOs particularly in the humid tropics.     

Solid sedimentation rates history of the Southern African continental margins: Implications for the uplift history of the South African Plateau

The Cretaceous and Cenozoic fill of the continental margins of southern Africa (South‐East Atlantic and Agulhas Margins) contains a continuous record of sediment supplied from the South African Plateau (SAP) for the past 134 million years. Estimates of solid sediment volumes deposited offshore were calculated from isopach maps and extrapolated vertical cross‐sections derived from a large amount of industrial geophysical data. Solid phase volumes and accumulation rates were calculated for six epochs: Lower Cretaceous (134–113 Ma), Mid Cretaceous (113–93.5 Ma), Upper Cretaceous (93.5–81 and 81–66 Ma), Palaeogene (66–25 Ma), Neogene (25–0 Ma). Our new compilation demonstrates the existence of two periods of elevated flux. The most important one occurs in the late Cretaceous (93.5–66 Ma) and was synchronous with an acceleration of onshore denudation as shown by thermochronometric data. After a period of extremely low accumulation rate, the second phase of elevated flux started in the Oligocene (~30–25 Ma) until present‐day. From these observations we suggest that the main phase of uplift of the SAP took place during the Upper Cretaceous. Two mechanisms, namely uplift caused by lithospheric delamination or by dynamic topography caused by the continent moving over the African Superplume, are viable explanations for our observations. The more recent and lower amplitude episode of enhanced accumulation rates is likely to correspond to a second period of uplift, potentially associated with the onset of uplift and extension along the East African Rift System.