Deposition and early diagenesis of microbial mud in the Florida Everglades

Microbial carbonate mud in the modern (<4 kyr) palustrine environment of the Florida Everglades is surprisingly susceptible to early diagenetic alteration. The low‐Mg calcite crystals show an open, trellis‐like crystal structure that yields a high surface area to volume ratio. This textural complexity, likely to be a result of organic influence, leads to abundant reaction sites vulnerable to both dissolution and subsequent precipitation. Rapid degradation of organics is attributed to both aerobic and anaerobic metabolisms. Geochemical signatures suggest increased denitrification within the freshwater environment and increased sulphate reduction at the (slightly) brackish mangrove transition zone. A transition from a freshwater to brackish depositional environment is likely to follow the Holocene sea‐level transgression. The textural complexity in these microbial carbonates causes an unexpectedly low preservation potential of original textural and geochemical signatures, even in low‐Mg calcite. Given the potential for early diagenesis of palustrine and perhaps other microbial carbonates, they should be used cautiously as archives for palaeoenvironmental proxies.     

Climate change links fate of glaciers and an endemic alpine invertebrate

Climate warming in the mid- to high-latitudes and high-elevation mountainous regions is occurring more rapidly than anywhere else on Earth, causing extensive loss of glaciers and snowpack. However, little is known about the effects of climate change on alpine stream biota, especially invertebrates. Here, we show a strong linkage between regional climate change and the fundamental niche of a rare aquatic invertebrate—the meltwater stonefly Lednia tumana—endemic to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, Canada and USA. L. tumana has been petitioned for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act due to climate-change-induced glacier loss, yet little is known on specifically how climate impacts may threaten this rare species and many other enigmatic alpine aquatic species worldwide. During 14 years of research, we documented that L. tumana inhabits a narrow distribution, restricted to short sections (~500 m) of cold, alpine streams directly below glaciers, permanent snowfields, and springs. Our simulation models suggest that climate change threatens the potential future distribution of these sensitive habitats and the persistence of L. tumana through the loss of glaciers and snowfields. Mountaintop aquatic invertebrates are ideal early warning indicators of climate warming in mountain ecosystems. Research on alpine invertebrates is urgently needed to avoid extinctions and ecosystem change.     

A century of climate and ecosystem change in Western Montana: what do temperature trends portend?

The physical science linking human-induced increases in greenhouse gasses to the warming of the global climate system is well established, but the implications of this warming for ecosystem processes and services at regional scales is still poorly understood. Thus, the objectives of this work were to: (1) describe rates of change in temperature averages and extremes for western Montana, a region containing sensitive resources and ecosystems, (2) investigate associations between Montana temperature change to hemispheric and global temperature change, (3) provide climate analysis tools for land and resource managers responsible for researching and maintaining renewable resources, habitat, and threatened/endangered species and (4) integrate our findings into a more general assessment of climate impacts on ecosystem processes and services over the past century. Over 100 years of daily and monthly temperature data collected in western Montana, USA are analyzed for long-term changes in seasonal averages and daily extremes. In particular, variability and trends in temperature above or below ecologically and socially meaningful thresholds within this region (e.g., ?17.8°C (0°F), 0°C (32°F), and 32.2°C (90°F)) are assessed. The daily temperature time series reveal extremely cold days (≤??17.8°C) terminate on average 20 days earlier and decline in number, whereas extremely hot days (≥32°C) show a three-fold increase in number and a 24-day increase in seasonal window during which they occur. Results show that regionally important thresholds have been exceeded, the most recent of which include the timing and number of the 0°C freeze/thaw temperatures during spring and fall. Finally, we close with a discussion on the implications for Montana’s ecosystems. Special attention is given to critical processes that respond non-linearly as temperatures exceed critical thresholds, and have positive feedbacks that amplify the changes.     

Rescue palaeontology

A technique for replicating large rock outcrops has been developed so that casts of these surfaces can be archived in their present stage of preservation. Researchers can then study these casts in the laboratory under optimum lighting conditions, sometimes revealing new fossil evidence, while students and members of the public can be shown geological features that might otherwise be inaccessible to them.     

An 1800-yr record of decadal-scale hydroclimatic variability in the upper Arkansas River basin from bristlecone pine

Bristlecone pine trees are exceptionally long-lived, and with the incorporation of remnant material have been used to construct multi-millennial length ring–width chronologies. These chronologies can provide valuable information about past temperature and moisture variability. In this study, we outline a method to build a moisture-sensitive bristlecone chronology and assess the robustness and consistency of this sensitivity over the past 1200 yr using new reconstructions of Arkansas River flow (AD 1275–2002 and 1577–2002) and the summer Palmer Drought Sensitivity Index. The chronology, a composite built from parts of three collections in the central Rocky Mountains, is a proxy for decadal-scale moisture variability for the past 18 centuries. Since the sample size is small in some portions of the time series, the chronology should be considered preliminary; the timing and duration of drought events are likely the most robust characteristics. This chronology suggests that the region experienced increased aridity during the medieval period, as did much of western North America, but that the timing and duration of drought episodes within this period were somewhat different from those in other western locations, such as the upper Colorado River basin.     

Equilibrium modeling of U(VI) speciation in high carbonate groundwaters: Model error and propagation of uncertainty

Remediation of U-contaminated sites relies upon thermodynamic speciation calculations to predict U(VI) movement in the subsurface. However, reliability and applicability of geochemical speciation and reactive transport models may be limited by determinate (model) errors and random (uncertainty) errors in the equilibrium speciation calculations. This study examines propagated uncertainty in two types of subsurface calculations: I. Dissolved U(VI) speciation based on measured analytical constraints and solution phase equilibria and II. Overall U(VI) speciation which combined the dissolved phase equilibria with previously published adsorption reactions. Three levels of uncertainty, instrumental uncertainty, temporal variation and spatial variation across a site, were investigated using first-derivative sensitivity calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. Dissolved speciation calculations were robust, with minimal amplification of uncertainty and normal output distributions. The most critical analytical constraints in the dissolved system are pH, DIC, total U and total Ca, with some effect from dissolved . When considering adsorption equilibria, calculations were robust with respect to adsorbed U(VI) concentration prediction, but bimodal distributions of dissolved U(VI) concentrations were observed in simulations with background levels of total U(VI) and higher (spatial and temporal variability) estimates of input uncertainty. Consequently, sorption model predictions of dissolved U(VI) may not be robust with respect these higher levels of uncertainty.     

Late Holocene to Recent aragonite-cemented transgressive lag deposits in the Abu Dhabi lagoon and intertidal sabkha

Modern cemented intervals (beachrock, firmgrounds to hardgrounds and concretionary layers) form in the lagoon and intertidal sabkha of Abu Dhabi. Seafloor lithification actively occurs in open, current-swept channels in low-lying areas between ooid shoals, in the intertidal zone of the middle lagoon, some centimetres beneath the inner lagoonal seafloor (i.e. within the sediment column) and at the sediment surface the intertidal sabkha. The concept of ‘concretionary sub-hardgrounds’, i.e. laminar cementation of sediments formed within the sediment column beneath the shallow redox boundary, is introduced and discussed. Based on calibrated radiocarbon ages, seafloor lithification commenced during the Middle to Late Holocene (ca 9000 cal yr bp ), and proceeds to the present-day. Lithification occurs in the context of the actualistic relative sea-level rise shifting the coastline landward across the extremely low-angle carbonate ramp. The cemented intervals are interpreted as parasequence boundaries in the sense of ‘marine flooding surfaces’, but in most cases the sedimentary cover overlying the transgressive surface has not yet been deposited. Aragonite, (micritic) calcite and, less commonly, gypsum cements lithify the firmground/hardground intervals. Cements are described and placed into context with their depositional and marine diagenetic environments and characterized by means of scanning electron microscope petrography, cathodoluminescence microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The morphology of aragonitic cements changes from needle-shaped forms in lithified decapod burrows of the outer lagoon ooidal shoals to complex columnar, lath and platy crystals in the inner lagoon. Precipitation experiments provide first tentative evidence for the parameters that induce changes in aragonite cement morphology. Data shown here shed light on ancient, formerly aragonite-cemented seafloors, now altered to diagenetic calcites, but also document the complexity of highly dynamic near coastal depositional environments.