Landowner Attitudes Toward Conservation Easements: Balancing the Private and Public Interest in Land

Private land conservation provides an opportunity to address problems of habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss caused by an increase in the development and parcelization of private land. Conservation easements (CEs) are used to protect significant natural qualities of private land. In this study, we explore landowner attitudes toward CEs through the implementation of a mixed-mode survey to private landowners in the Whychus Creek Watershed (Deschutes County, Oregon). The results of an exploratory factor analysis suggest there are two dimensions to landowner attitudes toward CEs, an internal dimension and an external dimension. We found that positive external attitudes are primarily influenced by environmental beliefs, whereas positive internal attitudes are influenced by a suite of factors, including financial beliefs and perceived risk to private ownership. Awareness of CEs may also play a role in attitude development. Through this research, we argue that CEs may be beneficial in reintegrating the public good into private property.     

Eine Induktions-Impulsmethode für den Nachweis des Erdöls

Zusammenfassung Es wird eine Induktionsimpulsmethode beschrieben, welche sich auf die Messung dielektrischer Dispersionsphänomene gründet, und welche einen direkten Nachweis des Petroleums auf Tiefen von über 2000 m ermöglicht. Durch Variation der Anfachungsbedingungen kann man selektive Reaktionswirkungen erzielen.

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Summary An induction pulse method is described, based upon the measurement of a dielectric dispersion phenomenon. This method opens the possibility of a direct and selective reaction of the petroleum at a depth of more than 6000 feet. Hereby the selective reaction is based upon the variation of the exciting conditions.

     

Vertikale und zeitliche Verteilung der Leitfähigkeit in einem eutrophen Gewässer während der Sommerstagnation

Summary Data are given of the vertical distribution of temperature, conductivity and alkalinity of an eutrophic lake (Rotsee near Lucerne) measured at short intervals during the summer stratification. We were able to prove in a limited measure only the expected day's periodicity from the conductivity of the CO₂-assimilation of the phytoplankton. We found pronounced internal ‘seiches’ in the hypolimnion; their mathematical interpretation is given only in the order of size.Rodhe's diagram andNümann's method make it possible to determine quantitative relations; from the chemical point of view the lake (depth 16,5 m) shows a four-layered type during the summer.      

Entstehung und Alter der Oberharzer Gänge

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Protokoll der wissenschaftlichen Sitzung am 4. und 5. Januar 1937

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Bemerkungen über Geschichte der Geologie und daraus resultierende Lehren

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The dependence of the partitioning of iron and europium between plagioclase and hydrous tonalitic melt on oxygen fugacity

The dependence of iron and europium partitioning between plagioclase and melt on oxygen fugacity was studied in the system SiO₂(Qz)—NaAlSi₃O₈(Ab)—CaAl₂Si₂O₈(An)—H₂O. Experiments were performed at 500 MPa and 850 °C/750 °C under water saturated conditions. The oxygen fugacity was varied in the log f _O2-range from −7.27 to −15.78. To work at the most reducing conditions the classical double-capsule technique was modified. The sample and a C—O—H bearing sensor capsule were placed next to each other within a BN jacket to minimise loss of hydrogen to the vessel atmosphere. By this setup redox conditions slightly more reducing than the FeO—Fe₃O₄ buffer could be maintained even in 96 h runs. Raman spectra showed that the BN was modified by reaction with hydrogen resulting in a low hydrogen permeability. The partition coefficients determined for Eu at 850 °C and 500 MPa vary from 0.095 at conditions of the Cu—Cu₂O buffer to 1.81 at the most reducing conditions (C—O—H sensor). In the same f _O2 interval the partition coefficient for Fe varies from 0.55 at oxidising conditions to 0.08 at the most reducing conditions. The partitioning of Sm, which was added as a reference for a trivalent REE, does not vary with the oxygen fugacity, yielding an average value for D = 0.07. Lowering the temperature to 750 °C for a given f _O2 decreases the partition coefficient of Eu and increases that of Fe. Comparison with published data at 1 atm and at higher temperatures shows that both temperature and composition of the melt have strong effects on the partitioning behaviour. As the change of the partition coefficients in the geologically relevant f _O2 range is quite strong, element partitioning of Eu and Fe might be used to estimate redox conditions for the genesis of igneous rocks. Furthermore, by modelling the partitioning data it is possible to extract information about the redox state of the melt. Resulting ferric-ferrous ratios show significant differences from those predicted by empirical models. Received: 14 October 1998 / Received: 5 March 1999     

Are carbonate barrier islands mobile? Insights from a mid to late-Holocene system,Al Ruwais,northern Qatar

Barrier islands are important landforms in many coastal systems around the globe. Studies of modern barrier island systems are mostly limited to those of siliciclastic realms, where the islands are recognized as mobile features that form on transgressive coastlines and migrate landward as sea-level rises. Barrier islands of the ‘Great Pearl Bank’ along the United Arab Emirates coast are the best-known carbonate examples. These Holocene islands, however, are interpreted to be anchored by older deposits and immobile. The mid-Holocene to late-Holocene depositional system at Al Ruwais, northern Qatar, provides an example of a mobile carbonate barrier island system, perhaps more similar to siliciclastic equivalents. Sedimentological and petrographic analyses, as well as ¹⁴C-dating of shells and biogenic remains from vibracored sediments and surface deposits, show that after 7000 years ago a barrier system with a narrow back-barrier lagoon formed along what is now an exposed coastal zone, while, contemporaneously, a laterally-extensive coral reef was forming immediately offshore. After 1400 years ago the barrier system was forced to step ca 3 km seaward in response to a sea-level fall of less than 2 m, where it re-established itself directly on the mid-Holocene reef. Since that time, the barrier has retreated landward as much as 1000 m to its current position, exposing previously-deposited back-barrier lagoonal sediment at the open-coast shoreline. In modern neritic warm-water carbonate settings mobile barrier island systems are rare. Their construction and migration may be inhibited by reef formation, early cementation, and the relative inefficiency of sourcing beach sediments from open carbonate shelves. Carbonate barrier island systems likely formed more commonly during geological periods when ramps and unrimmed shelves predominated and in calcite seas, when meteoric cementation was minimized as a result of initial calcitic allochem mineralogy. As with their siliciclastic analogues, however, recognition of the influence of these transient landforms in the rock record is challenging.     

Digital mapping of coastal boulders – high-resolution data acquisition to infer past and recent transport dynamics

Coastal boulder fields provide clues to long-term frequency-magnitude patterns of coastal flooding events and have the potential to play an important role in coastal hazard assessment. Mapping boulders in the field is time and labour-intensive, and work on intertidal reef platforms, as in the present study, is physically challenging. By addressing coastal scientists who are not specialists in remote sensing, this contribution reports on the possibilities and limitations of digital applications in boulder mapping in Eastern Samar, Philippines, where recent supertyphoons Haiyan and Hagupit induced high waves, coastal flooding and boulder transport. It is demonstrated how satellite imagery of sub-metre resolution (from Pléiades and WorldView-3 imagery) enables efficient analysis of transport vectors and distances of larger boulders, reflecting variation in latitudes of both typhoon tracks and approaching angles of typhoon-generated waves. During the investigated events, boulders with a-axes of up to 8 m were clearly identified to have been shifted for up to 32 m, mostly along the seaward margin of the boulder field. It is, however, hard to keep track of smaller boulders, and the length of a-axes and b-axes including their orientation is often impossible to map with sufficient accuracy. Orthophotographs and digital surface models created through the application of an unmanned aerial vehicle and the ‘Structure from Motion’ technique provide ultra-high-resolution data, and have the potential to not only improve the results of satellite image analysis, but also those from field mapping and may significantly reduce overall time in the field. Orthophotographs permit unequivocal mapping of a-axes and b-axes including their orientation, while precise values for c-axes can be derived from the respective digital surface models. Volume of boulders is best inferred from boulder-specific Structure from Motion-based three-dimensional models. Battery power, flight speed and altitude determine the limits of the area covered, while patches shielded by the boulders are difficult to resolve. For some tasks, field mapping remains mandatory and cannot be replaced by currently available remote sensing tools: for example, sampling for rock type, density and age dating, recording of lithological separation of boulders from the underlying geological unit and of geomorphic features on a millimetre to decimetre-scale, or documentation of fine-grained sediment transport in between the boulders in supratidal settings. In terms of future events, the digital products presented here will provide a valuable reference to track boulder transport on a centimetre to decimetre-scale and to better understand the hydrodynamics of extreme-wave events on a fringing reef coastline.     

Estuarine biofilm patterns: Modern analogues for Precambrian self-organization

This field and laboratory study examines whether regularly patterned biofilms on present-day intertidal flats are equivalent to microbially induced bedforms found in geological records dating back to the onset of life on Earth. Algal mats of filamentous Vaucheria species, functionally similar to microbial biofilms, cover the topographic highs of regularly spaced ridge–runnel bedforms. As regular patterning is typically associated with self-organization processes, indicators of self-organization are tested and found to support this hypothesis. The measurements suggest that biofilm-induced sediment trapping and biostabilization enhance bedform relief, strength and multi-year persistence. This demonstrates the importance of primitive organisms for sedimentary landscape development. Algal-covered ridges consist of wavy-crinkly laminated sedimentary deposits that resemble the layered structure of fossil stromatolites and microbially induced sedimentary structures. In addition to layering, both the morphological pattern and the suggested formation mechanism of the recent bedforms are strikingly similar to microbialite strata found in rock records from the Precambrian onwards. This implies that self-organization was an important morphological process in times when biofilms were the predominant sessile ecosystem. These findings furthermore emphasize that self-organization dynamics, such as critical transitions invoking ecosystem emergence or collapse, might have been captured in fossil microbialites, influencing their laminae. This notion may be important for paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on such strata. © 2019 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd