Parachute-assisted gravity sediment corer (Algonquin Corer)

Details are outlined for the construction and use of an easily constructed and inexpensive parachute-assisted, gravity-driven, sediment coring device. This corer has been named the Algonquin corer since it was designed, tested and constructed at École Secondaire Algonquin, North Bay, Ontario. This corer utilizes an underwater parachute to effectively control and stabilize its descent, and a driving mechanism (hammer) to increase the penetration of the corer. Other innovative features are its corrective mercury and magnetic switches, which allow the user to precisely monitor both the position of the driving mechanism and the corer's angle of sediment penetration. These optional features may be constructed for use with this particular corer or constructed separately to enhance existing coring devices. Details of these features are provided and their functions outlined. The versatile features, cost-effectiveness and ease of construction of the Algonquin corer make it an effective and practical tool for conducting sediment analysis studies at all levels. It is also well suited for the instruction of coring techniques and paleolimnological methods at both the university and high school level.     

Conversion of shallow water gravity coring equipment for deep water operation

Lacustrine sediment sampling equipment, such as lightweight gravity corers, are limited in operation to relatively shallow water environments (less than 50 m). This is because the ability to control such equipment becomes difficult with increasing water depth. In addition, adverse weather conditions, wind and waves etc. can further limit the success of such operations. The deep water equipment is designed to attach to gravity corers of the Kajak Brinkhurst type, and extend the operating depth by eliminating the need for direct control from the surface. The equipment stabilizes the corer on entry into the sediment and automatically closes the top of the core tube after driving is completed. No changes are required to be made to the corer whose mechanical operation remains the same.     

A new hammer-driven freeze corer

A shortcoming of freeze corers has been the inability to collect long cores in stiff sediments. We describe a hammerdriven freeze corer that collects undisturbed sediment cores up to 1.3 m in length in stiff or soft lake sediments. The corer was tested in prairie, montane and alpine lakes of western Canada. For these stiff sediments, conventional (gravity-only) freeze coring methods collected cores ranging from 25–59 cm compared with 100–124 cm for our hammer-driven device. The maximum length of cores could exceed 1.3 m if a longer core barrel was constructed.     

南极磷虾的生长与复眼直径关系的研究

本文对南极磷虾复眼的直径与磷虾体长之间的关系、在负生长状态下磷虾复眼直径的变化等进行了研究。实验结果表明：在正常情况下（磷虾身体不出现负生长），磷虾复眼的直径与体长之间存在指数函数关系。雌性磷虾的眼径（ＥＤ）与体长（ＢＬ）之间的关系为：ＥＤ＝０．５８９８ｅ０．０２８２ＢＬ（ｒ＝０．９６１３，ｎ＝２４１９）；雄虾的眼径与体长之间的关系为：ＥＤ＝０．５４４ｅ０．０３０９ＢＬ（ｒ＝０．９６２２，ｎ＝１９２０）。在相同体长的情况下，雄性磷虾的复眼直径比雌虾的大。从活体培养的结果来看，当南极磷虾出现负生长时，复眼直径保持不变，即眼径不受负生长的影响。在正常情况下（不存在负生长），雌虾的体长与眼径之间的比率（ＢＬ／ＥＤ）平均为２１．３２±０．０４（ｎ＝１３４７），雄虾的体长与眼径之间的比率平均为２０．６８±０．０７（ｎ＝７４８），未成体虾的体长与复眼直径之间的比率平均为２１．５４±０．０６（ｎ＝１０７２）。利用体长与眼径之间的比率可以准确地将在实验室内活体培养后已存在负生长的磷虾与其它处于正常状态的磷虾分开。体长与眼径之间的比率也可以作为磷虾种群是否存在负生长的监测指标     

Long cores from small lakes—recovering up to 100 m-long lake sediment sequences with a high-precision rod-operated piston corer (Usinger-corer)

We present a unique, versatile piston corer for recovering continuous lake and bog sediment sequences with superior accuracy and quality. The main components of the system and their function are described, with special focus on measures for obtaining long, continuous lake sediment sections up to a current maximum length of 95 m. Examples of lake sediment profiles obtained with this system from different climatic zones are presented.     

Study on the relationship between the diameter of the compound eye and the growth of the Antarctickrill

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A rod-less piston corer for lake sediments; an improved, rope-operated percussion corer

A lightweight, percussion corer, suitable for use in remote lakes of moderate depth, is described. The operation of the corer and suggestions for securing and transporting long sediment cores are presented. In particular, the design and use of a recovery pot, which allows the retrieval of undisturbed cores from sediments of unknown depth, is detailed.     

Using Dasymetric Mapping to Identify Communities at Risk from Hazardous Waste Generation in San Antonio,Texas

The primary objective of this study is to examine if minorities, the poor, and non-homeowners have a higher potential for exposure than the general population to large-quantity hazardous waste generation in Bexar County, Texas. Results indicate that this is indeed the case: people living near the generators are more often Black non-Hispanic or Hispanic, and more likely to live below the poverty level and not own their own home. Although previous studies conducted in the United States have used states, counties, zip codes, or census tracts as the unit of spatial analysis, we use dasymetric mapping to create population maps at a resolution of 30 m. This allows for the reconfiguration of the areal aggregations chosen for the analysis while preserving its findings. It also reduces, if not eliminates, the effects of the Modifiable Area Unit Problem (MAUP) on the results.     

Estimation of Direct Runoff in the Thornthwaite Water Balance*

Inclusion of direct runoff in water balance analysis makes the analysis more accurate and allows it to reflect important hydrologic effects of land use change such as urbanization. Water balance analysis is conveniently performed on a monthly basis. This paper reports the development of a model of monthly direct runoff consistent with the monthly bookkeeping format. The model was evaluated by comparison with direct runoff estimated by daily calculation using the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) method. The comparison employed six stations representing different climatic regions of the contiguous United States and eight values of SCS curve number. The results are statistically significant and produce little error.     

Expanding Women's Choices through Employment? Community-Based Natural Resource Management and Women's Empowerment in Kwandu Conservancy,Namibia

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has been heralded for promoting development by creating employment in rural areas. However, limited scholarly attention has been given to the effects of CBNRM-derived employment on individual women. We use an empowerment lens to evaluate claims that CBNRM benefits communities because it creates formal employment for women. A case study of Kwandu Conservancy, located in Namibia's Caprivi region, generated 49 interviews of a wide range of female conservancy residents. Data were also collected through participant observation, document review, and 20 key informant interviews. Data analysis revealed that employment has a mixed impact on women's choices and their empowerment, bringing both costs and benefits to female employees. Understanding this range of experiences allows us to consider how CBNRM efforts can be structured to enhance employment opportunities more broadly within the social structures of a conservancy while anticipating and mitigating negative effects on women.     

砂田不同覆盖方式对土壤微生物组成的影响

为研究砂田(GSMF)表面覆盖的砾石层对土壤微生物组成的影响,于2004年春布设试验,分别为砾石覆盖厚度试验、覆盖砾石粒径试验和不同粒径砾石按不同比例混合覆盖试验。于2009年5月对未经扰动的土壤细菌、真菌、放线菌组成和土壤含水量进行研究,土壤剖面深度分别为0~1 cm、1~2 cm、2~4 cm和4~20 cm。结果表明,砾石覆盖可以增加土壤含水量和土壤微生物数量,当土壤表面覆盖的砾石粒径越小或者组成覆盖层的砾石以小粒径为主时,有利于土壤水分的积累和细菌的生长,反之则利于放线菌的生长,粒径范围在1~8 cm时,较利于真菌生长,在砾石覆盖厚度试验中观察到有超过50%的真菌分布在0~1 cm深的土壤剖面中这一特有现象。砾石层覆盖厚度为7~9 cm时,最适宜微生物生长。     

The Subsistence Agriculture Game Simulation of Central American Farming in the College Classroom

Abstract

Although subsistence agriculture may receive little attention in the classroom, it employs the majority of the world's farmers. One way to emphasize the importance of subsistence agriculture in class is to use a simulation game such as the Subsistence Agriculture Game, which allows students to play the role of actual farmers in Central America. The Game represents a new teaching technique available for use and further investigation by geographers.     

Discrete emergence of neoliberal policies on public space: an informal Business Improvement District in Istanbul,Turkey

This article investigates the birth and evolution of a Business Improvement District (BID) in Talimhane, Istanbul, which is the first case of use of this instrument of neoliberal governance in the Turkish city. The distinctive nature of the Talimhane BID consists in the fact that it has been developed through a series of informal and piecemeal arrangements. The article first reviews the evolution, characteristics, and critical aspects of BIDs. It then focuses on the case study of this “informal BID” in Talimhane, analysing its origins, features, and outcomes. The informal nature of this BID is stressed as a key factor in understanding its features and outcomes, and it emerges as a fundamental component of urban neoliberalism in Turkey: it allows a centralized and authoritarian government to maintain complete control over public space and private actors and activities, while promoting a process of devolving powers in favour of the private sector.     

A sapping erosion susceptibility model for the southern Cantabrian Range, North Spain

A susceptibility model of sapping-related depressions has been produced by analysing the statistical relationship between the location of depressions and topographical variables. Sapping erosion plays an important role in the growth of gullies developed over poorly-consolidated quartzite conglomerates in the northern sector of the Duero Tertiary Basin (the Cantabrian Mountain Range of Spain). Gullies, topsoil subsidence depressions related to sapping processes, and shallow slides have been identified over sandy soils in an area of 37 km². This area underwent major changes in land use during the 20th century, leading to the expansion of gully erosion processes. On the surface, depressions of several meters in diameter, caused by internal erosion related to sapping processes, can be identified. Using the topographical location of these topsoil depressions and several topographical variables, 14 discriminate functions were derived to provide information about the influence of topography on the development of sapping erosion processes. The functions have accuracy levels varying from 56 to 81%. The most accurate function was regionalized by means of a Geographical Information System and was used to complete a land classification method which is based on the Mahalanobis distance to the multivariate average (centroid) of a sapping erosion form group. The classification of this model allows the identification of areas with different relative probabilities of sapping processes and the resultant growth of gullies.     

DEVELOPMENT GEOGRAPHY,DEPENDENCY RELATIONS,AND THE CAPITALIST SCAPEGOAT

Development geography is becoming increasingly influenced by the dependency paradigm concerning the process of underdevelopment. Although there are good reasons to welcome this, there looms the danger that eventually these radical views will cause development geography to degenerate into a dead-end street of dogmatic, deterministic thinking. To prevent this, it might be helpful to replace the division of the world into First, Second, and Third Worlds by a grouping that allows for incorporating the socialist countries into the dependency thesis.     

Agricultural expansion within Kimana electric fences and implications for natural resource conservation around Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Fencing has become a key strategy in mitigating human–wildlife conflicts and promoting agricultural production in Kenya. However, it can have negative long-term consequences for wildlife conservation as well as human development, especially if the fence is poorly maintained. Such is the case of the Kimana and Namelok fences in the Kimana Group Ranch. This study assessed the influence of fences on agricultural expansion, environmental and wildlife conservation. In both fences, irrigated agriculture was a dominant land use and occurred along riverbanks, causing drying downstream. Most farmers in both fences were noticing a decline in water quantity and time of access to it, as well as increasing human–wildlife conflicts. Wildlife sightings within both fences provided evidence that the inadequate fence maintenance allows wildlife to freely access the fenced areas. Both wildlife and humans were blamed for fence deterioration in both fences. Irrigated agriculture inside both fences is expanding at an unmanageable rate. While the fences have spurred socio-economic activities in the area, they are not only ineffective in reducing human–wildlife conflicts but have given rise to other critical conflicts. Fencing appears to be a short-term remedy for human–wildlife conflicts and it is crucial to explore other mitigation strategies.     

Visualizing,interpreting and comparing detrital zircon age and Hf isotope data in basin analysis – a graphical approach

The development of fast and reliable instrumental methods for U‐Pb dating and Lu‐Hf isotope analysis of zircon has caused detrital zircon to become a popular provenance indicator for clastic sediments and an important tool in basin analysis. In parallel with the increasing ease of access to data, advanced methods of data interpretation have been developed. The downside of some techniques for visualization and comparison of detrital zircon distribution patterns is that the results are difficult to relate to what the zircon grains really record: The age and nature of geological processes in a protosource terrane. Some simple methods of data presentation and inter‐sample comparison that preserve a direct and intuitively understandable relationship between the data and the age of zircon‐forming processes in the protosource are proposed here: Comparison of confidence intervals around empirical, cumulative distribution curves combined with the use of a plot of upper vs. lower quartile values of cumulative zircon U‐Pb age or Lu‐Hf model age distributions. This approach allows a robust and transparent separation to be made between samples whose detrital zircon distributions are indistinguishable from each other, and those that are more or less similar. Furthermore, it allows simple comparison between detrital zircon distributions and the geological age record of potential protosource terranes, or the detrital zircon distributions of possible sedimentary precursors.     

Recent changes in diatom-inferred pH, heavy metals, and spheroidal carbonaceous particles in lake sediments near an oil refinery at Mongstad, Western Norway

Sediments from two naturally acid lakes have been used to investigate whether there is any local impact of atmospheric pollution from an oil refinery at Mongstad in Western Norway. The refinery started production in 1975 and expanded in 1987. One lake was selected as a reference site as it only receives long-range transported air pollution, whereas a second lake was selected as it was expected to receive both long-range transported and local air pollution from the refinery. Heavy metal (Pb, Ni and Zn) and spheroidal carbonaceous particle (SCP) (> 5 µm in diameter) concentrations and accumulation rates have been estimated and lake-water pH has been reconstructed by weighted averaging and weighted averaging partial least squares regression and calibration from the fossil diatom assemblages.Heavy metals that are in the size range for which atmospheric residence time is greatest do not show any enhanced levels in the sediments after 1975 that could be associated with local impacts from the refinery. SCPs in the sediments that are in the size range thought to be effectively removed by dry deposition, and thus have a more local deposition pattern, show an increase after 1975 and an additional large increase after 1987 that can be explained by impacts from the local oil refinery. After 1975 the SCP diameter distribution changed from being dominated by SCPs with a small diameter in the range 5-10 µm to SCPs with larger diameters. The SO₂ emission from the oil refinery seems to have had no significant effect on lake pH. The reconstructed lake pH history is complex, possibly related to land-use changes and long-range transported air pollution.     

Iron Age Vegetation Dynamics and Human Impacts on the Vegetation of Upper Mun River Floodplain,N.E. Thailand1

Here we present a revised interpretation of pollen analyses at Iron Age archaeological sites on the floodplain of the Mun River, northeast Thailand. Following publication of a full chronometric data set for these sites, it has become apparent that the original and admittedly tentative conclusions from the pollen analyses require reassessment. The original account was flawed in two ways: the presumed time span of the record was considerably longer than we believe it to be now; and our correlation between neighbouring sequences was in error. Our new understanding of the evidence allows us to present a vegetation history of the study area that is confined to the details of land use and human impact during the latter half of the Thai Iron Age. Here we also are able to identify ecological groups and landscape partitioning patterns during that period. In particular, we record phases of human impact, with periods of forest clearance and its replacement by grasslands with likely rice cultivation and arboriculture.     

深部盐矿勘探钻井液研究与应用

ZK001井钻遇地层为大段泥岩,部分地层为页岩、含盐泥岩、盐膏层。在泥页岩地层进行大口径全面钻进,钻速较快,固控设备能力有限,引起钻屑中粘土颗粒重复性膨胀、软化及裂解分散,最终可能造成粘土侵,对井内安全造成威胁。深部岩膏层易溶于水,从而导致盐层蠕变、井径扩大、井壁失稳等问题。以ZK001井为例,通过优化钻井液体系及现场施工工艺,解决了地层强造浆、盐层失稳等问题。通过岩石力学测试、阳离子交换容量测试、钻井液体系优选及性能测试,确定了上部地层采用聚合物钻井液体系,下部含盐层取芯钻进转换为饱和盐水钻井液体系。通过选用合适的钻井液密度、粘度、切力量、滤失量、含盐量等指标,可以有效控制上部泥岩井壁稳定、含盐层蠕变、井径扩大的问题。钻进过程中钻井液性能稳定且易于维护,从而保证了钻进工作安全、高效、顺利的进行。