“Traditional” women, “modern” water: Linking gender and commodification in Rajasthan, India

In this paper, I analyze the connections made between women and water in a Rajasthani drinking water supply project as a significant part of drinking water’s commodification. For development policy makers, water progressing from something free to something valued by price is inevitable when moving economies toward modernity and development. My findings indicate that water is not commodified simply by charging money for it, but through a series of discourses and acts that link it to other “modern” objects and give it value. One of these objects is “women”. I argue that through women’s participation activities that link gender and modernity to new responsibilities and increased mobility for village women involving the clean water supply, a “traditional” Rajasthani woman becomes “modern”. Water, in parallel, becomes “new”, “improved” and worth paying for. Women and water resources are further connected through project staff’s efforts to promote latrines by targeting women as their primary users. The research shows that villagers applied their own meanings to latrines, some of which precluded women using them. This paper fills a gap in feminist political ecology, which often overlooks how gender is created through natural resource interventions, by concerning itself with how new meanings of “water” and “women” are mutually constructed through struggles over water use and its commodification. It contributes to critical development geography literatures by demonstrating that women’s participation approaches to natural resource development act as both constraints and opportunities for village constituents. It examines an under-explored area of gender and water research by tracing village-level struggles over meanings of latrines.     

Compositional classification of “kimberlitic” and “non-kimberlitic” ilmenite

Ilmenite is one of the common kimberlitic indicator minerals recovered during diamond exploration, and its distinction from non-kimberlitic rock types is important. This is particularly true for regions where these minerals are present in relatively low abundance, and they are the dominant kimberlitic indicator mineral recovered. Difficulty in visually differentiating kimberlitic from non-kimberlitic ilmenite in exploration concentrates is also an issue, and distinguishing kimberlitic ilmenite from those derive from other similar rocks, such as ultramafic lamprophyres, is practically impossible. Ilmenite is also the indicator mineral whose compositional variety has the most potential to resolve provenance issues related to mineral dispersions with contributions from multiple kimberlite sources.

Various published data sets from selected kimberlitic (including kimberlites, lamproites, and various ultramafic lamprophyres) and non-kimberlitic rock types have been compiled and evaluated in terms of their major element compositions. Compositional fields and bounding reference lines for ilmenites derived from kimberlites (sensu stricto), ultramafic lamprophyres, and other non-kimberlitic rock types have been defined primarily on MgO–TiO₂ graphs as well as MgO–Cr₂O₃ relationships.     

Low-latitude “dusty events” vs. high-latitude “icy Heinrich events”

It has been proposed that tropical events could have participated in the triggering of the classic, high-latitude, iceberg-discharge Heinrich events (HE). We explore low-latitude Heinrich events equivalents at high resolution, in a piston core recovered from the tropical north-western African margin. They are characterized by an increase of total dust, lacustrine diatoms and fibrous lacustrine clay minerals. Thus, low-latitude events clearly reflect severe aridity events that occurred over Africa at the Saharan latitudes, probably induced by southward shifts of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. At a first approximation, it seems that there is more likely synchronicity between the high-latitude Heinrich Events (HEs) and low-latitude events (LLE), rather than asynchronous behaviours.     

Double-sided onshore–offshore seismic imaging of a plate boundary: “super-gathers” across South Island, New Zealand

Onshore–offshore seismic refraction profiling allows for the determination of crustal and mantle structures in the transition between continental and oceanic environments. Islands and narrow landmasses have the unique geometry of allowing for double-sided onshore–offshore experiments that favor the construction of composite “super-gathers” using the acquisition of onshore–offshore and ocean-bottom seismometer receiver gathers, land explosion shot gathers, and near-vertical incidence multichannel seismic (MCS) profiling. A number of sites at plate boundaries are amenable to the application of double-sided onshore–offshore imaging, including the Indo-Australian/Pacific transform boundary on South Island, New Zealand. By comparing the ratio of island width to mantle refraction (Pn) “maximum” crossover distance, using nondimensional distances, we provide an indicator of raypath “coverage” for crustal illumination. Islands or narrow land masses whose widths are less than twice their maximum crossover distance are candidates for double-sided onshore–offshore experiments. The SIGHT (South Island GeopHysical invesTigation) experiment in New Zealand is located where the width of South Island is sufficiently narrow with respect to its crustal thickness that a double-sided onshore–offshore experiment allows for complete crustal imaging of the associated plate boundary.     

The stability of sapphirine + quartz: calculated phase equilibria in FeO–MgO–Al2O3–SiO2–TiO2–O

The presence in rocks of coexisting sapphirine + quartz has been widely used to diagnose conditions of ultra‐high‐temperature (UHT) metamorphism (>900 °C), an inference based on the restriction of this assemblage to temperatures >980 °C in the conventionally considered FeO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂ (FMAS) chemical system. With a new thermodynamic model for sapphirine that includes Fe₂O₃, phase equilibra modelling using thermocalc software has been undertaken in the FeO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂–O (FMASO) and FeO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂– TiO₂–O (FMASTO) chemical systems. Using a variety of calculated phase diagrams for quartz‐saturated systems, the effects of Fe₂O₃ and TiO₂ on FMAS phase relations are shown to be considerable. Importantly, the stability field of sapphirine + quartz assemblages extends down temperature to 850 °C in oxidized systems and thus out of the UHT range.     

THE SURF “BREAK”: KEY TO PALEOGEOGRAPHY?

Ancient geosynclinal coastal deposits, preserved and exposed for present-day examination, probably represent interior—and hence protected—shores, and were therefore characterized by low-to-moderate breaker energy levels, as is the modern Gulf of Mexico. Modern low-energy beach sand size distributions are distinguished by an inflection, here called the surf “break”, formed by a winnowing or statistical filtering process, by the breakers, in the finer sizes. The result is a two-segment curve having an intersection in many cases not far from 1.5 phi. If the energy level is very low, a tail of fines may be added, producing a three-segment curve having two inflection points. Along high energy beaches, the surf “break” occurs at such large grain sizes that it cannot be preserved in sand; whether or not it can be recognized in gravel is not known. Ancient sandstones which represent the breaker zone, along a low-to-moderate energy coast, should also exhibit the surf “break”. The Lyons Sandstone, a known Permian beach deposit, provides an example. Other examples are cited. Any useful indicator of the shoreline position, in lithified rocks, should have three characteristics: ease of recognition, high reliability, and strong probability of preservation. The surf “break” scores reasonably well on all three points. Hence it may be an important key to paleogeography. Nevertheless, there still remains a question inasmuch as certain river sands have similar inflections. Whether these kinks were inherited from near-by, but older, beach deposits, or were formed by stream action, is not known. The reliability of the surf “break” is estimated at 80% or better, except for the case where near-shore sands, of whatever age, are reworked briefly by running water.     

Nicholas Crisp's “Porcellien”: A petrological comparison of sherds from the Vauxhall (London; ca. 1751–1764) and Indeo Pottery (Bovey Tracey,Devonshire; ca. 1767–1774) factory sites

The character of porcelain wares made by Nicholas Crisp early and late in his career was assessed using microchemical and petrographic data for sherds excavated from the sites of the factories he operated at Vauxhall and Bovey Tracey. The results indicate that, over time, Crisp increasingly made use of diverse types of pastes as he struggled to produce a commercially viable line of porcelain. Based on the analysis of a limited number of samples, he appears to have largely restricted himself at Vauxhall to using soapstone (Mg‐rich)‐ and flint‐glass (Pb‐rich) frit‐bearing pastes that varied in the amount of calcite they contained. He also experimented with Mg+Pb‐rich pastes at Bovey Tracey, but included a novel ingredient (barite) and varied the proportion of other minor constituents (e.g., bone ash), apparently in an effort to resolve some of the firing problems that plagued him at Vauxhall. In addition, Crisp appears to have produced bone ash (phosphatic) porcelain at Bovey Tracey, and, in collaboration with William Cookworthy, the proprietor of the Plymouth factory, fired a range of true porcelain (Si+Al‐rich) pastes. Bulk compositional data indicate that Crisp's diopside‐bearing Mg+Pb‐rich wares were derived from pastes containing talc and calcite rather than dolomite. The mineralogy of these and some contemporary magnesian/plombian porcelains are interpreted using the SiO₂‐CaO‐MgO phase diagram. This diagram shows that these wares can form and preserve diopside (Ca‐Mg silicate) given suitable bulk CaO contents and kiln‐firing temperatures. Phosphatic sherds from Bovey Tracey are compositionally distinct (lower SiO₂ and higher Al₂O₃ and bone‐ash components) from a single bone‐ash sample from Vauxhall, indicating that Crisp experimented with novel bone‐ash pastes, and was not positively influenced by the Vauxhall phosphatic recipe, if indeed one existed. True porcelains from Bovey Tracey have more extreme SiO₂/Al₂O₃ ratios (= 2.0 [two sherds]; 4.5 [one sherd]) than their Plymouth/Bristol counterparts (SiO₂/Al₂O₃ = 2.3–3.0). Collectively, the analytical data underscore the experimental—and ultimately unsuccessful—character of the diverse wares produced by Nicholas Crisp. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

An enlarged and updated internally consistent thermodynamic dataset with uncertainties and correlations: the system K2O–Na2O–CaO–MgO–MnO–FeO–Fe2O3–Al2O3–TiO2–SiO2–C–H2–O2

We present, as a progress report, a revised and much enlarged version of the thermodynamic dataset given earlier (Holland & Powell, 1985). This new set includes data for 123 mineral and fluid end-members made consistent with over 200 P–T–X_CO2–f_O2 phase equilibrium experiments. Several improvements and advances have been made, in addition to the increased coverage of mineral phases: the data are now presented in three groups ranked according to reliability; a large number of iron-bearing phases has been included through experimental and, in some cases, natural Fe:Mg partitioning data; H₂O and CO₂ contents of cordierites are accounted for with the solution model of Kurepin (1985); simple Landau theory is used to model lambda anomalies in heat capacity and the Al/Si order–disorder behaviour in some silicates, and Tschermak-substituted end-members have been derived for iron and magnesium end-members of chlorite, talc, muscovite, biotite, pyroxene and amphibole. For the subset of data which overlap those of Berman (1988), it is encouraging to find both (1) very substantial agreement between the two sets of thermodynamic data and (2) that the two sets reproduce the phase equilibrium experimental brackets to a very similar degree of accuracy. The main differences in the two datasets involve size (123 as compared to 67 end-members), the methods used in data reduction (least squares as compared to linear programming), and the provision for estimation of uncertainties with this dataset. For calculations on mineral assemblages in rocks, we aim to maximize the information available from the dataset, by combining the equilibria from all the reactions which can be written between the end-members in the minerals. For phase diagram calculations, we calculate the compositions of complex solid solutions (together with P and T) involved in invariant, univariant and divariant assemblages. Moreover we strongly believe in attempting to assess the probable uncertainties in calculated equilibria and hence provide a framework for performing simple error propagation in all calculations in thermocalc, the computer program we offer for an effective use of the dataset and the calculation methods we advocate.