Comment on Hearty,P.J. and O'Leary,M.J., 2008. Carbonate eolianites,quartz sands,and Quaternary sea-level cycles,Western Australia: A chronostratigraphic approach. Quaternary Geochronology 3: 26–55

A proposal that the yellow sands which commonly overlie Pleistocene eolianites along the west coast of Western Australia may have their origin from major extensions of inland deserts during times of severe aridity, is refuted on several grounds. The eolianites typically are deeply degraded remnants of the original coastal dunes, which contained a high content of non-calcareous detritus. Hence plentiful residual sand will accumulate during weathering of a dune. Studies on heavy mineral content of the yellow sands have shown that there is an inland ageing trend consistent with local derivation from successive dune belts, and have also pointed to local sources for yellow color in the sand, without need to postulate a distant source. Localized denudations have however occurred, during which sand is blown inland to leave tracts of bared limestone. No remnants of the alleged desert extensions exist in the hinterland of the coastal belt.     

Comment on the paper “CAWSES November 7–8, 2004, Superstorm: Complex Solar and Interplanetary Features in the Post-Solar Maximum Phase,” B. T. Tsurutani,E. Echer,F. L. Guarnieri,and J. U. Kozyra,Geophys. Res. Lett. 35 (2008)

The solar sources of the magnetic storms of November 8 and 10, 2004, are analyzed. The preliminary results of such an analysis [Yermolaev et al., 2005] are critically compared with the results of the paper [Tsurutani et al., 2008], where solar flares were put in correspondence with these magnetic storms. The method for determining solar sources that cause powerful magnetospheric storms is analyzed. It has been indicated that an optimal approach consists in considering coronal mass ejections (CMEs) as storm sources and accompanying flares as additional information about the location of CME origination.     

Dr. phil. Günther von Büren

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Commentary on “Earthquake Depths in the Crimea–Black Sea Region” by V.E. Kulchitsky,B.G. Pustovitenko and V.A. Svidlova

It is well known that the results of determining earthquake parameters depend to a large extent on data processing algorithms and velocity models of the seismic wave propagation medium used in solving hypocenter problems. In 1992, V.Yu. Burmin developed a hypocentric algorithm that minimizes the functional of distances between the points corresponding to the theoretical and observed travel times of seismic waves from an earthquake source to recording stations. The determination of the coordinates of earthquake hypocenters in this case is much more stable than for the commonly used minimization of the functional of discrepancies in the seismic wave arrival times at a station. Using this algorithm and the refined velocity model of the medium, V.Yu. Burmin and L.A. Shumlyanskaya reinterpreted the earthquake parameters for the Crimea–Black Sea region. The most important result of this reinterpretation was the conclusion about the occurrence of deep earthquakes with a source depth of more than 60 km in the region. This result contradicts the conventional beliefs about the seismicity of the region and therefore aroused strong criticism from experts directly involved in compiling the existing catalogs of regional earthquakes. These comments and criticisms are presented by V.E. Kulchitsky with coauthors in a work published in this issue of the journal. In the present paper, we analyze the comments in detail and respond. In particular, we show that the previously used methods of seismic data processing made it highly unlikely by default that deep earthquakes would appear in the results. As an example, we refer to the use of travel-time curves for depths down to 35 km. It is clear that deep earthquakes could not have been found with this approach.