Solute geochemical mass-balances and mineral weathering rates in small watersheds: Methodology,recent advances,and future directions

Solute-based geochemical mass balance methods are commonly used in small-watershed studies to estimate rates of a variety of geochemical processes at the Earth’s surface, including primary-mineral weathering and soil formation, and the quantitative contribution of these elemental transfer processes to cation budgets, nutrient cycling, and landscape susceptibility to acid deposition. Weathering rates of individual minerals in watershed mass-balance studies are determined by solving a system of simultaneous linear geochemical mass-balance equations with constant (stoichiometric) coefficients. These equations relate the measured net fluxes to the (known) stoichiometries and (unknown) rates of weathering reactions for multiple minerals in the weathering profiles. Solving the system of equations requires petrologic, mineralogic, hydrologic, botanical, and aqueous geochemical data. The number of mineral-weathering rates that can be determined is limited by the number of elements for which solute mass-balance equations can be written. In addition to calculating mineral weathering rates, elemental transfer into or out of the biomass may also be calculated. Elemental uptake by aggrading forest vegetation can act as an intrawatershed sink for at least some mineral-derived cations, producing mineral weathering rates higher than would be estimated from solute fluxes alone; similarly, element release from decaying forest biomass can result in higher solute fluxes than are produced by weathering alone. The mathematics of, significant contributions from, role of biomass in, and recent advances in, watershed geochemical mass-balance methods are discussed using examples from the Appalachian headwaters watersheds of the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in the southern Blue Ridge Physiographic Province of North Carolina, USA.     

Late Holocene environmental reconstruction using cave sediments from Belize

Cave sediments collected from Reflection Cave on the Vaca Plateau, Belize show variations in the δ¹³C values of their fulvic acids (FAs), which indicate periods of vegetation change caused by climatic and Maya influences during the late Holocene. The δ¹³C values range from − 27.11‰ to − 21.52‰, a shift of ∼ 5.59‰, which suggests fluctuating contributions of C₃ and C₄ plants throughout the last 2.5 ka, with C₄ plant input reflecting periods of Maya agriculture. Maya activity in the study area occurred at different intensities from ∼ 2600 cal yr BP until ∼ 1500 cal yr BP, after which agricultural practices waned as the Maya depopulated the area. These changes in plant assemblages were in response to changes in available water resources, with increased aridity leading to the eventual abandonment of agricultural areas. The Ix Chel archaeological site, located in the study area, is a highland site that would have been among the first agricultural settlements to be affected during periods of aridity. During these periods, minimal water resources would have been available in this highly karstified, well-drained area, and supplemental groundwater extraction would have been difficult due to the extreme depth of the water table.     

根据GPS数据的北天山现代构造活动概率区研究

根据GPS数据的现代运动场研究了北天山的现代形变过程。在这一地区,速率分量和某些类型形变速率场的不均性都表现出与现代构造活动区密切相关。以场的水平梯度极值区图为基础划分构造活动区段,查明强震震中区就位于这些活动区。当取得活动区状态的GPS数据时,区域地壳动力学状态监测是最有效的。     

Assessing mitigation-adaptation scenarios for reducing catastrophic climate risk

Countries can use both mitigation and adaptation strategies to protect their citizens from catastrophic risk posed by climate change (e.g., shift in the jet stream). A nation can mitigate by reducing CO₂ emissions, which reduces the probability of a catastrophic event; it can adapt by altering the infrastructure so that damages can be reduced in the event a catastrophe is realized. Herein we add to the current literature by extending the endogenous risk framework into a dynamic framework permitting analysis of both mitigation and adaptation while allowing for the dynamic process of global climate change. Our results suggest adaptation to catastrophe is a small fraction of the national climate protection budget relative to mitigation when nations cooperate fully, when damages are both continuous and catastrophic, and when nations have a short planning horizon. Adaptation becomes more important relative to mitigation when nations are unlikely to cooperate, when damages are mainly catastrophic, or when the nation’s planning horizon increases.     

Integration of Satellite Telemetry Data and Land Cover Imagery: A Study of Migratory Cranes in Northeast Asia

The present study describes a procedure for quantitatively analyzing satellite telemetry data to identify interspecific land use differences among four threatened crane species. The inherent inaccuracy of satellite telemetry data points, the temporal autocorrelation of those points, and the resolution of two land‐cover imagery products from the IGBP‐DISCover Global Land‐Cover Characterization Project (derived from AVHRR data) were assessed and integrated in a GIS. Satellite telemetry is a system where animals are tracked using battery‐operated transmitters and locations are calculated using triangulation from satellites. Using the variable spatial inaccuracy of the telemetry locations, each point was buffered using a radius based on the accuracy of the point, and then intersected with the land cover imagery. The research concluded that the methodology is valuable for studies of birds at a regional scale, with interspecific differences clearly evident, but that diurnal and nocturnal differences were not discernable due to the coarse resolution of both satellite telemetry and land‐cover data.     

Photogrammetric Analysis of Front Range Rock Glacier Flow Rates

Flow rates for rock glaciers in the European Alps have been monitored using photogrammetric techniques; however, a program has not been initiated for similar Front Range, USA, rock glaciers. Horizontal rock glacier displacements were measured by tracking large surficial rocks on temporal orthophotos from 1978, 1990, and 1999. Vertical change was measured by creating digital elevation models (DEMs) from digital stereopairs, then subtracting elevations to detect change. Long‐term horizontal velocities ranged from 14 to 20 cm/yr on average, although uncertainty ranged from 4 to 5 cm/yr. On average, vertical elevation changes were negligible with most rock glaciers exhibiting a slight growth or thinning (1–2 cm/yr). Over shorter time scales (c. 10‐year periods), horizontal velocities have only increased by about 2 cm/yr. Because horizontal and vertical change is minimal, Front Range rock glaciers appear to be adjusted with current climate, unlike some rock glaciers in the European Alps that have shown increasing subsidence rates or significant increasing or decreasing horizontal velocities.     

Damped Lyα systems at high redshift and models of protogalactic discs

We employ observationally determined intrinsic velocity widths and column densities of damped Lyman alpha (Lyα) systems at high redshift to investigate the distribution of baryons in protogalaxies within the context of a standard cold dark matter (CDM) model. We proceed under the assumption that damped Lyα systems represent a population of cold, rotationally supported, protogalactic discs, and that the abundance of dark matter haloes is well approximated by a CDM model with critical density and vanishing cosmological constant. Using conditional cross-sections to observe a damped system with a given velocity width and column density, we compare observationally inferred velocity width and column density distributions to the corresponding theoretically determined distributions for a variety of disc parameters and CDM normalizations. In general, we find that the observations cannot be reproduced by the models for most disc parameters and CDM normalizations. Whereas the column density distribution favours small discs with large neutral gas fraction, the velocity width distribution favours large and thick discs with small neutral gas fraction. The possible resolutions of this problem in the context of this CDM model may be (1) an increased contribution of rapidly rotating discs within massive dark matter haloes to damped Lyα absorption, or (2) the abandoning of simple disc models within this CDM model for damped Lyα systems at high redshift. Here the first possibility may be achieved by supposing that damped Lyα system formation occurs only in haloes with fairly large circular velocities, and the second possibility may result from a large contribution of mergers and double discs to damped Lyα absorption at high redshift.     

The age and origin of a thick mafic–ultramafic keel from beneath the Sierra Nevada batholith

We present evidence for a thick (∼100 km) sequence of cogenetic rocks which make up the root of the Sierra Nevada batholith of California. The Sierran magmatism produced tonalitic and granodioritic magmas which reside in the Sierra Nevada upper- to mid-crust, as well as deep eclogite facies crust/upper mantle mafic–ultramafic cumulates. Samples of the mafic–ultramafic sequence are preserved as xenoliths in Miocene volcanic rocks which erupted through the central part of the batholith. We have performed Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd mineral geochronologic analyses on seven fresh, cumulate textured, olivine-free mafic–ultramafic xenoliths with large grainsize, one garnet peridotite, and one high pressure metasedimentary rock. The garnet peridotite, which equilibrated at ∼130 km beneath the batholith, yields a Miocene (10 Ma) Nd age, indicating that in this sample, the Nd isotopes were maintained in equilibrium up to the time of entrainment. All other samples equilibrated between ∼35 and 100 km beneath the batholith and yield Sm-Nd mineral ages between 80 and 120 Ma, broadly coincident with the previously established period of most voluminous batholithic magmatism in the Sierra Nevada. The Rb-Sr ages are generally consistent with the Sm-Nd ages, but are more scattered. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd intercepts of the igneous-textured xenoliths are similar to the ratios published for rocks outcroping in the central Sierra Nevada. We interpret the mafic/ultramafic xenoliths to be magmatically related to the upper- and mid-crustal granitoids as cumulates and/or restites. This more complete view of the vertical dimension in a batholith indicates that there is a large mass of mafic–ultramafic rocks at depth which complement the granitic batholiths, as predicted by mass balance calculations and experimental studies. The Sierran magmatism was a large scale process responsible for segregating a column of ∼30 km thick granitoids from at least ∼70 km of mainly olivine free mafic–ultramafic residues/cumulates. These rocks have resided under the batholith as granulite and eclogite facies rocks for at least 70 million years. The presence of this thick mafic–ultramafic keel also calls into question the existence of a “flat” (i.e., shallowly subducted) slab at Central California latitudes during Late Cretaceous–Early Cenozoic, in contrast to the southernmost Sierra Nevada and Mojave regions. Received: 27 December 1997 / Accepted: 11 June 1998     

混合岩中浅色体的有限迁移及其对变形分解的影响

熔体在地壳和地幔中怎样迁移及其动力学是地质学中的一个重要问题。作为地壳深融作用的产物 ,混合岩中的浅色体提供了一个极好的机会来探讨影响地壳熔体在中下地壳迁移的因素。为此 ,我们对美国加州南 Sierra Nevada岩基中典型的混合岩、变泥质岩及邻近的花岗闪长岩进行了详细的主要元素地球化学和野外构造变形分析 ,同时应用流体动力学理论估算了在中下地壳条件下 ,典型浅色体的迁移距离。南 Sierra Nevada岩基中的混合岩中的浅色体厚度为 1mm至 1cm。在部分熔融程度较高的区域 (>10 % ) ,浅色体相互连接而成网结状构造 ,应变的承载方式主要以 IWL(Interconnected Weak L ayers)形式进行 ,即熔融体表现为弱相而承载大部分的应变。相反地 ,在部分熔融程度较低的区域 (<5 % ) ,浅色体孤立地出现 ,应变的承载方式主要以 L BF(L oad- Bearing Frame-work)形式进行 ,即应变主要由非熔融体的基质来承担。这表明在混合岩形成过程中 ,熔体的出现强烈地制约着应变分解作用。应用 Shaw的岩石粘度模型 ,我们根据浅色体的主要元素地球化学成分计算了浅色体在熔融状态下的粘度。根据流体动力学原理 ,估算了浅色体在不同条件下的迁移距离。计算结果表明 :1和典型花岗岩相比 ,浅色体具有较高的粘度 ,为 10 9～ 10 1 2