Completeness of citizen science biodiversity data from a volunteered geographic information perspective

Observations of living organisms by citizen scientists that are reported to online portals are a valuable source of information. They are also a special kind of volunteered geographic information (VGI). VGI data have issues of completeness, which arise from biases caused by the opportunistic nature of the data collection process. We examined the completeness of bird species represented in citizen science observation data from eBird and iNaturalist in US National Parks (NPs). We used approaches for completeness estimation which were developed for data from OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced map of the world. First, we used an extrinsic approach, comparing species lists from citizen science data with National Park Service lists. Second, we examined two intrinsic approaches using total observation numbers in NPs and the development of the number of new species being added to the data-set over time. Results from the extrinsic approach provided appropriate completeness estimations to evaluate the intrinsic approaches. We found that total observation numbers are a good estimator of species completeness of citizen science data from US NPs. There is also a close relationship between species completeness and the ratio of new species added to observation data vs. observation numbers in a given year.     

Flocculation and sedimentation in the ACE Basin, South Carolina

Extremely rapid deposition of fine-grained sediment has been observed near an artificially created channel between the Edisto and Ashepoo Rivers in South Carolina. Accumulation rates on the order of 0.05 m mo⁻¹ formed a region of fluid mud known as the Mud Reach that was present during a study carried out in May 1998. Subsequent surveys in March and May 1999 found no evidence of fluid mud in this area. Image analysis of photographs of the suspended sediment from 1998 showed that the water column was populated by flocs with a median diameter on the order of 0.3 mm which tended to remain in suspension over the tidal cycle, and flocs on the order of 0.8 mm which remained in the near bottom region except at maximum current speeds. In 1999, both the size and concentration of flocs at the surface remained the same, but the size and abundance of flocs near the bottom was reduced. Disaggregated inorganic grain size analysis of the suspension and samples from a core collected in the Mud Reach indicated that in 1998 the accumulation of material on the bottom was the result of floc settling and that in spite of highu _s values, little sorting of this material was occurring. Grain size analysis of samples deeper in the core showed that the rapidly floc-deposited mud was underlain by coarser, well-sorted sediment, confirming that the Mud Reach was a transient feature. The observed flocculation processes may play a significant role in the trapping of fine-grained sediment throughout this region.     

On diatom concentrations in lake sediments: results from an inter-laboratory comparison and other tests performed on a uniform sample

The diatom concentration of a uniform lake sediment sample was estimated in 15 laboratories. Whilst 21 of 35 estimates were between 13 and 19 × 10⁷ valves g^-1, values ranged from 8.2 × 10⁶ to 2.0 × 10⁹ valves g^-1. However, counts from replicate sediment digestions, replicate slide preparations from a single digested slurry, and multiple counts from an individual slide all yielded internally consistent results, with acceptably low coefficients of variation (±4.5–6.3%). Without greater efforts towards harmonization, for example by calibrating techniques to a standard of known concentration, reported diatom concentration values, as well as derived data such as diatom accumulation rates, are not directly comparable between most laboratories. This sharply contrasts the strong reproducibility of diatom relative frequency data. A calibration exercise, using the Eucalyptus pollen spike technique to estimate a known concentration of Lycopodium spores, demonstrates that this method performs best when approximately equal proportions of microfossils and introduced markers are counted.     

Measuring surface-layer fluxes of heat and momentum using optical scintillation

An experiment is described showing that an optical scintillation instrument gives reliable values of heat and momentum fluxes in the surface layer, subject to the usual restrictions of homogeneity and steady state. This instrument measures the turbulence inner scale and refractive-index structure parameter, which are used to obtain the fluxes from Monin-Obukhov similarity relationships. The instrument gives space-averaged values over a propagation path that can range in length from tens to hundreds of meters. The history of the use of optical propagation to estimate fluxes is reviewed.     

Applied geomorphology and the impact of natural hazards on the built environment

This paper examines the scope and limitations of geomorphological investigation of the sites of architectural and engineering works. Various degrees of vulnerability, forms of impact, and types of applied geomorphological response are summarized. Aspects of land development and construction practice that may increase the vulnerability of buildings and structures to geomorphological hazards are discussed. Strengths and weaknesses of the geomorphological input to hazard mitigation are reviewed. Examples are described that show both negative and positive influences exerted by geomorphological site analysis on urban and regional planning for unstable terrains in Italy. It is concluded that societal choice, within the overall matrix of a society's culture (sensu largo), will influence the way in which vulnerability is managed at sites, and hence the scope for utilizing geomorphological analysis of the physical risks.     

Palynofacies, coal petrographic facies and depositional environments: Amphitheatre formation (Eocene to Oligocene) and Ravenscrag Formation (Maastrichtian to Paleocene), Canada

Low rank coals from two disparate geological settings have been subjected to petrographic and palynological analysis. The stratigraphic units studied and their locations are the Amphitheatre Formation, St Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, of Eocene to Oligocene age; and the base of the Ravenscrag Formation, south-central Saskatchewan, of latest Cretaceous to earliest Paleocene age.The depositional setting of the Amphitheatre Formation ranges from distal sand-dominated braided stream and lacustrine environments to proximal gravel-dominated fluvial environments. The coals are low in inertinite (< 6%) and mostly high in huminite (> 85%). In localities with a dominance of angiosperm pollen the relative abundance of eu-ulminite B and densinite is greatest whereas in the ones with a dominantly coniferous pollen assemblage eu-ulminite A is the most prominent maceral. These observations suggest as an immediate cause/effect relationship, an at least partial dependance of present maceral content on floral precursors. This in turn probably reflects a certain combination of depositional environment conditions (pH, Eh, temperature, etc.), that likely controlled the plant community and the preservation of vegetal matter.The depositional environment of coals from the basal part of the Ravenscrag Formation contrasts sharply with that of the Amphitheatre. The Ravenscrag coals formed within a low energy, stable, floodplain environment. Palynological and coal maceral profiles for the basal Ravenscrag Formation coal, which spans the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, indicates that the environment of deposition progressed from an open canopied swamp forest with areas of open water, through a phase of low-lying to open water swamps with herbaceous, pterophytic vegetation to, at least locally, raised bogs. The change in coal petrography across the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is shown to be relatively minor in comparison to subsequent changes in coal petrography in the earliest Paleocene and to changes that occur in the palynological assemblages across the boundary interval.     

Problems of pressure estimation in high temperature experiments using solid media apparatus with particular reference to piston-cylinder and anvil-with-hole apparatus (Part I)

The high albite (Ab)⇄jadeite (Jd)+quartz(Q) reaction (1) and the quartz(Q)⇄coesite (Cs) transformation (2) have been determined within the temperature range of 1000–1100°C and 1000–1400°C respectively under variable pressures using an anvil-with-hole apparatus. The equilibrium curves for the two reactions as a function ofP andT are as follows: P=−1·33+0·0296T (reaction 1);P=18·949+0·0111T(reaction 2). These two lines intersect at 31·1±0·5kb and 1096°C. The possibility of using an anvil-with-hole apparatus for conducting current investigations is discussed in this paper.     

Late Quaternary changes in surface water and deep water masses of the Nordic Seas and north-eastern North Atlantic: a review

Quantitative and semiquantitative proxy data based on more than 200 core-top samples and 100 deep-sea cores lead to important new insights about late Quaternary changes in paleo-oceanography, climate and microfaunal habitats in the north-eastern North Atlantic and Nordic Seas, insights resulting from a detailed investigation by the Kiel research project SFB 313/132 summarized in this paper. Planktonic foraminifera species provide reliable tracers of past sea surface temperatures and currents. The genus Beella in particular was found to trace subtropical water masses up to the far north. Benthic foraminifera species served as sensors of bottom currents and local flux rates of organic matter. New orders of time resolution are reached via stable isotope stratigraphy and accelerator mass spectrometry carbon-14 dating, allowing the identification of meltwater events lasting a few hundred years and shorter, a time range where, however, the yet unquantified role of bioturbation presents a growing problem. Based on this high-resolution stratigraphy a number of time slices (synoptic time intervals) are defined to reconstruct the incursion of Atlantic water masses, to map paleocurrent patterns within the Nordic Seas and the north-eastern North Atlantic and to test alternative circulation models — for example, for the last glacial maximum (LGM) and various meltwater episodes. These are clearly coeval with Dansgaard-Oeschger events found in Greenland ice cores, with the actual cause of the flickering climate as yet unknown. Likewise, there is ongoing controversy about the extent of past sea-ice cover and about possible changes from the present anti-estuarine to estuarine mode of deep water exchange between the North Atlantic and the Nordic Seas during the LGM. South of Iceland, however, the history of deep water renewal over the last glacial cycle covering the last 30000 years was largely deciphered.     

The Spectrum-UV Mission: an International Ultraviolet Observatory

The Spectrum-UV Mission is an ultraviolet space observatory, scheduled to be launched at the break of the century into a 7-day, highly excentric orbit aboard a Spectrum Series platform. The Observatory is endowed with a 170-cm aperture telescope and a focal plane instrument complement for spectroscopy and imaging in the 912 to 3600 range. The results of an advanced feasibility study, being carried out in the four partecipating Countries (Germany, Italy, Russia and Ukraine) are presented.