Cretaceous stratigraphy and palaeoenvironments of the Southern Petén Basin, Guatemala

The Cretaceous deposits of the Southern Petén Basin, an oil-producing province, are located to the south of the Yucatan Platform and to the east of the Chiapas Carbonate Platform of Mexico. The succession in the southern part of this basin has been studied both in wells and at outcrop by microfacies analysis. It is composed of 5000 m of shallow marine carbonates and evaporites with a few thin layers of pelagic limestones rich in organic carbon and planktic foraminifera deposited during peak transgressions or maximum flooding. The sedimentation of this thick succession was not continuous, and the section is punctuated by subaerial erosional bounding surfaces and a single hardground which marks the final drowning of the carbonate platform during the late Maastrichtian. New age determinations have been obtained on the basis of planktic and benthic foraminifera from the Aptian to Santonian Cobán Formation, D, C, B and A Members. Cobán C (Albian) and B (Cenomanian) Members are the present oil reservoirs. The rudist and alveolinid limestones of late Campanian and Maastrichtian age referred to the Campur Formation in the Southern Petén Basin are here reassigned to the Angostura Formation, as recognized in the Chiapas area. The Actela Formation is defined here to encompass the limestone breccia deposits that occur at the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary and extend into the Parvularugoglobigerina eugubina Zone of early Danian age. The D, C, B and A Members of the Cobán Formation and the Angostura Formation represent second order transgressive and regressive trends in a passive margin area where the deposits indicate a succession of various environments, including fluviatile, salinas, shallow marine carbonate platform, outer shelf and intrashelf basin. High subsidence rates, sea-level changes and tectonic uplift controlled the sedimentation.

Abstract

Les formations crétacées du sud-est du Bassin du Petén, région pétrolière du nord du Guatemala, sont situées au Sud du Yucatan et à l'Est du Chiapas au Mexique. Ces sédiments ont été étudiés à la fois dans deux puits et à l'affleurement par l'analyse des microfaciès. Cet ensemble sédimentaire est composé de 5000 m de carbonates de plate-forme de faible profondeur et d'évaporites, dans lesquels s'intercalent de minces couches de calcaires pélagiques riches en matière organique et en foraminifères planctoniques. Ces calcaires pélagiques se sont déposés lors des maximums de transgressions. La sédimentation de cette épaisse série n'est pas continue et est ponctuée par quelques surfaces d'érosion sub-aérienne et une surface durcie qui souligne l'ennoyage définitif de la plate-forme carbonatée au Maastrichtien terminal. De nouvelles datations ont été obtenues sur la formation Cobán et ses membres D, C, B et A qui s'étagent de l'Aptien au Santonien. Les membres C (albien) et B (cénomanien) constituent les réservoirs productifs. Les calcaires à rudistes et à alveolinidés du Campanien supérieur–Maastrichtien ont été appelés à tort au Petén formation Campur. Ils doivent, selon nous, être attribués à la formation Angostura comme au Chiapas voisin, où affleurent des faciès comparables et de même âge. Une nouvelle formation est créée (formation Actela) pour les brèches calcaires de la limite Crétacé–Tertiaire et de la Zone à Eugubina du Danien inférieur. Les membres D, C, B, A de la formation Cobán et la formation Angostura représentent des cycles transgressifs–régressifs de deuxième ordre. Sur cette marge passive du Petén, les dépôts correspondent à des environnements variés comme des terres émergées soumises à une altération karstique et à des dépôts fluviatiles, des salinas, des plates-formes carbonatées marines, des shelf externes et des bassins intra plate-forme. La sédimentation a été, ici, contrôlée par une forte vitesse de subsidence, les variations du niveau marin et des soulèvements tectoniques.     

Electricity consumption patterns within cities: application of a data-driven settlement characterization method

ABSTRACT

Urban areas presently consume around 75% of global primary energy supply, which is expected to significantly increase in the future due to urban growth. Having sustainable, universal energy access is a pressing challenge for most parts of the globe. Understanding urban energy consumption patterns may help to address the challenges to urban sustainability and energy security. However, urban energy analyses are severely limited by the lack of urban energy data. Such datasets are virtually non-existent for the developing countries. As per current projections, most of the new urban growth is bound to occur in these data-starved regions. Hence, there is an urgent need of research methods for monitoring and quantifying urban energy utilization patterns. Here, we apply a data-driven approach to characterize urban settlements based on their formality, which is then used to assess intra-urban urban energy consumption in Johannesburg, South Africa; Sana’a, Yemen; and Ndola, Zambia. Electricity is the fastest growing energy fuel. By analyzing the relationship between the settlement types and the corresponding nighttime light emission, a proxy of electricity consumption, we assess the differential electricity consumption patterns. Our study presents a simple and scalable solution to fill the present data void to understand intra-city electricity consumption patterns.     

Discrete calculations of interstellar migration and settlement

Monte Carlo calculations of the expansion of space-faring civilizations are presented for a wide range of values of the population growth coefficient (α) and emigration coefficient (γ). Even for the very low values proposed by Newman and Sagan (α = 10^?4per year; γ = 10^?8per year) the migration wavefront expands at 1.4 × 10^?5 pc per year. Even with this low expansion velocity, such a civilization would fill the Galaxy in about 10⁹ years. Filling times of the order of 60 million years seem probable. The wavefront velocity is approximated by $\text{υ =}\text{Δr}\text{[(}\text{Δx}\text{υ}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>s</mtext>}}\text{)}\text{+ (}\text{1}\text{α}\text{)}\text{ln}\text{(}\text{2α}\text{γ}\text{)]}$, where $\text{Δr}$ is the average radial distance traveled, $\text{δx}$ the average distance traveled, and υ_s the ship speed. This approximation was derived by Newman.     

Pierre Mercier (1890–1976)

Sans résumé Insp. cant. eaux VD     

The inhibition of marine nitrification by ocean disposal of carbon dioxide

In an attempt to reduce the threat of global warming, it has been proposed that the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations be reduced by the ocean disposal of CO2 from the flue gases of fossil fuel-fired power plants. The release of large amounts of CO2 into mid or deep ocean waters will result in large plumes of acidified seawater with pH values ranging from 6 to 8. In an effort to determine whether these CO2-induced pH changes have any effect on marine nitrification processes, surficial (euphotic zone) and deep (aphotic zone) seawater samples were sparged with CO2 for varying time durations to achieve a specified pH reduction, and the rate of microbial ammonia oxidation was measured spectrophotometrically as a function of pH using an inhibitor technique. For both seawater samples taken from either the euphotic or aphotic zone, the nitrification rates dropped drastically with decreasing pH. Relative to nitrification rates in the original seawater at pH 8, nitrification rates were reduced by ca. 50% at pH 7 and more than 90% at pH 6.5. Nitrification was essentially completely inhibited at pH 6. These findings suggest that the disposal of CO2 into mid or deep oceans will most likely result in a drastic reduction of ammonia oxidation rates within the pH plume and the concomitant accumulation of ammonia instead of nitrate. It is unlikely that ammonia will reach the high concentration levels at which marine aquatic organisms are known to be negatively affected. However, if the ammonia-rich seawater from inside the pH plume is upwelled into the euphotic zone, it is likely that changes in phytoplankton abundance and community structure will occur. Finally, the large-scale inhibition of nitrification and the subsequent reduction of nitrite and nitrate concentrations could also result in a decrease of denitrification rates which, in turn, could lead to the buildup of nitrogen and unpredictable eutrophication phenomena. Clearly, more research on the environmental effects of ocean disposal of CO2 is needed to determine whether the potential costs related to marine ecosystem disturbance and disruption can be justified in terms of the perceived benefits that may be achieved by temporarily delaying global warming.     

On the climate response of the low-latitude Pacific Ocean to changes in the global freshwater cycle

Under global warming, the predicted intensification of the global freshwater cycle will modify the net freshwater flux at the ocean surface. Since the freshwater flux maintains ocean salinity structures, changes to the density-driven ocean circulation are likely. A modified ocean circulation could further alter the climate, potentially allowing rapid changes, as seen in the past. The relevant feedback mechanisms and timescales are poorly understood in detail, however, especially at low latitudes where the effects of salinity are relatively subtle. In an attempt to resolve some of these outstanding issues, we present an investigation of the climate response of the low-latitude Pacific region to changes in freshwater forcing. Initiated from the present-day thermohaline structure, a control run of a coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation model is compared with a perturbation run in which the net freshwater flux is prescribed to be zero over the ocean. Such an extreme experiment helps to elucidate the general adjustment mechanisms and their timescales. The atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are held constant, and we restrict our attention to the adjustment of the upper 1,000 m of the Pacific Ocean between 40°N and 40°S, over 100 years. In the perturbation run, changes to the surface buoyancy, near-surface vertical mixing and mixed-layer depth are established within 1 year. Subsequently, relative to the control run, the surface of the low-latitude Pacific Ocean in the perturbation run warms by an average of 0.6°C, and the interior cools by up to 1.1°C, after a few decades. This vertical re-arrangement of the ocean heat content is shown to be achieved by a gradual shutdown of the heat flux due to isopycnal (i.e. along surfaces of constant density) mixing, the vertical component of which is downwards at low latitudes. This heat transfer depends crucially upon the existence of density-compensating temperature and salinity gradients on isopycnal surfaces. The timescale of the thermal changes in the perturbation run is therefore set by the timescale for the decay of isopycnal salinity gradients in response to the eliminated freshwater forcing, which we demonstrate to be around 10–20 years. Such isopycnal heat flux changes may play a role in the response of the low-latitude climate to a future accelerated freshwater cycle. Specifically, the mechanism appears to represent a weak negative sea surface temperature feedback, which we speculate might partially shield from view the anthropogenically-forced global warming signal at low latitudes. Furthermore, since the surface freshwater flux is shown to play a role in determining the ocean’s thermal structure, it follows that evaporation and/or precipitation biases in general circulation models are likely to cause sea surface temperature biases.     

Delivering pro-poor water and sanitation services: The technical and political challenges in Malawi and Zambia

Meeting Millennium Development Goals on water and sanitation services in developing countries are fraught with difficulties, as can be seen most clearly from the experiences of Malawi and Zambia, two of the world’s poorest countries that have committed to meeting these goals. The challenges are not only technical, requiring programmatic or engineering solutions, but are also and most importantly political, because solutions will most often cause a rearrangement of the peculiar forms of power relations that have emerged within institutional and political environments of the two countries. The challenges include weak state support for water and sanitation provision, unreliable and contested indicators of coverage, poor sectoral co-ordination, and fragmented donor efforts. This field note examines these challenges in greater detail to cast new light as well as draw attention to possible solutions that can be implemented.     

Cenozoic post-collisional brittle tectonic history and stress reorientation in the High Zagros Belt (Iran, Fars Province)

The Zagros fold-and-thrust belt of SW-Iran is among the youngest continental collision zones on Earth. Collision is thought to have occurred in the late Oligocene–early Miocene, followed by continental shortening. The High Zagros Belt (HZB) presents a Neogene imbricate structure that has affected the thick sedimentary cover of the former Arabian continental passive margin. The HZB of interior Fars marks the innermost part of SE-Zagros, trending NW–SE, that is characterised by higher elevation, lack of seismicity, and no evident active crustal shortening with respect to the outer (SW) parts. This study examines the brittle structures that developed during the mountain building process to decipher the history of polyphase deformation and variations in compressive tectonic fields since the onset of collision. Analytic inversion techniques enabled us to determine and separate different brittle tectonic regimes in terms of stress tensors. Various strike–slip, compressional, and tensional stress regimes are thus identified with different stress fields. Brittle tectonic analyses were carried out to reconstruct possible geometrical relationships between different structures and to establish relative chronologies of corresponding stress fields, considering the folding process. Results indicate that in the studied area, the main fold and thrust structure developed in a general compressional stress regime with an average N032° direction of σ₁ stress axis during the Miocene. Strike–slip structures were generated under three successive strike–slip stress regimes with different σ₁ directions in the early Miocene (N053°), late Miocene–early Pliocene (N026°), and post-Pliocene (N002°), evolving from pre-fold to post-fold faulting. Tensional structures also developed as a function of the evolving stress regimes. Our reconstruction of stress fields suggests an anticlockwise reorientation of the horizontal σ₁ axis since the onset of collision and a significant change in vertical stress from σ₃ to σ₂ since the late stage of folding and thrusting. A late right-lateral reactivation was also observed on some pre-existing belt-parallel brittle structures, especially along the reverse fault systems, consistent with the recent N–S plate convergence. However, this feature was not reflected by large structures in the HZB of interior Fars. The results should not be extrapolated to the entire Zagros belt, where the deformation front has propagated from inner to outer zones during the younger events.