Inferring erosional resistance of bedrock units in the east Tennessee mountains from digital elevation data

Measures of local relief, regional relief, and slope were calculated from digital elevation models (DEMs) for 50 bedrock units in the Ridge and Valley and Blue Ridge provinces of Tennessee. Each of these measures was normalized and the three were then averaged to produce the erosional resistance index (ERI). Bedrock units with higher ERI values include coarse clastics, intermediate clastics, and metaplutonics. Units with lower values include shales, limestones, limestones plus dolostones, and carbonates plus fine clastics. Dolostones tend to have intermediate values. The calculated ERI values were compared with subjective ratings by a geologist with decades of field experience in east Tennessee. Generally, the agreement between the two ratings was good, the most glaring exception being several shales with improbably high ERI values. These turned out to be thin units cropping out beneath very hard sandstones, allowing them to stand higher and steeper than would otherwise be possible. A systematic method for detecting such erroneously high ERI values is suggested. Inspection of a drainage map superimposed on the geology map shows that in a given area, streams tend to flow on rock units with the lowest ERI values. In addition, statistical analysis shows that bedrock units with the lowest ERI values are, on average, almost three times closer to the nearest stream and six times as likely to have streams flowing on them than are units with highest values. Further, the effect of ERI on stream location is strongest for streams with drainage areas between 1 and 30 km². Thus, small streams appear to be subject to greater lithologic control than are larger streams.     

A canonical theory for short GPS baselines. Part II: the ambiguity precision and correlation

The present contribution is the second of four parts. It considers the precision and correlation of the least-squares estimators of the carrier phase ambiguities. It is shown how the precision and correlation of the double-differenced ambiguities as well as of the widelane ambiguities are effected by the observation weights, by the number of satellites tracked, by the number of observation epochs used, and by the change over time of the relative receiver-satellite geometry. Also the ability of the widelane transformation to decorrelate and to improve the precision is investigated. Received: 16 July 1996 / Accepted: 14 November 1996     

SENSITIVITY OF MALARIA, SCHISTOSOMIASIS AND DENGUE TO GLOBAL WARMING

Global assessment of the potential impacts of anthropogenically-induced climate change on vector-borne diseases suggests an increase in extent of the geographical areas susceptible to transmission of malarial Plasmodium parasites, dengue Flavivirus and Schistosoma worms. The transmission potential of the three associated vector-borne diseases studied is highly sensitive to climate changes on the periphery of the currently endemic areas and at higher altitudes within such areas. Our findings vis-à-vis the present endemic areas indicate that the increase in the epidemic potential of malaria and dengue transmission may be estimated at 12–27% and 31–47%, respectively, while in contrast, schistosomiasis transmission potential may be expected to exhibit a 11–17% decrease.     

Cation ordering of orthopyroxenes from the Skaergaard Intrusion: implications for the subsolidus cooling rates and permeabilities

 We have determined the quenched cation ordering states of five orthopyroxene crystals collected from the marginal border group and the lower zone a and b of the Skaergaard intrusion, and modeled these data to retrieve their closure temperatures (T _c) of Fe–Mg ordering and cooling rates. According to existing thermal models for the Skaergaard pluton, conductive cooling dominated the high and low temperature regimes, which were separated by an intermediate temperature regime in which the cooling was controlled primarily by convective fluid circulation. The cooling rates retrieved from the quenched cation ordering states of the orthopyroxene crystals strictly apply to temperatures around the closure temperatures of the ordering states, ∼340–400^° C, which fall at the transition from convective to the lower temperature conductive cooling. The cooling rates obtained from the cation ordering states of orthopyroxene vary from ∼1 to 270 K/ka. These results agree well with a thermal model calculated using an assumed average permeability of 10^-12 cm² for the pluton, but not completely with a model calculated on the basis of an average permeability of 10^-13 cm², although both values produced shifts of δ¹⁸O that are comparable to those observed in the pluton. Received: 27 February 1995/Accepted: 20 July 1995     

Late Cretaceous rift-related upwelling and melting of the Trindade starting mantle plume head beneath western Brazil

High mantle potential temperatures and local extension, associated with the Late-Cretaceous impact of the Trindade mantle plume, produced substantial widespread and voluminous magmatism around the northern half of the Paraná sedimentary basin. Our previous studies have shown that, above the central and eastern portions of the postulated impact zone where lithosphere extension is minimal, heat conducted by the plume caused large-scale melting of the more fusible parts of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath the margin of the São Francisco craton and the surrounding Brasilía mobile belt. Here we combine geochemical data and field evidence from the Poxoreu Igneous Province, western Brazil to show how more intense lithospheric extension above the western margin of the postulated impact zone permitted greater upwelling and melting of the Trindade plume than further east. Laser ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age determinations indicate that rift-related basaltic magmas of the Poxoreu Igneous Province were emplaced at ? 84 Ma. Our detailed geochemical study of the mafic magmas shows that the parental melts underwent polybaric crystal fractionation within the crust prior to final emplacement. Furthermore, some magmas (quartz-normative) appear to have assimilated upper crust whereas others (nepheline- and hypersthene-normative) appear to have been unaffected by open-system crustal magma chamber processes. Incompatible trace element ratios (e.g. chondrite-normalised La/Nb?=?1) and isotopic ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr?=?0.704 and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd?=?0.51274) of the Hy-normative basalts resemble those of oceanic islands (OIB). We therefore propose that these “OIB-like” magmas were predominantly derived from convecting-mantle-source melts (i.e. Trindade mantle plume). Inverse modelling of rare-earth element (REE) abundances suggests that the initial melts were predominantly generated within the depth range of ?80–100 km, in mantle with a potential temperature of ?1500 °C.