THE TORONTO STAR FRESH AIR FUND: TRANSCENDENTAL RESCUE IN A MODERN CITY, 1900–1915

ABSTRACT. The Toronto Star newspaper began rescuing poor children from the city's hottest, smokiest, and smelliest neighborhoods in 1901. The Fresh Air Fund, like park and playground planning, assumed that proximity to nature modified both health and behavior. Evoking transcendentalism—the idea that providential nature could move humanity into higher forms of existence—the Star sent children to the countryside near Toronto, albeit temporarily, assured of producing tangible health benefits. It also expected “nature” to convert the antibourgeois immorality of poor children into something more tolerable.     

Analyzing biases of nitrogen contents and δ~(15)N values arising from acidified marine sediments with different CaCO_3 concentrations

In some studies, the researchers pretreated and measured organic carbon, nitrogen and their isotopes(δ~(13)C and δ~(15)N) of marine sediment together, to save costs and resources of analysis. However, the procedure of acidification to remove inorganic carbon for analysing δ~(13)C can affect the values of nitrogen and δ~(15)N, and the biases vary a lot depending on the CaCO_3 contents of sediments. In this study, the biases of total nitrogen(TN)and δ~(15)N values arising from acidified sediments were compared between the CaCO_3-poor(1%–16%) and CaCO_3-rich(20%–40%) samples. TN and δ~(15)N values were altered during acid treatment(without centrifugation) that possibly led to N-containing compounds volatilization. For CaCO_3-poor samples, acidification led to a range of 0%–40% TN losses and 0‰–2‰ shift in δ~(15)N values; and 10%–60% TN losses and 1‰–14‰ shift in δ~(15)N values for CaCO_3-rich samples. The biases from most samples exceeded the precision of the instrument(0.002% for TN and 0.08‰ for δ~(15)N), and high biases could mislead our judgment for the environmental implication of the data. Thus,avoiding co-analysis of organic carbon, nitrogen and their isotopes(δ~(13)C and δ~(15)N) in sediments, even for CaCO_3-poor marine sediments, is necessary.     

Absolute Calibration of the Jason-1 Altimeter Using UK Tide Gauges

This article describes an “absolute” calibration of Jason-1 (J-1) altimeter sea surface height bias using a method developed for TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) bias determination reported previously. The method makes use of U.K. tide gauges equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers to measure sea surface heights at the same time, and in the same geocentric reference frame, as Jason-1 altimetric heights recorded in the nearby ocean. The main time-dependent components of the observed altimeter-minus-gauge height-difference time series are due to the slightly different ocean tides at the gauge and in the ocean. The main harmonic coefficients of the tide differences are calculated from analysis of the copious TOPEX data set and then applied to the determination of T, P, and J-1 bias in turn. Datum connections between the tide gauge and altimetric sea surface heights are made by means of precise, local geoid differences from the EGG97 model. By these means, we have estimated Jason-1 altimeter bias determined from Geophysical Data Record (GDR) data for cycles 1–61 to be 12.9 cm, with an accuracy estimated to be approximately 3 cm on the basis of our earlier work. This J-1 bias value is in close agreement with those determined by other groups, which provides a further confirmation of the validity of our method and of its potential for application in other parts of the world where suitable tide gauge, GPS, and geoid information exist.     

FLUCTUATIONS OF CRILLON GLACIER SYSTEM,SOUTHEAST ALASKA

Abstract

Crillon Glacier system (Lat. 58° 37′ N, Long. 137° 23′w) consisting of two long feeding arms and a common T-shaped ending along the Fairweather Fault, with two cliffed termini, has been advancing. La Perouse's sketch map in 1786 suggests that North and South Crillon Glaciers were back far enough to have separate termini in Lituya Bay, so they must have advanced at about 30 m/yr for 150 years. More detailed maps and photos show that North Crillon terminus did advance 28 m/yr into open water positions from 1894 to 1933. Some of this 4.5 km advance may well be just the result of consolidation of two long calving ice cliffs into one deep water front.

South Crillon front in the other arm of the “T”, where no junction of fronts is involved, also advanced into Crillon Lake 10 m/yr between 1929 and 1961. This implies that the basic cause was some increased snowfall on the high mountains. At the same time glaciers from lower peaks just to the east of Glacier Bay lost nearly all accumulation by a rising snowline and receded 5 to 11 km.

Since 1926 the Lituya Bay terminus has been more or less stable where it lies in water; however, the land portion has advanced 25 m/yr since 1948. Between about 1920 and 1961 a large gravel delta appeared and grew to 145 × 10⁶ m³, so this slow ice advance on one side of the front may be due to ice shearing over the new land of the fan where ablation is slower than watercliff calving.

Prehistoric advances of Crillon Glacier system are recorded in stratigraphic deposits dated by C-14. Trees buried in the prominent extensive outer moraine system around Crillon Lake and Lituya Bay were annihilated in the maximal push of the Little Ice Age 400 to 1000 years ago. The first advance came 1500 to 1800 years ago when logs became buried in glacial outwash, now under Little Ice Age till. Because it is regional, this was a climatic event involving a lowering snowline due to cooler summers.

Still further back, in hypsithermal time, these Crillon Glacier termini were probably as retracted as today, because many outcrops of buried forest 3000 to 9000 years old occur in alluvial deposits in Lituya Bay. Underneath all these is outwash gravel and till recording the last push of Wisconsin ice, ending at least 9000 years ago. Still earlier Wisconsin advances of North Crillon Glacier carried the Lituya Bay ice tongue a little further to sea, yet all through the pleistocene, unglaciated refugia endured between the ice streams.     

The perils of taxonomic inconsistency in quantitative palaeoecology: experiments with testate amoeba data

Payne, R. J., Lamentowicz, M. & Mitchell, E. A. D. 2010: The perils of taxonomic inconsistency in quantitative palaeoecology: experiments with testate amoeba data. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502‐3885.2010.00174.x. ISSN 0300‐9483. A fundamental requirement of quantitative palaeoecology is consistent taxonomy between a modern training set and palaeoecological data. In this study we assess the possible consequences of violation of this requirement by simulating taxonomic errors in testate amoeba data. Combinations of easily confused taxa were selected, and data manipulated to reflect confusion of these taxa; transfer functions based on unmodified data were then applied to these modified data sets. Initially these experiments were carried out one error at a time using four modern training sets; subsequently, multiple errors were separately simulated both in four modern training sets and in four palaeoecological data sets. Some plausible taxonomic confusions caused major biases in reconstructed values. In the case of two palaeoecological data sets, a single consistent taxonomic error was capable of changing the pattern of environmental reconstruction beyond all recognition, totally removing any real palaeoenvironmental signal. The issue of taxonomic consistency is one that many researchers would rather ignore; our results show that the consequences of this may ultimately be severe.     

Chert spheroids of the Monterey Formation,California (USA): early‐diagenetic structures of bedded siliceous deposits

Chert spheroids are distinctive, early‐diagenetic features that occur in bedded siliceous deposits spanning the Phanerozoic. These features are distinct in structure and genesis from similar, concentrically banded ‘wood‐grain’ or ‘onion‐skin’ chert nodules from carbonate successions. In the Miocene Monterey Formation of California (USA), chert spheroids are irregular, concentrically banded nodules, which formed by a unique version of brittle differential compaction that results from the contrasting physical properties of chert and diatomite. During shortening, there is brittle fracture of diatomite around, and horizontally away from, the convex surface of strain‐resistant chert nodules. Unlike most older siliceous deposits, the Monterey Formation still preserves all stages of silica diagenesis, thus retaining textural, mineralogical and geochemical features key to unravelling the origin of chert spheroids and other enigmatic chert structures. Chert spheroids found in opal‐A diatomite form individual nodules composed of alternating bands of impure opal‐CT chert and pure opal‐CT or chalcedony. With increased burial diagenesis, surrounding diatomite transforms to bedded porcelanite or chert, and spheroids no longer form discrete nodules, yet still display characteristic concentric bands of pure and impure microcrystalline quartz and chalcedony. Petrographic observations show that the purer silica bands are composed of void‐filling cement that precipitated in curved dilational fractures, and do not reflect geochemical growth‐banding in the manner of Liesegang phenomena invoked to explain concentrically banded chert nodules in limestone. Chertification of bedded siliceous sediment can occur more shallowly (< 100 m) and rapidly (< 1 Myr) than the bulk silica phase transitions forming porcelanite or siliceous shale in the Monterey Formation and other hemipelagic/pelagic siliceous deposits. Early diagenesis is indicated by physical properties, deformational style and oxygen‐isotopic composition of chert spheroids. Early‐formed cherts formed by pore‐filling impregnation of the purest primary diatomaceous beds, along permeable fractures and in calcareous–siliceous strata.     

Structure of a silica diagenetic transformation zone: the Gjallar Ridge,offshore Norway

Three‐dimensional seismic data from the Gjallar Ridge were used together with X‐ray diffraction data, scientific boreholes and wireline logs to analyse the seismic structure of a silica diagenetic transformation zone. The following features were identified: (i) an interval some 150 to 300 m thick that contains anomalously high‐amplitude reflections; (ii) a strong reflection event at the top of this interval which cross‐cuts stratigraphy, interpreted as the transformation boundary between opal‐A‐rich and opal‐CT‐rich sediment; (iii) amplitude variations on stratigraphic reflections within the interval, attributed to variations in the proportions of opal‐A and opal‐CT; and (iv) a second, deeper, cross‐cutting reflection event within the interval, interpreted as the transformation boundary between opal‐CT‐rich and quartz‐rich sediment. The base of the interval containing the anomalously high‐amplitude reflections is interpreted as a stratigraphic reflection demarcating the base of the silica‐rich strata. On a stratigraphic reflection within the interval of high amplitudes, roughly circular regions of anomalously high amplitude with diameters of 0·8 to 2·5 km are separated by lower amplitude regions. This pattern is similar to the cells previously identified at the opal‐A to opal‐CT transformation boundary and probably results from more complete transformation of opal‐A to opal‐CT. All of these observations provide the first recognition from seismic data that silica diagenetic transformations are not always narrow boundaries represented by single cross‐cutting seismic reflection events, as implied previously, but can be heterogeneous and hundreds of metres in thickness, as observed at outcrop.     

Managing the transition to climate stabilization

It is becoming increasingly clear that economically efficient climate policies are unlikely to be implemented in the near term. Therefore an analysis is warranted that considers the implications of certain suboptimal transition policies. This analysis constructs a transition scenario based on realistic assumptions about the current trends in policy-making. The transition is examined in the context of varying assumptions about the stringency of the target and the availability of low- or no-carbon energy technologies in the future. In addition to evaluating the effects of suboptimal policies, the transitional analysis offers new insights about the intrinsic uncertainty regarding both the appropriate stabilization target and technology.