Radiocarbon dates and late-Quaternary stratigraphy from Mamontova Gora,unglaciated central Yakutia,Siberia, U.S.S.R.

A fine exposure of perennially frozen ice-rich silt and associated flora and vertebrate fauna of late-Quaternary age exists at Mamontova Gora along the Aldan River in central Yakutia, Siberia, U.S.S.R. The silt deposit caps a 50-m-high terrace and consists of three units. An upper layer 1–2 m thick overlies a 10–15-m-thick brownish to black silt layer. The lower silt layer is greenish to gray and about 15 m thick. All the silt is well sorted with 60% of the particles falling between 0.005 and 0.5 mm in diameter and is generally chemically and mineralogically homogeneous. The middle unit contains may extinct vertebrate mammal remains and ice wedges. The lower unit contains little vegetation and no ice wedges. The silt is widespread and exists as a loamy blanket on terraces at various elevations on both sides of the lower Aldan River. The origin of the silt blanket of late-Quaternary age in central Yakutia has long been controversial. Various hypotheses have been suggested, including lacustrine and alluvial, as well as frost-action origins. It is sometimes referred to as loess-like loam. Péwé believes the silt at Mamontova Gora is loess, some of which has been retransported very short distances by water. The silt probably was blown from wide, braided, unvegetated flood plains of rivers draining nearby glaciers. The silt deposits are late Quaternary in age and probably associated with the Maximum glaciation (Samarov) and Sartan and Syryan glaciations of Wisconsinan age. On the basis of biostratigraphy, 10 radiocarbon dates, and their relation to the nearby glacial record, it is felt that the upper unit at Mamontova Gora is Holocene and the middle unit is Wisconsinan. The youngest date available from the middle unit at this particular location is 26,000 years. Dates greater than 56,000 years were obtained in the lower part of the middle unit. The lower unit is definitely beyond the range of radiocarbon dating and probably is older than the last interglacial. The sediment, fauna, ice wedges, stratigraphy, and age of perennially frozen slit deposits in central Alaska are remarkably similar to those of the deposits exposed in central Yakutia. Both areas consist of unglaciated rolling lowlands and river terraces surrounded by high mountains that were extensively glaciated in Pleistocene time. The glaciers extended from the high mountains to the edges of the ranges. In both regions, extensively braided, silt-charged rivers drained the mountains and flowed through the lowlands on their way to the sea. It follows that there should be a similar late-Quaternary history.     

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Statistical analysis of isotopic ratios in MORB: the mantle blob cluster model and the convective regime of the mantle

A statistical examination of isotopic distributions for MORB from various ocean ridges leads to the “blob cluster model”, in which the oceanic crust accreting at ridges results from the mixing of two components within the ascending mantle. These are (1) upper mantle material and (2) discrete rising blobs of more radiogenic material. The blobs are fractionated to a variable degree and are distributed in the upper mantle circulation in a manner that is related to the spreading rate.(1) Themean values of the isotopic distributions allow us to calculate the probabilities of the two types of material within the mantle. The results show that theproportion of asthenospheric material in the mixtureincreases with the spreading rate, in agreement with the hypothesis of blob dilution within the upper mantle convection.Mass fluxes can be estimated for the rising blobs from these probabilities, which depend on the respective concentrations in the sources of the two types of material. If the blobs originate in the lower mantle, this flux estimation would suggest that a significant part of the lower mantle has been injected into the upper mantle during earth history.(2) Thestandard deviations of the distributions depend on the “efficiency” of the mixing process:the more imbricated are the asthenospheric and blob materials in the mixture,the smaller is theisotopic spread. This efficiency parameter is shown to increase with the spreading rate, as already suggested by previous comparisons between the East Pacific Rise and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Moreover, this feature may also be correlated with other data such as ridge bathymetric variations.     

Particulate content of savanna fire emissions

As part of the FOS-DECAFE experiment at Lamto (Ivory Coast) in January 1991, various aerosol samples were collected at ground level near prescribed fires or under local background conditions, to characterize the emissions of particulate matter from the burning of savanna vegetation. This paper deals with total aerosol (TPM) and carbon measurements. Detailed trace element and polycyclic hydrocarbon data are discussed in other papers presented in this issue.Near the fire plumes, the aerosols from biomass burning are primarily of a carbonaceous nature (C%70% of the aerosol mass) and consist predominantly of submicron particles (more than 90% in mass.) They are characterized by their organic nature (black to total carbon ratio Cb/Ct in the range 3–20%) and their high potassium content (K/Cb0.6). These aerosols undergo aging during their first minutes in the atmosphere causing slight alterations in their size distribution and chemical composition. However, they remain enriched in potassium (K/Cb=0.21) and pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, such that both of these species may be used as tracers of savanna burning aerosols. We show that during this period of the year, the background atmosphere experiences severe pollution from both terrigenous sources and regional biomass burning (44% of the aerosol). Daynight variations of the background carbon concentrations suggest that fire ignition and spreading occur primarily during the day. Simultaneous TPM and CO₂ real-time measurements point to a temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the burning so that the ratio of the above background concentrations (TPM/CO₂) varies from 2 to 400 g/kg C. Smoldering processes are intense sources of particles but particulate emissions may also be important during the rapidly spreading heading fires in connection with the generation of heavy brown smoke. We propose emission factor values (EF) for aerosols from the savanna biomass burning aerosols: EF (TPM)=11.4±4.6 and 69±25 g/kg C_{dry plant} and EF(Ct)=7.4±3.4 and 56±16 g C/kg C_{dry plant} for flaming and smoldering processes respectively. In these estimates, the range of uncertainty is mostly due to the intra-fire variability. These values are significantly lower than those reported in the literature for the combustion of other types of vegetation. But due to the large amounts of vegetation biomass being burnt in African savannas, the annual flux of particulate carbon into the atmosphere is estimated to be of the order of 8 Tg C, which rivals particulate carbon emissions from anthropogenic activities in temperate regions.     

The role of temperature on treeline migration for an eastern African mountain during the Last Glacial Maximum

Paleo-data suggest that East African mountain treelines underwent an altitudinal shift during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Understanding the ecological and physiological processes underlying treeline response to such past climate change will help to improve forecasts of treeline change under future global warming. In spite of significant improvements in paleoclimatic reconstruction, the climatic conditions explaining this migration are still debated and important factors such as atmospheric CO₂ concentration, the impact of lapse rate decreasing temperature along altitudinal gradients and rainfall modifications due to elevation have often been neglected or simplified. Here, we assess the effects of these different factors and estimate the influence of the most dominant factors controlling changes in past treeline position using a multi-proxy approach based on simulations from BIOME4, a coupled biogeography and biogeochemistry model, modified to account for the effect of elevation on vegetation, compared with pollen, and isotopic data. The results indicate a shift in mountain vegetation at the LGM was controlled by low pCO₂ and low temperatures promoting species morphologically and physiologically better adapted to LGM conditions than many trees composing the forest belt limit. Our estimate that the LGM climate was cooler than today’s by ?4.5 °C (range: ?4.3 to ?4.6 °C) at the upper limit of the treeline, whereas at 831 m it was cooler by ?1.4 °C (range: ?2.6 to ?0.6 °C), suggests that a possible lapse rate modification strongly constrained the upper limit of treeline, which may limit its potential extension under future global warming.     

Changes in Nutrient Biogeochemistry in Response to the Regression of Zostera noltii Meadows in the Arcachon Bay (France)

From 1989 to 2007, a severe decline in Zostera noltii meadows was reported in the Arcachon Bay, with an accelerated regression after 2005. We investigated the inter-annual variability of the biogeochemistry of the sediment in an area affected by seagrass decline. In late summer and in winter of the years 2006, 2010, and 2011, sediment cores were collected at low tide on vegetated and adjacent non-vegetated sediments located in the eastern part of the Arcachon Bay. The geochemical analyses of sediment solid-phase organic carbon, reactive P and Fe, and the pore water concentrations of Fe²⁺, DIP, and NH₄ ⁺ are presented. The changes in the chemistry of sediment and pore water between 2006 and 2010 are interpreted as a consequence of the decrease in the Z. noltii biomass between 2006 and 2010. The absence of significant seasonal variations in biomass throughout the growth period (March–September) in 2011 is most likely related to the regression of Z. noltii meadow that strongly affects the study area. In contrast to the healthy meadow in 2006, the declining meadow favored the dissolution of sedimentary particulate phosphorus in winter. In late summer, the low biomass of seagrass resulted in a net release of ammonium in the pore water of the upper 20 cm of sediment. This study clearly shows that seagrass decay may enhance nutrient release in sediments, resulting in a significant supply of phosphorus to the water column of a magnitude comparable to annual inputs to the lagoon from the rivers and the tidal pump.     

Numerical simulation of the diurnal cycle of rainfall in SW Amazon basin during the 1999 rainy season: the role of convective trigger function

In continental areas, the maximum rainfall simulated with the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (BRAMS) occurs around 4?h earlier than the one observed with rain gauges. This work presents the successful implementation of a new convective trigger function (CTF) in the convective parameterization scheme used in BRAMS that corrects this misfit between model and observations. The importance of the CTF formulation on the diurnal cycle of rainfall over the Amazon Basin is reflected by the following numbers: Over Rondonia (SW Amazonia), the original version of BRAMS simulates the maximum rainfall at 1400 UTC (1000 LST), with the new CTF maximum shifting to 1800?UTC (1400?LST), while the S-band radar rainfall maximum is at 1900?UTC (1500?LST). This is attributed to two factors: (1) the new CTF is now coupled to the sensible and latent heat fluxes at surface; (2) during the early morning, the convective available potential energy is reduced.     

Nuclear Waste Disposal Simulations: Couplex Test Cases

We give some results obtained for the Couplex test cases proposed by the ANDRA. In this paper our aim is twofold. Firstly, to compute the release of nuclides out of the repository by concentrating on the 3D near field (Couplex 2). The simulation of the transport phenomena takes into account the dissolution of the glass containers and congruent emissions of the radio-nuclides including filiation chains and some simplified chemistry. Secondly, it is to use the near field computations in order to simulate the nuclide migrations in a 2D far field (Couplex 3). Coupling in between the two simulations takes into consideration the periodicity of the disposal modules and the geometry of the repository described in Couplex 1. The mixed finite element and discontinuous Galerkin methods are used to solve the convection–diffusion equations. In order to handle the nonlinear precipitation/dissolution term, we developed a new iterative technique that combines Picard and Newton–Raphson methods.     

Diurnal Variation of Gravity Wave Activity at Midlatitudes in the Ionospheric F Region

We investigate the short-term fluctuations in the period range from 15 to 180 minutes in the electron density variations of the F region ionosphere. Electron density profiles obtained at the ionospheric stations of Pruhonice (49.9° N, 14.5° E) and Ebro (40.8° N, 0.5° E) at five minute time sampling have been used for this analysis. The diurnal changes of the activity of the acoustic gravity wave fluctuations (AGW) show a clear enhancement during and several hours after sunrise. The periods of such AGW's are about 60 to 75 minutes and these waves propagates vertically through the ionosphere from a source located at an altitude of 180-220 km. The most likely source for these events seems to be passage of the Solar terminator.