Travel-time anomalies in the mantle under the North Atlantic

Summary. Lateral heterogeneity exists in the Earth's mantle, and may result in seismic velocity anomalies up to several per cent. If convection cells and plumes extend down to the core, then these features may be associated with local inhomogeneities observed in the lower mantle.
Published data for direct and core-reflected P -wave residuals are used to delineate velocity anomalies in the middle—lower mantle under the North Atlantic. Differential ( PcP — P ) residuals indicate travel-time anomalies near the core—mantle transition, and may be due to core topography or lateral variations in velocity. It is assumed that the anomalies occur near the midpoints of the ray paths. The main source of error in the data set may arise from phases which have been identified incorrectly. Hence trend-surfaces are fitted to the residual data to show only the large-scale trends in anomaly values, with wavelengths of the order of 1000 km.
The Azores and Colorado hot spots occur in a region covered by the data. A possible interpretation of the trend maps is that an anomalous zone extends from a relatively fast region at the core boundary at 35° N, 50° W up to these hot spots, at about 30 degrees from the vertical. This may agree with the suggestion of Anderson that plumes are chemical rather than thermal in origin. If inclⁱned plumes do exist, the deviation from the ideal vertical plume or convection cell boundary may imply that lateral shear or other distortion effects exist in the mantle.     

Effect of snowpack removal on energy balance,melt and runoff in a small supraglacial catchment

Modelling melt and runoff from snow‐ and ice‐covered catchments is important for water resource and hazard management and for the scientific study of glacier hydrology, dynamics and hydrochemistry. In this paper, a distributed, physically based model is used to determine the effects of the up‐glacier retreat of the snowline on spatial and temporal patterns of melt and water routing across a small (0·11 km²) supraglacial catchment on Haut Glacier d'Arolla, Switzerland. The melt model uses energy‐balance theory and accounts for the effects of slope angle, slope aspect and shading on the net radiation fluxes, and the effects of atmospheric stability on the turbulent fluxes. The water routing model uses simplified snow and open‐channel hydrology theory and accounts for the delaying effects of vertical and horizontal water flow through snow and across ice. The performance of the melt model is tested against hourly measurements of ablation in the catchment. Calculated and measured ablation rates show a high correlation (r² = 0·74) but some minor systematic discrepancies in the short term (hours). These probably result from the freezing of surface water at night, the melting of the frozen layer in the morning, and subsurface melting during the afternoon. The performance of the coupled melt/routing model is tested against hourly discharge variations measured in the supraglacial stream at the catchment outlet. Calculated and measured runoff variations show a high correlation (r² = 0·62). Five periods of anomalously high measured discharge that were not predicted by the model were associated with moulin overflow events. The radiation and turbulent fluxes contribute c. 86% and c. 14% of the total melt energy respectively. These proportions do not change significantly as the surface turns from snow to ice, because increases in the outgoing shortwave radiation flux (owing to lower albedo) happen to be accompanied by decreases in the incoming shortwave radiation flux (owing to lower solar incidence angles) and increases in the turbulent fluxes (owing to higher air temperatures and vapour pressures). Model sensitivity experiments reveal that the net effect of snow pack removal is to increase daily mean discharges by c. 50%, increase daily maximum discharges by >300%, decrease daily minimum discharges by c. 100%, increase daily discharge amplitudes by >1000%, and decrease the lag between peak melt rates and peak discharges from c. 3 h to c. 50 min. These changes have important implications for the development of subglacial drainage systems. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Western Australia: the resource state

This paper examines the strength of Western Australia's claim to be ‘the resource state’. It traces the history of the state's mineral development and points to close links between the development, the growth of the economy and the spread of settlement. The crucial role of the state government in facilitating capital investment and fostering a growth ideology is also highlighted. The paper argues that while resource development and capital investment have brought tangible economic benefits to Western Australia and the nation, certain costs have also been generated. Growth has caused damage to the physical environment and the once‐numerous Aboriginal population. Moreover, given the international commodity crisis of the 1980s, mineral export strength is no sure recipe for economic success.     

Mantle convection and early crustal evolution

The existence of peridotitic komatiites in the Archaean suggests that the Archaean mantle was significantly hotter than the modern mantle. This evidence is contradicted by estimates of Archaean continental geothermal gradients, based on the pressure and temperature recorded in metamorphic rocks, which suggest that there is no marked difference between Archaean and modern continental geothermal gradients.Numerical modelling shows that small changes in the mantle temperature can have an important influence on convection. If the average temperature of the upper mantle is increased by 200°C, convection within the mantle becomes chaotic and an upper mantle partial melt zone encircles the globe. The crust formed during this period will be komatiitic in composition but will be unstable and will be mixed back into the mantle by subduction. Later, when the mantle temperature falls to 100°C above its present level, the upper mantle partial melt zone contracts away from subduction areas.It is suggested that the first primitive felsic magmas were generated at subduction zones. The appearance of these magmas at ～3.8 Ga permitted the formation of buoyant continents and eventually led to crustal thickening. As a consequence of this thickening the proto-continents, consisting of a bimodal suite of basalts and sodic granodiorites, contained two types of latent energy: (1) radioactive energy held in elements such as Th, K and U; and (2) potential energy resulting from the elevation of the continents above sea level. The potential energy of the continents led to sedimentation. The increase in the rate of sedimentation during the Archaean resulted from increased crustal buoyancy. At the same time heat released by radioactive elements in the deep crust built up under the insulating blanket of the upper crust. This caused a major metamorphic, metasomatic and crustal melting event which produced the potassic granites of the late Archaean. Once the radioactive elements had been removed from the lower crust, that region of the continent become tectonically stable. The Proterozoic shelf sediments were deposited at the margins of these stable cratons.Convection models of the Archaean mantle show hot diapirs rising from the boundary layer above the core—mantle interface. We suggest that these diapirs began to melt at a depth of ～ 450 km, giving rise to komatiitic magmas. This model requires the average temperature of the Archaean upper mantle to be ～ 100°C above that of the modern mantle. The similarity between Archaean and modern continental geothermal gradients can be explained if Archaean continents formed above subduction zones.Raising the temperature of the Archaean mantle by 100°C (1) halves the thickness of the oceanic lithosphere, (2) increases the oceanic geothermal gradient at the mid-point of a convection cell, (3) decreases the viscosity of the mantle by at least an order of magnitude. The combination of these effects produces a marked decrease in the strength of the Archaean lithosphere and mantle. Thus the form of Archaean tectonics can be expected to have been very different from modern tectonics.     

Holocene sedimentation on the North Norfolk barrier coast in relation to relative sea-level change

Fourteen distinct sedimentary environments have been recognised in the surface sediments of the intertidal zone of the North Norfolk coast. Nine of these can be distinguished in borehole samples on the basis of sedimentological and micro-palaeontological characteristics. They comprise: gravel; channel sand; intertidal sand; intertidal silty sand; intertidal mud and marsh creek; lower salt marsh; upper salt marsh; dune sand; and peat. Sediment accumulations have been penetrated to a depth of ?8 m OD and basal peats dated by ¹⁴C back to 8410 ± 50 years BP. An overall rate of sediment accumulation (and subsidence) of about 1 m per thousand years is indicated. There is considerable persistence of sedimentary environments in the same areas during up-building, but some erosion and roll-over of the coastal barrier system has occurred. Evidence of positive and negative sea-level tendencies are present in the record, but the main development of the tract is determined by sediment supply to the beach and marshes; positive sea-level tendencies occur at c. 6610, 5970, 4630 and 2790 BP, negative sea-level tendencies occur at 4520 to 4450 and (possibly) 3470 BP.     

Late Quaternary sea-level changes: Measurement,correlation, and future applications - the international significance of IGCP Project 200

International Geological Correlation Project 200 ran from 1983 to 1987 and was a major stimulus to sea-level research. The results arising from the project were very varied, with much new data collected and analysed, but there remain some problems for international research.     

An expression for the permeability of anisotropic granular media

There are many expressions proposed for the permeability of isotropic media based on flow channel and pore size distribution concepts, but there are no such expressions for anisotropic media. In this paper an expression for the permeability of an anisotropic medium is proposed, which has been verified in the laboratory. The mechanism behind fluid flow through soil was investigated using microscopic computer simulations to propose an expression for macroscopic permeability. The soil was assumed to be a spatially periodic porous medium, and the Navier-Stokes equation was solved using the FEM with appropriate boundary conditions for several different arrangements of the porous medium. The basic variables influencing flow through soil at the microscopic level were identified as specific surface area, void ratio, particle shape, material heterogeneity and the arrangement of particles in a porous medium. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to obtain an expression for the permeability in terms of the above variables. The corresponding macroscopic variables for the above microscopic variables are average specific surface area, average void ratio, anisotropy, tortuosity due to material heterogeneity, and the arrangement of particles respectively. An expression for the directional permeability is proposed in terms of these variables for the most common occurrence of particles in a porous medium. For the verification of the proposed equation, the permeability values of a fine-grained sand were measured at different void ratios and were compared with those predicted by the proposed equation. The results show that the predicted permeability values from the proposed equation are very close to the measured values.     

Rapid late-glacial atmospheric CO2 changes reconstructed from the stomatal density record of fossil leaves

The Younger Dryas stadial (11 000-10 000 yr BP) was an abrupt return to a glacial climate during the termination of the last glaciation. We have reconstructed atmospheric CO₂ concentrations from a high-resolution sequence of fossil Salix herbacea leaves through this climatic oscillation from Kråkenes, western Norway, using the relationship between leaf stomatal density and atmospheric CO₂ concentration. High Allerød CO₂ values (median 273 ppmv) decreased rapidly during 130–200 ¹⁴C-years of the late Allerød to ca. 210 ppmv at the start of the Younger Dryas. They then increased steadily through the Younger Dryas, reaching typical interglacial values once more (ca. 275 ppmv) in the Holocene. The rapid late Allerød decrease in CO₂ concentration preceded the Younger Dryas temperature drop, possibly by several decades. This striking pattern of changes has not so far been recorded unambiguously in temporally coarse measurements of atmospheric CO₂ from ice cores. Our observed late-glacial CO₂ changes have implications for global modelling of the ocean-atmosphere-biosphere over the last glacial-interglacial transition.     

Orbit of the Murchison meteorite

Abstract— Because the path of the Murchison meteorite fortuitously intersected the Earth's path at an angle of only a few degrees, the visual observations establish the entry velocity to be within 2 km/s of 13 km/s and determine the nature of its orbit with a precision quite unusual for visually sighted falls.     

Meteorite finds by EUROMET near Frontier Mountain,North Victoria Land,Antarctica

Abstract— A team from EUROMET (a joint initiative of scientific institutions in Europe interested in meteorites) was sent for the first time to Antarctica in the 1990/91 season to undertake a systematic search for meteorites. The project was organised within the framework of the Italian Antarctic Program (Programma Nationale di Richerche in Antartide, PNRA). The search was carried out in the vicinity of Frontier Mountain (North Victoria Land) and 256 meteorite fragments were discovered, most of which were wind-blown across the blue-ice field to the NE of Frontier Mountain and finally caught in an ice depression about 5 km to the N. The larger meteorites which remained on the ice surface from which they were uncovered may have been transported down to the mountain edge where they have subsequently been destroyed or covered in debris. A search for meteorites at neighbouring Sequence Hills, where similar glaciological conditions as at Frontier Mountain exist, proved unsuccessful. At this location the surface of the blue ice in the valleys with suspected meteorite concentrations was covered by meltwater lakes.