Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming

Each year, irrigated Saharan- and Australian-desert forests could sequester amounts of atmospheric CO₂ at least equal to that from burning fossil fuels. Without any rain, to capture CO₂ produced from gasoline requires adding about $1 to the per-gallon pump-price to cover irrigation costs, using reverse osmosis (RO), desalinated, sea water. Such mature technology is economically competitive with the currently favored, untested, power-plant Carbon Capture (and deep underground, or under-ocean) Sequestration (CCS). Afforestation sequesters CO₂, mostly as easily stored wood, both from distributed sources (automotive, aviation, etc., that CCS cannot address) and from power plants. Climatological feasibility and sustainability of such irrigated forests, and their potential global impacts are explored using a general circulation model (GCM). Biogeophysical feedback is shown to stimulate considerable rainfall over these forests, reducing desalination and irrigation costs; economic value of marketed, renewable, forest biomass, further reduces costs; and separately, energy conservation also reduces the size of the required forests and therefore their total capital and operating costs. The few negative climate impacts outside of the forests are discussed, with caveats. If confirmed with other GCMs, such irrigated, subtropical afforestation probably provides the best, near-term route to complete control of green-house-gas-induced, global warming.     

ERA-40-aided assessment of the atmospheric influence on satellite retrieval of Adriatic Sea surface temperature

The aim of this work is assessment of regional atmospheric influence on satellite derivation of Adriatic Sea surface temperature (SST). To this end the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) ERA-40 reanalysis dataset has been employed to provide the temperature and humidity profiles and surface data, while the RTTOV 8.7 radiative transfer model was used to calculate the top-of-atmosphere brightness temperatures for the advanced very high-resolution radiometer (AVHRR) channels. Ten ERA-40 grid points over the Adriatic Sea were used in the analysis, providing 29,590, 00 UTC and 12 UTC, clear-sky profiles. Climatological analysis of the ERA-40 profiles demonstrated distinct seasonal variability over the Adriatic Sea. Seasonality noted in the temperature and specific humidity profiles also evinced in the atmospheric transmittance, thermal channels temperature deficit, and derived γ and ρ parameters. A multivariate analysis was applied to relate the simulated top-of-atmosphere brightness temperatures to the Adriatic SSTs in order to generate exploratory sets of SST retrieval coefficients. All derived coefficient sets exhibited smaller noise amplification factor than the global counterpart. A test comparison of satellite-derived SST with an 11-month in situ SST series showed than locally derived coefficients provide smaller scatter (improved precision), and skin-centred bias that requires additional adjustment. Almost identical SST residual and error metric was obtained with seasonally adjusted classical split-window coefficients and with coefficients explicitly accommodating water-vapor dependence. Comparison with data reinforces the notion that the atmosphere over the Adriatic may exhibit variability that cannot be fully accommodated by globally adjusted correction.     

Detrital geochronology of unroofing magmatic complexes and the slow erosion of Oligocene volcanoes in the Alps

Tectonic reconstructions and quantitative models of landscape evolution are increasingly based on detailed analysis of detrital systems. Since the definition of closure temperature in the 1960s, mineral ages of low-temperature geochronometers are traditionally interpreted as the result of cooling induced by erosion, whose rate is a simple, unique function of age patterns. Such an approach can lead to infer paradoxically high erosion rates that conflict with compelling geological evidence from sediment thickness in basins. This indicates that tectonic and landscape models that solely interpret mineral ages as due to cooling during exhumation may not be valid.Here we propose a new approach that takes into account the effects of both crystallization and exhumational cooling on geochronometers, from U–Pb on zircon to fission tracks on apatite. We first model the mechanical erosion of an unroofing magmatic complex and the resulting accumulation and burial of the eroded units in reverse order in the basin. Detrital mineral ages follow a regular pattern downsection. Some mineral ages, such as e.g. U–Pb ages of zircons, cluster around the “magmatic age”, i.e. the crystallization of the magma. Its value is constant along the stratigraphic column in the sedimentary basin; we refer to this behavior as “stationary age peak”. Some other mineral ages, such as e.g. apatite fission-track ages, are often younger than the magmatic age. When they vary smoothly with depth, they define a “moving age peak”, which is the only possible effect of undisturbed cooling during overburden removal, and can therefore be used to calculate an erosion rate.The predictions of our model were tested in detail on the extremely well-studied Bregaglia (Bergell) orogenic pluton in the Alps, and on the sedimentary succession derived from its erosion, the Gonfolite Group. The consistency between predicted and observed age patterns validates the model. Our results resolve a long-standing paradox in quantitative modelling of erosion–sedimentation, namely the scarcity of sediment during apparently fast erosion. Starved basins are the observational baseline, and modelling must be tuned to include a correct analysis of detrital mineral geochronology in order to reconcile perceived discrepancies between stratigraphical and geochronological information. In addition, our data demonstrate that volcanoes were active on top of the growing Oligocene Alps.This study illustrates rigorous criteria for detrital mineral geochronology that are applicable to any geological setting, including magmatic arcs and collision orogens, and provides fundamental interpretive keys to solve complex puzzles and apparent paradoxes in geological reconstructions.     

Anelastic acoustic impedance and the correspondence principle

A general definition of seismic wave impedance is proposed as a matrix differential operator transforming the displacement boundary conditions into traction ones. This impedance is proportional to the standard acoustic impedance at all incidence angles and allows extensions to attenuative media and to the full elastic case. In all cases, reflection amplitudes at the contact of two media are uniquely described by the ratios of their impedances. Here, the anelastic acoustic impedance is studied in detail and attenuation contrasts are shown to produce phase‐shifted reflections. Notably, the correspondence principle (i.e., the approach based on complex‐valued elastic modules in the frequency domain) leads to incorrect phase shifts of the impedance due to attenuation and consequently to wrong waveforms reflected from attenuation contrasts. Boundary conditions and the Lagrange formulation of elastodynamics suggest that elastic constants should remain real in the presence of attenuation and the various types of energy dissipation should be described by their specific mechanisms. The correspondence principle and complex‐valued elastic moduli appear to be applicable only to homogeneous media and therefore they should be used with caution when applied to heterogeneous cases.     

Distribution, magnitude and characterization of the toxicity of Ukrainian estuarine sediments

During the Soviet era, Ukraine was an important industrial and agricultural region of the Soviet Union. This industrial and agricultural activity resulted in contamination of Ukraine’s estuaries with legacy anthropogenic pollutants. Investigations on the toxicological effects of this estuarine contamination have been limited. For this research, we measured the toxicity of contaminated sediments from four Ukrainian estuaries to several aquatic organisms over 3 years. Sediment chemical analyses and whole sediment toxicity identification evaluations (TIEs) were also performed to determine the classes of contaminants contributing to toxicity. Toxic sediments were observed in several of the Ukrainian estuaries and chemical analyses of the sediments demonstrated anthropogenic contaminants were widely distributed. Contaminants were also detected in macrobenthic organisms collected from the sediments. Several lines of evidence, including TIEs, indicated hydrophobic organic chemicals (HOCs) were contributing substantially to observed toxicity. This information can guide environmental managers to prioritize portions of the estuaries requiring remediation.     

Cretaceous-Eocene compression in the central Southern Alps (N Italy) inferred from Ar/Ar dating of pseudotachylytes along regional thrust faults

The integration of structural analyses with ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of fault-related pseudotachylytes provides time constraints for the reconstruction of the Alpine evolution of the central portion of the South Alpine orogenic wedge. In the northern sector of the belt a Variscan basement is stacked southward on the Permian to Mesozoic cover along regional faults (Orobic and Porcile thrusts). Fault zones, slightly postdating a first folding event of Alpine age, experienced a complex evolution through the ductile and brittle deformation regime, showing greenschist facies mylonites overprinted by a penetrative cataclastic deformation. Generation of fault-related pseudotachylyte veins marks the onset of brittle conditions, lasting up to the youngest episodes of fault activity. ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of the pseudotachylyte matrix of 9 samples give two separated age clusters: Late Cretaceous (80–68 Ma) and latest Palaeocene to Middle Eocene (55–43 Ma). These new data provide evidence that the pre-Adamello evolution of the central Southern Alps was characterised by the superposition of different tectonic events accompanying the exhumation of the deepest part of the belt through the brittle–ductile transition. The oldest pseudotachylyte ages demonstrate that south-verging regional thrusting in the central Southern Alps was already active during the Late Cretaceous, concurrently with the development of a synorogenic foredeep basin where the Upper Cretaceous Lombardian Flysch was deposited.     

Hydrochemical system analysis of public supply well fields, to reveal water-quality patterns and define groundwater bodies: The Netherlands

Hydrochemical system analysis (HCSA) is used to better understand the individual state of and spatial patterns in groundwater quality, by addressing the spatial distribution of groundwater bodies with specific origins (hydrosomes) and characteristic hydrochemical zones within each hydrosome (facies). The origin is determined by environmental tracers or geomorphological and potentiometric maps, the facies by combining age, redox and alkalinity indices. The HCSA method is applied to all 206 active public supply well fields (PSWFs) in The Netherlands, resulting in the distinction of nine hydrosomes and eleven facies parameters—age (young, intermediate, old), redox ((sub)oxic, anoxic, deep anoxic, mixed) and alkalinity (very low, low, intermediate and high). The resulting classification of PSWFs provides a means to (1) predict their vulnerability; (2) optimize groundwater-quality monitoring programs; and (3) better delineate groundwater bodies, by considering groundwater origin and flow. The HCSA translates complex hydrochemical patterns into easily interpretable maps by showing PSWFs, groundwater bodies and hydrochemical facies. Such maps facilitate communication between researchers, water resources managers and policy makers and can help to solve complex groundwater resources management problems at different scales, ranging from a single well(field) or region to the national or European scale.     

Geochronology of the Larderello geothermal field: new data and the “closure temperature” issue

The Larderello geothermal field is generally accepted to have been produced by a granite intrusion at 4–9 km depth. Hydrothermal parageneses and fluid inclusions always formed at temperatures greater than or equal to the current ones, which implies that the field has always undergone a roughly monotonic cooling history (fluctuations < 40 K) since intrusion of the granite at 4 Ma. The heat required to maintain the thermal anomaly over such a long period is supplied by a seismically anomalous body of 32000 km³ rooted in the mantle. Borehole minerals from Larderello are thus a unique well-calibrated natural example of thermally induced Ar and Sr loss under geological conditions and time spans. The observations (biotites retain Ar above 450°C) agree well with other, albeit less precise, geological determinations, but contrast with laboratory determinations of diffusivity from the literature. We therefore performed a hydrothermal experiment on two Larderello biotites and derived a diffusivity D _Lab(370°C)=5.3·10^-18 cm²s^-1, in agreement with published estimates of diffusivity in annite. From D _Lab and the rejuvenation of the K/Ar ages we calculate maximum survival times at the present in-hole temperatures. They trend smoothly over almost two orders of magnitude from 352 ka to 5.3 ka, anticorrelating with depth: laboratory diffusivities are inconsistent not only with geological facts, but also among themselves. From the geologically constrained lifetime of the thermal anomaly we derive a diffusivity D _G(370°C)=3.81·10²¹ cm²s^-1, 3±1 orders of magnitude lower than D _Lab. The cause of these discrepancies must be sought among various laboratory artefacts: overstepping of a critical temperature T ^*; enhanced diffusivities in wet experiments; presence of fast pathway (dislocation and pipe) diffusion, and of dissolution/reprecipitation reactions, which we imaged by scanning electron microscopy. These phenomena are minor in geological settings: in the absence of mineral transformation reactions, complete or near-complete resetting is achieved only by volume diffusion. Therefore, laboratory determinations will necessarily result in apparent diffusivities that are too high compared to those actually effecting the resetting of natural geochronometers.This word is dedicated to the memory of Aldo Valori (1958–1991)     

Dynamic effects in a saturated layered soil deposit: centrifuge modeling

The dynamic response of a saturated layered soil deposit was modeled on the Princeton University geotechnical centrifuge using various centrifugal acceleration levels. The layered soil deposit consists of a saturated Nevada sand layer overlaid by a silt layer of low permeability. Measured acceleration and pore-water pressure time histories are used to validate the scaling laws used in interpreting dynamic centrifugal modeling test results. Careful measurements of the settlements at the silt surface are performed using a non-contact displacement transducer, and comparisons are made with measurements obtained with a standard linear voltage displacement transducer. Finally, the experimental results are used to verify the validity of the numerical procedures encompassed in the computer code DYNAFLOW.