Geological perspectives on the Monte Verde archeological site in Chile and pre-Clovis coastal migration in the Americas

Discovery of the Monte Verde archeological site in Chile overturned the previous consensus that the first Americans into the New World from Asia were the makers of Clovis projectile points, and rejuvenated the hypothesis that migration through the Americas occurred largely on portions of the Pacific continental shelf exposed by Pleistocene drawdown in eustatic sea level. The postulate of travel along a paleoshoreline now hidden underwater is an attractive means to posit pre-Clovis human movement southward from Beringia to Chile without leaving traces of migration onshore. Geologic analyses of the Pleistocene paleoenvironment at Monte Verde and of the morphology of the potential migration route along the continental shelf raise questions that have not been fully addressed. The periglacial setting of Monte Verde may call its antiquity into question and the narrowness of the Pacific continental shelf of the Americas makes it unlikely that people could travel the length of the Americas without impacting ground still onshore and no farther inland than Monte Verde itself. Geological perspectives on Monte Verde and coastal migration jointly suggest that the Clovis-first hypothesis for peopling the New World may have been abandoned prematurely.     

Oxide‐bearing and FeO‐rich clasts in aubrites

Abstract— We report the occurrence of an oxide‐bearing clast and an FeO‐rich clast from aubrites. The FeO‐rich clast in Pesyanoe is dominated by olivine and pyroxene phenocrysts with mineral compositions slightly less FeO‐rich than is typical for H chondrites. In Allan Hills (ALH) 84008, the oxide‐bearing clast consists of a single forsterite grain rimmed by an array of sulfides, oxides, and phosphides. We consider a number of possible origins. We can exclude formation by melting of oxide‐bearing chondrules and CAIs formed in enstatite chondrites. The Pesyanoe clast may have formed in a more oxidized region of the aubrite parent body or, more likely, is a foreign clast from a more oxidized parent body. The ALH 84008 clast likely formed by reaction between sulfides and silicates as a result of cooling, oxidation, or de‐sulfidization. This clast appears to be the first oxide‐bearing clast from an aubritic breccia that formed on the aubrite parent body. Identification of additional oxide‐bearing clasts in aubrites could shed light on whether this was a widespread phenomenon and the origin of these enigmatic objects.     

Urban vulnerability to temperature-related hazards: A meta-analysis and meta-knowledge approach

Research on urban vulnerability has grown considerably during recent years, yet consists primarily of case studies based on conflicting theories and paradigms. Assessing urban vulnerability is also generally considered to be context-dependent. We argue, however, that it is possible to identify some common patterns of vulnerability across urban centers and research paradigms and these commonalities hold potential for the development of a common set of tools to enhance response capacity within multiple contexts. To test this idea we conduct an analysis of 54 papers on urban vulnerability to temperature-related hazards, covering 222 urban areas in all regions of the world. The originality of this effort is in the combination of a standard metaanalysis with a meta-knowledge approach that allows us not only to integrate and summarize results across many studies, but also to identify trends in the literature and examine differences in methodology, theoretical frameworks and causation narratives and thereby to compare “apples to oranges.” We find that the vast majority of papers examining urban vulnerability to temperature-related hazards come from an urban vulnerability as impact approach, and cities from middle and low income countries are understudied. One of the challenges facing scholarship on urban vulnerability is to supplement the emphasis on disciplinary boxes (e.g., temperature–mortality relationships) with an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to adaptive capacity and structural drivers of differences in vulnerability.     

A New Capture Fraction Method to Map How Pumpage Affects Surface Water Flow

All groundwater pumped is balanced by removal of water somewhere, initially from storage in the aquifer and later from capture in the form of increase in recharge and decrease in discharge. Capture that results in a loss of water in streams, rivers, and wetlands now is a concern in many parts of the United States. Hydrologists commonly use analytical and numerical approaches to study temporal variations in sources of water to wells for select points of interest. Much can be learned about coupled surface/groundwater systems, however, by looking at the spatial distribution of theoretical capture for select times of interest. Development of maps of capture requires (1) a reasonably well-constructed transient or steady state model of an aquifer with head-dependent flow boundaries representing surface water features or evapotranspiration and (2) an automated procedure to run the model repeatedly and extract results, each time with a well in a different location. This paper presents new methods for simulating and mapping capture using three-dimensional groundwater flow models and presents examples from Arizona, Oregon, and Michigan.     

A refined model for spinning dust radiation

We present a comprehensive treatment of the spectrum of electric dipole emission from spinning dust grains, updating the commonly used model of Draine & Lazarian. Grain angular velocity distributions are computed using the Fokker–Planck equation; we revisit the drift and diffusion coefficients for the major torques on the grain, including collisions, grain-plasma interactions and infrared emission. We use updated grain optical properties and size distributions. The theoretical formalism is implemented in the companion code, spdust , which is publicly available. The effect of some environmental and grain parameters on the emissivity is shown and analysed.     

Radio source calibration for the Very Small Array and other cosmic microwave background instruments at around 30 GHz

Accurate calibration of data is essential for the current generation of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. Using data from the Very Small Array (VSA), we describe procedures which will lead to an accuracy of 1 per cent or better for experiments such as the VSA and CBI. Particular attention is paid to the stability of the receiver systems, the quality of the site and frequent observations of reference sources. At 30 GHz the careful correction for atmospheric emission and absorption is shown to be essential for achieving 1 per cent precision.
The sources for which a 1 per cent relative flux density calibration was achieved included Cas A, Cyg A, Tau A and NGC 7027 and the planets Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. A flux density, or brightness temperature in the case of the planets, was derived at 33 GHz relative to Jupiter which was adopted as the fundamental calibrator. A spectral index at ∼30 GHz is given for each.
Cas A, Tau A, NGC 7027 and Venus were examined for variability. Cas A was found to be decreasing at 0.394 ± 0.019 per cent yr⁻¹ over the period 2001 March to 2004 August. In the same period Tau A was decreasing at 0.22 ± 0.07 per cent yr⁻¹. A survey of the published data showed that the planetary nebula NGC 7027 decreased at 0.16 ± 0.04 per cent yr⁻¹ over the period 1967–2003. Venus showed an insignificant (1.5 ± 1.3 per cent) variation with Venusian illumination. The integrated polarization of Tau A at 33 GHz was found to be 7.8 ± 0.6 per cent at position angle =148°± 3°.     

Crustal deformation rates in Assam Valley,Shillong Plateau,Eastern Himalaya,and Indo-Burmese region from 11 years (2002–2013) of GPS measurements

International Journal of Earth Sciences - The present study reports the contemporary deformation of the tectonically complex northeast India using 11 years (2002–2013) of GPS...     

Wave energy and clast transport in eastern Tasman Bay,New Zealand

Coarse‐gravel beaches are common features along the eastern margin of Tasman Bay, at the north end of South Island, New Zealand. Although these features have traditionally been interpreted as spits, contemporary incident wave energy appears too small to transport boulders and cobbles persistently along the beaches and platforms by longshore drift. An alternative explanation suggests that boulder beaches are essentially derived in situ from resistant bedrock, which lies seaward and was buried by gravel during the Holocene sea level rise. Wind, wave and clast size data from Cable Bay and the Nelson Boulder Bank were used to resolve this problem. Wave and wind data indicate that waves reaching these areas are derived locally in Tasman Bay, and are limited in size and energy. Hindcasting predicts a 4·7 m wave could propagate from Tasman Bay. However, during Cyclone Yalli, the most intense storm in nearly 40 years of wind records, the largest wave measured in the nearby area of Cable Bay was only 2·7 m high. Maximum orbital velocity on the seabed beneath a 4·7 m is calculated to be 2·9 m s^?1, which cannot initiate transport of clasts greater than 0·15 m in diameter. Clasts on the gravel platforms have average diameters greater than this, but some clasts may be as large as 1·0 m in diameter. By comparison, a swash run‐up method predicts that a wave 4·7 m high can transport clasts no larger than 0·3 m in diameter. These data and approximate calculations strongly suggest that the present wave environment in eastern Tasman Bay is not capable of consistently transporting clasts on the boulder platforms by longshore drift. Reduced sea levels in the pre‐Holocene period would further reduce wave energies available in Tasman Bay. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.