Reconstruction of seasonal temperatures in Central Canada since A.D. 1700 and detection of the 18.6- and 22-year signals

This paper presents an attempt to summarize various sparse proxy series into continuous and exhaustive climatic data. Freeze-up and break-up dates, early meteorological records and tree-ring data have been combined for the Hudson Bay region and 22 continuous proxy series extending from 1700 to 1979 have been deduced. These new series in term provided the basis for a regressive reconstruction of six seasonal temperature series. Verification tests are successful mainly for the high frequencies components. The low frequencies variability is better estimated by a best analogues method. Both kinds of reconstructions have been combined to improve the results. The main characteristic of the reconstructions is a warming trend beginning at the end of the 19th century. Evidence for a beat wave resulting from 22-year solar and 18.6-year lunar nodal tidal cycles is presented. A phase analysis showed results consistent with other studies of summer temperature variability: temperature maxima correspond to sunspot minima ending an even cycle and are emphasized by the lunar maxima. Different phenomena are pointed out for autumn and winter temperatures: their maxima coincide to sunspot even maxima amplified by lunar minima. In spring, the transition season, these signals are not apparent.     

Some Biases in Sampling Multilevel Piezometers for Volatile Organics

Multilevel piezometers are cost-effective monitoring devices for determining the three-dimensional distribution of solutes in ground water. Construction includes flexible tubing (plastic or Teflon®). Their sampling is subject to a number of'potential biases, particularly: (1) losses of volatile organic solutes via volatilization, (2) sorption onto the flexible tubing of the piezometers, (3) leaching of organics from this tubing, and (4) collection of unrepresentative samples due to inadequate piezometer flushing. It is shown that these biases are minimal or are easily controlled in most situations.
Another source of bias has been recognized. Organic solutes present in ground water above the screened level can penetrate the flexible plastic or Teflon tubing and contaminate the sampled water being drawn through this tubing. Laboratory tests and field results indicate this transmission causes low organic contaminant concentrations to be erroneously attributed to ground water which is free of such contaminants. The transmitted organics apparently desorb from the plastic tubing during flushing of even 40 piezometer volumes.
Recognition of this transmission problem provides for a better interpretation of existing organic contaminant distribution data. Caution is advised when considering the use of these monitoring devices in organic solute contaminant studies.     

Rhyolites contaminated with metapelite and gabbro,Lipari, Aeolian Islands,Italy: products of lower crustal fusion or of assimilation plus fractional crystallization?

Pleistocene lavas from Monte S. Angelo and Chiesa Vecchia volcanoes on Lipari contain two suites of inclusions. A metapelitic suite consists of gneisses and granulites with combinations of cordierite, garnet, corundum, hercynite, andalusite, sillimanite, orthopyroxene, ilmenite, magnetite, biotite, plagioclase, and quartz. A gabbroic suite has cumulus texture and contains plagioclase, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, and magnetite. All megacryst phases in the lavas appear to be derived from rock fragments, with the exception of euhedral strongly zoned calcic plagioclase, and none has grown by homogeneous nucleation from liquid represented by the groundmass, which is peraluminous rhyolite (>70 wt% SiO₂, >6 wt% K₂O). Ground-mass microcrysts were nearly all derived from disaggregated metapelites; overgrowths of alkali feldspar on plagioclase and of orthopyroxene on clinopyroxene, and quartz intergrown with alkali feldspar, are the only phases that grew from the rhyolitic liquid. Euhedral cordierite, hercynite, and plagioclase at the margins of some rock fragments grew by reaction of metapelite with liquid.For grains in contact within metapelite inclusions, geothermometers and geobarometers yield estimates of equilibration conditions in the range of 800±100° C and 5±1 kbar. Compositions of phases in the same thin section, but not in the same inclusion, yield broadly erratic P and T estimates indicating disequilibrium among metapelite inclusions. Pyroxene thermometry in the gabbro suite indicates a crystallization temperature of 1020±50° C and a lack of subsequent thermal equilibration with the rhyolitic liquid.The metapelite suite may partly be restite, but much is xenolithic, derived from a vertical interval of perhaps several kilometers, and may have undergone a much earlier episode of melting. The gabbro fragments are accidental xenoliths incorporated as the magma rose. Contaminants (metapelite and gabbro) account for 50 vol.% of the lavas, and cause them to be classified as high-K andesite according to whole-rock major element analysis.The rhyolitic liquid may have originated by partial fusion of metapelites in the lower crust, or by fractional crystallization of mafic mantle-derived magma combined with assimilation of metapelite; the bulk of the evidence favors assimilation-fractional crystallization. Miocene and younger metapelite-contaminated rhyolites also occur in Tuscany, SE Spain, E Morocco, and NW Tunisia, and are associated in each region with mafic silica-undersaturated lavas, implying crustal underplating around the western Mediterranean before, during, and after formation of the Tyrrhenian basin.     

A 3.5 Ga record of water-limited, acidic weathering conditions on Mars

The secondary mineral budget on Earth is dominated by clay minerals, Al-hydroxides, and Fe-oxides, which are formed under the moderate pH, high water-to-rock ratio conditions typical of Earth's near-surface environment. In contrast, geochemical analyses of rocks and soils from landed missions to Mars indicate that secondary mineralogy is dominated by Mg (± Fe, Ca)-sulfates and Fe-oxides. This discrepancy can be explained as resulting from differences in the chemical weathering environment of Earth and Mars. We suggest that chemical weathering processes on Mars are dominated by: (1) a low-pH, sulfuric acid-rich environment in which the stoichiometric dissolution of labile mineral phases such as olivine and apatite (± Fe–Ti oxides) is promoted; and (2) relatively low water-to-rock ratio, such that other silicate phases with slower dissolution rates (e.g., plagioclase, pyroxene) do not contribute substantially to the secondary mineral budget at the Martian surface. Under these conditions, Al-mobilization is limited, and the formation of significant Al-bearing secondary phases (e.g., clays, Al-hydroxides, Al-sulfates) is inhibited. The antiquity of rock samples analyzed in-situ on Mars suggest that water-limited acidic weathering conditions have more than likely been the defining characteristic of the Martian aqueous environment for billions of years.     

Feedbacks between erosion and sediment transport in experimental bedrock channels

Natural bedrock rivers flow in self‐formed channels and form diverse erosional morphologies. The parameters that collectively define channel morphology (e.g. width, slope, bed roughness, bedrock exposure, sediment size distribution) all influence river incision rates and dynamically adjust in poorly understood ways to imposed fluid and sediment fluxes. To explore the mechanics of river incision, we conducted laboratory experiments in which the complexities of natural bedrock channels were reduced to a homogenous brittle substrate (sand and cement), a single sediment size primarily transported as bedload, a single erosion mechanism (abrasion) and sediment‐starved transport conditions. We find that patterns of erosion both create and are sensitive functions of the evolving bed topography because of feedbacks between the turbulent flow field, sediment transport and bottom roughness. Abrasion only occurs where sediment impacts the bed, and so positive feedback occurs between the sediment preferentially drawn to topographic lows by gravity and the further erosion of these lows. However, the spatial focusing of erosion results in tortuous flow paths and erosional forms (inner channels, scoops, potholes), which dissipate flow energy. This energy dissipation is a negative feedback that reduces sediment transport capacity, inhibiting further incision and ultimately leading to channel morphologies adjusted to just transport the imposed sediment load. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of prescribed burning on Acacia nilotica seed banks and seedlings in the Astrebla grasslands of northern Australia

Acacia nilotica is a tree of international significance both as a beneficial plant and as a species prone to thicket formation and negative impacts on savannas throughout much of its range. While fire has been identified as a useful tool for controlling negative impacts of some Acacia species in Africa, A. nilotica adult trees are apparently fire tolerant. The effects of fire on seed bank mortality, viability and germination, and on juvenile plants of this species are unknown. We undertook a study to investigate the impacts of fire on seeds and first and second year seedlings in Australian Astrebla savannas. The primary objective was to determine the effects of control burns applied during the early stages of invasion and thicket formation. Because of high rates of seedling dessication post fire in 1997, supplementary watering was undertaken until fire mortality could be measured the following year. High seed mortality occurred for seeds located either in cattle dung (100%) or on the soil surface (c. 80%). Germination of those seeds that survived was enhanced following exposure to fire. Very high fire mortality (99%) was observed among first year seedlings and moderate mortality (60%) for second year seedlings even after a low intensity burn. Negative impacts on major pasture species were minimal. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to A. nilotica fire ecology and to the efficacy of fire as a tool for managing this species.     

Rapid least-squares inversion of apparent resistivity pseudosections by a quasi-Newton method1

A fast inversion technique for the interpretation of data from resistivity tomography surveys has been developed for operation on a microcomputer. This technique is based on the smoothness-constrained least-squares method and it produces a two-dimensional subsurface model from the apparent resistivity pseudosection. In the first iteration, a homogeneous earth model is used as the starting model for which the apparent resistivity partial derivative values can be calculated analytically. For subsequent iterations, a quasi-Newton method is used to estimate the partial derivatives which reduces the computer time and memory space required by about eight and twelve times, respectively, compared to the conventional least-squares method. Tests with a variety of computer models and data from field surveys show that this technique is insensitive to random noise and converges rapidly. This technique takes about one minute to invert a single data set on an 80486DX microcomputer.     

Differential diatom dissolution in Late Quaternary sediments from Lake Manyara,Tanzania: an experimental approach

Diatom dissolution in saline lakes represents an important obstacle to the quantitative reconstruction of water chemistry and climate from lake sediment archives. This problem is here approached experimentally by artificially dissolving diatom-bearing core sediment from Lake Manyara, Tanzania. Manyara holds one of the longest continuous palaeolimnological records from tropical Africa although its interpretation is based on a fragmentary diatom record due to frustule dissolution. These experiments have revealed clear changes in assemblage composition as dissolution operated differentially with respect to diatom taxa. Differential dissolution has considerable impact on the water chemistry estimates derived from transfer functions. Taphonomy, rather than environmental change, may have been responsible for minor fluctuations in the diatom assemblages from Manyara, although major palaeohydrological changes during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene can be identified. Particularly well represented by MANE-87 is a period of intermediate lake level between 27 500 and 23 000 ¹⁴C yr BP which has regional palaeohydrological significance.