Rapid deglaciation as an initiator of volcanic activity: An hypothesis

Volcanic activity on sub-Antarctic Marion Island is found to have occurred only during the interglacials. The present volcano distribution is associated with a radial and peripheral fault system, the location of which appears to be related to the former glacier distribution. An hypothesis is presented suggesting that the faulting is a result of deglaciation and that the specific location of the faults is due to the differential stresses occurring between ice-covered and ice-free areas during isostatic uplift. The faulting initiates volcanism due to the location of the island within a volcanic region.     

Middle-fan deposits from the late precambrian kongsfjord formation submarine fan,Northeast Finnmark,Northern Norway

The 3.2 km-thick late Precambrian Kongsfjord Formation Submarine Fan shows well-developed middle-fan facies-associations. Channel deposits are characterised by discrete packets of coarse-grained, medium to thick-bedded, amalgamated sandstone turbidites and other mass-flow deposits, generally 10 to 30 m thick. Individual beds, or packets of beds, wedge out and channel bases cut down by up to 11 m over a lateral distance of 150 m. Channel deposits often comprise a thinning-and-fining-upward sequence although they vary greatly in clarity. Interchannel deposits occur as packets, tens of centimetres to 25 m thick, of thin and very thin bedded Bouma T_cde siltstones and mudstones. Palaeocurrents within interchannel deposits commonly diverge from those of adjacent channel sandstones. Within the interchannel deposits, isolated beds or packets of beds occur that are both thicker bedded and coarser grained than the surrounding beds; these unusual deposits are sheet-like or fill small channels, and are interpreted as crevasse splays, lobes and channels. Packets, up to a few metres thick, of laterally discontinuous siltstone turbidites occur immediately above some of the channel sandstones, rarely below, and in some cases within interchannel deposits. These siltstones are thin to medium-bedded, show Bouma T_cd, with T_c often as climbing-ripple lamination, and commonly show soft-sediment deformation as slides, slumps, liquefaction and fluidisation structures. Palaeoflow within these packets, compared to adjacent channel sandstones, diverges by up to 90°, and in some cases channel sandstones are seen to pass laterally into these deposits with a swing in palaeocurrents from parallel to the inferred channel axis, to perpendicular to it. These deposits are thought to be levees. Channel-margin deposits are most distinctive, and they are recognised by extreme lateral wedging of channel sandstones, with concomitant thinning and fining of individual beds and their amalgamation towards the channel axis. Sliding and slumping of channel margin deposits is common. Throughout the Kongsfjord Formation Submarine Fan, channel sandstone palaeocurrents suggest a sediment-transport direction to the NE quadrant, although some channels funnelled sediment towards the southeast.     

Incidental capture of diamondback terrapin by crab pots

Two-hundred eighty-one diamondback terrapins (195♂, 86♀) were captured in baited and unbaited crab pots during premolt crab capture studies in South Carolina. Sampling was conducted four consecutive days each week from mid April to mid November, 1979, in the Ashley River estuary, and daily from April to July, 1980 and 1981, in the Wando River estuary. Fifty-five percent of the total were captured in April, and 32% in May. Males outnumbered females 2.3∶1, but this ratio may reflect crab pot entrance bias which restricted entry of large females. Median plastron length of females was 121 mm (range 76–175) and that for males 100 mm. (range 79–128); only two male terrapins equalled or exceeded the minimum legal size limit of 127 mm. Few captured terrapins were drowned when crab pots were checked daily, and it is estimated that capture mortality amounted to 10%. Terrapin catch per baited crab pot averaged 0.16 daily in April and May. Incidental terrapin capture by 743 commercial crabbers (fiscal year 1982 numbers) in South Carolina during April and May was estimated at 2,853 daily, and mortality was estimated at 285. These estimates are exclusive of mortalities resulting from lost pots. The impact of crabbing activities is believed to pose no threat to the terrapin population at current levels of commercial terrapin harvest. Because female terrapins mature at the minimum legal size, no segment of the egg laying population is protected except seasonally. If direct harvest of terrapins ever approaches that of the early twentieth century, then it is recommended that legal size limits be changed to protect a segment of the mature female population.     

The present day formation of apatite in Mexican continental margin sediments

Results of pore water and sediment analyses from the western Mexican continental margin strongly suggest the present day formation of apatite. The interstitial water phosphate and fluoride profiles indicate chemical removal at a depth which corresponds to a large maximum in the phosphorus content of the sediments. Apatite is identified within this maximum via X-ray diffraction but is elsewhere undetectable in the core. Radioisotopic thorium, uranium, and radium data support the conclusion that this deposit is modern. The present day depositional environment is consistent with those reported by other workers for phosphorite formation with the exception that pore water magnesium is not depleted below its seawater value.     

Mapping the Globalization of the Temporary Staffing Industry*

Very little is currently known about the globalization of the temporary staffing industry, a strategically significant sector given its role in promulgating wider labor market flexibility. This article starts to rectify this research lacuna in four ways: by conceptualizing the international expansion of temporary staffing and comparing it to other business service sectors, by identifying and mapping the top twenty transnational staffing agencies, by offering a typology of the leading transnational agencies based on their functional and geographic characteristics, and by charting a research agenda for future work on this sector.     

Searching for the Stonyhurst discs

Projects to drill into and recover samples from active faults are progressing in two widely separated locations: off the coast of Japan and in California.     

Long‐term landscape evolution: linking tectonics and surface processes

Research in landscape evolution over millions to tens of millions of years slowed considerably in the mid‐20th century, when Davisian and other approaches to geomorphology were replaced by functional, morphometric and ultimately process‐based approaches. Hack's scheme of dynamic equilibrium in landscape evolution was perhaps the major theoretical contribution to long‐term landscape evolution between the 1950s and about 1990, but it essentially ‘looked back’ to Davis for its springboard to a viewpoint contrary to that of Davis, as did less widely known schemes, such as Crickmay's hypothesis of unequal activity. Since about 1990, the field of long‐term landscape evolution has blossomed again, stimulated by the plate tectonics revolution and its re‐forging of the link between tectonics and topography, and by the development of numerical models that explore the links between tectonic processes and surface processes. This numerical modelling of landscape evolution has been built around formulation of bedrock river processes and slope processes, and has mostly focused on high‐elevation passive continental margins and convergent zones; these models now routinely include flexural and denudational isostasy. Major breakthroughs in analytical and geochronological techniques have been of profound relevance to all of the above. Low‐temperature thermochronology, and in particular apatite fission track analysis and (U–Th)/He analysis in apatite, have enabled rates of rock uplift and denudational exhumation from relatively shallow crustal depths (up to about 4 km) to be determined directly from, in effect, rock hand specimens. In a few situations, (U–Th)/He analysis has been used to determine the antiquity of major, long‐wavelength topography. Cosmogenic isotope analysis has enabled the determination of the ‘ages’ of bedrock and sedimentary surfaces, and/or the rates of denudation of these surfaces. These latter advances represent in some ways a ‘holy grail’ in geomorphology in that they enable determination of ‘dates and rates’ of geomorphological processes directly from rock surfaces. The increasing availability of analytical techniques such as cosmogenic isotope analysis should mean that much larger data sets become possible and lead to more sophisticated analyses, such as probability density functions (PDFs) of cosmogenic ages and even of cosmogenic isotope concentrations (CICs). PDFs of isotope concentrations must be a function of catchment area geomorphology (including tectonics) and it is at least theoretically possible to infer aspects of source area geomorphology and geomorphological processes from PDFs of CICs in sediments (‘detrital CICs’). Thus it may be possible to use PDFs of detrital CICs in basin sediments as a tool to infer aspects of the sediments' source area geomorphology and tectonics, complementing the standard sedimentological textural and compositional approaches to such issues. One of the most stimulating of recent conceptual advances has followed the considerations of the relationships between tectonics, climate and surface processes and especially the recognition of the importance of denudational isostasy in driving rock uplift (i.e. in driving tectonics and crustal processes). Attention has been focused very directly on surface processes and on the ways in which they may ‘drive’ rock uplift and thus even influence sub‐surface crustal conditions, such as pressure and temperature. Consequently, the broader geoscience communities are looking to geomorphologists to provide more detailed information on rates and processes of bedrock channel incision, as well as on catchment responses to such bedrock channel processes. More sophisticated numerical models of processes in bedrock channels and on their flanking hillslopes are required. In current numerical models of long‐term evolution of hillslopes and interfluves, for example, the simple dependency on slope of both the fluvial and hillslope components of these models means that a Davisian‐type of landscape evolution characterized by slope lowering is inevitably ‘confirmed’ by the models. In numerical modelling, the next advances will require better parameterized algorithms for hillslope processes, and more sophisticated formulations of bedrock channel incision processes, incorporating, for example, the effects of sediment shielding of the bed. Such increasing sophistication must be matched by careful assessment and testing of model outputs using pre‐established criteria and tests. Confirmation by these more sophisticated Davisian‐type numerical models of slope lowering under conditions of tectonic stability (no active rock uplift), and of constant slope angle and steady‐state landscape under conditions of ongoing rock uplift, will indicate that the Davis and Hack models are not mutually exclusive. A Hack‐type model (or a variant of it, incorporating slope adjustment to rock strength rather than to regolith strength) will apply to active settings where there is sufficient stream power and/or sediment flux for channels to incise at the rate of rock uplift. Post‐orogenic settings of decreased (or zero) active rock uplift would be characterized by a Davisian scheme of declining slope angles and non‐steady‐state (or transient) landscapes. Such post‐orogenic landscapes deserve much more attention than they have received of late, not least because the intriguing questions they pose about the preservation of ancient landscapes were hinted at in passing in the 1960s and have recently re‐surfaced. As we begin to ask again some of the grand questions that lay at the heart of geomorphology in its earliest days, large‐scale geomorphology is on the threshold of another ‘golden’ era to match that of the first half of the 20th century, when cyclical approaches underpinned virtually all geomorphological work. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nationalism, Populism, Dependency: Southeast Asia and Responses to the Asian Crisis

Opposition to neoliberal globalisation has been especially intense since the Asian crisis. This paper assesses three responses to the crisis: a broad localist reaction in Thailand, and the approaches adopted by two major Asian-based organisations, the Third World Network (TWN) and the Focus on the Global South. The discussion of these approaches focuses on the issues of nationalism and populism; dependency; industrialisation and the state; and liberalisation, international institutions, and local society. Their critiques range from the conservative populism of the localists, to reformism of TWN, and to the more radical "deglobalisation" approach of the Focus group. However, none have been able to free themselves of the influence of dependency models. Their populism and "progressive nationalism" prevents an accurate location of the causes of exploitation in capitalist processes. This paper questions whether the national-global dichotomy of these approaches is an adequate way to conceptualise capitalist production and exploitation in the era of globalisation.     

Evaluation of response and energy in actively controlled structures

A computational method of energy evaluation is derived to study the elastic responses and energy distribution of actively controlled single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDOF) structures during earthquakes. Contrary to the common perception that applying active control force pumps energy into the structure, the applied control force can actually reduce the energy in the structure by reducing the input energy from earthquakes to the structure. In addition, applying control force can dissipate a large amount of energy in the structure when this control force is applied in the direction opposite to the displacement and velocity responses. To demonstrate this energy mechanism in active controlled structures, the two most popular control algorithms, optimal linear control (OLC) and instantaneous optimal control (IOC) algorithms, are used to calculate the control response and energy spectra. One‐step time delay is incorporated into the algorithms to take into consideration the practical aspect of active control. The effects of different earthquakes and damping ratios on control energy and response spectra are studied. These studies show that both OLC and IOC are very effective in reducing the structural displacement and velocity responses by reducing the input earthquake energy as well as dissipating a large amount of energy in the structure. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.