The ionosphere: effects,GPS modeling and the benefits for space geodetic techniques

The main goal of this paper is to provide a summary of our current knowledge of the ionosphere as it relates to space geodetic techniques, especially the most informative technology, global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), specifically the fully deployed and operational global positioning system (GPS). As such, the main relevant modeling points are discussed, and the corresponding results of ionospheric monitoring are related, which were mostly computed using GPS data and based on the direct experience of the authors. We address various phenomena such as horizontal and vertical ionospheric morphology in quiet conditions, traveling ionospheric disturbances, solar flares, ionospheric storms and scintillation. Finally, we also tackle the question of how improved knowledge of ionospheric conditions, especially in terms of an accurate understanding of the distribution of free electrons, can improve space geodetic techniques at different levels, such as higher-order ionospheric effects, precise GNSS navigation, single-antenna GNSS orientation and real-time GNSS meteorology.     

Evaluation of heavy metals and arsenic speciation discharged by the industrial activity on the Tinto-Odiel estuary, SW Spain

This study reports the annual amount of heavy metals discharged by industrial activity into the estuary of the Ría of Huelva (SW Spain). The findings showed that the discharged metals found in highest amounts were Fe (11 t y⁻¹), Zn (3.4 t y⁻¹) and Mo (0.88 t y⁻¹). There were other metals with high pollutant charge, such as Ti (232 kg y⁻¹), As (228 kg y⁻¹), Ni (195 kg y⁻¹), Pb (100 kg y⁻¹), Cr (39 kg y⁻¹) and Cd (33 kg y⁻¹). These results were compared with pollutants transported via the Tinto and Odiel rivers from abandoned mining activities in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB), and it was deduced that the amounts spilled exclusively by industries were less than 1% in relation to the total discharge. Hence, the treatment of residues from the IPB should be the priority goal to improve water quality in the estuary.     

Ecological quality assessment of small estuaries from the Portuguese coast based on fish assemblages indices

The importance of establishing the ecological quality of estuarine systems has been widely acknowledged and led to the development of several fish community-based multimetric indices. Nevertheless, a question rose about the accuracy of these tools when natural disturbance is acting upon the organization of the systems’ communities. Four multimetric indices were used to examine their ability to differentiate the ecological status of five small estuarine systems (southern Portugal), and also to test if they reflected the level of anthropogenic pressures. Fish assemblages from Mira, Odeceixe and Aljezur (in the Southwest coast), Gilão and Bensafrim (in the South coast) estuaries were sampled seasonally for one year, and anthropogenic sources of pressure were identified and quantified. We found that although the applied indices provided information on ecological condition differentiation among systems, they are unable to explain different classes of ecological status in systems with equivalent pressure levels.     

Estuarine ecological risk based on hepatic histopathological indices from laboratory and in situ tested fish

Juvenile Senegalese soles were exposed through 28-day laboratory and field (in situ) bioassays to sediments from three sites of the Sado estuary (W Portugal): a reference and two contaminated by metallic and organic contaminants. Fish were surveyed for ten hepatic histopathological alterations divided by four distinct reaction patterns and integrated through the estimation of individual histopathological condition indices. Fish exposed to contaminated sediments sustained more damage, with especial respect to regressive changes like necrosis. However, differences were observed between laboratory- and field-exposed animals, with the latest, for instance, exhibiting more pronounced fatty degeneration and hepatocellular eosinophilic alteration. Also, some lesions in fish exposed to the reference sediment indicate that in both assays unaccounted variables produced experimental background noise, such as hyaline degeneration in laboratory-exposed fish. Still, the field assays yielded results that were found to better reflect the overall levels of contaminants and physico-chemical characteristics of the tested sediments.     

Paleosecular variation and absolute geomagnetic paleointensity records retrieved from the Early Cretaceous Posadas Formation (Misiones,Argentina)

The Early Cretaceous may be considered a key period for understanding the evolution of the Earth’s magnetic field. Some still unsolved problems are related to the mode of paleosecular variation (PSV) of the Earth’s magnetic field before and during the Cretaceous Normal Superchron. We report here a detailed rock-magnetic, paleomagnetic and paleointensity investigation from 28 lava flows (331 standard paleomagnetic cores) collected in the Argentinean part of the Parana Flood Basalts (Formation Posadas) in order to contribute to the study of PSV during the early Cretaceous and to obtain precise Cretaceous paleomagnetic pole positions for stable South America. The average paleofield direction is precisely determined from 26 sites, which show small within-site dispersion and high directional stability. Five sites show evidences for the self-reversal of thermoremanent magnetization. 23 sites yielded normal polarity magnetization and only 3 are reversely magnetized. Moving windows averages were used to analyze the sequential variation of virtual geomagnetic pole’s (VGP) axial positions. Interestingly, the axial average VGP path traces an almost complete cycle around the geographical pole and passes near the location of all previously published Paraná Magmatic Province poles. Both paleomagnetic poles and average VGP paths are significantly different from the pole position suggested by fixed hotspot reconstructions, which may be due to true polar wander or the hotspot motion itself. Only 15 samples from 5 individual basaltic lava flows, yielded acceptable paleointensity estimates. The site mean paleointensities range from 25.2 ± 2.2 to 44.0 ± 2.2 μT. The virtual dipole moments (VDMs) range from 4.8 to 9.9 × 10²² Am². This correspond to a mean value of 7.7 ± 2.1 × 10²² Am² which is 96% of the present day geomagnetic field strength. These intensities agree with the relatively high values already reported for Early Cretaceous, which are consistent with some inferences from computer simulations previously published.     

The burial efficiency of organic carbon in the sediments of Lake Kinneret

Even though lake sediments constitute a significant long-term carbon sink, studies on the regulation of carbon burial in lakes sediments have, to date, been surprisingly few. We investigated to what degree the organic carbon (OC) being deposited onto the bottom of Lake Kinneret (Israel) is buried in the sediment at four different sites with varying degrees of oxygenation and varying supply of allochthonous particles from the River Jordan. For estimation of the OC burial efficiency (OC BE), i.e., the ratio between buried and deposited OC, we calculated OC burial from dated sediment cores, and calculated OC deposition using three different approaches. Calculation of OC deposition from sediment trap-derived mass deposition rates multiplied with the OC content of surface sediment yielded OC BE values that were at odds with published values for sediments dominated by autochthonous OC sources. Calculation via sediment trap data on organic matter flux collected within the Lake Kinneret monitoring program, as well as calculation of OC deposition as the sum of OC burial plus OC mineralization, returned fairly congruent estimates of OC BE (range 10–41%), but only if the sediment trap data were corrected for the proportion of resuspended particles in the traps. Differences in OC BE between sites were small, indicating that OC source (common to all sites) was a more important regulator of OC BE in Lake Kinneret than oxygen exposure or mineral particles characteristics.     

Evaluating restoration of man‐made slopes: a threshold approach balancing vegetation and rill erosion

The management of reclaimed slopes derived from industrial and civil activities (e.g. surface mining and road construction) requires the development of practical stability analysis approaches that integrate the processes and mechanisms that rule the dynamics of these ubiquitous emerging ecosystems. This work describes a new modelling approach focused on stability analysis of water‐limited reclaimed slopes, where interactive relationships between rill erosion and vegetation regulate ecosystem stability. Our framework reproduces two main groups of possible trends along the temporal evolution of reclaimed slopes: successful trends, characterized by widespread vegetation development and the effective control of rill erosion processes; and gullying trends, characterized by the progressive loss of vegetation and a sharp logistic increase in erosion rates. Furthermore, this analytical approach allows the determination of threshold values for the state variables (i.e. vegetation cover and rill erosion) that drive the system's stability, facilitating the identification of critical situations that require specific human intervention (e.g. revegetation or, in very problematic cases, revegetation combined with rill network destruction) to ensure the long‐term sustainability of the restored ecosystem. The application of our threshold analysis framework in Mediterranean‐dry reclaimed slopes derived from surface coal mining (the Teruel coalfield in central‐eastern Spain) showed a good field‐based performance. Therefore, we believe that this model is a valuable contribution for the management of water‐limited reclaimed systems, including those associated with rill erosion, as it provides a tool for the evaluation of restoration success and can play an important role in decision‐making during ecosystem restoration in severely disturbed landscapes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A seismological study of shallow weak micro-earthquakes in the urban area of Hamburg city,Germany, and its possible relation to salt dissolution

In the night from 8/9 April 2009, shortly after midnight on Maundy Thursday before Easter, several people in Gross Flottbek, Hamburg, felt unusual strong ground shocks so that some of them left their houses in fear of earthquake shaking. Police and fire brigade received phone calls of worried residents. A few days later, Internet pages were published where people reported their observations. On 21 April 2009 at about 8 p.m. local time, a second ground-shaking event was felt. Damage to buildings or infrastructure did not occur to our knowledge. The Institute of Geophysics, University of Hamburg, installed from 22 April to 17 May 2009 three temporal seismic stations in the epicentral area. Seismological data from two nearby stations at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron at 1 km and the Geophysical Institute at 7 km distance were collected and integrated to the temporal network. The events occurred above the roof of the shallow Othmarschen Langenfelde salt diapir, in an area known for active sinkhole formation and previous historic ground-shaking events. The analysis of the seismological data shows that three shallow micro-earthquakes occurred from 8 to 21 April at a depth of about 100 m, the largest one with a moment magnitude of about M _W 0.6. Depth location of such shallow events is difficult with standard methods and is here constrained by waveform modeling of surface waves. Earthquakes occurring in soft sediments within the uppermost 100 m are a rare phenomena and cannot be explained by standard models. Rupture process in soft sediments differs from those on faults in more competent rock. We discuss the rupture and source mechanism of the events in the context of previous historic shocks and existing sinkhole and deformation data. Although the event was weak, the rupture duration of 0.3 s was unusual long. Three possible models for the generation of repeated ground-shaking events in Gross Flottbek are developed and discussed, implying quit different hazards for subsidence, ground motion, and sinkhole formation. Our favored model postulates that roof failure occurs in an existing soil cavity beneath the epicenter at a depth of about 100 m. Other models bearing a smaller geo-hazard cannot be disproved with the data available, but future geophysical experiments may be planned to resolve this question.     

Late Cenozoic geodynamics and mechanical coupling of crustal and upper mantle deformations in the Mongolia-Siberia mobile area

Comprehensive analysis of the parameters characterizing contemporary and neotectonic deformations of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle developed in the Mongolia-Siberia area is presented. The orientation of the axes of horizontal deformation in the geodetic network from the data of GPS geodesy is accepted as an indicator of current deformations at the Earth’s surface. At the level of the middle crust, this is the orientation of the principal axes of the stress-tensors calculated from the mechanisms of earthquake sources. The orientation of the axes of stress-tensors reconstructed on the basis of structural data is accepted as an indicator of Late Cenozoic deformations in the upper crust. Data on seismic anisotropy of the upper mantle derived from published sources on the results of splitting of shear waves from remote earthquakes serve as indicators of deformation in the mantle. It is shown that the direction of extension (minimum compression) in the studied region coincides with the direction of anisotropy of the upper mantle, the median value of which is 310–320° NW. Seismic anisotropy is interpreted as the ordered orientation of olivine crystals induced by strong deformation owing to the flow of mantle matter. The observed mechanical coupling of the crust and upper mantle of the Mongolia-Siberia mobile area shows that the lithospheric mantle participated in the formation of neotectonic structural elements and makes it possible to ascertain the main processes determining the Late Cenozoic tectogenesis in this territory. One of the main mechanisms driving neotectonic and contemporary deformations in the eastern part of the Mongolia-Siberia area is the long-living and large-scale flow of the upper mantle matter from the northwest to the southeast, which induces both the movement of the northern part of the continent as a whole and the divergence of North Eurasia and the Amur Plate with the formation of the Baikal Rift System. In the western part of the region, deformation of the lithosphere is related to collisional compression, while in the central part, it is due to the dynamic interaction of these two large-scale processes.