AWAPer: An R package for area weighted catchment daily meteorological data anywhere within Australia

Meteorological time-series data are a fundamental input to hydrological investigations. But sourcing data is often laborious and plagued with difficulties. In an effort to improve efficiency and rigor we present an R-package, named AWAPer ( https://github.com/peterson-tim-j/AWAPer ), for the efficient estimation of daily area weighted catchment average and spatial variance of meteorological variables, including evapotranspiration. The package allows creation and updating of a data-cube of gridded daily data from 1900 onwards. Once created, point and area weighted estimates can be extracted at user-defined locations and time periods for anywhere within Australia. Examples of point and catchment average extraction are presented.     

Late Pleistocene stratigraphy and sedimentary environments of the Severnaya Dvina‐Vychegda region in northwestern Russia

The Late Pleistocene stratigraphy from the Severnaya Dvina‐Vychegda region of northwestern Russia is revised based on investigations of new localities, revisiting earlier localities, introduction of about 110 new OSL dates and burial depth corrections of earlier published OSL dates, in addition to six new radiocarbon dates. Most of the OSL samples studied here are from fluvial and subaquaeous sediments, which we found to be well bleached. Six chronostratigraphical units and their sedimentary environment are described, with the oldest unit consisting of pre‐Eemian glacial beds. For the first time, Early Weichselian sediments are documented from the region and a fluvial environment with some vegetation and permafrost conditions is suggested to have persisted from the end of the Eemian until at least about 92 ka ago. The period in which a Middle Weichselian White Sea Lake could have existed is constrained to 67?62 ka, but as the lake level never reached the thresholds of the drainage basin, the lake probably existed only for a short interval within this time‐span. Blocking and reversal of fluvial drainage started again around 21?20 ka ago when the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet advanced into the area, reaching its maximum 17?15 ka ago. At that time, an ice‐dammed lake reached its maximum water level, which was around 135 m above present sea level. Drainage of the lake started shortly after 15 ka ago, and the lake was emptied within 700 years. Severe periglacial conditions, with permafrost and aeolian activity, prevailed in the area until about 10.7 ka.     

Using computational intelligence techniques to model subglacial water systems

Measurements of water pressure beneath Trapridge Glacier, Yukon Territory, Canada show that the basal water system is highly heterogeneous. Three types of behaviour were recorded: pressure records which are strongly correlated, records which are strongly anticorrelated, and records which alternate between strong correlation and strong anticorrelation. We take the pressure in bore-holes that are connected to the evacuation route for basal water as the forcing, and the other pressures as the response to this forcing. Previous work (Murray and Clarke 1995) has shown that these relationships can be modelled using low-order nonlinear differential equations optimized by inversion. However, despite optimizing the model parameters we cannot be sure that the final model forms are themselves optimal. Computational intelligence techniques provide alternative methods for fitting models and are robust to missing or noisy data, applicable to non-smooth models, and attempt to derive optimal model forms as well as optimal model parameters. Four computational intelligence techniques have been used and the results compared with the more conventional mathematical model. These methods were genetic programming, artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic and self-organizing maps. We compare each technique and offer an evaluation of their suitability for modelling the pressure data. The evaluation criteria are threefold: (1) goodness of fit and an ability to predict subsequent data under different surface weather conditions; (2) interpretability, and the extent and significance of any new insights offered into the physics of the glacier; (3) computation time. The results suggest that the suitability of the computational intelligence techniques to model these data increases with the complexity of the system to be modelled.     

Pre‐drill Groundwater Geochemistry in the Karoo Basin,South Africa

Enhanced production of unconventional hydrocarbons in the United States has driven interest in natural gas development globally, but simultaneously raised concerns regarding water quantity and quality impacts associated with hydrocarbon extraction. We conducted a pre‐development assessment of groundwater geochemistry in the critically water‐restricted Karoo Basin, South Africa. Twenty‐two springs and groundwater samples were analyzed for major dissolved ions, trace elements, water stable isotopes, strontium and boron isotopes, hydrocarbons and helium composition. The data revealed three end‐members: a deep, saline groundwater with a sodium‐chloride composition, an old, deep freshwater with a sodium‐bicarbonate‐chloride composition and a shallow, calcium‐bicarbonate freshwater. In a few cases, we identified direct mixing of the deep saline water and shallow groundwater. Stable water isotopes indicate that the shallow groundwater was controlled by evaporation in arid conditions, while the saline waters were diluted by apparently fossil meteoric water originated under wetter climatic conditions. These geochemical and isotopic data, in combination with elevated helium levels, suggest that exogenous fluids are the source of the saline groundwater and originated from remnant seawater prior to dilution by old meteoric water combined with further modification by water‐rock interactions. Samples with elevated methane concentrations (>14 ccSTP/kg) were strongly associated with the sodium‐chloride water located near dolerite intrusions, which likely provide a preferential pathway for vertical migration of deeply sourced hydrocarbon‐rich saline waters to the surface. This pre‐drill evaluation indicates that the natural migration of methane‐ and salt‐rich waters provides a source of geogenic contamination to shallow aquifers prior to shale gas development in the Karoo Basin.