Everyday effects, practices and causal mechanisms of ‘cultural embeddedness’: Learning from Utah’s high tech regional economy

In recent years, economic geographers have drawn extensively upon notions of ‘cultural embeddedness’ to explore how spatially variable sets of cultural conventions, norms, values and beliefs shape firms’ innovative performance in dynamic regional economies. However, our understanding of these causal links remains partial, reinforced by an ‘over-territorialised’ conception of cultural embeddedness which sidelines the role of institutional actors operating outside and across the boundaries of ‘the local’. So motivated, this paper offers a theoretically-informed - and theoretically informing - empirical analysis of the high tech regional economy in Salt Lake City, Utah to explore the everyday causal mechanisms, practices and processes - both local and extra-local - through which firms’ cultural embedding within the region is manifested, performed and (un)intentionally (re)produced. In so doing, this paper aims to further our understanding of the constitutive entanglement and complex interweaving of cultural/economic practices, and to contribute to the development of an in-depth empirical corpus of work which compliments the exciting conceptual developments that have largely dominated cultural economic geography over the last decade.     

A Method for Installing Piezometers in Large Cobble Bed Rivers

An impact drive point method is described for emplacing piezometers in a cobble river bottom where this has previously been difficult without the use of drilling rigs. To force the drive point piezometers through coble, the vibrational impact of an air-powered hammer was carried directly to the drive point by the use of an internal drive rod. After insertion to depth, the drive rod was removed from the lower portion of the piezometer and a standpipe was added to extend the piezometer above the river level. Piezometers installed in this way have permitted water quality analysis and dynamic measurement of vertical potentials in cobble sediments ranging in size from 2.5 to >30 cm and the method has been successfully used in the Columbia River, USA, and Töss River, Switzerland. This innovative method provides information on the hydrodynamics of pore water in highly permeable, cobble deposits that are common in high-energy river and lake bottoms. Piezometers installed using the internal drive rod method facilitate the assessment of the temporal and spatial dynamics of recharge and discharge at the ground water/surface water interface and analyses of the ecological connectivity between the hyporheic zone and surface water of rivers and streams. This information will lead to improved management decisions related to our nation's ground water and surface water supplies.     

A comment on determining the induced magnetic field in bodies of arbitrary shape

Summary The authors prove that the solution of Laplace's equation under Neumann's boundary conditions can be transformed to an advantage into determining the field which is generated by charges, induced by the external field at surfaces of discontinuity.     

Petrology of the Skien basaltic rocks,southwestern Oslo Region,Norway

The pile of Permian continental basaltic rocks near Skien has a minimum thickness of 1 500 m, dipping 40^g towards NE, consisting of several thin lava flows. Most flows are porphyric, though both tuffs and aphyric flows occur to a lesser extent. Amygdules are abundant and a characteristic feature. The flows in the lower 2/3 of the basalt pile are mainly classified as melanite-ankaramite; some in the middle part as melanite-nephelinite; and the upper 1/3 of the flows as basanite. The basaltic rocks evolved from an assumed olivine-nephelinitic magma at great depths principally by clinopyroxene crystal fractionation accompanied by later olivine and maybe melilite reactions at moderate pressure in minor shallower magma chambers.     

Lithospheric extension and the opening of the Red Sea: sediment-basalt relationships in Yemen*

This paper analyses new field and radiometric age data on the timing of extension, sedimentation and magmatism related to the opening of the Red Sea. The first evidence of widespread extension is found in synsedimentary fissures in the fluviatile to shallow marine Tawilah Formation of Cretaceous to early Tertiary age. The first indication of magmatism is the eruption of alkaline basalts (43.5–21.2 Ma) on to marine and non-marine sandstones of lower to middle Tertiary age. The lack of an angular unconformity at the sediment-basalt contact, over a period of 25 Myr, corroborates a diachronous relationship between the Tawilah sandstones and the Yemen Volcanics. These data also indicate that the onset of volcanism in Yemen was in the Eocene, as is the case in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. A passive rifting model is supported by early extension and sedimentation followed by syn- and post-tectonic magmatism.     

Impact of wildfire on source water contributions in Devil Creek,CA: evidence from end‐member mixing analysis

A geochemical and end‐member mixing analysis (EMMA) is undertaken in Devil Canyon catchment, located in southern California, to further understanding of watershed behaviour and source water contributions after an acute and extensive wildfire. Physical and chemical transformations in post‐fire watersheds are known to increase overland flow and decrease infiltration, mainly due to formation of a hydrophobic layer at, or near, the soil surface. However, less is known about subsurface flow response in burned watersheds. The current study incorporates EMMA to evaluate and quantify source water contributions before, and after, a catchment affected by wildfires in southern California during the fall of 2003. Pre‐ and post‐fire stream water data were available at several sampling sites within the catchment, allowing the identification of contributing water sources at varying spatial scales. Proposed end‐member observations (groundwater, overland flow, shallow subsurface flow) were also collected to constrain and develop the catchment mixing model. Post‐fire source water changes are more evident in the smaller and faster responding sub‐basin (interior sampling point). Early post‐fire storm events are dominated by overland flow with no significant soil water or groundwater flow contribution. Inter‐storm streamwater in this smaller basin shows an increase in groundwater and a decrease in soil water. In the larger, baseflow‐dominated system, source water components appear less affected by fire. A slight increase in lateral flow is observed with only a slight decrease in baseflow. Changes in the post‐fire flow regimes affect nutrient loading and chemical response of the basin. Relatively rapid recovery of the chaparral ecosystem is evidenced, with active re‐growth and evapotranspiration evidenced by the fourth post‐fire rainy season. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.