Submarine canyon morphologies in the Gulf of Palermo (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea) and possible implications for geo-hazard

The continental shelf and the upper slope of the Gulf of Palermo (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea) in the depth interval ranging from 50 to 1,500 m were mapped for the first time with Multi Beam echosounder and high resolution seismic. Seven submarine canyons are confined to the upper slope or indent the shelf-edge and enter the Palermo intraslope basin at a depth of around 1,300 m. The canyons evolved through concurrent top-down turbiditic processes and bottom-up retrogressive mass failures. Most of the mass failure features of the area are related to canyon-shaping processes and only few of them are not confined to the upper slope. In general, these features probably do not represent a significant tsunami hazard along the coast. The geological element that controls the evolution of the canyons and induces sediment instability corresponds to the steep slope gradient, especially in the western sector of the Gulf, where the steepest canyons are located. The structural features mapped in the Palermo offshore contributed to the regulation of mass failure processes in the area, with direct faults and antiform structures coinciding with some of the canyon heads. Furthermore, the occurrence of pockmarks and highs that probably consist of authigenic carbonates above faulted and folded strata suggests a local relationship between structural control, fluid escape processes and mass failure. This paper presents a valuable high-resolution morphologic dataset of the Gulf of Palermo, which constitutes a reliable base for evaluating the geo-hazard potential related to slope failure in the area.     

Intertidal biogenic reefs built by the polychaete Boccardia proboscidea in sewage‐impacted areas of Argentina,SW Atlantic

The rocky intertidal zone around the city of Mar del Plata (SW Atlantic, 38° S–57° W) is characterized by dense mussel beds of Brachidontes rodriguezii. This intertidal community develops on natural and artificial hard substrates, including abrasion platforms in sewage‐impacted areas. A monitoring program, designed to assess the effect of sewage discharge on intertidal macrobenthic communities, has been conducted since 1997. During the spring season of 2008, a new spionid polychaete (Boccardia proboscidea) was found near the sewage outfall, forming large biogenic reefs. This is the first report of biogenic reefs being built by a non reef‐forming spionid polychaete in areas organically impacted by sewage discharges. The aim of this work was to evaluate the spatial–temporal dynamics (% cover and density of B. proboscidea) of these reefs. These biogenic reefs covered almost the entire impacted site, reaching a density of 650,000 ind·m^?2. This phenomenon is unique in that there is no other record available worldwide of any other biogenic polychaete reefs that could be sewage‐induced. The presence and stability of these biogenic reefs is discussed in relation to increased organic contamination as a structuring factor.     

Applying an Automatic Image-Processing Method to Synoptic Observations

We used an automatic image-processing method to detect solar-activity features observed in white light at the Kislovodsk Solar Station. This technique was applied to automatically or semi-automatically detect sunspots and active regions. The results of this automated recognition were verified with statistical data available from other observatories and revealed a high detection accuracy. We also provide parameters of sunspot areas, of the umbra, and of faculae as observed in Solar Cycle 23 as well as the magnetic flux of these active elements, calculated at the Kislovodsk Solar Station, together with white-light images and magnetograms from the Michaelson Doppler Imager onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO/MDI). The ratio of umbral and total sunspot areas during Solar Cycle 23 is ≈?0.19. The area of sunspots of the leading polarity was approximately 2.5 times the area of sunspots of the trailing polarity.     

Hotelling Revisited: Oil Prices and Endogenous Technological Progress

This article examines the Hotelling model of optimal nonrenewable resource extraction in light of empirical evidence that petroleum and minerals prices have been trendless despite resource scarcity. In particular, we examine how endogenous technology-induced shifts in the cost function would have evolved over time if they were to maintain a constant market price for nonrenewable resources. We calibrate our model using empirical data on world oil, and find that, depending on the estimate of the initial stock of reserve, oil reserves will likely be depleted some time between the years 2040 and 2075.     

Chronic oil pollution harms Magellanic penguins in the Southwest Atlantic

Petroleum pollution is a problem for seabirds along the Southwest Atlantic coast. Twenty-five groups from Salvador, Brazil (12 degrees 58'S) to San Antonio Oeste, Argentina (40 degrees 43'S) survey or rehabilitate sick or oiled seabirds. Four groups, one each in Brazil and Uruguay, and two in Argentina, kept counts of birds found alive and in need of rehabilitation. An average of 63.7% of the seabirds found were Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus), with 3869 reported since 1987. Mainly adult penguins were found in Argentina (1605 of 2102 penguins of known age class) and Uruguay (158 of 197). Juveniles were most common in Brazil (234 of 325). Oil fouling was the most frequent cause of injury or sickness. The number of oiled penguins reported in their wintering range has greatly increased since the early 1990s and is strongly correlated with petroleum exports from Argentina. Our results show that chronic petroleum pollution is a problem for wildlife from Southern Brazil through Northern Argentina, and regulations and enforcement are failing to protect living resources.     

Resilience and seismic risk perception at school: a geoethical experiment in Aiello Calabro,southern Italy

The last few years have seen the debate on the geoethics of environmental and climatic protection growing to include resilience as a central idea within this new discipline, which holds many similarities with geography. Resilience analysis often looks at the capacity to re-establish conditions of equilibrium within a system which has been hit by a serious shock, e.g. a natural or man-made disaster. Geoethics works, in tandem with geological analyses and the geography of risk, to inform a population and develop integrated risk management in such a way as to strengthen a community’s resilience. The aim of this work is to study some people’s capacity to overcome what was potentially a disastrous event and, through a process of reconstruction, turn it into an occasion for growth. The experiment, carried out in the primary and middle schools in Aiello Calabro (Calabria, southern Italy), was conducted on the basis of the belief that there is a close relationship between a population’s having a realistic understanding of the risk of such an event, e.g. an earthquake, and high levels of resilience. We also tried to gain an insight into the relationship that may exist between resilience in primary and secondary school children and methods of coping which give an appropriate management of seismic risk. To be more precise, we try to discover whether there is a link between good/appropriate resilience and good/appropriate risk management.     

Carbonate assimilation in magmas: A reappraisal based on experimental petrology

The main effect of magma–carbonate interaction on magma differentiation is the formation of a silica-undersaturated, alkali-rich residual melt. Such a desilication process was explained as the progressive dissolution of CaCO₃ in melt by consumption of SiO₂ and MgO to form diopside sensu stricto. Magma chambers emplaced in carbonate substrata, however, are generally associated with magmatic skarns containing clinopyroxene with a high Ca-Tschermak activity in their paragenesis. Data are presented from magma–carbonate interaction experiments, demonstrating that carbonate assimilation is a complex process involving more components than so far assumed. Experimental results show that, during carbonate assimilation, a diopside–hedenbergite–Ca-Tschermak clinopyroxene solid solution is formed and that Ca-Tschermak/diopside and hedenbergite/diopside ratios increase as a function of the progressive carbonate assimilation. Accordingly, carbonate assimilation reaction should be written as follows, taking into account all the involved magmatic components:CaCO₃^solid + SiO₂^melt + MgO^melt + FeO^melt + Al₂O₃^melt → (Di–Hd–CaTs)_ss^solid + CO₂^fluidThe texture of experimental products demonstrates that carbonate assimilation produces three-phases (solid, melt, and fluid) whose main products are: i) diopside–hedenbergite–Ca-Tschermak clinopyroxene solid solution; ii) silica-undersaturated CaO-rich melt; and iii) C–O–H fluid phase. The silica undersaturation of the melt and, more importantly, the occurrence of a CO₂-rich fluid phase, must be taken into account as they significantly affect partition coefficients and the redox state of carbonated systems, respectively.     

Trace element behaviour during interaction between basalt and crustal rocks at 0.5–0.8 GPa: an experimental approach

We experimentally investigate the major and trace elements behavior during the interaction between two partially molten crustal rocks (meta-anorthosite and metapelite) and a basaltic melt at 0.5–0.8 GPa. Results show that a hybrid melt is formed at the basalt-crust contact, where plagioclase crystallizes. This contact layer is enriched in trace elements which are incompatible with plagioclase crystals. Under these conditions, the trace element diffusion coefficients are one order of magnitude larger than those expected. Moreover, the HFSE diffusivity in the hybrid melt is surprisingly higher than the REE one. Such a feature is related to the plagioclase crystallization that changes the trace elements liquid-liquid partitioning (i.e. diffusivity) over a transient equilibrium that will persist as long as the crystal growth proceeds. These experiments suggests that the behaviour of the trace elements is strongly dependent on the crystallization at the magma-crust interface. Diffusive processes like those investigated can be invoked to explain some unusual chemical features of contaminated magmatic suites.     

Experimental Study of Pollutant Dispersion Within a Network of Streets

We investigate the dispersion of a passive scalar within an idealised urban district made up of a building-like obstacle array. We focus on a street network in which the lateral dimension of the buildings exceeds the street width, a geometry representative of many European cities. To investigate the effect of different geometries and wind directions upon the pollutant dispersion process, we have performed a series of wind-tunnel experiments. Concentration measurements of a passive tracer have enabled us to infer the main features characterising its dispersion within the street network. We describe this by focusing on the roles of different transfer processes. These are the channelling of the tracer along the street axes, the mixing at street intersections, and the mass exchange between the streets and the overlying atmospheric flow. Our experiments provide evidence of the dependence of these processes on the geometrical properties of the array and the direction of the overlying atmospheric flow.