The charcoal trap: Miombo forests and the energy needs of people

Background  

This study evaluates the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas fluxes to the atmosphere resulting from charcoal production in Zambia. It combines new biomass and flux data from a study, that was conducted in a miombo woodland within the Kataba Forest Reserve in the Western Province of Zambia, with data from other studies.     

A database for worldwide seismicity quantification

The first step in a seismicity analysis usually consists of defining the seismogenic units, seismic zones or individual faults. The worldwide delimitation of these zones involves an enormous effort and is often rather subjective. Also, a complete recording of faults will not be available for a long time yet. The seismicity model presented in this paper therefore is not based on individually defined seismic zones but rather on the assumption that each point in a global 1/2° grid of coordinates represents a potential earthquake source. The corresponding seismogenic parameters are allocated to each of these points. The earthquake occurrence frequency, one of the most important parameters, is determined purely statistically by appropriately spreading out the positions of past occurrences. All the other significant seismicity characteristics, such as magnitude-frequency relations, maximum possible magnitude and attenuation laws including the dependence on focal depth are determined in a global 1/2° grid of co-ordinates. This method of interpreting seismicity data allows us to establish a transparent, sufficiently precise representation of seismic hazard which is ideally suited for computer-aided risk analyses.     

Investigations on the Biodegradability of Chlorinated Fulvic Acids Untersuchungen zur mikrobiellen Verwertbarkeit gechlorter Fulvinsäuren

Microbial biodegradation of organic substances takes place during drinking water treatment, but also in the distribution net, if the drinking water still contains biodegradable organic substances. This phenomenon is called regrowth. The regrowth potential of a drinking water is high, when for instance ozonation is used as the last step of treatment. It was proved before, that ozonation increases the biodegradability of humic substances, which are the main fraction of organic carbon in drinking water. In this work the objective was to check, if chlorination has a similar effect on humic substances. Using the method developed by Werner of measuring the regrowth potential of a water it could be shown by dilution series with chlorinated and unchlorinated humic substances that the substrate quality of these organics is increased by chlorination. The better substrate quality is seen in the chlorinated solutions, which might contain also low molecular weight organic compounds, but also in the fulvic acid fraction after XAD-enrichment, which removes most of the low molecular weight organic compounds. The chlorination creates in the fulvic acid solutions a shift of molecular size to smaller molecules and higher polar substances, which might be the reasons for the better biodegradability. From these results it can be concluded, that chlorination produces substances, which are more easily biodegradable. But this will not produce regrowth problems as long as there is free chlorine present as a disinfectant. In contrast, when the chlorine demand is very high and no free chlorine is left, this might produce high colony counts in the distribution net.     

运用碳稳定同位素进行底栖生物组合环境古盐度的比较研究

从葡萄牙卢西塔尼亚盆地侏罗纪生物底栖组合的化石中选取了５４件样品用作碳稳定同位素成分测试，分析其古盐度。按这种方法所恢复的古盐度数据和按底栖组合分析所得到的古盐度能够较好地吻合，由此可作下列结论：（１）尽管化石壳体的原始稳定同位素值可能会受到成岩作用、生物效应、温度差异等因素的影响，但碳稳定同位素值与氧同位素值相比，其重结晶作用产生的成岩影响很小，生物效应却是非常明显地表现于双壳类壳顶区和壳缘的碳同位素值的差异。（２）碳同位素的古盐度表明，葡萄牙卢酉塔尼亚盆地在侏罗纪时曾是一半咸水海湾，其水体含盐度低于２４‰。，所以生物组合中以机会种和半咸水地方性种占优势。（３）机会种分布于中盐至高半咸水的盐区域，而大部分地方性半咸水种局限于中盐度域．（４）卢西塔尼亚盆地晚侏罗世的牡蛎类生存于真盐和高半成水域，定量的盐度研究可能提供牡蛎类自中生代以来对盐度的适应演化。（５）卢西塔尼亚盆地晚侏罗世双壳类虽然属于半咸水属种，但仍然具有厚壳体大的特征。     

The role of precursor emissions on ground level ozone concentration during summer season in Poland

Three online coupled chemical transport model simulations were analyzed for three summer months of 2015 in Poland. One of them was run with default emission inventory, the other two with NO_x and VOC emissions reduced by 30%, respectively. Obtained ozone concentrations were evaluated with data from air quality measurement stations and ozone sensitivity to precursor emissions was estimated by ozone concentration differences between simulations and with the use of indicator ratios. They were calculated based on modeled mixing ratios of ozone, total reactive nitrogen and its components, nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. The results show that the model overestimates ozone concentrations with the largest errors in the morning and evening, which is primarily related to the way vertical mixing is resolved by the model. Better model performance for ozone is achieved in rural than urban environment, as PBL and mixing mechanisms play more significant role in urban areas. Modeled ozone shows mixed sensitivity to precursor concentrations, similarly to other European regions, but indicator ratios have different values than are found in literature, particularly H₂O₂/HNO₃ is larger than in southern Europe. However, indicator ratios often differ between locations and transition values need to be established individually for a given region.     

LA-ICP-MS study of apatite- and K feldspar-hosted primary carbonatite melt inclusions in clinopyroxenite xenoliths from lamprophyres, Hungary: Implications for significance of carbonatite melts in the Earth’s mantle

We report the results of LA-ICP-MS analyses of rock forming minerals in clinopyroxene-apatite-K feldspar-phlogopite (CAKP) metasomatic xenoliths and primary carbonatite melt inclusions (CMI) hosted in apatite (Ap) and K feldspar (Kfs). The xenoliths are from the Cretaceous lamprophyre dikes of the Transdanubian Central Range, Hungary. The CMI in Ap have phosphorus dolomitic composition as opposed to CMI in Kfs, which display dolomitic alkali-aluminosiliceous character. The melts found in CMI in Ap and in Kfs likely formed by liquid-liquid separation from an originally carbonate- and phosphorous-rich melt. Primitive mantle (PM) normalized trace element distributions of both Ap- and Kfs-hosted CMI (n = 60 and 20, respectively) reveal a strong negative Ti-anomaly, and an extreme enrichment in incompatible elements (U, Th, LILE and LREE) relative to HREE, Sc, V, Ni and Cr. Rarely, apatites contain unique CMI, which show major- and trace-element signature transitional to K feldspar-hosted CMI. This is due to heterogeneous entrapment of an immiscible phosphorous-bearing carbonatite melt and a carbonate-bearing alkali aluminosiliceous melt, which is a further evidence for their co-existence. CMI reveal that U, Th, Pb, Nb, Ta, P, Sr, Y and REE partitioned into the phosphorous-bearing carbonatite melt, whereas Cs, Rb, Na, K, B, Al, Zr and Hf preferred the silicate-bearing liquid.PM normalized REE pattern (high LREE/HREE), elevated Zr and Hf contents and negative Ti anomaly of clinopyroxene (Cpx) indicate that its formation is genetically linked to carbonatite metasomatism attested by CMI. Trace element partitioning between the studied Cpx and CMI is in accordance with experimentally determined trace element distributions between Cpx and carbonatite melt. Cpx, which occur in samples with high modal proportion of apatite represent mantle section, which interacted with a higher amount of “initial” carbonatite melt than Cpx from apatite-poor xenoliths. This is confirmed by higher Cr, Ni, V, Sc, Ti and lower Zr, as well as Hf concentration in Cpx from xenoliths with low modal abundance of Ap. CMI reveal that Ti, V, Ni and Cr were in lower concentration in the “initial” carbonatite melt than in PM. Contrarily, Zr and Hf were more abundant in this melt than in PM. Consequently, a continuously migrating “initial” carbonatite melt, increased Zr and Hf concentration, and decreased Ti, Sc, V, Ni and especially Cr in the clinopyroxenes. Our findings suggest that the studied CAKP rocks were formed by carbonatite melt metasomatism, which occurred in an open system in the upper mantle.