Building the cosmic distance scale: from Hipparcos to Gaia

Hipparcos, the first ever experiment of global astrometry, was launched by ESA (European Space Agency) in 1989 and its results published in 1997 (Perryman et al. in Astron. Astrophys. 323:L49, 1997; Perryman & ESA (eds.) in The Hipparcos and Tycho catalogues, ESA SP-1200, 1997). A new reduction was later performed using an improved satellite attitude reconstruction leading to an improved accuracy for stars brighter than 9th magnitude (van Leeuwen & Fantino in Astron. Astrophys. 439:791, 2005; van Leeuwen in Astron. Astrophys. 474:653, 2007a). The Hipparcos Catalogue provided an extended dataset of very accurate astrometric data (positions, trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions), enlarging by two orders of magnitude the quantity and quality of distance determinations and luminosity calibrations. The availability of more than 20 000 stars (22 000 for the original catalogue, 30 000 for the re-reduction) with a trigonometric parallax known to better than 10% opened the way to a drastic revision of our 3-D knowledge of the solar neighbourhood and to a renewal of the calibration of many distance indicators and age estimations. The prospects opened by Gaia, the next ESA cornerstone, planned for launch in 2013 (Perryman et al., in Astron. Astrophys. 369:339, 2001), are still much more dramatic: a billion objects with systematic and quasi simultaneous astrometric, spectrophotometric and spectroscopic observations, about 150 million stars with expected distances to better than 10%, all over the Galaxy. All stellar distance indicators, in very large numbers, will be directly measured, providing a direct calibration of their luminosity and making possible detailed studies of the impacts of various effects linked to chemical element abundances, age or cluster membership. With the help of simulations of the data expected from Gaia, obtained from the mission simulator developed by DPAC (Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium), we will illustrate what Gaia can provide with some selected examples.     

The symbolic and political appropriation of scales: A critical analysis of the Amazonian ranchers’ narrative

There are many examples of “local” discourses aiming to delegitimize environmental issues, demands, actions and governance by arguing that they pursue international goals, defined by international actors that do not meet local needs and frequently oppose them. We focus on the narrative held by large ranchers in the Eastern Amazon, which disqualifies the so-called top-down creation of protected areas that jeopardizes the “local development” these actors have, following the narrative, encouraged and sustained for years. Through the combination of an ontological and constructivist approach of scales, our contribution challenges this scalar construction questioning the “locality” of the large ranchers and showing that their role as “local developers” is actually rooted in regional/national/international scales. We then study the most important effect of the anti-environmental grand scalar narrative: its influence on regional and national decision makers. Well-conceived and publicized scalar scenarios are efficient in this context as in many others.     

Multigaussian kriging for point-support estimation: incorporating constraints on the sum of the kriging weights

In the geostatistical analysis of regionalized data, the practitioner may not be interested in mapping the unsampled values of the variable that has been monitored, but in assessing the risk that these values exceed or fall short of a regulatory threshold. This kind of concern is part of the more general problem of estimating a transfer function of the variable under study. In this paper, we focus on the multigaussian model, for which the regionalized variable can be represented (up to a nonlinear transformation) by a Gaussian random field. Two cases are analyzed, depending on whether the mean of this Gaussian field is considered known or not, which lead to the simple and ordinary multigaussian kriging estimators respectively. Although both of these estimators are theoretically unbiased, the latter may be preferred to the former for practical applications since it is robust to a misspecification of the mean value over the domain of interest and also to local fluctuations around this mean value. An advantage of multigaussian kriging over other nonlinear geostatistical methods such as indicator and disjunctive kriging is that it makes use of the multivariate distribution of the available data and does not produce order relation violations. The use of expansions into Hermite polynomials provides three additional results: first, an expression of the multigaussian kriging estimators in terms of series that can be calculated without numerical integration; second, an expression of the associated estimation variances; third, the derivation of a disjunctive-type estimator that minimizes the variance of the error when the mean is unknown.     

Temporal and spatial distribution and production of dissolved gaseous mercury in the Bay St. François wetland, in the St. Lawrence River, Quebec, Canada

Wetlands are valued for their high biodiversity and for their ecosystem services. However, we still do have a poor understanding of their role in the redox transformation of contaminants such as mercury, particularly in fluvial settings. Seasonal and spatial variations in dissolved gaseous mercury (DGM) distribution and production were studied in the Bay St. François, a wetland in the St. Pierre Lake, a fluvial lake of the St. Lawrence River, in Quebec, Canada. A high spatial resolution for DGM, with samples taken every 10-cm depth, was used in field measurements. Through a series of parallel field and incubation experiments, we assessed the main factors determining Hg(0) transformations as a function of depth, seasons, and presence/absence of macrophyte beds. Besides light penetration in the water column and water temperature, iron and dissolved organic carbon likely stimulated Hg(II) reduction. Inversely, chloride favored Hg(0) oxidation. Macrophytes and associated epiphytes appeared to be important sites of adsorption/absorption of Hg(II) and likely of DGM. It seems however that the effects of macrophytes were restricted to immediately adjacent waters. Near the bottom, under anoxic conditions, the reduction of Hg(II) was highly promoted. In addition, sediments and decomposing macrophytes seemed to release DGM and/or reducible Hg to bottom waters. Overall, differences in DGM between surface and bottom waters tended to be more accentuated than observed differences in DGM between macrophyte beds and sites devoid of plant.     

Relicts of an intra-oceanic arc in the Sapi-Shergol mélange zone (Ladakh, NW Himalaya, India): implications for the closure of the Neo-Tethys Ocean

In the Ladakh–Zanskar area, relicts of both ophiolites and paleo-accretionary prism have been preserved in the Sapi-Shergol mélange zone. The paleo-accretionary prism, related to the northward subduction of the northern Neo-Tethys beneath the Ladakh Asian margin, mainly consists of tectonic intercalations of sedimentary and blueschist facies rocks. Whole rock chemical composition data provide new constraints on the origin of both the ophiolitic and the blueschist facies rocks. The ophiolitic rocks are interpreted as relicts of the south Ladakh intra-oceanic arc that were incorporated in the accretionary prism during imbrication of the arc. The blueschist facies rocks were previously interpreted as oceanic island basalts (OIB), but our new data suggest that the protolith of some of the blueschists is a calc-alkaline igneous rock that formed in an arc environment. These blueschists most likely originated from the south Ladakh intra-oceanic arc. This arc was accreted to the southern margin of Asia during the Late Cretaceous and the buried portion was metamorphosed under blueschist facies conditions. Following oceanic subduction, the external part of the arc was obducted to form the south Ladakh ophiolites or was incorporated into the Sapi-Shergol mélange zone. The incorporation of the south Ladakh arc into the accretionary prism implies that the complete closure of the Neo-Tethys likely occurred by Eocene time.     

Kaolinitic meniscus bridges as an indicator of early diagenesis in Nubian sandstones, Sinai, Egypt

Characteristic meniscus geometries formed by kaolinitic infiltration are observed in Nubian sandstones collected on the western coast of the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt). Based on petrographic and scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations, the kaolinite forming the menisci consists of mixed-size discrete platelets that gather into the corners around the framework grain-to-grain contacts. Specifically, the internal fabric of menisci indicates a general organizing trend from (1) the centre, where the platelets coat the framework grains; (2) to the peripheral zone, where they are oriented tangentially to grain surfaces; (3) to the pore linings with curvatures that are consistent with theoretical considerations of air–water interfaces. This typical arrangement suggests a detrital origin of kaolinite platelets by mechanical infiltration into sediments lying above the tablewater, in vadose conditions. This type of clay cementation occurring during early diagenesis can prevent (delay) deep burial diagenetic processes and therefore preserve excellent reservoir properties.     

Estimation de la porosité dans un matériau argileuxPorosity assessments in a clay material

Porosity measurements on a clay material, carried out through various microscopic techniques, show a significant difference with the total porosity macroscopically estimated. Analyses have allowed to assign this difference, whose importance is linked to the hydromechanical stresses sustained by the material, to microporous spaces lower than 2 nm and to closed pore volumes, not accessible by the used techniques. Besides, the role of the drying methods of samples, which do not allow the removal of a part of the water, is highlighted. Its elimination would lead to irreversible microtextural modifications, prejudicial to the understanding of the macroscopic behaviour of the material. To cite this article: X. Guillot et al., C. R. Geoscience 334 (2002) 105–109.     

Present-day deformation of the Dauphine Alpine and Subalpine massifs (SE France)

The positions of 20 geodetic points surveyed in 1946-1952 by the Institut Géographique National in the Grenoble area (western Alps) were remeasured in 1993-1994 using GPS. We evaluate the displacements of the common points of the networks between the two surveys, and calculate the strain-rate tensors for different sets of three adjacent points. The significant N70° shortening direction observed at the boundary of the Belledonne and Taillefer massifs suggests that the dextral strike-slip motion between the External Crystalline Massifs (ECM) and the Subalpine domain is still active. Geological evidence suggests that this deformation, which is compatible with the few focal mechanisms available for the area, occurred throughout the late Neogene. Our data also suggest a roughly 3-5 mm yr⁻¹ active shortening concentrated at the external front of the Subalpine chains. This thrust motion results in a principal axis of compression orientated N130°, oblique to the direction of shortening observed in the ECM. This change in direction is also seen in in situ stress measurements. This motion may mark the southward continuation of the active fault observed in the Jura mountains by Jouanne, Ménard & Darmendrail (1995).