Can a dam type of an alpine lake be derived from lake geometry?A negative result

Glacial lake outburst floods(GLOFs)represent one of the most serious hazard and risk in deglaciating high mountain regions worldwide and the need for GLOF hazard and risk assessment is apparent.As a consequence,numerous region-and nation-wide GLOF assessment studies have been published recently.These studies cover large areas and consider hundreds to thousands of lakes,prioritizing the hazard posed by them.Clearly,certain simplification is required for executing such studies,often resulting in neglecting qualitative characteristics which would need manual assignment.Different lake dam types(e.g.,bedrock-dammed,moraine-dammed)are often not distinguished,despite they control GLOF mechanism(dam overtopping/dam breach)and thus GLOF magnitude.In this study,we explore the potential of easily measurable quantitative characteristics and four ratios to approximate the lake dam type.Our dataset of 851 lakes of the Cordillera Blanca suggests that while variances and means of these characteristics of individual lake types differ significantly(F-test,t-test),value distribution of different geometrical properties can’t be used for the originally proposed purpose along the spectra.The only promising results are obtained for extreme values(selected bins)of the ratios.For instance,the low width to length ratio indicates likely morainedammed lake while the high value of ratio indicating round-shape of the lake indicates increased likelihood of bedrock-dammed lake.Overall,we report a negative result of our experiment since there are negligible differences of relative frequencies in most of the bins along the spectra.     

Palaeo-environmental and dietary analysis of intestinal contents of a mammoth calf (Yamal Peninsula,northwest Siberia)

Intestinal samples from the one-month-old Siberian mammoth calf ‘Lyuba’ were studied using light microscopy and ancient DNA to reconstruct its palaeo-environment and diet. The palynological record indicates a ‘mammoth steppe’. At least some pollen of arboreal taxa was reworked, and thus the presence of trees on the landscape is uncertain. In addition to visual comparison of 11 microfossil spectra, a PCA analysis contributed to diet reconstruction. This yielded two clusters: one of samples from the small intestine and the other of large-intestine samples, indicating compositional differences in food remains along the intestinal tract, possibly reflecting different episodes of ingestion. Based on observed morphological damage we conclude that the cyperaceous plant remains and some remains of dwarf willows were originally eaten by a mature mammoth, most likely Lyuba’s mother. The mammoth calf probably unintentionally swallowed well-preserved mosses and mineral particles while eating fecal material deposited on a soil surface covered with mosses. Coprophagy may have been a common habit for mammoths, and we therefore propose that fecal material should not be used to infer season of death of mammoths. DNA sequences of trnL and rbcL genes amplified from ancient DNA extracted from intestinal samples confirmed and supplemented plant identifications based on microfossils and macro-remains. Results from different extraction methods and barcoding markers complemented each other and show the value of longer protocols in addition to fast and commercially available extraction kits.     

Temporal and bathymetric resolution of nautiloid death assemblages in stratigraphically condensed oozes (New Caledonia)

Cephalopod shells can be affected by postmortem transport and biostratigraphic condensation, but direct estimates of the temporal and spatial resolutions of cephalopod assemblages are missing. Amino acid racemisation calibrated by ¹⁴C demonstrates a centennial‐scale time averaging (<500 years) of Nautilus macromphalus in sediment‐starved, epi‐ and mesobathyal pelagic environments. The few shells that are thousands of years old are highly degraded. The median occurrence of dead shells is at 445 m depth, close to the 300–400 m depth where living N. macromphalus are most abundant. Therefore, dead shells of this species accumulate at a centennial temporal resolution and with excellent bathymetric fidelity. Dead Nautilus shells exist for only a few hundred years on the seafloor, in contrast to the biostratigraphically condensed mixture of extant foraminifers and foraminifers that went extinct during the Pleistocene. Cephalopod shells that do not show any signs of early diagenetic cementation are unlikely to be biostratigraphically condensed.     

Geoid anomalies over two South Atlantic fracture zones

Seasat altimetry profiles across the Falkland-Agulhas fracture zone (FZ) and the Ascension FZ in the South Atlantic were examined for evidence of step-like geoid offsets predicted from thermal modeling of the lithosphere. The geoid profiles exhibit much short-wavelength power and the step-like offsets are often small, making reliable estimation of the heights of the observed geoid offsets difficult. The offsets were estimated by the least-squares fitting of quadratic curves incorporating a step function to the altimetry profiles. A preferred offset value was determined for each profile by taking the average of step heights computed with various distances around the fracture zone excluded from the fit. The age of the crust surrounding the fracture zones, necessary for computing a theoretical geoid offset, was determined from surface ship magnetic anomaly data and from existing ocean floor age maps.Observed variations in geoid step height with age of the lithosphere are not consistent with those predicted from standard thermal plate models. For ages less than 30 Ma, the step offsets across both fracture zones decrease in a manner appropriate for an unusually thin plate with a thickness of 50–75 km. At greater ages, the offsets show complex behavior that may be due to bathymetric features adjacent to the fracture zones. Similar geoid patterns on opposite branches of the Falkland-Agulhas FZ are indicative of processes that act symmetrically on both sides of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This behavior of the geoid is consistent both with small-scale convection occurring beneath the lithosphere and with bathymetric features originally produced along the ridge crest and now located symmetrically on opposite sides of the ridge. The west flank of the Ascension FZ displays a regrowth in step height at about 40 Ma consistent with small-scale convection and in agreement with other studies of Pacific and South Atlantic fracture zones.     

模拟GPS精密测量系统误差的若干问题

讨论了模拟ＧＰＳ精密测量系统误差的一些主要问题．文中用了两个实例，一个是南美洲某油田地面沉陷监测网，另一个是美国超级超导对撞机ＧＰＳ地面控制网．     

Viscous damping of nonlinear magneto-acoustic waves

The motivation for the present work is discussed, and in Section 2 the nonlinear Burger's equation is derived for wave propagation in a compressible unstratified viscous fluid permeated by a magnetic field (initially constant), using the reductive perturbation method of Taniuti and Wei (1968). An analytic solution of the equation is given (after Sakai, 1972) and the angular behaviour is shown for certain parameters describing the nonlinearity and damping of the system, for both fast- and slow-mode disturbances.     

Use of physiological responses in Mytilus trossulus as integrative bioindicators of sewage pollution

Mussels, Mytilus trossulus (average shell length 43+/-0.8 mm), were sampled from a beach in Alaska that received untreated sewage for several years, a second beach adjacent to a secondary wastewater outfall, and two nearby reference beaches. Survival time in air, byssal thread production rate, and prevalence of trematode parasites were determined for each group. Tolerances to aerial exposure was significantly lower (P<0.05) at both sewage outfall sites than at the reference sites. Mussels exposed to untreated sewage produced fewer byssal threads and had a significantly higher prevalence of encysted trematodes than mussels from the other beaches, including the secondary wastewater site. Survival in air, byssal thread production, and trematode prevalence in mussels may be useful indicators in evaluating the longterm health of beaches exposed to sewage.