Tree-ring reconstruction of streamflow for Palgong Mountain forested watershed in southeastern South Korea

Tree-ring chronologies from pine, oak and black locust tree species were used to reconstruct annual streamflow and examine hydrological drought years for Palgong Mountain forested watershed in southeastern South Korea for the period from 1954-2015. The backward elimination multiple regression analysis provided the statistically significant predictor chronologies of streamflow. The final calibration and verification test models accounted for 84.8% and 81.6%, respectively, of the variability in streamflow observed in the gage data. Further verification of the validity of the reconstructed model was undertaken with the Pearson Correlation Coefficient, the Reduction of Error Test, and the Durbin-Watson Statistics and indicated fidelity of the model for reconstructing the annual streamflow. Analyses of the reconstructed annual streamflow indicate that the most persistent years of high flows above the median annual discharge occurred from 1986-2008. This period included 7 single or multiple years of highest flow above the 90th percentile discharge and multiple years of high flows with a time interval of 2-6 years, although with intervening multiple years of low flows below the 10th and 50th percentile. In comparison, the most persistent years of low flows below the median annual discharge occurred from 1954-1985 and 2009-2015. This period included 8 single or multiple years of lowest flow below the 10th percentile discharge and multiple years of low flows with a time interval of 2-9 years, although also with intervening multiple years of high flows above the 50th percentile. No single years of extreme hydrological droughts below the 10th percentile were identified from 1986-2015 whereas a greater proportion of high flows above the 90th percentile occurred during this period. The persistent single or multiple years of lowest flows between 1954 and 1985 were the recent most critical hydrological drought years identified in the Palgong Mountain forested watershed providing supportive evidence of the severity of past hydrological droughts during that period, applicable to the southeastern South Korea where the study watershed is located. This interpretation agrees with the hydrological drought event years identified from 1951 to the early 1980s in a related national study that used precipitation proxy data to reconstruct past occurrences of droughts in Korea.     

Influence of vegetation cover and other sources of variability on sediment and runoff response in a burned forest in South Korea

Post-fire field measurements of sediment and run off yield were undertaken in natural rainfall event-basis during five rainy months in Korea on a total of 15 small plots: four replica burned unseeded plots, six replica burned seeded plots, and five replica unburned plots. The main aim was to evaluate the effects of vegetation recovery and spatial distribution patterns on sediment and runoff response between and within the treatment replica erosion plots. Six-years after the wildfire, total sediment and runoff yield in the burned unseeded plots with 20%-30% vegetation cover was still 120.8 and 20.6 times higher than in the unburned treatment plots with 100% ground cover, 8.3 and 6.7 times higher than in the burned seeded plots with 70%-80% vegetation cover, while only 1.6 and 2.0 times higher than in the burned seeded plots with 50%-60% vegetation cover, respectively. The differences in sediment and runoff yield between the treatment plots was proportional to total vegetation cover, distance of bare soil to vegetation cover, magnitude of rainfall characteristics and changes in soil properties, but not slope gradient. Three out of the six within-treatment pairs of two replica plots showed large differences in sediment and runoff yield of up to 6.0 and 4.2 times and mean CV of up to 99.1% and 62.2%, respectively. This was due to differences in the spatial distribution patterns of surface cover features, including aggregation of vegetation and litter covers, the distance of bare soil exposed to vegetation cover closer to the plot sediment collector and micro topographic mounds and sinks between pairs of replica plots. Small differences in sediment and runoff of only 0.9-1.4 folds and mean CV of 8.6%-25% were observed where the within-treatment pairs of replica plots had similar slope, total surface cover components and comparable spatial distribution pattern of vegetation and bare soil exposed surface covers. The results indicated that post-fire hillslopes undergoing effective vegetation recovery have the potential to reduce sediment and runoff production nearer to unburned levels within 6-years after burning while wildfire impacts could last more than 6-years on burned unseeded ridge slopes undergoing slow vegetation recovery.     

Emplacement mechanism of Linglong granitoid complex, Shandong Peninsula, China

The Linglong granitoid complex (LGC) is composed of four major plutonic units that intruded and cooled in the Middle Jurassic (170-155 Ma). Gravity-anomaly modeling indicates that the LGC is a sheet-like laccolith, less than 10 km thick, that dips shallowly below the surface toward the Tancheng-Lujiang (Tan-Lu) fault, a major lithospheric structure in Eastern China. Measurements of foliation in the field and measurements of planar and linear magnetic fabrics from the study of anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility in the LGC indicate that foliation is dominantly shallowly dipping and magnetic lineation is mainly parallel to the dip direction of the laccolith toward the Tan-Lu fault zone. The trend of lineations is consistent with flow of magma up the thrust to reach shallower levels. The magma of the LGC probably originated by crustal melting within the Tan-Lu fault zone and the emplacement of magma occurred along a shallowly-dipping thrust that drained the Tan-Lu fault zone, the mechanism of which is mainly dike-fed model.     

Neotectonic effects on sinuosity and channel migration,Belle Fourche River,Western South Dakota

Short-term instability in the behaviour of a small, meandering alluvial channel is identified from the relation between sinuosity and either floodplain slope or channel slope within 17 reaches along an 81-kilometre section of the Belle Fourche River in western South Dakota. In reaches 1 to 4 and 11 to 17 the channel is relatively stable and sinuosity varies inversely with channel slope. In reaches 5 to 10, sinuosity is positively related to floodplain slope. Sinuosity increases markedly in reaches 5, 6, and 7 (which are immediately downstream from a discontinuity in the long profile of the floodplain) in association with an increase in floodplain slope. Immediately upstream from the discontinuity, bankfull channel depth and sinuosity decrease and the area of the floodplain reworked by meander migration between 1939 and 1981 increases, in association with a decrease in floodplain slope. Channel behaviour in reaches 5 to 10 is best explained as a consequence of neotectonic activity, as indicated by changes in elevation recorded along geodetic survey lines that cross lineaments that may delimit the eastern boundary of the Black Hills uplift. Sinuosity acts as a barometer of the effects of neotectonic activity on alluvial channels. Initial indications of channel and floodplain instability due to neotectonic activity may be derived from evidence of anomalously active channel migration, as documented from photographic or topographic sources.     

The limitations of three-dimensional kinematic vorticity analysis

The kinematic vorticity number (W_k) can be calculated for three-dimensional as well as two-dimensional geologic deformations. For steady-state deformations, W_k can be correlated to and analyzed in terms of finite strains. The analysis shows that assumptions commonly made for two-dimensional deformations are not applicable to three-dimensional deformations. A single W_k describes an infinite number of three-dimensional deformations. Further, even knowledge of flow apophyses orientation, instantaneous stretching axes orientation, and/or W_k are not sufficient to describe deformation. Three-dimensional deformations also require knowledge of the deformation ‘type’ or boundary conditions of deformation (e.g. transpression). Hence, in addition to being difficult to estimate, the value of knowing W_k for three-dimensional deformations is greatly reduced compared with plane strain. The most useful methods of determining W_k from naturally deformed rocks are presented.     

On the observed synoptic variability in the thermal structure of the upper northern Bay of Bengal during MONEX-79

The short-term variability observed in the near surface meteorological parameters and in the vertical thermal structure of the upper layers of the northern Bay of Bengal during a weak monsoonal regime is examined with the aid of time series measurements. The variability of the mixed layer depth is interpreted in terms of forced mixing caused by the surface wind stress and free mixing by buoyancy flux, Ekman pumping controlled by the curl of the surface wind stress, convergence associated with a clockwise gyral circulation and stratification caused by freshwater discharges from rivers. The daily-averaged current vectors in the upper layers indicate the presence of clockwise gyral circulation in the polygon area.     

Typology of segregated (armoured/paved) surfaces: Some comments

A review of the characteristics of segregated surfaces and consideration of the origins of the terms armoured and paved suggests that the two terms are interchangeable, and that neither term is specifically associated with a particular segregation process. The dichotomy between segregated surfaces which are formed in channels in which the entire range of bed material is mobile under the prevailing hydrologic regime, and segregated surfaces which are intrinsically stable, forms the basis of an elementary distinction between different types of segregated surface. It is suggested that the term stable armour or stable pavement be applied to those cases where the segregated surface is considered to be inactive under the prevailing hydrologic regime, and that the term unstable armour or unstable pavement be applied to cases where the segregated surface experiences periodic mobilization.     

Mechanisms and duration of non-tectonically assisted magma emplacement in the upper crust: The Black Mesa pluton, Henry Mountains, Utah

A new study of Black Mesa pluton (Henry Mountains, Colorado Plateau, Utah, USA) indicates that it is a classic example of a small upper-crustal pluton assembled over a few years by incremental amalgamation of discrete magma pulses. The results of our petrostructural study of the pluton interior allow us to constrain the geometry, kinematics and timing of the processes. The symmetric internal fabric is interpreted as an evidence for a feeding by below and not laterally. The observed rotation of the lineation, from WNW–ESE on the very top to NNE–SSW below, lead us to propose that the fabric at the base of the pluton is a record of magma infilling process, and the fabric at the very top is a record of the strain due to the relative movement between magma and wallrocks. A consequence is that except at the contact between pluton and wallrocks (top and margins), the stretching direction, recorded by the lineation, is not parallel to the flow direction of the magma i.e. displacement. The Black Mesa pluton is a sheeted laccolith on its western edge and a bysmalith on its eastern edge. This E–W asymmetry in pluton geometry/construction and the symmetrical internal fabric indicates that the apparently different west and east growth histories could have occurred simultaneously. Our field data indicate pluton growth through an asymmetric vertical stacking of sill-like horizontal magma sheets.One-dimensional thermal models of the pluton provide maximum limits on the duration of its growth. We have constrained the number, the thickness, and the frequency of magma pulses with our structural observations, including: (1) the emplacement of the pluton by under-accretion of successive magma pulses, (2) the absence of solid-state deformation textures at internal contacts, and (3) the apparent absence of significant recrystallization in the wallrocks. Our results suggest that the emplacement of the Black Mesa pluton was an extremely rapid event, with a maximum duration on the order of 100 years, which requires a minimum vertical displacement rate of the wallrocks immediately above the pluton greater than 2 m/yr. Finally, our data show that the rates of plutonic and volcanic processes could be similar, a significant result for interpretation of magma transfer in arc systems.     

Residence time of alluvium in an aggrading fluvial system

Relationships between the surface area and age of alluvial deposits were used to estimate the residence time of alluvium in the 2205 km² Waipaoa River basin, New Zealand. The contemporary Waipaoa River is an efficient transporter of sediment to the continental shelf, but the basin has been characterized by rapid channel and valley aggradation in the historic period, and by extensive mid‐ to late Holocene alluvial storage in the lower reaches. The area‐weighted mean age of alluvial deposits in the lower part of the river basin is ～4400 yr. These deposits comprise terrace remnants isolated by downcutting, and Holocene to Recent sediments that are potentially remobilizable by the modern river. Even though the amount of storage is small relative to downstream transport, the majority of the potentially remobilizable alluvium is likely to remain in storage for >100 yr, and its half‐life (time for 50 per cent removal) is >2000 yr. Within the confines of the flfloodplain, the apparent ‘loss’ of older deposits is due primarily to burial, but losses of the most recent deposits are due almost entirely to remobilization (30–40 per cent), with the remainder preserved in the alluvial record for at least 10⁴ yr. Most of this sediment is likely to remain in storage until there is a shift to a degradational state. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.