Paleoecology of two marine oxygen isotope stage 7 sites correlated by the Sheep Creek tephra, northwestern North America

Pollen analysis at two sites, correlated by the presence of the 190,000 yr-old Sheep Creek tephra, documents fluctuations in vegetation and climate consistent with this date and indicates that the records span marine oxygen isotope stage 7 and the stage 6/7 transition. Dawson Cut, near Fairbanks, Alaska, provides a 5.2-m-long pollen record of interglacial boreal forest succeeded by shrub tundra and then forest/tundra. Ash Bend, Stewart River, central Yukon, provides a 9.5-m-long record of interglacial boreal forest succeeded by forest/tundra, shrub tundra, and herbaceous tundra. The replacement of forest at both sites by more open or tundra vegetation indicates warm interglacial conditions giving way to cold and arid climate. It is not clear whether stage 7 was warmer than the present. The warm-cool-warm climate oscillation evident at both sites may correlate to Lake Baikal substages 7a, 7b, and 7c. Sheep Creek tephra fell on forest/tundra vegetation.     

Lower-crustal rifting in the Rukwa Graben, East Africa

An M_w 5.9 earthquake occurred in the Lake Rukwa rift, Tanzania, on 1994 August 18, and was well recorded by 20 broad-band seismic stations at distances of 160 to 800 km and 21 broad-band stations at teleseismic distances. The regional and teleseismic waveforms have been used to investigate the source characteristics of the main shock, and also to locate aftershocks that occurred within three weeks of the main shock. Teleseismic body-wave modelling yields the following source parameters for the main shock: source depth of 25 ± 2 km, a normal fault orientation, with a horizontal tension axis striking NE-SW and an almost vertical pressure axis (Nodal Plane I: strike 126°–142°, dip 63°–66°, and rake 280°–290°; Nodal Plane II: strike 273°–289°, dip 28°–31°, and rake 235°–245°), a scalar moment of 4.1 times 10¹⁷ N m, and a 2 s impulsive source time function. Four of the largest aftershocks also nucleated at depths of 25 km, as deduced from regional sPmp–Pmp times. The nodal planes are broadly consistent with the orientation of both the Lupa and Ufipa faults, which bound the Rukwa rift to the northeast and southwest, respectively. The rupture radius of the main shock, assuming a circular fault, is estimated to be 4 km with a corresponding stress drop of 6.5 MPa. Published estimates of crustal thickness beneath the Rukwa rift indicate that the foci of the main shock and aftershocks lie at least 10 km above the Moho. The presence of lower-crustal seismicity beneath the Rukwa rift suggests that the pre-rift thermal structure of the rifted crust has not been strongly modified by the rifting, at least to depths of 25 km.     

Geohydrological models and earthquake effects at Yucca Mountain, Nevada

 Yucca Mountain, the proposed site for the high-level nuclear waste repository, is located just south of where the present water table begins a sharp rise in elevation. This large hydraulic gradient is a regional feature that extends for over 100 km. Yucca Mountain and its vicinity are underlain by faulted and fractured tuffs with hydraulic conductivities controlled by flow through the fractures. Close to and parallel with the region of large hydraulic gradient, and surrounding the core of the Timber Mountain Caldera, there is a 10- to 20-km-wide zone containing few faults and thus, most likely, few open fractures. Consequently, this zone should have a relatively low hydraulic conductivity, and this inference is supported by the available conductivity measurements in wells near the large hydraulic gradient. Also, slug injection tests indicate significantly higher pressures for fracture opening in wells located near the large hydraulic gradient compared to the opening pressures in wells further to the south, hence implying that lower extensional stresses prevail to the north with consequently fewer open fractures there. Analytical and numerical modeling shows that such a boundary between media of high and low conductivity can produce the observed, large hydraulic gradient, with the high conductivity medium having a lower elevation than the water table. Further, as fractures can close due to tectonic activity, the conductivity of the Yucca Mountain tuffs can be reduced to a value near that for the hydraulic barrier due to strain release by a moderate earthquake. Under these conditions, simulations show that the elevation of the steady-state water table could rise between 150 and 250 m at the repository site. This elevation rise is due to the projected shift in the location of the large hydraulic gradient to the south in response to a moderate earthquake, near magnitude 6, along one of the major normal faults adjacent to Yucca Mountain. As the proposed repository would only be 200–400 m above the present water table, this predicted rise in the water table indicates a potential hazard involving water intrusion. Received: 7 June 1996 / Accepted: 19 November 1996     

March 1990 Hailstorm Damage in Sydney,Australia

On 18 March 1990, an intense hailstorm in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia caused insured damage valued at A$million – the third most expensive loss event in Australian insurance history.While damage was widespread with claims for buildings spread across more than 130 postcodes, 20% of the claims came from just two postcodes. The proportion of dwellings of brick construction that made a claim was significantly less than the proportion of policies for this type of construction. Fibro (fibre-cement), timber and aluminium-clad dwellings are more likely to sustain damage than brick buildings in this type of storm.Hail caused the majority of damage to exterior building items while water damage more commonly affected interior building items and contents. While the repair of Interior building items such as ceilings and walls cost more than contents damage on average, the repair/replacement costs of contents contributed more to the total costs. Damage to window glass and roofs together made up more than 50% of the total claim.     

Cold anticyclonic eddies formed from cold pool water in the southern Middle Atlantic Bight

AVHRR satellite imagery of the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight during May 1993 revealed a large area of cold water over the shelf break and slope that appeared to spin up into a series of southward propagating anticyclonic eddies. The eddies had diameters of 35–45 km at the surface and moved southward at about 20 cm/sec. A radial TOYO CTD (to 50m) and ADCP velocity (to 400m) transect was conducted across the southern-most of these eddies. The upper 50 meters had minimum temperatures of less than 7°C and salinities of about 33 pss, characteristics similar to cold pool waters usually found over the continental shelf. ADCP velocity data from one of the eddies revealed anticyclonic flow extending to a depth of about 250m. The transport of cold pool water by the eddies was estimated to be 0.1 to 0.2 Sv which is of the same order as the annual mean alongshore transport of shelf water in this region. The origin of the deeper water within the eddy is unlikely to be the continental shelf because the shelf break is less than 100 m. The depth and velocity profiles along the TOYO transect were consistent with the constant potential vorticity eddy model of Flierl (1979) although the source of the eddy kinetic energy is uncertain. The cause for the exodus of cold pool water from the shelf, which extended northward to at least 38°N, is unclear but must involve the establishment of an alongshore baroclinic pressure gradient against the usual southwestward shelf flow. It is possible that the intrusion of Gulf Stream waters onto the shelf near Cape Hatteras was a precursor of this off shelf transport. The southern-most eddy was marked by high biological productivity and very high oxygen supersaturation. The phytoplankton bloom detected within the exported cold pool water, located over the continental slope, suggests a mechanism whereby production fueled by nutrients derived from the shelf can be locally exported into deep water.     

Trapped Xe and I-Xe ages in aqueously altered CV3 meteorites

Twenty-two dark inclusions (DIs) from Allende (18), Leoville (2), Vigarano (1) and Efremovka (1) were studied by the I-Xe method. All except two of these DIs (Vigarano 2226 and Leoville LV2) produce well-defined isochrons, and precise I-Xe ages. The Allende DIs formed a tight group about 1.6 Ma older than Shallowater (4.566 ± 0.002 Ga), about 5 Ma older than four previously studied Allende CAIs. Most of the dark inclusions require trapped Xe with less ¹²⁹Xe (or more ¹²⁸Xe) than conventional planetary Xe (well restricted in composition by Q-Xe or OC-Xe). Studies of an irradiated/unirradiated DI pair from Allende demonstrate that the ¹²⁸Xe/¹³²Xe ratio in trapped is normal planetary, so that a ¹²⁹Xe/¹³²Xe ratio below planetary seems to be required. Yet, this is not possible given constraints on ¹²⁹Xe evolution in the early solar system. Trends among all of the Allende DIs suggest that an intimate mixture of partially decayed iodine and Xe formed a pseudo trapped Xe component enriched in both ¹²⁹Xe and ¹²⁷I, and subsequently in ¹²⁸Xe after n-capture during reactor irradiation. Enrichment in radiogenic ¹²⁹Xe, but with a ¹²⁹Xe/¹²⁷I ratio less than that observed in the iodine host phase, places closure of this trapped mixture ≥13 Ma after precipitation of the major iodine-bearing phase. Because the I-Xe isochron is a mixing line between iodine-derived and trapped Xe (pseudo or not), I-Xe ages, given by the slope of this mixing line, are not compromised by the presence of pseudo trapped Xe, and the precision of the I-Xe ages is given by the statistics of the line fit.