Paleolimnological investigations of anthropogenic environmental change in Lake Tanganyika: III. Physical stratigraphy and charcoal analysis

Documenting the history of catchment deforestation using paleolimnological data involves understanding both the timing and magnitude of change in the input of erosional products to the downstream lake. These products include both physically-eroded soil and the byproducts of burning, primarily charcoal, which arise from both intentional and climatically-induced changes in fire frequency. As a part of the Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Projects special study on sedimentation, we have investigated the sedimentological composition of seven dated cores from six deltas or delta complexes along the east coast of Lake Tanganyika: the Lubulungu River delta, the Kabesi River delta, the Nyasanga/Kahama River delta, and the Mwamgongo River delta in Tanzania, and the Nyamusenyi River delta and Karonge/Kirasa River delta in Burundi. Changes in sediment mass accumulation rates, composition, and charcoal flux in the littoral and sublittoral zones of the lake that can be linked to watershed disturbance factors in the deltas were examined. Total organic carbon accumulation rates, in particular, are strongly linked to higher sediment mass accumulation from terrestrial sources, and show striking mid-20th century increases at disturbed watershed deltas that may indicate a connection between increased watershed erosion and increased nearshore productivity. However, changes in sedimentation patterns are not solely correlated with the 20th century period of increasing human population in the basin. Fire activity, as recorded by charcoal accumulation rates, was also elevated during arid intervals of the 13th–early 19th centuries. Some differences between northern and southern sedimentation histories appear to be correlated with different histories of human population in central Tanzania in contrast with northern Tanzania and Burundi.     

Paleolimnological investigations of anthropogenic environmental change in Lake Tanganyika: IV. Lacustrine paleoecology

Fossil invertebrates from cores collected in Lake Tanganyika provide a record of probable nearshore ecological response to recent watershed deforestation and sediment erosion in several East African watersheds. We compared paleoecological profiles (primarily from ostracodes) from watersheds spanning a range of sizes and present-day deforestation disturbance levels to understand the timing and magnitude of faunal changes, and their relationship in time to terrestrially-derived disturbance indicators. Profiles from the Lubulungu and Nyasanga/Kahama Rivers (Tanzania) provide a record of faunal variability in watersheds that are currently undisturbed with respect to deforestation. These records indicate continuous faunal turnover through time. However, this pattern of turnover is accompanied by relatively high levels of diversity throughout the record, with no wholesale extinction events. Ostracode taphonomic data and other fossil abundance data from the Lubulungu area provide strong evidence in support of at least two episodes of lower lake levels, associated with episodes of Late Holocene aridity. Records from deltas of disturbed watersheds at the Kabesi River (Tanzania) and those of Northern Burundi all show a combination of profound and abrupt faunal turnover, in some cases accompanied by local extinction and establishment of a few dominant taxa. At the Mwamgongo River delta, fed from a very small, disturbed watershed, species turnover was subtler. In disturbed watershed cores showing abrupt faunal changes the transitions mostly occurred in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, predating the major mid-20th century increase in sediment mass accumulation rates, with the latter only correlated with changing fossil abundance and flux. However, the earlier faunal community changes are contemporaneous with both palynological and geochemical changes in the core profiles indicative of changing land-use patterns. This suggests that lacustrine ecosystem response to deforestation was a two-stage process, with an earlier phase of response to changing quality of sediments or dissolved matter being discharged from the watershed, and a subsequent phase responding to increased quantity of sediment.     

Treatment of pulsating white dwarfs including general relativistic effects

In this paper, pulsating white dwarfs are treated via general relativity. Numerical integration of Einstein's equations was used to find equilibrium white dwarfs models and the fundamental periods of small oscillations about these equilibrium models. In these calculations account was taken of coulomb, Thomas-Fermi, and exchange interactions as well as ion zero point energies. It is shown that general relativity makes not just a quantitative difference in the results but a qualitative differences; pure C¹² models which are stable in Newtonian mechanics can be unstable against collapse (at a central density of 3×10¹⁰ g/cm³) when general relativity is taken into account. The collapsing model may become a neutron star or may continue towards the Schwarzschild radius.More realistic white dwarf models with carbon burning products at the center, also were studied. For these models, the density at which the star becomes unstable against collapse due to electron capture (3×10⁹ g/cm³) was found to be lower than the density at which general relativistic instability occurs.     

Discussion

The monitoring of Cep A over a 13 year period has shown it to contain interesting aspects of star forming regions. In particular, there are two highly time-dependent radio sources which may be evidence for proto-stars losing their magnetic fields, and a bullet which appears to be the head of a high velocity jet which causes the entrainment of molecular outflows.     

Effect of aridity and rainfall seasonality on vegetation in the southern tropics of East Africa during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition

Fossil pollen analyses from northern Lake Malawi, southeast Africa, provide a high-resolution record of vegetation change during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (~ 18–9 ka). Recent studies of local vegetation from lowland sites have reported contrasting rainfall signals during the Younger Dryas (YD). The Lake Malawi record tracks regional vegetation changes and allows comparison with other tropical African records identifying vegetation opening and local forest maintenance during the YD. Our record shows a gradual decline of afromontane vegetation at 18 ka. Around 14.5 ka, tropical seasonal forest and Zambezian miombo woodland became established. At ~ 13 ka, drier, more open formations gradually became prevalent. Although tropical seasonal forest taxa were still present in the watershed during the YD, this drought-intolerant forest type was likely restricted to areas of favorable edaphic conditions along permanent waterways. The establishment of drought-tolerant vegetation followed the reinforcement of southeasterly tradewinds resulting in a more pronounced dry winter season after ~ 11.8 ka. The onset of the driest, most open vegetation type was coincident with a lake low stand at the beginning of the Holocene. This study demonstrates the importance of global climate forcing and local geomorphological conditions in controlling vegetation distribution.     

Global chronostratigraphical correlation table for the last 2.7 million years

The table provides a correlation of chronostratigraphical subdivisions of late Cenozoic geological time, spanning the last 2. 7 million years. The formal division of the Quaternary is the responsibility of the International Commission on Stratigraphy＇s （ICS） Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy （SQS）, in partnership with the International Union for Quaternary Research＇s （INQUA） Commission on Stratigraphy and Chronology （SACCOM）. This is the third published version of the chart. Earlier versions are Gibbard et al., 2004, 2005. See http：//www.quaternary.stratigraphy.org.uk/correlation/ for history.     

> 25 MeV Proton Events Observed by the High Energy Telescopes on the STEREO A and B Spacecraft and/or at Earth During the First ∼ Seven Years of the STEREO Mission

Using observations from the High Energy Telescopes (HETs) on the STEREO A and B spacecraft and similar observations from near-Earth spacecraft, we summarize the properties of more than 200 individual >?25 MeV solar proton events, some detected by multiple spacecraft, that occurred from the beginning of the STEREO mission in October 2006 to December 2013, and provide a catalog of these events and their solar sources and associations. Longitudinal dependencies of the electron and proton peak intensities and delays to onset and peak intensity relative to the solar event have been examined for 25 three-spacecraft particle events. Expressed as Gaussians, peak intensities fall off with longitude with σ=47±14^° for 0.7?–?4 MeV electrons, and σ=43±13^° for 14?–?24 MeV protons. Several particle events are discussed in more detail, including one on 3 November 2011, in which ～?25 MeV protons filled the inner heliosphere within 90 minutes of the solar event, and another on 7 March 2012, in which we demonstrate that the first of two coronal mass ejections that erupted from an active region within ～?1 hour was associated with particle acceleration. Comparing the current Solar Cycle 24 with the previous cycle, the first >?25 MeV proton event was detected at Earth in the current solar cycle around one year after smoothed sunspot minimum, compared with a delay of only two months in Cycle 23. Otherwise, solar energetic particle event occurrence rates were reasonably similar during the rising phases of Cycles 23 and 24. However, the rate declined in 2013, reflecting the decline in sunspot number since the peak in the northern-hemisphere sunspot number in November 2011. Observations in late 2013 suggest that the rate may be rising again in association with an increase in the southern sunspot number.