Big Data from the Ground Up: Mobile Maps and Geographic Knowledge

Consumer users of maps on mobile devices are producing noteworthy geographic knowledges in the contexts of their own lives that are distinct from those of professional data scientists. By leveraging the streaming nature of big data in mobile maps and zooming multiscalar views, consumer users' mobile map practices produce a popular, multiscalar form of visual geographic knowledge that is both enabled and limited by its big data assemblage and associated technologies. The first half of this article outlines the role of consumer user practices amidst spatial big data assemblages, not for volunteered geographic information or aggregate analysis but for contextual, everyday use. Consumer users and their knowledges are coconstituted through mobile map viewing and as materially limited technological practices. This article focuses specifically on the consumer users' concept of scale in this context, for Web-based maps' multiscalar views differentiate them from older maps. The second half analyzes mobile map consumer users' concepts of scale in a series of focus groups that involved both questions and observing participants' actions with maps on their own phones. Instead of passively accepting maps at predetermined optimized scales from the map application, consumer users actively viewed the map across scales while searching but not while navigating.     

Radiometric and stratigraphic constraints on terminal Ediacaran (post-Gaskiers) glaciation and metazoan evolution

Radiometric constraints on mid-Ediacaran Period glaciation (Gaskiers) in Newfoundland narrowed the known temporal gap between widespread ice ages and the evolution of complex metazoans to several million years. To further evaluate this claim we studied an Ediacaran glacial diamictite at the base of the Fauquier Formation of northern Virginia, and discovered a conformable relationship between the post-glacial cap carbonate and overlying volcanic rocks of the Catoctin Formation. U/Pb zircon age constraints for the rift-related volcanic flows suggest initial emplacement around 571 million years ago. Application of the Catoctin age to the Fauquier succession indicates the occurrence of an ice age about 10 million years younger than the 582 Ma Gaskiers event, supporting the view of multiple Ediacaran Period glaciations. Furthermore, the age constraint from eastern Laurentia falls within radiometric uncertainty of fossiliferous strata in Avalonia, indicating that the Fauquier glaciation was coincident with early metazoan evolution.     

Miocene–Recent tectonic and climatic controls on sediment supply and sequence stratigraphy: Canterbury basin, New Zealand

The well‐constrained seismic stratigraphy of the offshore Canterbury basin provides the opportunity to investigate long‐term changes in sediment supply related to the formation of a transpressive plate boundary (Alpine Fault). Reconstructions of the relative motion of the Australian and Pacific plates reveal divergence in the central Southern Alps prior to ～20.1 Ma (chron 6o), followed by increasing average rates of convergence, with a marked increase after ～6 Ma (late Miocene). A strike–slip component existed prior to 33.5 Ma (chron 13o) and perhaps as early as Eocene (45 Ma). However, rapid strike–slip motion (>30 mm yr^?1) began at ～20.1 Ma (chron 6o). Since ～20.1 Ma there has been no significant change in the strike–slip component of relative plate motion. Sedimentation rates are calculated from individual sequence volumes that are then summed to represent sequence groups covering the same time periods as the tectonic reconstructions. Rates are relatively high (>22 mm yr^?1), from 15 to ～11.5 Ma (sequence group 1). Rates decrease to a minimum (<15 mm yr^?1) during the ～11.5–6 Ma interval (sequence group 2), followed by increased rates during the periods of ～6–2.6 Ma (21 mm yr^?1; group 3) and 2.6–0 Ma (～25 mm yr^?1; group 4). Good agreement between sedimentation and tectonic convergence rates in sequence groups 2–4 indicates that tectonism has been the dominant control on sediment supply to the Canterbury basin since ～11.5 Ma. In particular, high sedimentation rates of 21 and ～25 mm yr^?1 in groups 3 and 4, respectively, may reflect increased plate convergence and uplift at the Southern Alps at ～6 Ma. The early‐middle Miocene (～15–11.5 Ma) high sedimentation rate (22 mm yr^?1) correlates with low convergence rates (～2 mm yr^?1) and is mainly a response to global climatic and eustatic forcing.     

He, Sr, Nd, and Pb isotopic constraints on the origin of the Marquesas and other linear volcanic chains

The classic hotspot hypothesis [Morgan, W. J., 1971. Convection plumes in the lower mantle. Nature 230, 42–43], which posits that linear volcanic chains are traces of fixed plumes in the mantle on moving lithospheric plates, was instrumental in elevating the plate tectonics paradigm in the 1960s into a modern Earth Science theory. The hypothesis itself, however, remains conjectural because many of its predictions, particularly the simple age-progressive type of volcanism, are not observed in many linear volcanic chains. As an alternative explanation, it is proposed that linear volcanic chains are formed through magmatism along pre-existing lines of weakness such as transform zones and old sutures, or along cracks created by stresses on lithospheric plates. The Marquesas linear volcanic chain in south-central Pacific has geologic features that are consistent with some of the predictions of both hypotheses. To better constrain the origin of this volcanic chain, we collected major and trace element and Sr, Nd, Pb, and He isotopic data from several Marquesan lavas. Our new analyses combined with literature data classify the samples into the well established tholeiitic to mildly alkalic, low ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, high ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd, shield-building volcanic phase lava group and highly alkalic, high ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, low ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd, post-shield phase group. Lead isotopes show generally higher ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb ratios and suggest evidence of crustal assimilation for the shield-building phase lavas, consistent with the argument that the shield-building phase volcanism has a lithospheric source component. On the other hand, post-shield phase lavas that are predicted to represent the true composition of the mantle source by the hotspot hypothesis have higher ³He/⁴He ratios and these are coupled to other geochemical tracers. Thus our results show that the Marquesas volcanic chain, similar to many other linear volcanic chains, has a high ³He/⁴He component in its mantle source. The presence of such a distinct source component cannot be easily explained by dispersed upper mantle heterogeneities, but provides a powerful constraint for the hotspot origin of many linear volcanic chains.