Pressures on an intensive irrigated cash-crop system in coastal Ghana

This paper outlines the results of recent interdisciplinary fieldwork in Anloga on Keta Lagoon, Ghana. Vegetable production has been undertaken at Anloga since the nineteenth century and is now highly intensive and carefully regulated. Farmers produce shallots and other crops utilising irrigation water, mostly from wells which tap a shallow fresh-water perched aquifer. However, farmers have been expanding their cultivation activities from the lagoon-side, encouraged by a World Bank supported programme which provides for well-sinking and some electric pumps. The project has environmental and socio-economic implications which give cause for concern. The research employs field investigation to explore both the physical and political economy context and implications of recent change and considers the opportunities for community-based water and crop regulation.     

Design of backfilled thin-seam coal pillars using earth pressure theory

In underground coal mining any increase in coal recovery rate is dependent on a decrease in pillar size. Backfilling is one way of reducing the required size of pillars and hence the volume of coal left underground. Therefore any comparisons made between a self-supported mine layout and backfill supported mine layout are based directly on pillar design. The most effective way to examine the effect of backfill on pillar support, and subsequently the rate of recovery, would be to incorporate the mechanisms of backfill support directly into the current design procedure for coal pillars. This paper presents a review of the mechanics of backfill support, a method of estimating the magnitude of that support based on earth pressure theory, and an example that incorporates backfill support into current coal pillar design.     

Assessing the Comparability of Ammonium,Nitrate and Sulfate Concentrations Measured by Three Air Quality Monitoring Networks

Airborne fine particulate matter across the United States is monitored by different networks, the three prevalent ones presently being the Clean Air Status and Trend Network (CASTNet), the Interagency Monitoring of PROtected Visual Environment Network (IMPROVE) and the Speciation and Trend Network (STN). If combined, these three networks provide speciated fine particulate data at several hundred locations throughout the United States. Yet, differences in sampling protocols and samples handling may not allow their joint use. With these concerns in mind, the objective of this study is to assess the spatial and temporal comparability of the sulfate, nitrate and ammonium concentrations reported by each of these networks. One of the major differences between networks is the sampling frequency they adopted. While CASTNet measures pollution levels on seven-day integrated samples, STN and IMPROVE data pertain to 24-hour samples collected every three days. STN and IMPROVE data therefore exhibit considerably more short-term variability than their CASTNet counterpart. We show that, despite their apparent incongruity, averaging the data with a window size of four to six weeks is sufficient to remove the effects of differences in sampling frequency and duration and allow meaningful comparison of the signals reported by the three networks of concern. After averaging, all the sulfate and, to a lesser degree, ammonium concentrations reported are fairly similar. Nitrate concentrations, on the other hand, are still divergent. We speculate that this divergence originates from the different types of filters used to collect particulate nitrate. Finally, using a rotated principal component technique (RPCA), we determined the number and the geographical organization of the significant temporal modes of variation (clusters) detected by each network for the three pollutants of interest. For sulfate and ammonium, the clusters’ geographical boundaries established for each network and the modes of variations within each cluster seem to correspond. RPCA erformed on nitrate concentrations revealed that, for the CASTNet and IMPROVE networks, the modes of variation do not correspond to unified geographical regions but are found more sporadically. For STN, the clustered areas are unified and easily delineable. We conclude that the possibility of jointly using the data collected by CASTNet, IMPROVE and STN has to be weighed pollutant by pollutant. While sulfate and ammonium data show some potential for joint use, at this point, combining the nitrate data from these monitoring networks may not be a judicious choice.     

The Upper Pliocene Bowden shell beds,southeast Jamaica

The Neogene fossil record of the Antilles is particularly rich and can satisfy the interests of most collectors, from foraminifers to vertebrates. The molluscs are among the commonest and most diverse groups, being found in both terrestrial and marine deposits. The Pliocene Bowden shell beds of southeast Jamaica, best known for its hundreds of species of molluscs, also yields diverse members of other groups, the total exceeding 800 species from a mere 5 m of stratigraphical section.     

Two intriguing pluricolumnals (Crinoidea) from the Lower Palaeozoic of Powys and Shropshire

Complete fossils must be preferred to fragments for most palaeontological studies, but disarticulated specimens are nonetheless potential sources of noteworthy data. Two crinoid pluricolumnals are recorded from the lower Palaeozoic; informed discussion shows each is a basis for palaeobiological interpretation. Both are gracile and are probably belong to disparids. Floricrinus (col.) sp. is from the Silurian of Wenlock Edge, Shropshire, either from the Much Wenlock Limestone Formation (Wenlock) or, more likely, the Lower Elton Formation (Ludlow). This is the first crinoid from the Silurian of the British Isles with a pentapetaloid arrangement of the areola, a geometry common in the Middle-Upper Ordovician and higher in the geologic column. Pluricolumnal gen. et sp. indet. is from the Lower Llanvirn of Powys. One end of the otherwise straight specimen is tightly coiled. This is likely the proxistele, the most flexible region of the column, and the coiling occurred after the crown was lost by autotomy in response to an environmental disturbance.