Mars as never seen before

Images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express reveal the surface of the Red Planet in unprecedented detail – and should have the whole planet mapped at high resolution in just two years. Over the next six pages, Ernst Hauber and Gerhard Neukum set the scene and reveal some of the spectacular images already captured.
(All images are courtesy of ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/G Neukum unless otherwise credited.)     

Ansprache des Präsidenten und Professors des Deutschen Hydrographischen Instituts

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Climate change and human impact at Sacrower See (NE Germany) during the past 13,000 years: a geochemical record

Lacustrine sediments in north-eastern Germany have rarely been used as archives to address the effects of climate change and human impact on both lake ecosystem and landscape evolution for this region. Sacrower See, a hardwater lake located in Brandenburg, provides a unique sediment record covering the past 13,000 years which was used to reconstruct climatic and anthropogenic forcing on lacustrine sedimentation. Time control is provided by 12 AMS ¹⁴C dates of terrestrial plant remains, the Laacher See Tephra, and the onset of varve formation in AD 1870 (80 cal. BP). Geochemical (including XRF logging of major elements, CNS analyses as well as δ¹³C_org and δ¹⁵N measurements) and pollen analyses allowed detecting detailed environmental changes in the sediment record. During the Younger Dryas cold phase increased soil erosion and hypolimnetic oxygen depletion enhanced the nutrient supply to the lake water causing eutrophic conditions. The beginning of the Holocene is characterized by large changes in C/N ratios, total sulphur, δ¹³C of bulk organic matter as well as in K, Si, and Ti, reflecting the response of the lake’s catchment to climatic warming. Reforestation reduced the influx of detrital particles and terrestrial organic matter. The first, rather weak evidence of human impact is documented only in the pollen record at 5,500 cal. BP. However, until 3,200 cal. BP sedimentological and geochemical parameters indicate relatively stable environmental conditions. During periods of intense human impact at around 3,200, 2,800, and 900 cal. BP peaks in Ti and K represent phases of increased soil erosion due to forest clearing during the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Medieval Times, respectively. In general, greater variation is observed in most variables during these perturbations, indicating less stable environmental conditions. The steady rise of biogenic silica accumulation rates during the Holocene reflects an increasing productivity of Sacrower See until diatoms were outcompeted by other algae during the last centuries. The applied multi-proxy approach fosters the interpretation of the sediment record to reveal a consistent picture of environmental change including environmental factors controlling lake ontogeny and the effects of human impact.     

Die Altersstellung der terrestren Wettiner Schichten bei Halle auf Grund sedimentpetrographischer Untersuchungen

Zusammenfassung Mit Hilfe der Schwermineralanalyse ist es möglich, die terrestren Schüttungen des Jungpaläozoikums im Gebiet des östlichen Harzvorlandes und um Halle zu gliedern. Als einheitliche Schichtserien erweisen sich einerseits die Mansfelder und andererseits die Wettiner und unterrotliegenden Zwischensediment-Schichten. Die Frage, ob die Grenze zwischen Mansfelder und Wettiner Schichten mit der Zeitgrenze Oberkarbon—Rotliegend zusammenfällt, wird offen gelassen.     

Cenozoic intra-plate magmatism in the Darfur volcanic province: mantle source, phonolite-trachyte genesis and relation to other volcanic provinces in NE Africa

Chemical and Sr, Nd and Pb isotopic compositions of Late Cenozoic to Quaternary small-volume phonolite, trachyte and related mafic rocks from the Darfur volcanic province/NW-Sudan have been investigated. Isotope signatures indicate variable but minor crustal contributions. Some phonolitic and trachytic rocks show the same isotopic composition as their primitive mantle-derived parents, and no crustal contributions are visible in the trace element patterns of these samples. The magmatic evolution of the evolved rocks is dominated by crystal fractionation. The Si-undersaturated strongly alkaline phonolite and the Si-saturated mildly alkaline trachyte can be modelled by fractionation of basanite and basalt, respectively. The suite of basanite–basalt–phonolite–trachyte with characteristic isotope signatures from the Darfur volcanic province fits the compositional features of other Cenozoic intra-plate magmatism scattered in North and Central Africa (e.g., Tibesti, Maghreb, Cameroon line), which evolved on a lithosphere that was reworked or formed during the Neoproterozoic.     

Beach cusp morphodynamics

Detailed measurements of three-dimensional beach cusp morphology were made on a steep gradient, low energy, microtidal beach in Perth, Western Australia. During the field campaign a variety of wave conditions and tidal ranges were experienced, and these differing hydrodynamic conditions were reflected in a consistent pattern of morphological changes to the beach cusp system. A useful parameter to delineate between trends of cusp destruction and re-formation appeared to be the surf similarity parameter ξ = tan β/√I₀/L₀, where H₀ is offshore wave height, L₀ is deep water wave length and tan β is beach gradient. For ξ < 1·2 the beach cusps were planed off, whereas cusp morphology was enhanced when ξ > 1·2. A small storm was experienced at the start of the field campaign period and resulted in considerable erosion of the beach face. The cusp morphology across the lower beachface was destroyed, but a subtle remnant of the pre-storm cusp morphology was preserved on the upper beachface. When cusps reformed after the storm, under the influence of declining wave conditions, they appeared at the same location and with the same dimensions as the pre-storm cusp morphology. Hence, it is considered that the cusp re-formation was controlled more by the antecedent morphology than the hydrodynamic conditions. This indicates that positive feedback between swash hydrodynamics and beachface morphology, necessary to form beach cusps, does not require a large variation in relief. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.