War and the commons: Assessing the changing politics of violence, access and entitlements in Sri Lanka

There are two antagonistic, but equally influential traditions in the study of the nexus between resource use and violent conflict. One works through a Malthusian frame linking resource scarcity with violence, the other school of thought establishes a nexus between resource abundance and the incentives to use violence for rent monopolisation in a political economy of war or markets of violence. The tacit essentialism inherent in both schools of thought has increasingly come under critical scrutiny by geographers and anthropologists. To escape such essentialism requires a more detailed study of the dynamism of the political economy of (civil) war and its spatial dynamics, the political geographies of violence. In this paper, we study endowments and entitlements of people depending on common-pool or open-access resources in war-affected areas of Sri Lanka. Rural spaces in the war-affected areas became both a strategic retreat for fighters and an important common-pool resource on which a large part of the rural populace depended for their survival. Our research illustrates how the political geographies of war affect access regimes and entitlements to common-pool resources and thereby confine the livelihood opportunities of resource users. These dynamics of the political economy of war cross different scales and go beyond simple place-based struggles, for they are rooted in broader spatial dynamics of warfare creating place-space tensions in the sense that spatial dynamics of military control impinge changing access regimes upon specific places.     

Performance of the complete travel-time equation of state at simultaneous high pressure and temperature

The complete travel-time equation of state (CT-EOS) is presented by utilizing thermodynamics relations, such as; $$K_T = K_S (1 + \alpha \gamma T)^{ - 1} , \gamma = \frac{{\alpha K_S }}{{\rho C_P }}, \left. {\frac{{\partial C_P }}{{\partial P}}} \right)_T = - \frac{T}{\rho }\left[ {\alpha ^2 + \left. {\frac{{\partial \alpha }}{{\partial T}}} \right)_P } \right], etc.$$ The CT-EOS enables us to analyze ultrasonic experimental data under simultaneous high pressure and high temperature without introducing any assumption, as long as the density, or thermal expansivity, and heat capacity are also available as functions of temperature at zero pressure. The performance of the CT-EOS was examined by using synthesized travel-time data with random noise of 10^?5 and 10^?4 amplitude up to 4 GPa and 1500 K. Those test conditions are to be met with the newly developed GHz interferometry in a gas medium piston cylinder apparatus. The results suggest that the combination of the CT-EOS and accurate experimental data (10^?4 in travel time) can determine thermodynamic and elastic parameters, as well as their derivatives with unprecedented accuracy, yielding second-order pressure derivatives (?² M/?P ²) of the elastic moduli as well as the temperature derivatives of their first-order pressure derivatives ?² M/?P?T). The completeness of the CT-EOS provides an unambiguous criterion to evaluate the compatibility of empirical EOS with experimental data. Furthermore because of this completeness, it offers the possibility of a new and absolute pressure calibration when X-ray (i.e., volume) measurements are made simultaneously with the travel-time measurements.     

Narrow-line dynamics in Seyfert and starburst nuclei

Rotating disks and expanding supershells of ionized gas are supposed to be kinematical components essential for the formation of emission-like profiles from starburst nuclei and the narrow-line regions of Seyfert galaxies. Simple models predict a few typical features of line profiles by which disks may be recognized.A giant supershell is identified SE of the nucleus of the starburst galaxy NGC 253. We suggest that the variously reported outflow cones in Seyfert nuclei are also induced by superbubble dynamics. Observations of NGC 4151 are shown to be consistent with this scenario.Paper presented at the 11th European Regional Astronomical Meetings of the IAU on New Windows to the Universe, held 3–8 July, 1989, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.     

Southern Ocean warming and increased ice shelf basal melting in the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries based on coupled ice-ocean finite-element modelling

We utilise a global finite-element sea ice–ocean model (FESOM), focused on the Antarctic marginal seas, to analyse projections of ice shelf basal melting in a warmer climate. Ice shelf–ocean interaction is described using a three-equation system with a diagnostic computation of temperature and salinity at the ice–ocean interface. A tetrahedral mesh with a minimumhorizontal resolution of 4 km and hybrid vertical coordinates is used. Ice shelf draft, cavity geometry, and global ocean bathymetry have been derived from the RTopo-1 data set. The model is forced with the atmospheric output from two climate models: (1) the Hadley Centre Climate Model (HadCM3) and (2) Max Planck Institute’s ECHAM5/MPI-OM coupled climate model. Results from experiments forced with their twentieth century output are used to evaluate the modelled present-day ocean state. Sea ice coverage is largely realistic in both simulations; modelled ice shelf basal melt rates compare well with observations in both cases, but are consistently smaller for ECHAM5/MPI-OM. Projections for future ice shelf basal melting are computed using atmospheric output for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios E1 and A1B. In simulations forced with ECHAM5 data, trends in ice shelf basal melting are small. In contrast, decreasing convection along the Antarctic coast in HadCM3 scenarios leads to a decreasing salinity on the continental shelf and to intrusions of warm deep water of open ocean origin. In the case of the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS), this water reaches deep into the cavity, so that basal melting increases by a factor of 4 to 6 compared to the present value of about 90 Gt/year. By the middle of the twenty-second century, FRIS becomes the dominant contributor to total ice shelf basal mass loss in these simulations. Our results indicate that the surface freshwater fluxes on the continental shelves may be crucial for the future of especially the large cold water ice shelves in the Southern Ocean.     

Seismic lamination and anisotropy of the Lower Continental Crust

Seismic lamination in the lower crust associated with marked anisotropy has been observed at various locations. Three of these locations were investigated by specially designed experiments in the near vertical and in the wide-angle range, that is the Urach and the Black Forrest area, both belonging to the Moldanubian, a collapsed Variscan terrane in southern Germany, and in the Donbas Basin, a rift inside the East European (Ukrainian) craton. In these three cases, a firm relationship between lower crust seismic lamination and anisotropy is found. There are more cases of lower-crustal lamination and anisotropy, e.g. from the Basin and Range province (western US) and from central Tibet, not revealed by seismic wide-angle measurements, but by teleseismic receiver function studies with a P–S conversion at the Moho. Other cases of lamination and anisotropy are from exhumed lower crustal rocks in Calabria (southern Italy), and Val Sesia and Val Strona (Ivrea area, Northern Italy). We demonstrate that rocks in the lower continental crust, apart from differing in composition, differ from the upper mantle both in terms of seismic lamination (observed in the near-vertical range) and in the type of anisotropy. Compared to upper mantle rocks exhibiting mainly orthorhombic symmetry, the symmetry of the rocks constituting the lower crust is either axial or orthorhombic and basically a result of preferred crystallographic orientation of major minerals (biotite, muscovite, hornblende). We argue that the generation of seismic lamination and anisotropy in the lower crust is a consequence of the same tectonic process, that is, ductile deformation in a warm and low-viscosity lower crust. This process takes place preferably in areas of extension. Heterogeneous rock units are formed that are generally felsic in composition, but that contain intercalations of mafic intrusions. The latter have acted as heat sources and provide the necessary seismic impedance contrasts. The observed seismic anisotropy is attributed to lattice preferred orientation (LPO) of major minerals, in particular of mica and hornblende, but also of olivine. A transversely isotropic symmetry system, such as expected for sub-horizontal layering, is found in only half of the field studies. Azimuthal anisotropy is encountered in the rest of the cases. This indicates differences in the horizontal components of tectonic strain, which finally give rise to differences in the evolution of the rock fabric.     

Oolithische Strukturen in Pyriten des Ventersdorp-Contact-Reefs,Südafrika

Zusammenfassung Oolithische Strukturen in Pyriten des Ventersdorp-Contact-Reefs im Witwatersrand Gebiet, die bisher als radial pyrites beschrieben wurden, zeigen eine starke Ähnlichkeit zu Eisenoolithen der Pretoria Serie des Transvaal Systems. Letztere wurden bereits als primäre Strukturen gedeutet, an deren Bildung Algen wahrscheinlich wesentlich beteiligt waren. Die Verfasser sind der Ansicht, daß sowohl der authigene Kohlenstoff im Ventersdorp- und Witwatersrand System als auch die oolithischen Strukturen in Pyriten des Ventersdorp-Contact-Reefs wahrscheinlich Überbleibsel von primitiven Organismen darstellen, die vor rund 2750×10⁶ Jahren im Sedimentationsbecken des Witwatersrand Systems existierten.

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Oölitic textures present in pyrites of the Ventersdorp Contact Reef at Venterspost Gold Mine, South Africa, which have previously been described as radial pyrites strongly resemble iron oöliths of the Pretoria Series of the Transvaal System. The latter have been considered to be primary textures; a causative connection was believed to have existed between primitive organic life and the formation of these oöliths and related textures. It is suggested that both the authigenic carbonaceous material present in the Ventersdorp- and Witwatersrand Systems and the oölitic textures shown by the pyrite in the Ventersdorp Contact Reef probably represent relicts of an early form of life which existed in the sedimentary basin of the Witwatersrand System some 2,750 × 10⁶ years ago.

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Résumé Les textures oolitiques dans les pyrites du Ventersdorp-Contact-Reef dans la région du Witwatersrand, étant dénommées jusqu'ici «radial pyrites», nous montre une affinité très forte avec oolites ferriques de la série Prétoria du système Transvaal. On a déjà interprété les derniers comme textures primaires; probablement alginite. Suivant l'opinion des auteurs, non seulement le carbone authigène dans le système Ventersdorp et Witwatersrand mais encore les textures oolitiques dans les pyrites du Ventersdorp-Contact-Reef sont probablement des restes des organismes primitifs, ayant existés dans le bassin sédimentaire du système Witwatersrand il y a 2750×10⁶ années.

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