A new book on the 'Ice Age World' - a pictorial feast and more than a fresher's primer!

Andersen, B. G. & Borns Jr., H. W. 1994: The Ice Age World (an introduction to Quaternary history and research with emphasis on North America and Northern Europe during the last 2.5 million years ). Scandinavian University Press.     

Associations between elevated atmospheric temperature and human mortality: a critical review of the literature

The effects of the anomalously warm European summer of 2003 highlighted the importance of understanding the relationship between elevated atmospheric temperature and human mortality. This review is an extension of the brief evidence examining this relationship provided in the IPCC’s Assessment Reports. A comprehensive and critical review of the literature is presented, which highlights avenues for further research, and the respective merits and limitations of the methods used to analyse the relationships. In contrast to previous reviews that concentrate on the epidemiological evidence, this review acknowledges the inter-disciplinary nature of the topic and examines the evidence presented in epidemiological, environmental health, and climatological journals. As such, present temperature–mortality relationships are reviewed, followed by a discussion of how these are likely to change under climate change scenarios. The importance of uncertainty, and methods to include it in future work, are also considered.     

Application of biomarkers for improving risk assessments of chemicals under the Water Framework Directive: a case study

To answer the requirement of the European Commission's Water Framework Directive (WFD) for biological-effects endpoints to classify the ecological health of aquatic ecosystems, we propose the biomarker response index (BRI). The BRI, based on a suite of biomarkers at different levels of biological response at the individual level, provides an integrated relative measure of the general health status of coastal invertebrates. Using the BRI, the health of mussels (Mytilus edulis) from 10 estuaries classified by the Environment Agency of England and Wales under the WFD was compared. Eight sites were healthier than predicted and two showed a similar health status to that of the predicted point-source pollution risk classification. Results indicate that the BRI offers a potential measure of organism health that can be used in monitoring under the WFD as an additional aid to reduce uncertainty in defining risk classification and to provide better evidence of existing impact.     

Interplay between an axial channel belt,slope gullies and overbank deposition in the Puchkirchen Formation in the Molasse Basin,Austria

Deep‐water sediments in the Molasse Basin, Austria, were deposited in a narrow foreland basin dominated by a large channel belt located between the steep Alpine fold and thrust belt to the south and the gentler northern slope off the Bohemian Massif. Several gas fields occur outside the channel belt, along the outer bend of a large meander. Accumulation of these overbank sediments reflects a complicated interplay between slope accommodation and debris‐flow and turbidity‐flow interaction within the channel. The tectonically oversteepened northern slope of the basin (ca 2 to 3°) developed a regionally important erosional surface, the Northern Slope Unconformity, which can be traced seismically for >100 km in an east–west direction and >20 km from the channel to the north. The slope preserves numerous gullies sourced from the north that eroded into the channel belt. These gullies were ca 20 km long, <1 km wide and ca 200 m deep. As the channel aggraded, largely inactive and empty gullies served as entry points into the overbank area for turbidity currents within the axial channel. Subsequently, debris‐flow mounds, 7 km wide and >15 km long, plugged and forced the main channel to step abruptly ca 7 km to the south. This resulted in development of an abrupt turn in the channel pathway that propagated to the east and probably played a role in forming a sinuous channel later. As debris‐flow topography was healed, flows spread out onto narrow area between the main channel and northern slope forming a broad fine‐grained apron that serves as the main gas reservoir in this area. This model of the overbank splay formation and the resulting stratigraphic architecture within the confined basin could be applied in modern and ancient systems or for subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs where three‐dimensional seismic‐reflection data is limited. This study elucidates the geomorphology of the oversteepened slope of the under‐riding plate and its effects on the sedimentation.     

Late Quaternary volcanism in New Zealand: Towards an integrated record using distal airfall tephras in lakes and bogs

Studies on distal airfall tephra layers preserved in lake sediments and peats in northern New Zealand have documented the stratigraphic, chronologic, and compositional relationships of 46 eruptives, aged c. 17000–700yr BP, which originated from six North Island volcanic centres: Taupo (9 tephras), Okataina (8), Maroa (1) (rhyolitic); Mayor Island (2) (peralkaline); Tongariro (11), Egmont (15) (andesitic). Sources were distinguished by mineralogy and composition, field relations, and ¹⁴C chronology. All known rhyolitic tephra-producing eruptions from Taupo, Okataina, and Maroa volcanoes since c. 17000yr BP are represented, but only a small proportion of the known tephras erupted from Tongariro, Egmont, or Mayor Island volcanoes is recorded. The distal tephras from these latter volcanic centres may thus reflect atypically powerful (or oblique) eruptions, or dispersal by strong winds. An improved record of volcanism for the Tongariro, Egmont, and Mayor Island centres might be obtainable from suitable lakes or bogs more proximal to them.     

Climatic changes in areas adjacent to the North Atlantic during the last glacial-interglacial transition (14-9 ka BP): A contribution to IGCP-253

This paper presents a summary of the evidence for climatic changes during the last glacial-interglacial transition (14-9 ka BP) in land areas adjacent to the North Atlantic. It is a synthesis of the results of the 12 regional summaries compiled by contributors to the North Atlantic Seaboard Programme of IGCP-253 that are published separately in this issue of Journal of Quaternary Science. Eighteen palaeotemperature curves are compared and arranged in three transects, one from southern Europe to Spitsbergen, a second from Ireland to Poland, and the third from southern New England to the Labrador-Baffin Shelf area. Ten maps are presented that summarise the synoptic climatic conditions of the region in 500-year time periods. The purpose of the exercise is to examine the extent to which any emerging patterns support the Ruddiman and Mclntyre model of large-scale shifts in the position of the oceanice Polar Front during the last glacial-interglacial transition. Some broad agreement emerges, although the influence of oceanic changes is diminished in areas that lay in close proximity to the Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice sheets. Attention is drawn to limitations in the compilations and to the potential for improved models in the future.     

Mortality and quantitative aspects of storage cell utilization in mussels, Mytilus edulis, following exposure to diesel oil hydrocarbons

These investigations assess the consequences of a resistance strategy for the nutrient storage matrix in mussels involving the reallocation of reserves previously directed towards gamete production, on exposure to low-level, chronic diesel oil hydrocarbons using stereological techniques. In addition, the extent to which survival is dependent upon the levels of these reserves at the moment of hydrocarbon insult is also investigated. The results indicate that hydrocarbon exposure leads to a reduction in the levels of storage reserves, an increase in gamete atresia (degeneration) and resorption but, as a result of this, the storage pool is partially replenished and, in the short term, the animals are better able to tolerate the hydrocarbon insult.     

Ecosystem management bioindicators: the ECOMAN project--a multi-biomarker approach to ecosystem management

The ECOMAN project was initiated from an awareness of the complexity of the functioning of coastal marine systems and the clear need for more pragmatic environmental assessment techniques linking environmental degradation with its causes. The aim of the project is to develop a suite of easy to use, cost effective and environmentally valid biological responses (biomarkers) to assess the general health of coastal systems, including estuaries. To achieve this aim, various sublethal endpoints are being measured and evaluated from a range of common coastal organisms showing different feeding types (filter feeding, grazing and predation) and habitat requirements (estuary and rocky shore) and at different levels of biological response (cellular, physiological and behavioural). This holistic integrated approach is essential to identify the full impact of chemical contamination on organisms, and enables the sensitivity of organisms to be ranked and key sentinel species for specific habitats to be identified.