Isotope record of anthropogenic lead pollution in lake sediments of Florida, USA

We examined the anthropogenic lead (Pb) burden that accumulated in sediment of lakes in the southeastern USA during the last ~150 years. Mining, smelting, agriculture, and fossil-fuel combustion are known to have contributed to Pb pollution in lakes of other regions. Few studies, however, have examined Pb sequestered in lakes of the southeastern USA, particulary peninsular Florida, which is subject to less continental atmospheric influence than other regions of the eastern USA. We obtained sediment cores from Little Lake Jackson and Little Lake Bonnet in Highlands County, Florida and used Pb isotopes in the records to identify principal sources of Pb contamination. The sediment records showed that changes in Pb concentration and isotope ratios correspond temporally with gasoline consumption in the USA, as well as with changes in lead ores used to produce leaded gasoline. Lead concentrations in the study lakes showed temporal variations that were similar to those found in peat records from east-central Florida. Isotope trends were similar to the mean USA atmospheric Pb deposition record, and to Pb isotope records from Bermuda and Atlantic corals. We modeled the isotopic composition of the anthropogenic Pb in lake sediments and found that the overall trend is controlled by Pb that was released during leaded gasoline combustion. There is, however, additional Pb at each site that comes from sources that are not fully represented by the natural, background Pb. Lead isotope ratios and Pb/arsenic (As) ratios provide evidence that Pb deposition in lakes during the middle 1900s might have been influenced by lead arsenate applications to golf courses, a source that is often ignored in Pb isotope studies. Isotope evidence confirms, however, that following cessation of commercial lead arsenate use in the 1960s, atmospheric alkyl lead was again the primary influence on Pb in sediments of the study lakes.     

Mercurian impact ejecta: Meteorites and mantle

Abstract— We have examined the fate of impact ejecta liberated from the surface of Mercury due to impacts by comets or asteroids, in order to study 1) meteorite transfer to Earth, and 2) reaccumulation of an expelled mantle in giant‐impact scenarios seeking to explain Mercury's large core. In the context of meteorite transfer during the last 30 Myr, we note that Mercury's impact ejecta leave the planet's surface much faster (on average) than other planets in the solar system because it is the only planet where impact speeds routinely range from 5 to 20 times the planet's escape speed; this causes impact ejecta to leave its surface moving many times faster than needed to escape its gravitational pull. Thus, a large fraction of Mercurian ejecta may reach heliocentric orbit with speeds sufficiently high for Earth‐crossing orbits to exist immediately after impact, resulting in larger fractions of the ejecta reaching Earth as meteorites. We calculate the delivery rate to Earth on a time scale of 30 Myr (typical of stony meteorites from the asteroid belt) and show that several percent of the high‐speed ejecta reach Earth (a factor of 2–3 less than typical launches from Mars); this is one to two orders of magnitude more efficient than previous estimates. Similar quantities of material reach Venus. These calculations also yield measurements of the re‐accretion time scale of material ejected from Mercury in a putative giant impact (assuming gravity is dominant). For Mercurian ejecta escaping the gravitational reach of the planet with excess speeds equal to Mercury's escape speed, about one third of ejecta reaccretes in as little as 2 Myr. Thus collisional stripping of a silicate proto‐Mercurian mantle can only work effectively if the liberated mantle material remains in small enough particles that radiation forces can drag them into the Sun on time scale of a few million years, or Mercury would simply re‐accrete the material.     

Impact lithologies and their emplacement in the Chicxulub impact crater: Initial results from the Chicxulub Scientific Drilling Project,Yaxcopoil, Mexico

Abstract— The Chicxulub Scientific Drilling Project (CSDP), Mexico, produced a continuous core of material from depths of 404 to 1511 m in the Yaxcopoil‐1 (Yax‐1) borehole, revealing (top to bottom) Tertiary marine sediments, polymict breccias, an impact melt unit, and one or more blocks of Cretaceous target sediments that are crosscut with impact‐generated dikes, in a region that lies between the peak ring and final crater rim. The impact melt and breccias in the Yax‐1 borehole are 100 m thick, which is approximately 1/5 the thickness of breccias and melts exposed in the Yucatán‐6 exploration hole, which is also thought to be located between the peak ring and final rim of the Chicxulub crater. The sequence and composition of impact melts and breccias are grossly similar to those in the Yucatán‐6 hole. Compared to breccias in other impact craters, the Chicxulub breccias are incredibly rich in silicate melt fragments (up to 84% versus 30 to 50%, for example, in the Ries). The melt in the Yax‐1 hole was produced largely from the silicate basement lithologies that lie beneath a 3 km‐ thick carbonate platform in the target area. Small amounts of immiscible molten carbonate were ejected with the silicate melt, and clastic carbonate often forms the matrix of the polymict breccias. The melt unit appears to have been deposited while molten but brecciated after solidification. The melt fragments in the polymict breccias appear to have solidified in flight, before deposition, and fractured during transport and deposition.     

Environmental Characteristics of Lake Tecocomulco, northern basin of Mexico, for the last 50,000 years

Paleoenvironmental studies have documented the late Pleistocene to Holocene evolution of the lakes in the central and southern parts of the basin of Mexico (Texcoco and Chalco). No information was available, however, for the lakes in the north-eastern part of this basin. The north-eastern and the central and southern areas represent, at present, different environmental conditions: an important gradient exists between the dry north and the moister south. To investigate the late Pleistocene to Holocene characteristics of the north-eastern lakes in the basin of Mexico two parallel cores (TA and TB) were drilled at the SE shore of Lake Tecocomulco. Stratigraphy, magnetic properties, granulometry, diatom and pollen analyses performed on these sediments indicate that the lake experienced a series of changes between ca. > 42,000 yr BP and present. Chronological control is given by five radiocarbon determinations. The base of the record is represented by a thick, rhyolitic air-fall tephra that could be older than ca. 50,000 yr BP. After this Plininan event, and until ca. 42,000 yr BP, Lake Tecocomulco was a moderately deep, freshwater lake surrounded by extended pine forests that suggest the presence of cooler and moister conditions than present. Between ca. 42,000 and 37,000 yr BP, the lake became shallower but with important fluctuations and pollen suggests slightly warmer conditions. Between ca. 37,000 and 30,000 yr BP the lake experienced two relatively deep phases separated by a dry interval. A second Plinian eruption, represented in the sequence by a dacitic an air-fall tephra layer dated at 31,000 yr BP, occurred in the area by the end of this dry episode. Between ca. 30,000 and 25,7000 yr BP Tecocomulco was a fresh to slightly alkaline lake with a trend towards lower level. After ca. 25,700 yr BP very low lake levels are inferred, and after ca. 16,000 yr BP the data indicate the presence of a very dry environment that was persistent until the middle Holocene. After 3,500 yr BP lacustrine conditions were re-established and the vegetation cover shows a change towards higher percentages of herbaceous taxa.     

Elastoplastic constitutive modelling of soil–structure interfaces under monotonic and cyclic loading

This paper is dedicated to the non-linear numerical modelling of the soil–structure interface. Thus, in a first part, after the presentation of the constitutive model, the soil–structure interface interaction is treated in terms of direct shear test simulations. A strategy for the interface model parameters’ identification is also presented. This strategy is linked to the similitude of soil–structure interface behavior and the soil behavior, regarding the interface surface roughness. In a second part, the performance of the numerical simulations are verified numerically against published results for soil–structure experimental shear tests. Finally, as an application, interface stress paths are studied in axially loaded pile–soil systems and load transfer mechanisms are identified.