Contested terrains: Cities and hinterlands in post-apartheid boundary delimitations

In South Africa attempts are being made to address the socio-spatial distortions of the apartheid era through a more equitable distribution of resources, and the re-drawing of municipal geographical boundaries. However, boundaries are not neutral geographic lines. Boundary changes are often associated with a redistribution of political power and resources. The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of the contemporary territorial and administrative restructuring on urban dynamics in South Africa. More specifically, the focus is on how the process of territorial restructuring impacted on metropolitan areas as well as on secondary cities and their hinterlands. Examining and elucidating the manner in which various social, economic and political forces have manifested themselves in the process of boundary delimitation in a major metropolitan centre as well as adjacent rural areas is a central theme of this paper. There were considerable contestations over the delimitation of new local government boundaries. Affluent metro authorities like that in Durban were opposed to the spatial extension of their boundaries because of the costs of the providing services and infrastructure in the deprived margins. Similarly, there was concern that incorporation of rural areas will result in increased municipal service charges being imposed on these communities. Tensions were heightened between urban and rural regions because traditional leaders believed that their territorial jurisdiction and authority were being undermined. In other parts of the country, the merger of traditionally white and black fragments of secondary cities often resulted in many black locations continuing to be marginalized. There appears to be neither the political will nor the economic capacity to upgrade these zones of marginalized urban communities. While the Municipal Demarcation Board was largely successful in eliminating the political geography of apartheid at a macro- scale, this paper suggests that the greater challenge for government and policy makers is to reduce the socio-spatial and economic inequalities which appears to be still very high and perhaps increasing. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Simultaneous use of geochemical and geophysical methods to characterise abandoned landfills

. Groundwater sampling and geophysical methods determined a serious contamination problem associated with refilled exploitation sites at the Cal Dimoni area, Llobregat delta, Barcelona, Spain. To characterise this process, hydrogeochemical analyses were performed and showed the following modifications to groundwater chemical composition: increasing pH values, changing redox conditions, significant increases in total organic carbon (TOC) and certain trace elements, and high groundwater conductivity values. Major ion content accumulations were found under the refilled area. In contrast, elements involved in the oxidation–reduction processes, such as iron, manganese and nitrates, clearly diminished. Electromagnetic prospecting methods were also performed and delineated the contamination plume extent. These methods also showed separate sources of contamination, one clearly related to the groundwater–refilled zone leachate interaction, another as a consequence of the manure–accumulation surface site. Geochemical and geophysical methods have shown similar results for locating groundwater contamination sources, and for determining leachate generation mechanisms and flow paths.     

Moment Tensor Inversion of Regional Phases: Application to a Mine Collapse

—?The aim of our study consists of analyzing potentially non-double-couple seismic events recorded at regional distances. In order to define the nature of the seismic source, a moment tensor inversion is carried out as this method is general enough not to initially constrain the source mechanism. In this paper we present an application to a seismic event induced by a mine collapse which occurred near the town of Halle in Germany. Because of its induced nature, many parameters such as the location and geometry of this seismic source are known. This information allows us to test the influence of inadequate propagation modeling on the moment tensor obtained from the inversion. Green's functions have been computed with the reflectivity method in a flat layered medium, using the European model EurID (Du et? al., 1998; Dufumier et al., 1997). From the inversion of P-wave seismograms recorded by the German Regional Seismic Network will, we obtained a source time function which can be decomposed into two subevents. The first one has a large isotropic part and a deviatoric mechanism with near vertical nodal planes. No volume change is observed for the second subevent, but a deviatoric component opposite of the first one. The addition of S-waves does not change the results of the inversion which are stable. Surface waves were not used because of their poor dispersion curves. Based on the moment tensor obtained from these inversions, the physical process at the source is compatible with a large cavity collapse.     

Multiparametric Traveltime Inversion

In conventional seismic processing, the classical algorithm of Hubral and Krey is routinely applied to extract an initial macrovelocity model that consists of a stack of homogeneous layers bounded by curved interfaces. Input for the algorithm are identified primary reflections together with normal moveout (NMO) velocities, as derived from a previous velocity analysis conducted on common midpoint (CMP) data. This work presents a modified version of the Hubral and Krey algorithm that is designed to extend the original version in two ways, namely (a) it makes an advantageous use of previously obtained common-reflection-surface (CRS) attributes as its input and (b) it also allows for gradient layer velocities in depth. A new strategy to recover interfaces as optimized cubic splines is also proposed. Some synthetic examples are provided to illustrate and explain the implementation of the method.     

Upper Oligocene-Lower Miocene shallowing-upwardlacustrine sequences controlled by periodic and non-periodic processes(Ebro Basin, northeastern Spain)

The lacustrine facies from two sections (Candasnos and Fraga) ofthe Oligocene-Miocene Torrente de Cinca lithostratigraphic Unit in thecentral part of the Ebro Basin (Spain) have been analysed to determine theinfluence of orbital parameters in lacustrine sedimentation. The unit ispredominantly composed of limestones and marls, and represents a shallowlacustrine freshwater system. The sedimentological features of the faciesstudied demonstrate that the lower part of the Candasnos section representsoffshore lacustrine subenvironments whereas the upper part, and the whole ofthe Fraga section, characterise marginal lacustrine areas. Series of stratalthickness variations of limestone, marl, and limestone/marl couplets fromboth sections have been analysed using spectral analysis. This shows thatinformation corresponding to periodic cycles only appears in the offshorefacies, that is to say, in the lower part of Candasnos section, and disappearsin the marginal facies where non-periodic cycles exist. Furthermore, thespectral analysis of the offshore facies highlights the existence of a peak inthe power spectrum with a period of around 7 (6.8 to 7.8) that can berecognised in the field as shallowing-upward lacustrine sequences.Magnetostratigraphic data from the Candasnos section allow us to establish atime span of 2,808 years for the limestone/marl couplet from the lower partof this section, and between 19,000 and 22,000 years for the periodic cycleidentified, thus representing the climatic precession cycle. Shallowingsequences from marginal areas do not correspond with any periodiccycle.     

Tectonique transpressive en terre Adélie au Paléoprotérozoı̈que (Est Antarctique)Palaeoproterozoic transpression in Terre Adélie (East Antarctica)

The Palaeoproterozoic units of Terre Adélie show two types of structural domains associated with HT–LP metamorphic conditions: domes and NS–N340° striking vertical shear zones. Shear zones reflect dextral transpressive motions. Domes reflect sub-vertical shortening and principal stretching subparallel to shear zones. They could partly result from longitudinal flow coeval with transpression. Deformations are comparable to those described along the eastern and western boundaries of the Archean Gawler Craton (South-East Australia), which underlines the continuity between these two areas before opening of the Austral Ocean. To cite this article: A. Pelletier et al., C. R. Geoscience 334 (2002) 505–511.     

Sea cliffs resulting from late Miocene extensional tectonics: the Serra Gelada case study (Betic Cordillera, Spain)

The Serra Gelada sea cliffs are carved in Mesozoic carbonate rocks belonging to the External Zones of the eastern Betic Cordillera (Alicante, SE Spain). Several normal faults with vertical slips of more than a hundred metres have played an important role in the origin of this coastline. Some previous studies propose that the present cliff morphology was mainly originated by Quaternary fault activity. However, the integration of geomorphological features, stratigraphical and sedimentological data, together with the results of the tectonic analysis of fractures occurring in Serra Gelada, and a detailed study of seismic reflection profiles carried out in the adjacent continental shelf, indicate that these normal faults were active mainly during the late Miocene. Therefore, the Serra Gelada sea cliffs represent a tectonically controlled long-term landscape. Thus, normal faults have not significantly modified the Serra Gelada relief since then. Furthermore, the northern part of the Serra Gelada cliff may be considered as an inherited pre-Quaternary relict palaeocliff since it has only undergone very little erosive recession.