Some Aspects of Resource Uncertainty and Their Economic Consequences in Assessment of the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Natural Resources Research - Exploration ventures in frontier areas have high risks. Before committing to them, firms prepare regional resource assessments to evaluate the potential payoffs. With...     

Chasing a 'loose and baggy monster': almshouses and the geography of charity

This paper goes some way towards redressing the lack of geographical literature on charity through exploring the geography of the British domestic charitable sector. The size and geography of the third sector is outlined, followed by an analysis of how almshouses can be understood as inherently geographical and deeply embedded in local social networks of inclusion as well as exclusion.     

Web-Based interrogation of large-scale geophysical data sets from handheld devices

This paper describes the issues related to using handheld devices to interrogate wirelessly large-scale geophysical data over the Web using a client–server configuration. A modification of our current Web-based data interrogation program addresses specifically the limitations of current handheld devices with wireless access, such as processor speed, screen size and resolution, memory, and network speeds. The system uses a combination of Java, Python, and C in order to run remotely from the handheld device, while incorporating the power and memory capacity of a large workstation server.     

Responses of interrill runoff and erosion rates to vegetation change in southern Arizona

Vegetation change, fi-om grassland to shrubland, has occurred over much of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts during the past century. The effect of this vegetation change on interrill runoff and erosion was examined by conducting rainfall-simulation experiments on large runoff plots on contemporary grassland and shrubland hillslopes. These experiments show that, compared to the grassland, the interrill portions of shrubland hillslopes (1) have higher runoff rates, (2) experience equilibrium runoff conditions much more frequently, (3) exhibit higher overland flow velocities, and (4) are subject to greater rates of erosion. The environmental change that has led to the vegetation change has been relatively minor, but its geomorphic impact has been substantial.     

Leucoxene fish as a micro-kinematic indicator

Asymmetric aggregates of fine-grained leucoxene and quartz are reported from siliceous L-S tectonites deformed by progressive simple shear. The leucoxene fish, morphologically similar to mica fish, consistently yield shear senses in agreement with other kinematic criteria. We interpret the leucoxene as a pre- or early syntectonic alteration product of detrital heavy-minerals in a siliciclastic protolith. The leucoxene fish behave as passive markers, and they record kinematics by modification of pre-existing aggregates rather than syndeformational mineral growth. For siliceous metasedimentary rocks otherwise lacking in micro-kinematic indicators, leucoxene fish may provide an alternative to quartz c-axis analysis.     

Automated AF-demagnetization on the 2G-Enterprises through-bore,cryogenic magnetometer

Since the early sixties, alternating field demagnetization (AFD) has been a standard laboratory technique for demagnetizing rocks to expose the multicomponent structure of their natural remanent magnetization (NRM). In the majority of AFD implementations, however, the procedure remains as labour-intensive as ever. The implementation that we have developed at the Australian Geological Survey Organisation, automates the procedure for AFD based on the static method, and results in significant productivity and efficiency gains without compromising data quality. A properly formulated procedure for static AFD may be the only method of retrieving higher-coercivity components of natural remanence in samples prone to developing gyroremanence at higher alternating fields (AFs). Our AFD environment comprises: a 2G-Enterprises through-bore, cryogenic magnetometer; 2G AF-coils and control equipment; and personal computer software, developed by us, to control all procedural aspects for a complete AFD of a sample including, importantly, a counteracting procedure to neutralize the effects of gyroremanence build-up at higher AFs. With our system, AFD of 8 samples/day, each of 20+ steps, requires only 20 min of user attention compared with a full day for conventional systems.