Paleoecology of two marine oxygen isotope stage 7 sites correlated by the Sheep Creek tephra, northwestern North America

Pollen analysis at two sites, correlated by the presence of the 190,000 yr-old Sheep Creek tephra, documents fluctuations in vegetation and climate consistent with this date and indicates that the records span marine oxygen isotope stage 7 and the stage 6/7 transition. Dawson Cut, near Fairbanks, Alaska, provides a 5.2-m-long pollen record of interglacial boreal forest succeeded by shrub tundra and then forest/tundra. Ash Bend, Stewart River, central Yukon, provides a 9.5-m-long record of interglacial boreal forest succeeded by forest/tundra, shrub tundra, and herbaceous tundra. The replacement of forest at both sites by more open or tundra vegetation indicates warm interglacial conditions giving way to cold and arid climate. It is not clear whether stage 7 was warmer than the present. The warm-cool-warm climate oscillation evident at both sites may correlate to Lake Baikal substages 7a, 7b, and 7c. Sheep Creek tephra fell on forest/tundra vegetation.     

Recent Rapid Regional Climate Warming on the Antarctic Peninsula

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that mean global warming was 0.6 ± 0.2 °C during the 20th century and cited anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases as the likely cause of temperature rise in the last 50 years. But this mean value conceals the substantial complexity of observed climate change, which is seasonally- and diurnally-biased, decadally-variable and geographically patchy. In particular, over the last 50 years three high-latitude areas have undergone recent rapid regional (RRR) warming, which was substantially more rapid than the global mean. However, each RRR warming occupies a different climatic regime and may have an entirely different underlying cause. We discuss the significance of RRR warming in one area, the Antarctic Peninsula. Here warming was much more rapid than in the rest of Antarctica where it was not significantly different to the global mean. We highlight climate proxies that appear to show that RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula is unprecedented over the last two millennia, and so unlikely to be a natural mode of variability. So while the station records do not indicate a ubiquitous polar amplification of global warming, the RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula might be a regional amplification of such warming. This, however, remains unproven since we cannot yet be sure what mechanism leads to such an amplification. We discuss several possible candidate mechanisms: changing oceanographic or changing atmospheric circulation, or a regional air-sea-ice feedback amplifying greenhouse warming. We can show that atmospheric warming and reduction in sea-ice duration coincide in a small area on the west of the Antarctic Peninsula, but here we cannot yet distinguish cause and effect. Thus for the present we cannot determine which process is the probable cause of RRR warming on the Antarctic Peninsula and until the mechanism initiating and sustaining the RRR warming is understood, and is convincingly reproduced in climate models, we lack a sound basis for predicting climate change in this region over the coming century.     

Stratigraphy and palynostratigraphy, Karoo Supergroup (Permian and Triassic), mid-Zambezi Valley, southern Zambia

The Karoo Supergroup outcropst in the mid-Zambezi Valley, southern Zambia. It is underlain by the Sinakumbe Group of Ordovician to Devonian age. The Lower Karoo Group (Late Carboniferous to Permian age) consists of the basal Siankondobo Sandstone Formation, which comprises three facies, overlain by the Gwembe Coal Formation with its economically important coal deposits, in turn overlain by the Madumabisa Mudstone Formation which consists of lacustrine mudstone, calcilutite, sandstone, and concretionary calcareous beds. The Upper Karoo Group (Triassic to Early Jurassic) is sub-divided into the coarsely arenaceous Escarpment Grit, overlain by the fining upwards Interbedded Sandstone and Mudstone, Red Sandstone; and Batoka Basalt Formations.Palynomorph assemblages suggest that the Siankondobo Sandstone Formation is Late Carboniferous (Gzhelian) to Early Permian (Asselian to Early Sakmarian) in age, the Gwembe Coal Formation Early Permian (Artinskian to Kungurian), the Madumabisa Mudstone Late Permian (Tatarian), and the Interbedded Sandstone and Mudstone Early or Middle Triassic (Late Scythian or Anisian). The marked quantitative variations in the assemblages are due partly to age differences, but they also reflect vegetational differences resulting from different paleoclimates and different facies.The low thermal maturity of the formations (Thermal Alteration Index 2) suggests that the rocks are oil prone. However, the general scarcity of amorphous kerogen, such as the alga Botryococcus sp., and the low proportion of exinous material, indicates a low potential for liquid hydrocarbons. Gas may have been generated, particularly in the coal seams of the Gwembe Coal Formation, that are more deeply buried.     

Nitrogen flow and the interaction of Boston harbor with Massachusetts Bay

This paper summarizes evidence that most of the considerable nitrogen loading (～8, 470 mmol total N m^?2 yr^?1) to Boston Harbor (Massachusetts, USA) is expelled to shallow shelf waters of Massachusetts Bay, where it strongly influences ecological dynamics. Examination of nitrogen concentrations in the harbor, compared with loading, indicated that removal processes are active in the harbor. Comparison to other estuarine systems showed that the harbor’s nitrogen concentrations are consistent with its loading, if they are corrected for tidal flushing effects on the water residence time. Furthermore, extensive measurements of sediment denitrification confirmed that rates of N₂ gas loss are high in an absolute sense (～600–800 mmol N m^?2 yr^?1) but nonetheless remove only a small portion (<10%) of the annual land-derived nitrogen loading. Burial in sediments apparently removes only about 2% of the N input, implying export to offshore environments as the major removal process (～88–90% of N input). Western Massachusetts Bay receiving waters were examined for a signature of export from the harbor. Data consistently show a gradient of decreasing nitrogen concentrations from the harbor to about 10–20 km into the bay. In many cases, plots of nitrogen concentrations versus salinity show nearly conservative mixing character, which implies virtual export. Seasonally, the data suggest most of the export from the harbor in winter is as dissolved inorganic forms (NH₄ ⁺, NO₃ ^?, NO₂ ^?). In summer, export is dominated by the outflow of organic nitrogen forms. Chlorophyll export is evident as well, suggesting that the nutritional coupling of the harbor and bay in summer involves organic fertilization of the bay’s surface water. Finally, high-resolution studies over different stages of the tidal cycle help refine understanding of the advection of chlorophyll and stimulation of in situ chlorophyll growth at the seaward edge of the tidal excursion into the bay.     

The Development of Laser Ablation ICP-MS and Calibration Strategies: Examples from the Analysis of Trace Elements in Volcanic Glass Shards and Sulfide Minerals

This contribution presents a review of the recent developments in laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. We describe the important developments which have occurred in the laser systems used, leading to a spatial resolution of around 20 (im, and give an overview of the major instrument developments which have affected the geological applications of laser ablation ICP-MS. We describe the calibration of laser ablation for the analysis of trace elements in two different matrices: volcanic glass shards and sulfide minerals. We show how single glass shards can be analysed using the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) glass certified reference materials for calibration and demonstrate the effect of using single spot analyses compared to rastering of the calibration sample. We show the importance of inter-shard variation and demonstrate that averaged single shard analyses produce data which compare well with bulk analyses. The calibration of the laser system for sulfide mineral analysis is discussed and two different strategies are proposed, one using spiked pressed powder pellets of sulfides and the other metal reference materials. We present conclusions and recommendations for the calibration of laser ablation ICP-MS instruments.     

Depositional history and stratigraphical evolution of the Sakoa Group (Lower Karoo Supergroup) in the southern Morondava Basin, Madagascar

The Sakoa Group is the lowermost stratigraphical succession of the Karoo Supergroup and the oldest sedimentary unit in Madagascar, spanning the Late Carboniferous through Early Permian epochs. The Sakoa Group is exposed in the southern Morondava Basin. It is predominantly a siliciclastic sequence comprising seven lithofacies associations: (1) diamictites; (2) conglomeratic sandstones; (3) sandstones; (4) interbedded thin sandstones and mudstones; (5) mudstones; (6) coals; and (7) limestones. These facies represent deposition in the early extensional stages of continental rift development. The sediments were deposited predominantly on alluvial fans, and in braided to meandering stream and overbank environments. Locally lacustrine and coal swamp environments formed in low areas of the basin floor during rift initiation. Subsidence rates remained fairly constant throughout the Early Permian and were accompanied by a gradual reduction in relief of the basin margins and an increased geomorphic maturity of the fluvial systems flowing across the basin floor. Near the end of the Early Permian the southern Morondava Basin was inundated by a marine transgression , which resulted in deposition of the Vohitolia Limestone. Subsequent tectonic uplift and erosion resulted in a regional unconformity between the Sakoa Group and the overlying Sakamena Group.     

Colonization and evolution of lakes on the central Norwegian coast following deglaciation and land uplift 9500 to 7800 years B.P.

Invertebrate colonization of lakes following the uplift of land from the sea was studied in four lakes, currently situated between 39 and 24 m a.s.l., on the central Norwegian coast. The lakes were isolated from the sea between 9500 and 7700 years B.P. Animal and algal remains picked from core samples showed that the first colonizers preserved as fossils were usually members of the Chironomidae, Daphnidae/Chydoridae, Acarina, Porifera (Ephydatia mülleri and Spongilla lacustris), Bryozoa (Cristatella mucedo and Plumatella spp.) and Charophyta (Chara sp.). Of the chironomids, the genus Chironomus was present in the oldest lacustrine layers of all four lakes, but other genera recorded at the marine/lacustrine boundary were Dicrotendipes, Procladius (?), Einfeldia, Microtendipes, and Glyptotendipes. Remains of the caddis fly family Limnephilidae were also present in the earliest lacustrine sediments in Kvennavatnet and Kvernavatnet. The oldest invertebrate fauna is typical for mesotrophic lakes. However, chironomids and mites have been present in this area from at least about 10?500 years B.P. A diverse chironomid community was established between 300 and 800 years after isolation from the sea at Kvernavatnet on the island of Hitra, while only between 80 and 120 years passed before a comparably diverse community developed at Kvennavatnet on the mainland coast. A similar development of the invertebrate fauna occurred in Kvennavatnet, Kvernavatnet and Storkuvatnet. However, Litjvatnet deviates greatly from the ‘normal’ pattern because a tsunami disturbed the bottom sediments and fauna. The tsunami, a gigantic sea wave, was caused by a submarine slide from the Norwegian continental slope. It reached Litjvatnet, today located 24 m a.s.l., but was not traced in Storkuvatnet at 30 m a.s.l. This event happened about 7200 years B.P.     

The glacilacustrine sedimentary environment of Bowser Lake in the northern Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada

Bowser Lake, a fiord lake in the northern Coast Mountains of British Columbia, contains a thick Holocene fill consisting mainly of silt and clay varves. These sediments were carried into the lake by proglacial Bowser River which drains a high-energy, heavily glacierized basin. Sedimentation in the lake is controlled by seasonal snow and ice melt, by autumn rainstorms, and by rare, but very large jökulhlaups from glacier-dammed lakes in the upper Bowser River basin which complicate environmental inferences from the sedimentary record. Sediment is dispersed through the deep western part of the lake by energetic turbidity currents. The turbidity currents apparently do not overtop a sill that separates the western basin from much shallower areas to the east. Large amounts of silt and clay are deposited from suspension in the eastern part of the lake, but sediment accumulation rates there are much lower than to the west. Several strong acoustic reflectors punctuate the varved fill in the western basin; these may be thick or relatively coarse beds deposited during jökulhlaups or exceptionally large storms. The contemporary sediment yield to Bowser Lake, estimated from sediments in the lake, is about 360 t km^-2a^-1. This is a relatively high value, but it is less than yields insome other, similar montane basins with extensive snow and ice cover.The most likely explanation for the difference is that large amounts of sediment have been, and continue to be, stored on the Bowser delta andin small proglacial lakes.