The Earth's rotation and atmospheric circulation, from 1963 to 1973

Summary. The zonal angular momentum of the atmospheric circulation has been evaluated month-by-month and compared with astronomical observations of the length-of-day for the 10 years from 1963 May to 1973 April. The reason for undertaking this study is to enable the astronomical observations to be 'corrected' for the zonal wind effect and to investigate the residual excitation function for solid-Earth contributions. The principal conclusions reached are the following: (i) The annual change in length-of-day is almost entirely due to the seasonal changes in the zonal circulation with tidal, oceanographic and hydrologic phenomena contributing together at most 10 per cent of the total excitation, (ii) The semi-annual term is predominantly due to the zonal wind and the body tide, with oceanic and hydrologic terms contributing about 10 per cent, (iii) The atmospheric circulation plays a dominant role in length-of-day changes in the period range from 1 to about 4 yr. This is partly associated with the quasi-biennial oscillation and its harmonics. Both the period and amplitude of these fluctuations are very variable, (iv) At longer periods the atmosphere may still contribute to the total excitation but other excitation functions begin to rise above the spectrum of the meteorological excitation, (v) At periods less than about 1 yr the atmospheric excitation is dominant, and while the presence of other excitation functions cannot be excluded, they cannot exceed 20 per cent of the wind excitation. On the basis of these results the astronomical record from 1962 to 1978 has been 'corrected' for the meteorological 'noise'. The residual excitation exhibits only fluctuations on a time-scale of about 5 yr and longer and it is this result that must be attributed to core-mantle interactions or to other solid-Earth excitation functions.     

Behaviour of iron,manganese, phosphate and humic acid during mixing in a Delaware salt marsh creek

The mixing behaviour of iron, manganese, phosphate and humic acid in a Delaware salt marsh creek was studied using field data, laboratory mixing experiments, and geochemical mass balance equations. Property-salinity diagrams for field data indicated that the removal of iron is 56–70% in the 0–10‰ salinity range. A proposed mechanism of removal is the flocculation of colloidal iron, perhaps with humic acid. Phosphate, however, undergoes 195% addition in the same low salinity region, which may be due to release of phosphate from resuspended sediments. Dissolved manganese is conserved, as is humic acid throughout the salt marsh mixing zone. Within the uncertainty of the data the maximum possible removal of humic acid is 23%.Laboratory mixing experiments that simulated salt marsh mixing along the same salinity gradient as observed in the field (5–25‰) showed only small-scale additions and removals compared to the field results. Such small-scale changes occurred largely at salinities >10‰ in the laboratory experiments, whereas most removals and additions occurred at salinities <10‰ in the field. Mixing studies also showed little difference between prefiltered and unfiltered mixes. The studies suggest that simple mixing of salt marsh waters, with or without suspended material, does not strongly influence the observed behaviour of dissolved constituents in salt marshes, and that other processes (e.g. sediment or intertidal exchange) must dominate their behaviour.     

Die röntgenographische und optische Gefügeanalyse von Erzen,insbesondere mit dem Zählrohr-Texturgoniometer

Quantitative determinations of preferred orientation of opaque minerals have been made only in a few cases by measuring cleavage faces (galena,D. Schachner-Korn). In this paper several methods are investigated critically which are likely to allow the determination of pole figures of ore minerals in a reasonable time. In the first part the special difficulties are discussed which occur in measurements of preferred orientation with X-ray pole figure goniometers (reflection method byL. G. Schulz) when the specimen consists of more than one mineral, when the mineral investigated is coarse-grained, and when the specimen is small. A critical discussion of instrumental errors is included. This method can now also be applied to the determination of preferred orientation in rocks, ceramic materials, etc. In the second part optical methods are given which include the construction of pole figures from measurements of bireflection and polarization figures of uniaxial minerals in reflected light. Examples of pole figures of pyrrhotite, hematite, pyrite, sphalerite, and chromite are given.

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Der Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen als Habilitationsschrift vorgelegt.     

Morphological analysis of the drainage system in the Eastern Alps

We study the morphology of the major rivers draining the Eastern Alps to test whether the active tectonics of this part of the orogen is reflected in the shape of channel profiles of the river network. In our approach we compare channel profiles measured from digital elevation models with numerically modelled channel profiles using a stream power approach. It is shown that regions of high stream power coincide largely with regions of highest topography and largest uplift rates, while the forelands and the Pannonian Basin are characterised by a significantly lower stream power. From stream power modelling we conclude that there is young uplift at the very east of the Eastern Alps, in the Bohemian Massif and in the Pohorje Range. The impact of the Pleistocene glaciations is explored by comparing properties of rivers that drain in proximal and distal positions relative to the ice sheet during the last glacial maximum. Our analysis shows that most knick points, wind gaps and other non-equilibrium features of catchments covered by ice during the last glaciations (Salzach, Enns) can be correlated with glacial processes. In contrast the ice free catchments of the Mur and Drava are characterized by channels in morphological equilibrium at the first approximation and are showing only weak evidence of the strong tectonic activity within these catchments. Finally, the channel profiles of the Adige and the divide between the upper Rhine and Danube catchments differ significantly from the other catchments. We relate this to the fact that the Adige and the Rhine respond to different base levels from the remainder of the Eastern Alps: The Adige may preserve a record from the Messininan base level change and the Rhine is subject to the base level lowering in the Rhine Graben.     

Das Pamir-System

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Reconstruction of fluvio-lacustrine landscapes and settlement history in the Texcoco region,Mexico, using a modern geomorphic analog

Located in the Basin of Mexico, the eastern shore of former Lake Texcoco sustained a variety of human occupations throughout the Holocene, including preceramic hunter-gatherers, incipient agriculturalists, and a variety of settlements in the ceramic periods. Nonetheless, the environmental dynamics of occupations on the lakeshore have not been fully addressed. The Archaic preagricultural Texcoco Man site (>5000 B.C.E.) and the Late Formative TX-LF-14 site (c. 550-200 B.C.E.), among others, occupy this fluvio-lacustrine transitional environment. Few stratigraphic works in and around the sites have been performed. Consequently, it is difficult to understand the dynamics of the sedimentary system in space and time. This work highlights and describes the fluvio-lacustrine sedimentary dynamics and the resulting landscape that past societies inhabited on the eastern shore of Texcoco Lake. Because the study area has been altered by historic and modern draining, our work employs Lake Santiaguillo and its main tributary, the Tejamen River in the Durango state, as a modern analog to study their sedimentary dynamics. The analyses of surface geomorphology in the Texcoco study area were employed to corroborate the modern analog interpretation. To achieve these goals, we conducted a GIS-based morphometric analysis and LANDSAT-8 imagery to study the variations in landforms through wet and dry events. The results indicate an increase in the lake volume, low bifurcation in the active fluvial channels, few inundated surfaces, and the presence of bird-foot deltaic channels during high precipitation events. In contrast, low precipitation events are characterized by reduced lake volume, increased fluvial channel bifurcation, and expanded floodplains. This heterogeneous landscape thus provided a rich source of diverse natural resources of saline and freshwater aquatic habitats. Simultaneously, constant or recurring flooding events generated a challenging landscape for prehistoric settlers who implemented diverse technologies, such as the construction of tlateles, on the levees of deltaic channels to reduce the risk and impact of flooding events.