Permineralization process promotes preservation of Holocene macrofossil charcoal in soils

The use of macrofossil soil charcoal as a palaeoecological tool to reconstruct past vegetation, climate or fire history has gained much interest in recent years. Yet little is known about taphonomy of charcoal in soils. Here we assessed the putative loss of palaeoecological information due to charcoal fragmentation after burial. We found no significant loss of charcoal mass with time. Instead, we found a significant positive relationship between the mass of charcoal particles and their age. Permineralization of charcoal particles older than ca. 5200 a explained the increased charcoal mass with time in mineral soils. The permineralization process increased the density of charcoal particles (resulting in a twofold particles mass increase) and thus offers a protection against subsequent degradation. Our results suggest high stability of palaeoecological information from charcoal macrofossils buried in mineral soils at least over the Holocene timescale. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A New Interlaboratory Characterisation of Silicon,Rare Earth Elements and Twenty‐Two Other Trace Element Concentrations in the Natural River Water Certified Reference Material SLRS‐6 (NRC‐CNRC)

The natural river water reference material SLRS‐6 (NRC‐CNRC) is the newest batch of a quality control material routinely used in many international environmental laboratories. This work presents a nine‐laboratory compilation of measurements of major and trace element concentrations and their related uncertainties, unavailable in the NRC‐CNRC certificate (B, Cs, Li, Ga, Ge, Hf, Nb, P, Rb, Rh, Re, S, Sc, Se, Si, Sn, Th, Ti, Tl, W, Y, Y, Zr and REEs). Measurements were mostly made using inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry. The results are compared with equivalent data for the last batch of the material, SLRS‐5, measured simultaneously with SLRS‐6 in this study. In general, very low concentrations, close to the quantification limits, were found in the new batch. The Sr isotopic ratio is also reported.     

Self-diffusion of water and its dependence on temperature and ionic strength in highly compacted montmorillonite, illite and kaolinite

The effect of temperature and ionic strength on the diffusion of HTO parallel to the direction of compaction through 5 highly compacted clay minerals (bulk dry density, ρ_b,d = 1.90 ± 0.05 Mg/m³), namely montmorillonite (Na- and Ca-form), illite (Na- and Ca-form), and kaolinite, was studied. The diffusion experiments were carried out at temperatures between 0 °C and 60 °C and at ionic strengths of 0.01 M and 1 M NaCl for the Na-form clays and kaolinite, and of 0.005 M and 0.5 M CaCl₂ for the Ca-form. The ionic strength had an insignificant influence on the values of the effective diffusion coefficient (variation by less than 10%) for the clays under study at this degree of compaction. The effective diffusion coefficients followed the order Na-montmorillonite < Ca-montmorillonite < Ca-illite < Na-illite  kaolinite. It is thought that the differences between Na- and Ca-montmorillonite originate from the larger size particles, and thus the lower tortuosity of the latter; whereas the differences between Na- and Ca-illite are related to the different degree of solvation of the Na and Ca cations. The activation energies were successfully calculated using the Arrhenius law. Swelling clays (Na- and Ca-montmorillonite) had slightly larger activation energy values (20 kJ/mol) compared to bulk water (17 kJ/mol); Ca-illite (16 kJ/mol), Na-illite (13 kJ/mol) and kaolinite (14.4 kJ/mol) lower values than that of bulk water. The low activation energies of the last three clays may be related to weaker H-bonds between water and the clay surfaces compared to those in bulk water.     

Groundwater chemistry patterns in the phreatic aquifer of the central Belgian coastal plain

The Holocene geological evolution of the Belgian coastal plain is dominated by a transgression of the North Sea, silting up of the coastal plain and human intervention (impoldering). This has led to a typical pattern in groundwater quality which is discussed here for the central part of the coastal plain. Therefore, a database with available groundwater samples is composed. Water type according to the Stuyfzand classification is determined and different hydrosomes and their hydrochemical facies are identified. Based on this, the origin and evolution of the water types is explained using Piper plots and geochemical calculations with PHREEQC. Before the impoldering, salinising and freshening conditions alternated with a general salinisation of the aquifer after about 3400 BP. This results in a dominance of brackish and salt NaCl subtypes which are still found in the deeper part of the aquifer. The subsequent impoldering resulted in an major freshening of the aquifer leading to NaHCO₃, MgHCO₃ and CaHCO₃ subtypes. Overall, mixing, cation exchange, carbonate mineral dissolution and oxidation of organic matter are identified as the major processes determining the general water quality. The close link between geological evolution, water quality and what is still observable today is illustrated with this example of the Belgian coastal plain.     

Neoproterozoic to Lower Palaeozoic successions of the Tandilia System in Argentina: implication for the palaeotectonic framework of southwest Gondwana

The Cryogenian to Uppermost Ediacaran successions of the Tandilia System (Sierras Bayas Group and Cerro Negro Formation) in central-eastern Argentina is exceptional because of its unmetamorphosed and nearly undeformed character, its sediment provenance trend and the absence of any identified glacial deposit and the deposition of warm water carbonates. We decipher a dramatic change in the basin evolution from small-scale depositional areas during the Neoproterozoic to a larger basin related to an active continental margin throughout the Uppermost Ediacaran. The base of the succession is represented by immature detritus of alkaline composition (Villa Mónica Formation), but towards the top of this formation, the material is sorted and reworked, nonetheless still reflecting in its detritus the local rocks. The clastic deposition is interrupted by diagenetic overprinted dolomites. The unconformable overlying quartz-arenitic Ediacaran Cerro Largo Formation reworked the Cryogenian Villa Mónica Formation and contains mainly felsic granitic and metamorphic basement material of slightly wider variety, while the dominant alkaline geochemical signature in rocks of the Villa Mónica Formation disappears. Based on diagenetic, petrographic and sedimentological data, we can interpret the unconformity representing a longer time of erosion. The Cerro Largo Formation shows a transition to mudstones and the heterolithic facies of the Olavarría Formation. The top of the Sierras Bayas Group is represented by limestones (Loma Negra Formation), which are discordantly overlain by the Uppermost Ediacaran Cerro Negro Formation. The latter displays detrital material derived from a continental arc, mafic and felsic sources. Several arc-related geochemical proxies (Th/Sc?<?0.8; Zr/Sc?<?10; La/Sc?<?2; Ti/Zr?>?20) are recorded in the sediment detritus, as are syn-depositional pyroclastites. The absence of volcanic material in the underlying rocks allows proposing that the Cerro Negro Formation is related to an active continental margin fringing Gondwana (??Terra Australis Orogen??) as a retro-arc or retro-arc foreland basin.     

Book reviews

Pure and Applied Geophysics -     

Hydrological regimes in a tropical valley of New Caledonia (SW Pacific): Impacts of wildfires and invasive fauna

In New Caledonia wildfires and invasive mammals (deer and wild pigs) constitute the major agents of land surface degradation. Our study reveals the linkage between land cover and water balance on the northeast coast of New Caledonia (2400 mm annual rainfall) located on a micaschist basement. The hydrological regime of characteristic and representative land surfaces is assessed using a 1-year record from three 100 m² plots each, located in a forest area degraded by an invasive fauna, in a woody savannah which is regularly burned, and in a healthy forest area. The three plots present highly contrasting hydrological regimes, with annual and maximum runoff/rain ratios during a rain event of, respectively, 0.82, 0.16, 0.03, and 2.7, 0.7, 0.2, for the degraded forest, the savannah and the healthy forest. Such results suggest that subsurface flow originating from the contributing area above the degraded forest plot should exfiltrate inside the plot. A conceptual model for the degraded forest plot shows that water exfiltrating inside the plot represents 61% of the observed runoff. In savannahs, water should mainly be transferred downstream by subsurface flow within a thick organic soil layer limited by an impervious clay layer at a 20–30 cm depth. Savannahs are generally located above forests and generate the transfer of rainwater to downslope forests. Exfiltration into the forests can be the result of this transfer and depends on the thickness and permeability of the forest topsoils and on topographic gradients. Water exfiltration in forest areas highly degraded by pigs and deer enhances erosion and increases further degradation. It probably also limits percolation in the areas located downstream by increasing the amount of superficial runoff concentrated in gullies.     

Seamless integration of spatial statistics and GIS: The S-PLUS for ArcView and the S+Grassland Links

The extension of the functional capacity of geographic information systems (GIS) with tools for statistical analysis in general and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) in particular has been an increasingly active area of research in recent years. In this paper, two operational implementations that combine the functionality of spatial data analysis software with a GIS are considered more closely. They consist of linkages between the S-PLUS software for data analysis and two different GIS implementations, the ArcView desktop system, which is mostly vector-oriented, and the primarily raster-based Grassland open GIS environment. We emphasize conceptual and technical issues related to the software implementation of these approaches and suggest future directions for linking spatial statistics and GIS. Received: 14 January 1999 / Accepted: 11 May 1999     

Search for finite dimensional attractors in atmospheric turbulence

The question is investigated whether the dynamics of turbulent wind fields in the atmospheric boundary layer can be satisfactorily described by a low-dimensional deterministic system. Special emphasis is laid on the detection of a possibly existing, underlying strange attractor. Fast response wind measurements of an ultrasonic anemometer with a sampling rate of 21 Hz were carried out over periods of several days in the near surface boundary layer. The correlation dimension of the resulting time series, several million data points long, is estimated by means of the Grassberger-Procaccia algorithm. No sign of a low dimensional attractor can be detected. By comparison with different types of random noise, the existence of an attractor with dimension lower than six can be excluded in the present data sets.     

SN 1994W: an interacting supernova or two interacting shells?

We present a multi-epoch quantitative spectroscopic analysis of the Type IIn supernova (Type IIn SN) 1994W, an event interpreted by Chugai et al. as stemming from the interaction between the ejecta of a SN and a  0.4 M_⊙  circumstellar shell ejected 1.5 yr before core collapse. During the brightening phase, our models suggest that the source of optical radiation is not unique, perhaps associated with an inner optically thick cold dense shell and outer optically thin shocked material. During the fading phase, our models support a single source of radiation, an hydrogen-rich optically thick layer with a near-constant temperature of ∼7000 K that recedes from a radius of  4.3 × 10¹⁵  at a peak to  2.3 × 10¹⁵ cm  40 d later. We reproduce the hybrid narrow-core broad-wing line profile shapes of SN 1994W at all times, invoking an optically thick photosphere exclusively (i.e. without any external optically thick shell). In SN 1994W, slow expansion makes scattering with thermal electrons a key escape mechanism for photons trapped in optically thick line cores, and allows the resulting broad incoherent electron-scattering wings to be seen around narrow-line cores. In SNe with larger expansion velocities, the thermal broadening due to incoherent scattering is masked by the broad profile and the dominant frequency redshift occasioned by bulk motions. Given the absence of broad lines at all times and the very low ⁵⁶Ni yields, we speculate whether SN 1994W could have resulted from an interaction between two ejected shells without core collapse. The high conversion efficiency of kinetic to thermal energy may not require a SN-like energy budget for SN1994W.