Palaeoecological evidence of changes in vegetation and climate during the Holocene in the pre‐Polar Urals,northeast European Russia

This study investigated Holocene tree‐line history and climatic change in the pre‐Polar Urals, northeast European Russia. A sediment core from Mezhgornoe Lake situated at the present‐day alpine tree‐line was studied for pollen, plant macrofossils, Cladocera and diatoms. A peat section from Vangyr Mire in the nearby mixed mountain taiga zone was analysed for pollen. The results suggest that the study area experienced a climatic optimum in the early Holocene and that summer temperatures were at least 2°C warmer than today. Tree birch immigrated to the Mezhgornoe Lake area at the onset of the Holocene. Mixed spruce forests followed at ca. 9500–9000 ¹⁴C yr BP. Climate was moist and the water level of Mezhgornoe Lake rose rapidly. The hypsithermal phase lasted until ca. 5500–4500 ¹⁴C yr BP, after which the mixed forest withdrew from the Mezhgornoe catchment as a result of the climate cooling. The gradual altitudinal downward shift of vegetation zones resulted in the present situation, with larch forming the tree‐line. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Population, income and ecological conditions as determinants of forest area variation in the tropics

The underlying causes of forest area variation were studied by using data from the original forest assessments between 1970 and 1991 of FAO FORIS database representing 477 subnational geographical units in 67 tropical countries. Multiple regression modelling was applied to measure the effects. Five ecological variables were used to control the varying ecological conditions in the subnational units. Three variables were used to control the varying reliability of forest inventory data. Population and income variables were found to be significant factors explaining forest area variation after controlling for ecological variation. In particular population density and income per capita turned out to be significant underlying factors of deforestation. The overall conclusion is that determining the factors behind forest area variation helps explaining the causes of deforestation.     

东南极中山站陆缘固定冰2011/2012年度的时空变化

Annual observations of first-year ice(FYI) and second-year ice(SYI) near Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica,were conducted for the first time from December 2011 to December 2012. Melt ponds appeared from early December 2011. Landfast ice partly broke in late January, 2012 after a strong cyclone. Open water was refrozen to form new ice cover in mid-February, and then FYI and SYI co-existed in March with a growth rate of 0.8 cm/d for FYI and a melting rate of 2.7 cm/d for SYI. This difference was due to the oceanic heat flux and the thickness of ice,with weaker heat flux through thicker ice. From May onward, FYI and SYI showed a similar growth by 0.5 cm/d.Their maximum thickness reached 160.5 cm and 167.0 cm, respectively, in late October. Drillings showed variations of FYI thickness to be generally less than 1.0 cm, but variations were up to 33.0 cm for SYI in March,suggesting that the SYI bottom was particularly uneven. Snow distribution was strongly affected by wind and surface roughness, leading to large thickness differences in the different sites. Snow and ice thickness in Nella Fjord had a similar "east thicker, west thinner" spatial distribution. Easterly prevailing wind and local topography led to this snow pattern. Superimposed ice induced by snow cover melting in summer thickened multi-year ice,causing it to be thicker than the snow-free SYI. The estimated monthly oceanic heat flux was ～30.0 W/m2 in March–May, reducing to ～10.0 W/m2 during July–October, and increasing to ～15.0 W/m2 in November. The seasonal change and mean value of 15.6 W/m2 was similar to the findings of previous research. The results can be used to further our understanding of landfast ice for climate change study and Chinese Antarctic Expedition services.     

Model simulations of the annual cycle of the landfast ice thickness in the East Siberian Sea

The annual cycle of the thickness and temperature of landfast sea ice in the East Siberian Sea has been examined using a one-dimensional thermodynamic model. The model was calibrated for the year Augus...     

Holocene colluvial chronology in a sub‐arctic esker landscape at Kuttanen,Finnish Lapland: kettleholes as geo‐ecological archives of interactions amongst fire,vegetation, soil,climate and geomorphological instability

Excavations were made in the colluvial deposits of seven kettleholes in a sandy esker at Kuttanen, northwestern Finnish Lapland. The Holocene history of forest fires and the associated colluvial activity initiated on the slopes of the kettleholes were reconstructed based on 131 radiocarbon dates from charcoal layers. These dates were supplemented by luminescence dating of colluvial sand layers. The first forest fires occurred ～9000 years ago following the immigration of Pinus sylvestris about 1000 years after deglaciation. Evidence of forest fires and colluvial activity increased with the density of the pine forest, reaching a maximum during the Holocene Thermal Maximum between ～8000 and 4000 cal. a BP, declining thereafter to a minimum in the last ～500 years. This multimillennial‐scale pattern corresponds with forest fires being triggered by lightning strikes during the warmest summer weather of the Holocene, which also produced heavy rain and slope wash from convective storms. The 50 forest fires identified over the Holocene indicate a long cycle in fire frequency of 1 in ～200 years, which appears to reflect the average successional recovery time of the forest. Complex interactions amongst vegetation, fire and climate may account for little or no association between 23 centennial‐ to millennial‐scale clusters of forest fires/colluvial events and Holocene temperature or precipitation anomalies. Buried podzols indicate five phases of soil formation and hence low levels of landscape disturbance. The kettleholes and their colluvial deposits therefore provide a unique geo‐ecological archive that has led to new insights into the geo‐ecological interactions that affect environmental change in the sub‐arctic landscape.     

Age differences between Rb---Sr whole rock and U---Pb zircon ages of syn- and postorogenic Svecokarelian granitoids in Sottunga, SW Finland

The U---Pb age on pooled data of zircnos from the postorogenic Svecokarelian Mosshaga granite is 1788 ± 11 Ma (2 σ). The corresponding Rb---Sr whole rock age is 1742 ± 34 Ma (2 σ). The Mosshaga granite intrudes a synorogenic granodiorite, which has a U---Pb zircon age of 1889 ± 10 Ma and a Rb---Sr whole rock age of 1850 ± 28 Ma. The age differences between the U---Pb zircon ages and Rb---Sr whole rock ages are concluded to be geologically significant. It is shown that the Mosshaga pluton cooled rapidly and as a consequence the Rb---Sr isotopic system closed at a time very close to the crystallization of the zircons. A commonly observed feldspar and biotite alteration in Svecokarelian granitoids indicates migration of Rb and Sr isotopes in the whole rock system which may lead to apparently younger Rb---Sr ages.     

State of disequilibrium between 238U, 234U, 226Ra and 222Rn in groundwater from bedrock

Approximately one thousand drilled wells were investigated for their natural radioactivity. The determinations of ²³⁸U, ²³⁴U, ²²⁶Ra and ²²²Rn from 310 samples showed a high state of radioactive disequilibrium between the members of the uranium series present in water. The ${}^{238}\text{U}{}^{226}\text{Ra}$ activity ratio usually fell in the range 1–20 and the ${}^{238}\text{U}{}^{222}\text{Rn}$ activity ratio in the range 1–20 × 10^?4, the highest activity ratios being from samples with an elevated uranium content. The ${}^{234}\text{U}{}^{238}\text{U}$ activity ratio varied between 0.76 and 4.67, the most frequent values showing a 60% excess of ²³⁴U in the samples. Most of the ${}^{234}\text{U}{}^{238}\text{U}$ activity ratios near unity were found in samples with a high uranium content. Several drilled wells with anomalously high uranium contents were found in southern Finland. The average ²²⁶Ra and ²²²Rn contents of these wells were not exceptionally high, which suggests high mobility of uranium in groundwater from the areas involved.     

Preliminary results on relationship between thermal diffusivity and porosity of sea ice in the Antarctic

The in situ sea-ice temperature, salinity and density observed from Chinese Antarctic Zhongshan Station have been applied to calculate the vertical profile of sea ice porosity. Based on numerical method, a number of schemes on sea-ice thermal diffusivity versus porosity have been accessed and one optimized scheme is identified by an optimal control model with an advanced distributing parameter system. For simplicity, the internal heating source item was neglected in the heat conduction equation during the identification procedure. In order to illustrate the applicability of this identified scheme, the vertical ice temperature profiles have been simulated and compared with measurements, respectively by using identified scheme and by classical thermodynamic formulae.The comparisons indicated that the scheme describing sea-ice thermal diffusivity and porosity is reasonable. In spite of a minor improvement of accuracy of results against in situ data, the identified scheme has a more physical meaning and could be used potentially in various applications.     

Surface temperature inversion in the palsa and pounu fields of northern Finland

A very large surface inversion, which would not have been detected at the official recording height of 2 m above the mire surface, was recorded at the snow surface of an earth hummock in Lapland. The maximum inversion was 35 °C, and the monthly temperature departure was 7.8 °C in December 1992. The characteristics of the surface inversion are compared with conditions during another winter when no long inversion periods occurred. The presence of this surface inversion may explain the formation of new permafrost in pounus, even when official records showed no unusually low temperatures.     

Genesis of Palaeoproterozoic iron skarns in the Misi region, northern Finland

Sodic alteration is widespread in Palaeoproterozoic greenstone and schist belts of the northern Fennoscandian shield. In the Misi region that forms the easternmost part of the Peräpohja schist belt, several small magnetite deposits show intimate spatial relationships with intensely albitised gabbros, raising the possibility that regional sodic alteration released iron, which was subsequently accumulated into deposits. Two of these magnetite deposits, Raajärvi and Puro display a typical paragenesis as follows (from oldest to youngest): (1) diopside, (2) actinolite/tremolite-magnetite ± chlorite, biotite, and (3) serpentine ± hematite, chlorite. Mass balance calculations suggest that significant amounts of Fe, Ca, Mg, K, Cu, V, and Ba were lost, and Na and Si gained during the albitisation of the gabbro, at near-constant Al, Ga, Ti, and Zr. Significant amounts of Si, Ca, Fe, and Na were enriched in the formation of skarn related to magnetite deposits. Fe and V leached from country rocks deposited during the skarn-alteration and formed the vanadium rich iron deposits while Cu passed through the system without significant precipitation due to low sulphur fugasity. Variations in Na, Ca, Mg, K, and Ba contents reflect the composition of the infiltrating fluid during alteration. Conventional heating-freezing measurements and proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) analyses of the fluid inclusions related to actinolite/tremolite-magnetite stage alteration indicate that the fluids that caused the alteration and the Fe-mineralisation were complex, oxidised, highly saline H₂O ± CO₂ fluids that contained high amounts of Na, Ca, K, Fe, and Ba as well as elevated concentrations of Cu, Zn, and Pb. The oxygen isotope thermometry suggest that temperature during the Fe-mineralisation stage was between 390 and 490°C. Calculated δ¹⁸O_fluid values of 6.1–9.8‰ SMOW and δ¹³C values of calcites in the ores and skarns were between ?7.7 and 10.9‰ PDB and most likely reflect admixture of ¹³C depleted, possibly magmatic fluids with the marble wall rocks that show δ¹³C_calcite values of 13‰ PDB. The SIMS U–Pb data on the zircons in the albitised gabbro next to the Raajärvi and Puro deposits suggest that intrusion of the gabbro took place at 2123±7 Ma and was accompanied by the formation of diopside skarn. The TIMS data on the metasomatic titanites related to sodic alteration yielded ages of 2062±3 and 2017±3 Ma. Iron was probably stripped from the mafic country rocks by sodic alteration between 2123 and 2017 Ma, driven by repeated brine influxes. Subsequently, the metal-rich brine was focused by a fault system and the iron was precipitated from this fluid by a combination of wall rock reaction, fluid mixing, and a drop in the temperature.