Factors controlling stratal pattern and facies distribution of fluvio‐lacustrine sedimentation in the Sivas mini‐basins,Oligocene (Turkey)

The Sivas Basin, located in the Central Anatolian Plateau of Turkey, is a foreland basin that records a complex interaction between sedimentation, salt tectonics and regional shortening during the Oligo‐Miocene leading to the formation of numerous mini‐basins. The Oligocene sedimentary infill of the mini‐basins consists of a thick continental succession, the Karayün Formation, comprising a vertical succession of three main sub‐environments: (i) playa‐lake, (ii) fluvial braided, and (iii) saline lacustrine. These sub‐environments are seen as forming a large Distributive Fluvial System (DFS) modified through time as a function of sediment supply and accommodation related to regional changes in climate and tectonic regime. Within neighbouring mini‐basins and despite a similar vertical stratigraphic succession, subtle variations in facies assemblages and thickness are observed in stratigraphic units of equivalent age, thus demonstrating the local control exerted by halokinesis. Stratigraphic and stratal patterns reveal in great detail the complex interaction between salt tectonics and sedimentation including different types of halokinetic structures such as hooks, wedges and halokinetic folds. The regional variations of accommodation/sediment supply led to coeval changes in the architectural patterns recorded in the mini‐basins. The type of accommodation regime produces several changes in the sedimentary record: (i) a regime dominated by regional accommodation limits the impact of halokinesis, which is recorded as very small variations in stratigraphic thickness and facies distribution within and between mini‐basins; (ii) a regime dominated by localized salt‐induced accommodation linked to the subsidence of each individual mini‐basin enhances the facies heterogeneity within the DFS, causing sharp changes in stratigraphic thickness and facies assemblages within and between mini‐basins.     

The anatomy of an active slide: the Gascons rockslide,Québec,Canada

A railroad crosses the coastal Gascons rockslide, in Quebec, Canada. This study improves the understanding of the rockslide’s failure mechanism and post-failure behaviour responsible for the deformation in the railroad. The slide is an asymmetrical wedge failure of 410,000 m³, in rocks made up of centimetre-scale beds of nodular calcilutite alternating with sandstones and limestone. The post-failure stage of the rockslide is characterised by continuous movement of blocks with speeds ranging from 6 to 110 mm/year. The main water table is just below the sliding surface, but precipitation and snowmelt can raise it above the sliding surface in the upper part of the slide. We propose a model for the rockslide, its failure mechanism, geometry and hydrogeology to provide a baseline for interpreting the near-real-time data collected since 2009.     

Cosmo-SkyMed X-band SAR data for classification of ice-free areas and glacier facies on Potter Peninsula,King George Island Antarctica

The climate change phenomena have been influencing terrestrial and glacial ecosystems around the planet. Maritime Antarctica is especially sensitive to these climate variations and over the last 50 years increasing global air temperatures have caused extensive glacial retreat. The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential use of the SAR technology in monitoring the surface dynamics of the Potter Peninsula, King George Island, maritime Antarctica. An image generated by the SAR satellite COSMO-SkyMed, obtained on 2 February 2011, was used to extract the backscattering values of targets on the surface for further processing and classification, using a supervised statistic classifier of maximum likelihood for the determination of the surface classes. The average backscattering of water bodies presented high similarity, which made its separation unattainable. On the other hand, the surface classes’ bare ice and wet snow over the glacier presented distinct average backscattering values, which allowed an efficient and precise classification using only this parameter. The classification process showed satisfactory results for periglacial environments, presenting high fidelity to the field data.     

Searching for Added Value in Simulating Climate Extremes with a High-Resolution Regional Climate Model over Western Canada. II: Basin-Scale Results

We evaluate the capacity of a regional climate model to simulate the statistics of extreme events, and also examine the effect of differing horizontal resolution, at the scale of individual hydrological basins in the topographically complex province of British Columbia, Canada. Two climate simulations of western Canada (WCan) were conducted with the Canadian Regional Climate Model (version 4) at 15 (CRCM15) and 45?km (CRCM45) horizontal resolution driven at the lateral boundaries by global reanalysis over the period 1973–1995. The simulations were evaluated with ANUSPLIN, a daily observational gridded surface temperature and precipitation product and with meteorological data recorded at 28 stations within the upper Peace, Nechako, and upper Columbia River basins. In this work, we focus largely on a comparison of the skill of each model configuration in simulating the 90th percentile of daily precipitation (PR90). The companion paper describes the results for a wider range of temperature and precipitation extremes over the entire WCan domain.

Over all three watersheds, both simulations exhibit cold biases compared with observations, with the bias exacerbated at higher resolution. Although both simulations generally display wet biases in median precipitation, CRCM15 features a reduced bias in PR90 in all three basins in summer and throughout the year in the upper Columbia River basin. However, the higher resolution model is inferior to CRCM45 with respect to rarer heavy precipitation events and also displays high spatial variability and lower spatial correlations with ANUSPLIN compared with the coarser resolution model. A reduction in the range of PR90 biases over the upper Columbia basin is noted when the 15?km results are averaged to the 45?km grid. This improvement is partly attributable to the averaging of errors between different elevation data used in the gridded observations and CRCM, but the sensitivity of CRCM15 to resolved topography is also clear from spatial maps of seasonal extremes. At the station scale, modest but systematic reductions in the bias of PR90 relative to ANUSPLIN are again found when the CRCM15 results are averaged to the 45?km grid. Furthermore, the annual cycle of inter-station spatial variance in the upper Columbia River basin is well reproduced by CRCM15 but not by ANUSPLIN or CRCM45. The former result highlights the beneficial effect of spatial averaging of small-scale climate variability, whereas the latter is evidently a demonstration of the added value at high resolution vis-à-vis the improved simulation of precipitation at the resolution limit of the model.     

LA‐ICP‐MS dating of detrital zircon grains from the Cretaceous allochthonous bauxites of Languedoc (south of France): Provenance and geodynamic consequences

The Cretaceous of southern France is characterised by a long erosional hiatus, outlined with bauxite deposits, which represent the only remaining sedimentary record of a key period for geodynamic reconstructions. Detrital zircons from allochthonous karst bauxites of Languedoc (Southern France) have been dated using LA‐ICP‐MS (Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry), in order to specify the age of deposition and to constrain the provenance of the weathered material. We analysed 671 single detrital zircons grains from three karst bauxitic basins, stretching from close to the Variscan Montagne Noire to the present‐day Mediterranean Sea. Analytical results provide Variscan (300–350 Ma) and Late Proterozoic (550–700 Ma) ages as primary groups. In addition, Middle‐, Late Proterozoic and Early Archean (oldest grain at 3.55 Ga) represent significant groups. Mid‐Cretaceous zircons (118–113 Ma) provide a pooled age of 115.5 ± 3.8 Ma, which constitutes the maximum age for bauxite deposition. Results also suggest a dual source for the Languedoc bauxite: one generalised sedimentary source of regional extent and a localised source in the Variscan basement structural high, that has been progressively unroofed during Albian. Integration of these new findings with previously published thermochronological data support the presence of an Early Cretaceous marly cover on the Variscan basement, which has been weathered and then, removed during the Albian. The Languedoc bauxite provide a spatial and temporal link between the uplift of southern French Massif Central to the north, and the Pyrenean rift and its eastward extension to the south. These new results allow to constrain the timing and distribution of uplift/subsidence during the mid‐Cretaceous events in relation with the motion of the Iberian plate relative to Eurasia.     

Modelling metolachlor exports in subsurface drainage water from two structured soils under maize (eastern France)

The study investigated the processes involved in metolachlor transport in two artificially drained, structured soils in eastern France. Measured losses of bromide and metolachlor in drainage water were compared with results simulated by the mechanistic, stochastic AgriFlux model. Simulated drainage water volumes were generally similar to the measured volumes when the spatial variability of the soil water properties was taken into account. When such variability was disregarded, cumulative water volumes of the clay soil were over- or underestimated by more than 20%. Two types of adsorption were tested. For instantaneous, reversible adsorption, using the partition coefficient Koc, metolachlor losses were underestimated in the first drainage water volumes and overestimated for the total study period. The use of slow adsorption and desorption kinetics (ADK) produced an export pattern similar to the observed one. A sensitivity analysis indicated that the simulated results are very sensitive to the values of the ADK rates, especially for the silty loam soil. The effect of ADK on the attenuation of metolachlor exports was more significant than the effect of degradation (2.3 and 6.7 times higher for the clay and silty loam soils, respectively). For the same four-month period, the bromide and metolachlor losses (using ADK) in the clay soil were 2.1 and 1.3 times greater, respectively, if the macroporosity was set at 10% than if it was not simulated. Conversely, macroporosity did not significantly affect these losses in the silty loam. The main factors involved in the metolachlor transport in the studied soils were: (i) the macroporosity, especially in the clay soil because of the low hydraulic conductivity of the matrix and (ii) the sorption kinetics rates which varied according to the soil physico-chemical characteristics.