Wood distribution in neotropical forested headwater streams of La Selva,Costa Rica

Surveys of wood along 30 forested headwater stream reaches in La Selva Biological Station in north‐eastern Costa Rica represent the first systematic data reported on wood loads in neotropical streams. For streams with drainage areas of 0·1–8·5 km² and gradients of 0·2–8%, wood load ranged from 3 to 34·7 m³ wood/100 m channel and 41–612 m³ wood/ha channel. These values are within the range reported for temperate streams. The variables wood diameter/flow depth, stream power, the presence of backflooding, and channel width/depth are consistently selected as significant predictors by statistical models for wood load. These variables explain half to two‐thirds of the variability in wood load. These results, along with the spatial distribution of wood with respect to the thalweg, suggest that transport processes exert a greater influence on wood loads than recruitment processes. Wood appears to be more geomorphically effective in altering bed elevations in gravel‐bed reaches than in reaches with coarser or finer substrate. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Early Proterozoic Nabberu Basin and associated iron formations of Western Australia

Rocks of the Early Proterozoic Nabberu Supergroup were deposited in the Nabberu Basin along the northern margin of the Archaean Yilgarn Shield in Western Australia. The Nabberu Basin consists of three tectonic-sedimentary units known as the Earaheedy, Glengarry and Padbury Sub-basins.The Earaheedy Group within the easternmost sub-basin is divided into a lower Tooloo Sub-group and an upper Miningarra Sub-group, representing succeeding sedimentary cycles totalling some 6000 m of shallow water sediments. The Tooloo Sub-group comprises thin quartzose to arkosic clastics (Yelma Formation) which rest unconformably on Archaean rocks, and are overlain by chert, shale, iron formations and minor carbonate (Frere Formation), and thinly bedded carbonate, shale and sandstone (Windidda Formation). The overlying Miningarra Sub-group includes sandstone and shale (Wandiwarra Formation), super-mature quartz sandstone and arkosic siltstone (Princess Ranges Quartzite), fine arkosic sandstone, siltstone, shale and carbonate (Wongawol Formation), limestone, shale and sandstone (Kulele Creek Limestone) and sandstone and shale (Mulgarra Sandstone). Distinctive stromatolite assemblages occur in carbonate units throughout the sequence.Iron formations of the Frere Formation are similar to those of the Lake Superior and Labrador Provinces of North America, and commonly have a distinctive pelletal (intraclastic) texture, but are locally oolitic or laminated. Benthonic microfossils found at one locality are identical to those in the Lake Superior iron formations (Walter et al., 1976).West into the Glengarry Sub-basin and Peak Hill—Robinson Ranges area the basal clastics become considerably thicker, finer-grained and more varied, and are commonly interbedded with basaltic volcanics and greywackes. The Peak Hill Beds (MacLeod, 1970), Finlayson Sandstone and Maraloou Formation (Bunting et al., 1977) may be lateral equivalents of the Yelma Formation, while the overlying Horseshoe Range Beds, Labouchere Formation and Robinson Range Formation (Barnett, 1975) are possible equivalents of the Frere Formation. The Millidie Creek Formation may be equivalent to the Wandiwarra Formation.Deformation of the Nabberu Basin has resulted in the development of the Stanley Fold Belt in the north and the Kingston Platform in the south. On the Kingston Platform the rocks dip very gently north, but deformation increases northwards. A slaty cleavage becomes more conspicuous in this direction, while folds become tighter, overturned southwards and cut by north-dipping thrusts. The fold belt trends west-northwest across the eastern portion of the basin before swinging to the southwest. Archaean basement is increasingly involved in the deformation and becomes progressively more gneissic as the Early Proterozoic rocks become more strongly schistose. Refolding of early structures is pronounced in the west. Metamorphic grade, based on mineral assemblages in basic, pelitic and carbonate rocks and iron formations, also increases north and northwest, reaching a maximum grade of granulite facies west of the Robinson Ranges. The sediments are essentially unmetamorphosed in the southeastern part of the basin.     

Surface water and groundwater interactions in an extensively mined watershed,upper Schuylkill River,Pennsylvania, USA

Streams crossing underground coal mines may lose flow, whereas abandoned mine drainage (AMD) restores flow downstream. During 2005–2012, discharge from the Pine Knot Mine Tunnel, the largest AMD source in the upper Schuylkill River Basin, had near‐neutral pH and elevated concentrations of iron, manganese and sulphate. Discharge from the tunnel responded rapidly to recharge but exhibited a prolonged recession compared with nearby streams, consistent with rapid infiltration of surface water and slow release of groundwater from the mine complex. Dissolved iron was attenuated downstream by oxidation and precipitation, whereas dissolved CO₂ degassed and pH increased. During high flow conditions, the AMD and downstream waters exhibited decreased pH, iron and sulphate with increased acidity that were modelled by mixing net‐alkaline AMD with recharge or run‐off having low ionic strength and low pH. Attenuation of dissolved iron within the river was least effective during high flow conditions because of decreased transport time coupled with inhibitory effects of low pH on oxidation kinetics. A numerical model of groundwater flow was calibrated by using groundwater levels in the Pine Knot Mine and discharge data for the Pine Knot Mine Tunnel and West Branch Schuylkill River during a snowmelt event in January 2012. Although the calibrated model indicated substantial recharge to the mine complex took place away from streams, simulation of rapid changes in mine pool level and tunnel discharge during a high flow event in May 2012 required a source of direct recharge to the Pine Knot Mine. Such recharge produced small changes in mine pool level and rapid changes in tunnel flow rate because of extensive unsaturated storage capacity and high transmissivity within the mine complex. Thus, elimination of stream leakage could have a small effect on the annual discharge from the tunnel, but a large effect on peak discharge and associated water quality downstream. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.     

Petrography and origin of granulite‐facies rocks in the Western Musgrave Block,Central Australia

The granulite‐facies rocks in the Tomkinson Ranges of central Australia are dominated by layered felsic (quartzofeldspathic) gneisses with minor interbanded mafic, calcareous, ferruginous, and quartzitic granulites. They are regarded as representing a middle Proterozoic metasedimentary and/or metavolcanic sequence which has undergone anhydrous granulite‐facies metamorphism approximately 1200 m.y. ago. Conditions of metamorphism have been derived from a petrogenetic grid based on several experimentally determined reactions and give estimates of 10–11 kb pressure and 950–1000°C. Such metamorphism could take place close to the base of the crust with a moderate geothermal gradient of 25–30°C/km.     

A New Method for Resolving the 180° Ambiguity in Solar Vector Magnetograms

We present a new method to resolve the 180° ambiguity for solar vector magnetogram measurements. The basic assumption is that the magnetic shear angle (), which is defined as the difference between the azimuth components of observed and potential fields, approximately follows a normal distribution. The new method is composed of three steps. First, we apply the potential field method to determine the azimuthal components of the observed magnetic fields. Second, we resolve the ambiguity with a new criterion: –90°+_mp lele90°+_mp, where _mp is the most probable value of magnetic shear angle from its number distribution. Finally, to remove some localized field discontinuities, we use the criterion B _tB _mt ge0, where B _t and B _mt are an observed transverse field and its mean value for a small surrounding region, respectively. For an illustration, we have applied the new ambiguity removal method (Uniform Shear Method) to a vector magnetogram which covers a highly sheared region near the polarity inversion line of NOAA AR 0039. As a result, we have found that the new ambiguity solution was successful and removed spatial discontinuities in the transverse vector fields produced in the magnetogram by the potential field method. It is also found that our solution to the ambiguity gives nearly the same results, for highly sheared vector magnetograms and vertical current density distributions, of NOAA AR 5747 and AR 6233 as those of other methods. The validity of the basic assumption for an approximate normal distribution is demonstrated by the number distributions of magnetic shear angle for the three active regions under consideration.     

Modeling Transport in Transient Ground-Water Flow: An Unacknowledged Approximation

Abstract. During unsteady or transient ground-water flow, the fluid mass per unit volume of aquifer changes as the potentiometric head changes, and solute transport is affected by this change in fluid storage. Three widely applied numerical models of two-dimensional transport partially account for the effects of transient flow by removing terms corresponding to the fluid continuity equation from the transport equation, resulting in a simpler governing equation. However, fluid-storage terms remaining in the transport equation that change during transient flow are, in certain cases, held constant in time in these models. For the case of increasing heads, this approximation, which is unacknowledged in these models'documentation, leads to transport velocities that are too high, and increased concentration at fluid and solute sources. If heads are dropping in time, computed transport velocities are too low. Using parameters that somewhat exaggerate the effects of this approximation, an example numerical simulation indicates solute travel time error of about 14 percent but only minor errors due to incorrect dilution volume. For horizontal flow and transport models that assume fluid density is constant, the product of porosity and aquifer thickness changes in time: initial porosity times initial thickness plus the change in head times the storage coefficient. This formula reduces to the saturated thickness in unconfined aquifers if porosity is assumed to be constant and equal to specific yield. The computational cost of this more accurate representation is insignificant and is easily incorporated in numerical models of solute transport.     

High temperature,high strain rate deformation in the lower crustal Kalka Intrusion,central Australia

Mafic and ultramafic gneisses (blastomylonites) characterised by a strongly developed planar lenticular foliation-layering are developed in lower crustal (high pressure) cumulates of the stratiform Kalka Intrusion in central Australia. The gneisses occur in two distinct zones, the Numbunja and West Kalka Gneissic Belts, parallel to or at low angles to igneous layering. They developed during and shortly after the final stages of crystallization of the intrusion at temperatures between about 1000 and 1200 ° C, and represent an incipient thrusting deformation probably with associated high strain rates. The most deformed textures in the centre of the belts typically consist of megacrysts of orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, olivine and plagioclase showing abundant features of extreme ductile flow within a finegrained syntectonically recrystallized matrix of the same material. Mineral elongation, kink band orientation and matrix petrofabrics indicate that the maximum principal elongation and the maximum principal shortening occurred parallel to the lineation and normal to the foliation respectively.Single crystal deformation features (some unique to these rocks) include flow elongation of orthopyroxene and plagioclase (up to at least 400% elongation without recrystallization), kinking of orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, olivine and plagioclase, production of rare clinoenstatite in orthopyroxene, and an unusual fingerprint texture in clinopyroxene. The occurrence of either flow elongation or kinking of orthopyroxene is dependent on crystal orientation relative to the maximum principal elongation/shortening directions. Detailed analysis shows that the flow orthopyroxenes and possibly the flow plagioclases deformed by simple shear. The results have relevance in studies of possible deformation mechanisms in the upper mantle, and in alpine peridotites.     

Episodic wood loading in a mountainous neotropical watershed

The Upper Rio Chagres drains 414 km² of steep, mountainous terrain in central Panama. A tropical air mass thunderstorm on 10 July 2007 produced a flood across the basin that peaked at 720 m³ s^− 1 at a headwaters gage draining 17.5 km² and 1710 m³ s^− 1 at a downstream gage draining 414 km². The storm also triggered numerous landslides in the upper basin, which facilitated the formation of large logjams along portions of the channel where transport capacity of wood was reduced by a change in channel geometry such as a bend or channel expansion. During field work in February 2008, we characterized three jams with surface areas of 400–2450 m²; two of these jams resulted in storage of substantial (1100–8200 m³) sediment wedges upstream. We returned to these sites in March 2009 to document changes in the logjams and sediment storage. Drawing on observations made in the basin since 2002, and site visits during 2008 and 2009, we suggest that jams such as these last two years or less. We propose that wood dynamics in the Upper Chagres alternate between brief periods of moderate wood load in the form of large logjams and much longer periods of essentially no wood load, a situation that contrasts with the more consistent wood loads in catchments of similar size in temperate environments and with limited studies of more consistent wood load in tropical catchments with no landslides.     

Measuring Seeing from Solar Scintillometry and the Spectral Ratio Technique

In principle, the optical transfer function can be described by a single parameter, the Fried parameter r ₀, which reveals the net effect of the turbulence along the line of sight. We present measurements of the Fried parameter obtained from the spectral ratio technique and compare them to data from solar scintillometry and from angle-of-arrival fluctuations. The measurements were performed at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in 1997 and 1998 – before and after a series of steps were taken to reduce dome seeing. The results show that the dome seeing was considerably reduced and now approaches the seeing conditions measured outside the dome. The Fried parameter as measured by the spectral ratio technique now frequently exceeds r ₀=10 cm at our lake site observatory. Accounting for the remaining dome and window seeing, the scintillometer and the angle-of-arrival data imply the potential for an r ₀>20 cm for BBSO during days of good seeing.