HOBBY RANCHING AND CHILE'S LAND‐REFORM LEGACY*

ABSTRACT. Twentieth‐century land reform in Chile reflects familiar themes. The state subdivided large land monopolies, ostensibly for social justice reasons: to provide opportunities for campesinos to earn a living from agriculture. In southern Chile's Tierra del Fuego a combination of social justice, nationalism, and geopolitical concerns stimulated land reform between 1924 and 1978. The effort succeeded in creating a new material landscape oriented around smaller ranches but failed to meet its socioeconomic goals. In a scenario that resonates with reforms elsewhere in Latin America, an elitist cultural landscape dominated by large‐holding corporations was replaced with another elitist landscape, though in a different form. Politically well‐connected and essentially absentee landholders acquired subdivided land and began to practice “hobby ranching.” The history of land reform in Tierra del Fuego demonstrates how new socioeconomic conditions created over the course of many decades have left their imprint on land use and the biophysical landscape. It also contributes to larger regional debates about the role of land degradation in stocking‐rate decline.     

THE AMERICAN CHALLENGE TO BRITISH HEGEMONY, 1861–1947*

ABSTRACT. In The Shaping of America Donald Meinig describes a United States averse to challenging Britain geostrategically but emerging as a powerhouse economy by the late 1890s. But America embarked on a sustained economic struggle with Britain in 1861 by embracing protectionism; America's Civil War ironclads were as much to resist Britain as fight the Confederacy; and in 1866 uss Miantonomoh helped persuade Britain to reconsider, then pay, the Alabama Claims. Britain never retaliated in the economic struggle by moving to protectionism and in the late 1800s began to appease America in geostrategic terms. This struggle intensified in the 1920s and 1930s as America and Britain competed for control of international transportation, international communication, and the global oil supply, but by the mid‐1940s American hegemony was clear. This article traces the course of the complex economic and political struggle for hegemony in the light of recent models of transitions in the world economy.     

Optical dating of relict sand wedges and composite-wedge pseudomorphs in Flanders, Belgium

We report on quartz Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating of the infill of 14 relict sand wedges and composite-wedge pseudomorphs at 5 different sites in Flanders, Belgium. A laboratory dose recovery test indicates that the single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) procedure is suitable for our samples (measured to a given dose ratio 0.980 ± 0.005; n =139). Completeness of resetting of the wedge infill of two samples was confirmed by single-grain analyses. The suite of optical ages indicates that repeated thermal contraction cracking, degradation and infilling with wind-blown sediment appear to have been commonplace in Flanders during the Late Pleniglacial (Oxygen Isotope Stage 2; OIS2); more specifically, around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ∼21 kyr ago) and the transition period between the LGM and the start of the Lateglacial (∼15 kyr ago). Optical dating at one site has revealed two significantly older wedge levels, the younger inset into the older; the younger wedge has an age of 36 ± 4 kyr (Middle Pleniglacial; OIS3), the older wedge 129 ± 11 kyr, which points to formation during the Late Saalian (OIS6). Our OSL ages of the wedges and host sediments bracket formation of the BGB (Beuningen Gravel Bed: a widespread deflation horizon in northwestern Europe) at between ∼15 and 18 kyr; this is in good agreement with previous OSL dating studies. We conclude that optical dating using quartz SAR OSL establishes an absolute chronology for these periglacial phenomena and allows secure palaeoenvironmental reconstructions to be made.     

Late-stage calcites in the Permian Capitan Formation and its equivalents, Delaware Basin margin, west Texas and New Mexico: evidence for replacement of precursor evaporites

Comparison of Upper Guadalupian fore-reef, reef and back-reef strata from outcrops in the Guadalupe Mountains with equivalent subsurface cores from the northern and eastern margins of the Delaware Basin indicates that extensive evaporite diagenesis has occurred in both areas. In both surface and subsurface sections, the original sediments were extensively dolomitized and most primary and secondary porosity was filled with anhydrite. These evaporites were emplaced by reflux of evaporitic fluids from shelf settings through solution-enlarged fractures and karstic sink holes into the underlying strata. Outcrop areas today, however, contain no preserved evaporites in reef and fore-reef sections and only partial remnants of evaporites are retained in back-reef settings. In their place, these rocks contain minor silica, very large volumes of coarse sparry calcite and some secondary porosity. The replacement minerals locally form pseudomorphs of their evaporite precursors and, less commonly, contain solid anhydrite inclusions. Some silicification, dissolution of anhydrite and conversion of anhydrite to gypsum have occurred in these strata where they are still buried at depths in excess of 1 km; however, no calcite replacements were noted from any subsurface core samples. Subsurface alteration has also led to the widespread, late-stage development of large- and small-scale dissolution breccias. The restriction of calcite cements to very near-surface sections, petrographic evidence that the calcites post-date hydrocarbon emplacement, and the highly variable but generally ‘light’carbon and oxygen isotopic signatures of the spars all indicate that calcite precipitation is a very late diagenetic (telogenetic) phenomenon. Evaporite dissolution and calcitization reactions have only taken place where Permian strata were flushed with meteoric fluids as a consequence of Tertiary uplift, tilting and breaching of regional hydrological seals. A typical sequence of alteration involves initial corrosion of anhydrite, one or more stages of hydration/dehydration during conversion to gypsum, dissolution of gypsum and precipitation of sparry calcite. Such evaporite dissolution and replacement processes are probably continuing today in near-outcrop as well as deeper settings. This study emphasizes the potential importance of telogenetic processes in evaporite diagenesis and in the precipitation of carbonate cements. The extensive mineralogical and petrophysical transformations which these strata have undergone during their uplift indicates that considerable caution must be exercised in using surface exposures to interpret subsurface reservoir parameters in evaporitic carbonate rocks.     

The Generation of Oceanic Rhyolites by Crystal Fractionation: the Basalt-Rhyolite Association at Volcn Alcedo, Galpagos Archipelago

Alcedo volcano is one of six shield volcanoes on Isabela Islandin the western Galpagos Islands. Although Alcedo is dominantiybasaltic, it is unusual in that it also has erupted 1 km³ ofrhyolite. The rhyolitic phase marked a 10-fold decrease in themass-eruption rate of the volcano, and the volcano has returnedto erupting basalt. The basalts are tholeiitic and range fromstrongly to sparsely porphyritic. Olivine and plagiodase arethe liquidus phases in the most primitive basalts. The MgO andNi concentrations in the most primitive basalts indicate thatthey have undergone substantial differentiation since extractionfrom the mantle. The rhyolites contain the assemblage oligoclase-augite-titanomagnetite-fayalite-apatiteand sparse xenoliths of quenched basalt and cumulate gabbros.Intermediate rocks are very rare, but some are apparently basaltrhyolitehybrids, and others resulted from differentiation of tholeiiticmagma. Several modeling approaches and Sr-, Nd-, and O-isotopicdata indicate that the rhyolites resulted from 90% fractionation(by weight) of plagiodase, augite, titanomagnetite, olivine,and apatite from the most primitive olivine tholeiite. The dataare inconsistent with the rhyolites originating by crustal anatexis.The extreme Daly gap may be caused by the large increase inviscosity as the basaltic magma differentiates to intermediateand siliceous compositions; highly evolved magmas are eruptibleonly after they become saturated with volatiles by second boiling.The close association of the hybrid intermediate magmas andmagmatic inclusions with the climactic plinian eruption indicatesmixing between mafic and silicic magmas immediately before eruption.Rhyolite production was favored by the decrease in supply ofbasaltic magma as Alcedo was carried away from the focus ofthe Galpagos hotspot. A three-stage model for the magmaticevolution of a Galpagos volcano is proposed. In the first stage,the supply of basaltic magma is large. Basaltic magma continuallyintrudes the subcaldera magma chamber, buffering the magmas'compositional and thermal evolution. As the volcano is carriedaway from the basaltic source, the magma chamber is allowedto cool and differentiate, as exemplified by Alcedo's rhyoliticphase. Finally, the volcano receives even smaller influx ofbasalt, so a large magma chamber cannot be sustained, and thevolcano shifts to isolated basaltic eruptions. KEY WORDS: Galpagos; oceanic rhyolites; fractional crystallization; Isabela Island ^*Corresponding author, e-mail: Geist{at}IDUI1.csrv.uidaho.edu. Telephone: 208-885-6491. Fax: 208-885-5724     

Quantifying Three-Dimensional Silicate Fabrics in Cumulates Using Cumulative Distribution Functions

We present a new method for quantifying three-dimensional silicatefabrics and the associated uncertainties from grain orientationdata on three orthogonal sections. Our technique is appliedto the orientation of crystallographic features and, hence,yields a fabric related to the lattice-preferred orientation,although the method could be applied to shape-preferred orientationsor strain analysis based on passive linear markers. The orientationdata for each section are represented by their cumulative distributionfunction, and an iterative procedure is used to find the symmetricsecond-rank strain tensor that will simultaneously satisfy thecumulative distribution functions observed on each section.For samples with well-developed fabrics, this technique providesa much closer match to the sectional data than do previous techniquesbased on eigenparameter analysis of two-dimensional orientationdata. Robust uncertainty estimates are derived from a non-parametricbootstrap resampling scheme. The method is applied to two cumulates:one with a well-developed fabric and the other with a weak fabric,from the Stillwater complex, Montana. The silicate petrofabricorientations obtained for these samples compare favorably withindependent direct estimates of the volume fabric from electronbackscatter diffraction and magnetic techniques. KEY WORDS: cumulates; fabrics; quantitative; Stillwater complex; textural analysis     

FUZZY MULTIVARIATE RULE-BUILDING EXPERT SYSTEMS:MINIMAL NEURAL NETWORKS

A fuzzy multivariate rule-building expert system (FuRES) has been devised which also functions as aminimal neural network.This system builds rules from training sets of data that use featuretransformation in their antecedents.The rules are constructed using the ID3 algorithm with a fuzzyexpression of classification entropy.The rules are optimal with respect to fuzziness and can accommodateoverlapped and underlapped clusters of data.The FuRES algorithm combines the benefits obtained fromsimulated annealing and gradient optimization,which provide robustness and efficiency respectively.FARES classification trees support OR logic in their inference.The system automatically generatesmeaningful and consistent certainty factors during rule construction.Unlike other neural networks,FuRES uses local processing which furnishes qualitative information in the rule structure of itsclassification trees and variable loadings of the weight vectors.