THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR AND DEBT CRISIS IN THE THIRD WORLD

The advanced capitalist ccuntries are undergoing an industrial devolution as remarkable as the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. The removal of high-paying jobs through automation and geographical migration destroys the main market of the center and precipitates debt crises in newly industrialized countries of the periphery which have followed export-oriented growth policies. This results in a new, internationalized form of the crises of iate capitalism and provides a new institutional foucs for crisis in the international banks. The paper examines this global process from the perspective of the geography of class struggle.     

Regional variation in springtime ichthyoplankton assemblages in the northeast Pacific Ocean

The coastal regions of the northeast Pacific support large, economically valuable fishery resources and provide nursery areas for many fish species. Over the last few decades, there have been dramatic shifts in species abundance and composition in this area. In this paper, we examine the springtime spatial patterns in the ichthyoplankton of three oceanographically different regions, the Southeast Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska and the U.S. West Coast. The data examined are a subset of a larger database (comprising data from cruises conducted from 1972 to 1997) that is being used to investigate spatial, seasonal and interannual patterns in ichthyoplankton of the northeast Pacific in relation to environmental conditions. Ichthyoplankton were collected during seven cruises using 60-cm bongo nets. Spatial patterns of ichthyoplankton were examined using both classification and ordination techniques. Relative Bray-Curtis dissimilarity coefficients calculated from the log₁₀ (n+1) of abundance data were used as input to the numerical classification of species and stations. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling was also applied to the abundance data to examine geometric patterns in the data. The numerical analyses of the species abundance data sets for each cruise revealed spatial patterns in the ichthyoplankton that suggest the occurrence of geographically distinct assemblages of fish larvae in each region. For all three sampling regions, the assemblage structure is primarily related to bathymetry, and Shelf, Slope, and Deep-Water assemblages are described. This shallow to deep-water gradient in species occurrence and abundance reflects the habitat preference and spawning location of the adult fish. Another degree of complexity is superimposed on this primary assemblage structure in each region and seems to be related to local topography and the prevailing current patterns. The patterns in ichthyoplankton assemblages of the three regions in the northeast Pacific Ocean described here form the basis for future investigations of spatial and temporal patterns in the ichthyoplankton of the subarctic Pacific.Regional Index Terms: Northeast Pacific Ocean, Southeast Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, U.S. West Coast.     

World-wide synthetic tide parameters for gravity and vertical and horizontal displacements

The response of the Earth’s crust to the direct effect of lunisolar gravitational forcing is known as the body tide. The body tide is superimposed by surface-loading forces due to the pressure of the periodically varying ocean tide acting on the Earth, called ocean tide loading (OTL). Both body tide and OTL can be decomposed into components of the same frequency known as tidal parameters. However, OTL is more complicated than body tides because of the dynamic effects of the ocean. Estimating OTL requires a model of the ocean tides and knowledge of the elastic properties of the solid Earth. Thus, synthetic tide parameters (amplitude factors and phase leads) have been developed here on a world-wide grid for gravity and positional displacements. The body tide contributions were added to the oceanic contribution to provide the Earth tide response. The accuracy and reliability of the synthetic tidal parameters have been estimated by comparing observed gravity and vertical-displacement tide parameters with those interpolated from our synthetic model, which shows good agreement. Tests also indicate that the synthetic tide parameters provide realistic gravimetric and displacements for practical use in tidal prediction.     

Multistage Variscan magmatism in the central Tauern Window (Austria) unveiled by U/Pb SHRIMP zircon data

U/Pb SHRIMP ages of nine Variscan leucocratic orthogneisses from the central Tauern Window (Austria) reveal three distinct pulses of magmatism in Early Carboniferous (Visean), Late Carboniferous (Stephanian) and Early Permian, each involving granitoid intrusions and a contemporaneous opening of volcano-sedimentary basins. A similar relationship has been reported for the Carboniferous parts of the basement of the Alps further to the west, e.g. the “External massifs” in Switzerland. After the intrusion of subduction-related, volcanic-arc granitoids (374?±?10?Ma; Zwölferkogel gneiss), collisional intrusive-granitic, anatectic and extrusive-rhyolitic/dacitic rocks were produced over a short interval at ca. 340?Ma (Augengneiss of Felbertauern: 340?±?4?Ma, Hochweißenfeld gneiss: 342?± 5?Ma, Falkenbachlappen gneiss: 343?±?6?Ma). This Early Carboniferous magmatism, which produced relatively small volumes of melt, can be attributed to the amalgamation of the Gondwana-derived “Tauern Window” terrane with Laurussia–Avalonia. Probably due to the oblique nature of the collision, transtensional phenomena (i.e. volcano-sedimentary troughs and high-level intrusives) and transpressional regimes (i.e. regional metamorphism and stacked nappes with anatexis next to thrust planes) evolved contemporaneously. The magmas are mainly of the high-K I-type and may have been generated during a short phase of decompressional melting of lithospheric mantle and lower crustal sources. In the Late Carboniferous, a second pulse of magmatism occurred, producing batholiths of calc-alkaline I-type granitoids (e.g. Venediger tonalite: 296?±?4?Ma) and minor coeval bodies of felsic and intermediate volcanics (Heuschartenkopf gneiss: 299?±?4?Ma, Peitingalm gneiss: 300?±?5?Ma). Prior to this magmatism, several kilometres of upper crust must have been eroded, because volcano-sedimentary sequences hosting the Heu- schartenkopf and Peitingalm gneisses rest unconformably on 340-Ma-old granitoids. The youngest (Permian) period of magma generation contains the intrusion of the S-type Granatspitz Central Gneiss at 271?±?4?Ma and the extrusion of the rhyolitic Schönbachwald gneiss protolith at 279?±?9?Ma. These magmatic rocks may have been associated with local extension along continental wrench zones through the Variscan orogenic crust or with a Permian rifting event. The Permian and the above-mentioned Late Carboniferous volcano-sedimentary sequences were probably deposited in intra-continental graben structures, which survived post-Variscan uplift and Alpine compressional tectonics.     

A furrow runs through it: An example of sustainable traditional irrigation in Western Cape Province,South Africa

Water and water related matters are important issues in water scarce countries like the Republic of South Africa. This is especially true for the agricultural sector that relies heavily on the availability of water for irrigation to ensure a secure food supply. In South Africa, present day irrigation projects rely on government subsidies and are usually large undertakings beyond the reach of individuals or small communities. The sustainability of such large irrigation projects is still a matter of debate. A 100 years ago a different set of rules applied. Irrigation could only be achieved by hand-dug furrows that supplied water in relatively small quantities to small farming communities. This paper investigated such a small community, the Leeukloof farming community in the Western Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa. For the past 93 years this community has maintained a furrow that supplies water not only to farms bordering the Perdeberg River, which supplies the furrow with water, but also to farms not bordering the river. The authors try to reconstruct the changes in agricultural practices brought about by the furrow, methods of water extraction during each phase, as well as the development and role of the furrow system. The perception by the community of the necessity of this method of water extraction from the river system is also investigated. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Trends and fluctuations of rainfall regime in the Brahmaputra and Barak basins of Assam, India

Severe weather conditions create negative impacts on humans. One of the severe weather conditions is storms. In the scope of this study, the storm effects on the Marmara Region were investigated using data for the period 2000 to 2010 giving the hourly averaged wind direction and speed in the Marmara Region, as provided by the Turkish Meteorological Service. The monthly distribution of storms has been estimated and their daily variability has been investigated. Additionally, air masses that cause storms have been determined by using NCEP/NCAR re-analysis data. Other than this, by studying the storms, extreme values have been ascertained and northerly values from these storm values (since in percentage terms they are larger) and hourly variability in a single day for 17 weather stations have been depicted graphically. The days that northerly storms reached extreme values are shown with the meteorological maps (surface chart, 850, 700, 500, and 300 hPa) and the temperature diagrams for Istanbul in the Marmara Region have been examined and analysed.     

Modelling interactions between fold–thrust belt deformation, foreland flexure and surface mass transport

Interactions between fold and thrust belt deformation, foreland flexure and surface mass transport are investigated using a newly developed mathematical model incorporating fully dynamic coupling between mechanics and surface processes. The mechanical model is two dimensional (plane strain) and includes an elasto‐visco‐plastic rheology. The evolving model is flexurally compensated using an elastic beam formulation. Erosion and deposition at the surface are treated in a simple manner using a linear diffusion equation. The model is solved with the finite element method using a Lagrangian scheme with marker particles. Because the model is particle based, it enables straightforward tracking of stratigraphy and exhumation paths and it can sustain very large strain. It is thus ideally suited to study deformation, erosion and sedimentation in fold–thrust belts and foreland basins. The model is used to investigate how fold–thrust deformation and foreland basin development is influenced by the non‐dimensional parameter , which can be interpreted as the ratio of the deformation time scale to the time scale for surface processes. Large values of imply that the rate of surface mass transport is significantly greater than the rate of deformation. When , the rates of surface processes are so slow that one observes a classic propagating fold–thrust belt with well‐developed wedge top basins and a largely underfilled foreland flexural depression. Increasing causes (1) deposition to shift progressively from the wedge top into the foredeep, which deepens and may eventually become filled, (2) widespread exhumation of the fold–thrust belt, (3) reduced rates of frontal thrust propagation and possible attainment of a steady‐state orogen width and (4) change in the style and dynamics of deformation. Together, these effects indicate that erosion and sedimentation, rather than passively responding to tectonics, play an active and dynamic role in the development of fold–thrust belts and foreland basins. Results demonstrate that regional differences in the relative rates of surface processes (e.g. because of different climatic settings) may lead to fold–thrust belts and foreland basins with markedly different characteristics. Results also imply that variations in the efficiency of surface processes through time (e.g., because of climate change or the emergence of orogens above sea level) may cause major temporal changes in orogen and basin dynamics.