The New Geophysics

New Geophysics of critically microcracked rock is a new understanding of fluid‐rock deformation that matches much of the behaviour of in situ rock observed throughout the Earth's crust and uppermost mantle. The behaviour of rock in New Geophysics: is self‐similar; can be monitored, calculated, predicted, even in principle controlled; prevails in almost all rocks; and has ‘butterfly‐effect’ sensitivity. All of these remarkable features (except controllability) have been observed, in some cases many times. However, New Geophysics is innovative, controversial, and currently “ridiculed” and “violently opposed” (Schopenhauer Stages 1 and 2), and is difficult to get published via consensus‐driven peer‐review. Consequently, in the last 10 years, various aspects of New Geophysics have been published in some 20 different journals and conference proceedings making it difficult to access by the general reader. This review presents a synopsis of what is believed to be a fundamental advance in solid Earth geoscience.     

Changes in sediment and organic carbon accumulation in a highly-disturbed ecosystem: The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (California, USA)

We used the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta CA (Delta, hereafter) as a model system for understanding how human activities influence the delivery of sediment and total organic carbon (TOC) over the past 50–60 years. Sediment cores were collected from sites within the Delta representing the Sacramento River (SAC), the San Joaquin River (SJR), and Franks Tract (FT), a flooded agricultural tract. A variety of anthropogenic tracers including ¹³⁷Cs, total DDE (∑DDE) and brominated diphenyl ether (BDE) congeners were used to quantify sediment accumulation rates. This information was combined with total organic carbon (TOC) profiles to quantify rates of TOC accumulation. Across the three sites, sediment and TOC accumulation rates were four to eight-fold higher prior to 1972. Changes in sediment and TOC accumulation were coincident with completion of several large reservoirs and increased agriculture and urbanization in the Delta watershed. Radiocarbon content of TOC indicated that much of the carbon delivered to the Delta is “pre-aged” reflecting processing in the Delta watershed or during transport to the sites rather than an input of predominantly contemporary carbon (e.g., 900–1400 years BP in surface sediments and 2200 yrs BP and 3610 yrs BP at the base of the SJR and FT cores, respectively). Together, these data suggest that human activities have altered the amount and age of TOC accumulating in the Delta since the 1940s.     

Sensitivity of post‐hurricane beach and dune recovery to event frequency

The recovery of Santa Rosa Island in northwest Florida is characterized following Hurricane Katrina (September 2005), which was preceded by Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Dennis (2005). Beach and dune recovery were quantified to the east and west of Pensacola Beach through a comparison of LiDAR data collected immediately following Hurricane Katrina and in July 2006 after almost a year of recovery. East of Pensacola Beach (the Santa Rosa Unit), the shoreline retreated by an average of 64 m during the 2004–2005 hurricane season and recovered by an average of 19 m. To the west of Pensacola Beach (the Fort Pickens Unit), the shoreline retreated by an average of 30 m, and while no significant shoreface recovery was observed, the presence of vegetation on low‐profile dunes promoted backshore accretion. It is found that beachface recovery in the Santa Rosa Unit and backshore accretion in the Fort Pickens Unit occurred at the widest sections of the island where the pre‐storm profile volume had been relatively large and overwash penetration was at a minimum. The narrow sections of the island (between cuspate headlands) had a smaller profile volume before the storms, leading to greater overwash penetration and in some cases island breaching in both sections, which limited the volume of sediment available for shoreface recovery. The alongshore variation in recovery is not only related to the island width, but also the offshore bathymetry, height of the pre‐storm dunes and the overwash penetration. If sufficient time is allowed for the return of vegetation and the recovery of the dunes, the variations in storm impact observed during Hurricane Ivan will be reinforced during subsequent storms. In this respect, the level of impact during subsequent storms and the ability of the island to recover will depend on the frequency of storm events. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Atmospheric Electrification in Dusty,Reactive Gases in the Solar System and Beyond

Detailed observations of the solar system planets reveal a wide variety of local atmospheric conditions. Astronomical observations have revealed a variety of extrasolar planets none of which resembles any of the solar system planets in full. Instead, the most massive amongst the extrasolar planets, the gas giants, appear very similar to the class of (young) brown dwarfs which are amongst the oldest objects in the Universe. Despite this diversity, solar system planets, extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs have broadly similar global temperatures between 300 and 2500 K. In consequence, clouds of different chemical species form in their atmospheres. While the details of these clouds differ, the fundamental physical processes are the same. Further to this, all these objects were observed to produce radio and X-ray emissions. While both kinds of radiation are well studied on Earth and to a lesser extent on the solar system planets, the occurrence of emissions that potentially originate from accelerated electrons on brown dwarfs, extrasolar planets and protoplanetary disks is not well understood yet. This paper offers an interdisciplinary view on electrification processes and their feedback on their hosting environment in meteorology, volcanology, planetology and research on extrasolar planets and planet formation.     

Communicating geomorphology: global challenges for the twenty‐first century

The British Society for Geomorphology (BSG), established as the British Geomorphological Research Group (BGRG) in 1960, is considering how best to represent geomorphology and geomorphologists in the light of recent changes in the nature of communication. These changes provide the BSG and other academic societies with challenges and opportunities. Seven drivers of communication change are outlined: the changing position of geomorphology in higher education, the nature of academic interaction, the means of communication available, a transformation in the nature of geomorphological research, changes in funding support, the government role in resource allocation, and developments in quantifying international research impact. Challenges arising from changing communications are identified as occurring beyond the ‘academy’, in the nature of publication within the ‘academy’, and associated with meetings of the ‘academy’. Although national societies now have to contemplate significantly different purposes to provide for their members than in the twentieth century, there are opportunities available that cannot be fulfilled by international organizations alone. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ecomorphodynamics of rivers with converging boundaries

Many rivers worldwide show converging sections where a characteristic limiting front for vegetation establishment on gravel bars is observed. An important conceptual model was advanced in 2006 by Gurnell and Petts, who demonstrated that for the convergent section of the Tagliamento River the downstream front of vegetation establishment can be explained by unit stream power. We introduce a theoretical framework based on 1D ecomorphodynamic equations modified to account for the biological dynamics of vegetation. We obtain the first analytical result explaining the position and river width where vegetation density is expected to vanish in relation to a characteristic streamflow magnitude and both hydraulic and biological parameters. We apply our model to a controlled experiment within a convergent flume channel with growing seedlings perturbed by periodic floods. For a range of timescales where hydrological and biological processes interact, we observe the formation of a front in the convergent section beyond which vegetation cannot survive, the location of which is explained by flow magnitude. This experiment confirms that the timescales of the involved processes and the unit stream power determine the existence and the position of the front within convergent river reaches, respectively. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two species of microcracks

We identify two interrelated but independent species of microcracks with differentorigins and different distributions. One species is the classic high-stress microcracksidentified in laboratory stress-cells associated with acoustic emissions as microcracks openwith increasing stress. The other species is the low-stress distributions of closely-spacedstress-aligned fluid-saturated microcracks that observations of shear-wave splitting （SWS）demonstrate pervade almost all in situ rocks in the upper crust, the lower crust, and theuppermost 400 km of the mantle. On some occasions these two sets of microcracks may beinterrelated and similar （hence ＇species＇） but they typically have fundamentally-differentproperties, different distributions, and different implications. The importance for hydrocarbonexploration and recovery is that SWS in hydrocarbon reservoirs monitors crack alignmentsand preferred directions of fluid-flow. The importance for earthquake seismology is that SWSabove small earthquakes monitors the effects of increasing stress on the pervasive low-stressmicrocrack distributions so that stress-accumulation before, possibly distant, earthquakes canbe recognised and impendin~ earthquakes stress-forecast.