A physiographic approach to land use planning

Physiography has been studied in the United States for more than 75 years, but only recently has it been applied to land use planning. Advantages of a physiographic approach are that it 1) focuses on the problems at the proper scale and conserves energy, effort, and time by selecting the critical parameters, 2) stresses geologic structure and process as factors which should control land use, and 3) presents data in a form which the non-geologically trained planner can easily understand. In 1928 Fenneman delineated and described the provinces and sections of the United States. This paper proposes a classification of smaller physiographic units and presents two examples of how they can be used for planning purposes. Below the section, the units used in this paper are the subsection, the land type, and the topographic element. Subsections delineate areas of distinct geologic structure or process whereas land types delineate ranges in the intensity of those processes. Topographic elements delineate units with distinct ranges of slopes or shapes of slopes, such as concave or convex.     

Natech or natural? An analysis of hazard perceptions,institutional trust,and future storm worry following Hurricane Harvey

Natural Hazards - Researchers have traditionally conceptualized hazards that give rise to disasters as “natural” or “technological.” An extensive literature has documented...     

Early Devensian sediments and palaeovenvironmental evidence from the excavations at the Royal Oak Portal Paddington,West London,UK

This paper discusses the results of the investigation of Pleistocene sediments at the Royal Oak Portal (ROP) site on the new Crossrail scheme near Paddington Station, London. The site was sampled and recorded in May 2011 by archaeologists from Oxford Archaeology commissioned by Crossrail Ltd. The investigation revealed a sedimentary sequence associated with cool climate waterlain deposition towards the edge of the River Westbourne floodplain. During excavation an assemblage of around 100 identifiable large mammal bones was recovered, dating to the Late Pleistocene. The major concentration of bones, from bison and reindeer, was located and excavated from a shallow sequence of sediments. Analysis of the bones indicates that they represent a natural death assemblage, scavenged and subsequently disarticulated, transported by water, exposed and further dispersed and broken by trampling. The site is of regional and national importance because the assemblage derives from a well-constrained geological context, with associated dating evidence suggesting accumulation during the later parts of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 and continuing within MIS 4. The site is also of significance because it is one of a growing number of recently discovered sites away from the main fluvial archive for the British Middle and Upper Pleistocene. These sites have the potential to add significantly to our understanding of parts of the Pleistocene record that remain difficult to document through the investigation of the more active systems associated with major rivers such as the Thames, Severn or Trent.     

Whither stratigraphy?

There have been three revolutions in sedimentary geology. The first two began in the 1960s, consisting of the development of process-response sedimentary models and the application of plate-tectonic concepts to large-scale aspects of basin analysis. The third revolution, that of sequence stratigraphy, began in the late 1970s and helped to draw together the main results of the first two: the knowledge of autogenic processes learned through facies analysis, and the understanding of tectonism implicit in the unravelling of regional plate kinematics. Developments in the use of seismic-reflection data and the evaluation of a hypothesis of global eustasy provided considerable stimulation for stratigraphic research.Current developments in the field of sequence stratigraphy are focusing on three areas. (1) Elaboration of the sequence-architecture models for various configurations of depositional environment and sea-level history. (2) Exploration of various mechanisms for sequence generation, especially tectonism and orbital forcing. (3) Attempts to improve the level of precision in stratigraphic correlation and to refine the geological time scale, as a means to test the model of global eustasy.The growth in the power of computers and our knowledge of physical and chemical processes has led to the evolution of an entirely new way of evaluating earth history, termed quantitative dynamic stratigraphy. Mathematical modelling and numerical simulation of complex earth processes are now possible, and require the collection and integration of a wide array of quantitative and qualitative data sets. Applications include the study of the geodynamic evolution of sedimentary basins, modelling of stratigraphic sequences and global climates, studies of Milankovitch cycles (cyclostratigraphy) and simulation of fluid flow through porous media. The Global Sedimentary Geology Program has brought many of these areas of study together in multidisciplinary, global-scale studies of the sedimentary history of the earth. The results of these studies have wide application to many problems of importance to the human condition, including the past history of global climate change and other environmental concerns. The study of stratigraphy is at the centre of the new view of the earth, termed earth-systems science, which views earth as an ‘organic’ interaction between the lithosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.     

Abiotic interactions of natural dissolved organic matter and carbonate aquifer rock

Abiotic interactions between natural dissolved organic matter (NDOM) and carbonate aquifer rock may be controlling factors of biogeochemical processes and contaminant fate in carbonate aquifer systems. The importance and effects of these interactions were examined using batch adsorption experiments of soil NDOM and representative carbonate sorbents from the Floridan Aquifer. Adsorption of NDOM carbon to aquifer rocks was well-described using a modified linear model and was mostly reversible. Significant adsorption was observed at higher NDOM concentrations, while the release of indigenous organic matter from the rocks occurred at lower concentrations. Longer interaction periods led to more adsorption, indicating that adsorption equilibrium was not achieved. For relatively pure carbonate rock samples, sorbent surface area was found to be the most important controlling factor of adsorption, whereas the presence of indigenous organic matter and subdominant mineral phases were more important, when they occurred. Preferential adsorption of a high over low molecular weight and humic over fulvic components of NDOM onto carbonate sorbents was detected using liquid size exclusion chromatography and excitation–emission fluorometry, respectively. The presence of NDOM inhibited mineral dissolution, though this inhibition was not proportional to NDOM concentration as surface area and mineralogy of carbonate sorbents played additional roles. Though the NDOM–carbonate rock adsorption mechanism could not be completely determined due to the heterogeneity and complexity of NDOM and sorbent surfaces, it is speculated that both rapid and weak outer-sphere bonding and stronger but slower hydrophobic interaction occur. These results have important implications for groundwater quality and hydrogeologic projects such as aquifer storage and recovery.     

Cloud computing and virtualization within the regional climate model and evaluation system

The Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES) facilitates the rapid, flexible inclusion of NASA observations into climate model evaluations. RCMES provides two fundamental components. A database (RCMED) is a scalable point-oriented cloud database used to elastically store remote sensing observations and to make them available using a space time query interface. The analysis toolkit (RCMET) is a Python-based toolkit that can be delivered as a cloud virtual machine, or as an installer package deployed using Python Buildout to users in order to allow for temporal and spatial regridding, metrics calculation (RMSE, bias, PDFs, etc.) and end-user visualization. RCMET is available to users in an “offline”, lone scientist mode based on a virtual machine dynamically constructed with model outputs and observations to evaluate; or on an institution’s computational cluster seated close to the observations and model outputs. We have leveraged RCMES within the content of the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) project, working with the University of Cape Town and other institutions to compare the model output to NASA remote sensing data; in addition we are also working with the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). In this paper we explain the contribution of cloud computing to RCMES’s specifically describing studies of various cloud databases we evaluated for RCMED, and virtualization toolkits for RCMET, and their potential strengths in delivering user-created dynamic regional climate model evaluation virtual machines for our users.     

Geographic and temporal trends in proboscidean and human radiocarbon histories during the late Pleistocene

The causes of large animal extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene remain a hotly debated topic focused primarily on the effects of human over hunting and climate change. Here we examine multiple, large radiocarbon data sets for humans and extinct proboscideans and explore how variation in their temporal and geographic distributions were related prior to proboscidean extinction. These data include 4532 archaeological determinations from Europe and Siberia and 1177 mammoth and mastodont determinations from Europe, Siberia, and North America. All span the period from 45,000 to 12,000 calendar years BP. We show that while the geographic ranges of dated human occupations and proboscidean remains overlap across the terminal Pleistocene of the Old World, the two groups remain largely segregated and increases in the frequency of human occupations do not coincide with declines in proboscidean remains. Prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ca 21,000 years BP), archaeological ¹⁴C determinations increase slightly in frequency worldwide while the frequency of dated proboscidean remains varies depending on taxon and location. After the LGM, both sympatric and allopatric groups of humans and proboscideans increase sharply as climatic conditions ameliorate. Post-LGM radiocarbon frequencies among proboscideans peak at different times, also depending upon taxon and location. Woolly mammoths in Beringia reach a maximum and then decline beginning between 16,000 and 15,500 years BP, woolly mammoths in Europe and Siberia ca 14,500 and 13,500 BP, and Columbian mammoth and American mastodont only after 13,000 BP. Declines among woolly mammoths appear to coincide with the restructuring of biotic communities following the Pleistocene–Holocene transition.     

Folding of Europa's icy lithosphere: an analysis of viscous-plastic buckling and subsequent topographic relaxation

Potential contractional folds on Jupiter's icy moon Europa have been identified. The best example is at the extensional band Astypalaea Linea, where a series of subtle topographic undulations, 25 km in wavelength, possess parasitic tectonic features that support a folding origin. A scenario has been qualitatively proposed, whereby folds form via unstable contraction of the icy lithosphere, compensate for extension elsewhere on Europa, and then subsequently relax. Here, we quantitatively address this scenario, applying a model for viscous-plastic buckling of planetary lithospheres and finite element simulations of topographic relaxation. Our results suggest that the lithosphere of Europa could indeed be unstable, but the low required surface temperatures limit fold formation to higher latitudes, and the high required driving stresses (9–10 MPa) are difficult to achieve on the satellite. The depth to the brittle–ductile transition is well constrained, and high thermal gradients are indicated, implying heat flows near 100 mW m⁻². In addition, topographic relaxation progresses so slowly even at these heat flows that it is not a viable mechanism to eliminate such features over the age of Europa's surface. Given the paucity of identified folds, we conclude that the necessary conditions for their formation are rare and that lithospheric folding is a minor mechanism for compensating the large amounts of extension seen elsewhere on Europa.     

Vegetation Response to Prescribed Fire in Mid-Atlantic Brackish Marshes

Prescribed fire management generally stimulates plant biomass production in coastal marsh systems. This study was conducted to understand the interactive effects of the mechanisms of fire on vegetation production. The effects of canopy removal and ash deposition on biomass production were investigated in two manipulative experiments at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Dorchester County, MD. On non-burned sites, canopy removal increased biomass production above and belowground (40 and 260?%, respectively), while ash deposition showed no effect on production. On burned sites, post-burn canopy replacement decreased biomass production above and belowground (41 and 40?%, respectively). Production increased more in response to canopy removal at sites dominated by Schoenoplectus americanus than at sites dominated by Spartina patens and Distichlis spicata. Canopy removal was the dominant mechanism through which fire affected biomass production in this study. If increased biomass production is a desirable outcome, prescribed fire programs may benefit by maximizing canopy removal.