Tracking recorded fires using charcoal morphology from the sedimentary sequence of Prosser Lake, British Columbia (Canada)

Quantitative analyses of variations in morphological features of charcoal were undertaken in a ²¹⁰Pb-dated sediment core from Prosser Lake (British Columbia, Canada). Seven morphological types of charcoal were defined by particle shape, major-minor axis ratio, apparent porosity and progradation to unburned material. The distribution of morphotypes and total charcoal abundances were assessed as a proxy for fire events recorded between 1919 and 2000 and to subsequent mechanisms of transportation-sedimentation to lake sediments. Charcoal morphotypes showed distinct relationships to recorded area burned by fires. Fragile charcoal fragments with highly irregular porosity (termed Type M) displayed the strongest correlation to burned area (r² = 0.51; P = 0.0001) and did not produce any false-positive signal for fires recorded within a radius of 20 km around the lake. We infer that high porosity and low density Type M fragments are aerially transported and directly deposited on the lake, and that the fragility of Type M charcoal prevents significant quantities from being secondarily transported and incorporated into the sedimentary record. We propose that charcoal morphology is an important but underutilized technique that can yield important insights into fire type, proximity and transportation-sedimentation processes.     

Spontaneous Structural Reform in Australian Local Government: the case of the Gilgandra Co-operative Model in New South Wales

Dire financial constraints and the threats of forced structural reform have had the unforeseen effect of forcing municipal councils across Australia to reconsider their operational activities and organisational arrangements. With considerable ingenuity, numerous municipalities have proposed and sometimes adopted new structural formations that embody various forms of co-operative service provision. This remarkable development has unfortunately been largely ignored in the scholarly literature on Australian local government. In a modest effort aimed at remedying this neglect, the present paper seeks to outline the small, rural New South Wales Gilgandra Shire Council's (2004) ‘Co-operative/Local Government Service Company’ model, place it in the broader context of alternative models of local governance suitable for Australian conditions, and evaluate its characteristics.     

Lake Sediment Core Records of Sulphur Accumulation and Sulphur Isotopic Composition in Central Ontario, Canada Lakes

Stable isotopic compositions and concentrations of total sedimentary sulphur (S) were determined in cores from 6 lakes in the acid-sensitive Muskoka-Haliburton region of south-central Ontario. The isotopic composition of S in deep sediment (> ~ 20 cm) was approximately constant in all lakes, and indicated a pre-industrial δ ³⁴S value between +4.0 and +5.3‰, which is similar to current bulk deposition. Similarly, total S concentrations in deep sediment were relatively low (1.9–5 mg S g⁻¹ dwt) and approximately constant with depth within cores. All lakes exhibited up-core increases in total S and decreases in δ ³⁴S at a depth corresponding to the beginning of industrialization in the Great Lakes region ( ~ 1900), resulting in a generally reciprocal depth pattern between total S concentration and δ ³⁴S ratios. While initial shifts in total S and δ ³⁴S were likely due to enhanced SO₄ reduction of newly available anthropogenic SO₄, both the magnitude and pattern of up-core S enrichment and shifts in δ ³⁴S varied greatly among lakes, and did not match changes in S deposition post 1900. Differences between lakes in total S and δ ³⁴S were not related to any single hydrologic (e.g., residence time) or physical (e.g., catchment-area-to-lake area ratio) lake characteristic. This work indicates that sediment cores do not provide consistent records of changes in post-industrial S deposition in this region, likely due to redox-related mobility of S in upper sediment.     

Crustal structure across the Grand Banks–Newfoundland Basin Continental Margin – II. Results from a seismic reflection profile

New multichannel seismic reflection data were collected over a 565 km transect covering the non-volcanic rifted margin of the central eastern Grand Banks and the Newfoundland Basin in the northwestern Atlantic. Three major crustal zones are interpreted from west to east over the seaward 350 km of the profile: (1) continental crust; (2) transitional basement and (3) oceanic crust. Continental crust thins over a wide zone (∼160 km) by forming a large rift basin (Carson Basin) and seaward fault block, together with a series of smaller fault blocks eastwards beneath the Salar and Newfoundland basins. Analysis of selected previous reflection profiles (Lithoprobe 85-4, 85-2 and Conrad NB-1) indicates that prominent landward-dipping reflections observed under the continental slope are a regional phenomenon. They define the landward edge of a deep serpentinized mantle layer, which underlies both extended continental crust and transitional basement. The 80-km-wide transitional basement is defined landwards by a basement high that may consist of serpentinized peridotite and seawards by a pair of basement highs of unknown crustal origin. Flat and unreflective transitional basement most likely is exhumed, serpentinized mantle, although our results do not exclude the possibility of anomalously thinned oceanic crust. A Moho reflection below interpreted oceanic crust is first observed landwards of magnetic anomaly M4, 230 km from the shelf break. Extrapolation of ages from chron M0 to the edge of interpreted oceanic crust suggests that the onset of seafloor spreading was ∼138 Ma (Valanginian) in the south (southern Newfoundland Basin) to ∼125 Ma (Barremian–Aptian boundary) in the north (Flemish Cap), comparable to those proposed for the conjugate margins.     

'Toheroa Wars': Cultural politics and everyday resistance on a northern New Zealand beach

Abstract:  This paper examines how the cultural politics of resource management were played out on the North Kaipara beach between about 1900 and 1971 between Māori and the representative of the Crown, the Marine Department. Particular attention is devoted to how, after regulations were introduced to protect toheroa, the giant surf clam, Māori struggled to assert their rights through a range of transgressions. The paper argues that this illustrates how cultural politics works both from the top down (the Marine Department's implementation of policy) and the bottom up (Māori resistance). It concludes that through an examination of this particular 'culture war', the foreshore emerges as a contested domain where politics, culture and epistemology are inseparable.     

Implications of the relationship between catchment vegetation type and the variability of annual runoff

The impact of changing catchment vegetation type on mean annual runoff has been known for some time, however, the impact on the variability of annual runoff has been established only recently. Differences in annual actual evapotranspiration between vegetation types and the potential effect of changing vegetation type on mean annual runoff and the variability of annual runoff are briefly reviewed. The magnitude of any change in the variability of annual runoff owing to a change in catchment vegetation type is related to the pre‐ and post‐change vegetation types and the seasonality of precipitation, assuming that the variability of annual precipitation remains constant throughout. Significant implications of the relationship between vegetation type and the variability of annual runoff are presented and discussed for water resource management, stream ecology and fluvial geomorphology. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimized Seismic Threshold Monitoring – Part 2: Teleseismic Processing

v--vThis second paper (Part 2) pertaining to optimized site-specific threshold monitoring addresses the application of the method to regions covered by a teleseismic or a combined regional-teleseismic network. In the first paper (Part 1) we developed the method for the general case, and demonstrated its application to an area well-covered by a regional network (the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site). In the present paper, we apply the method to the Indian and Pakistani nuclear test sites, and show results during the periods of nuclear testing by these two countries in May 1998. Since the coverage by regional stations in these areas is poor, an optimized approach requires the use of selected, high-quality stations at teleseismic distances.¶To optimize the threshold monitoring of these test sites, we use as calibration events either one of the nuclear explosions or a nearby earthquake. From analysis of the calibration events we derive values for array beamforming steering delays, filter bands, short-term averages (STA) lengths, phase travel times (P waves), and amplitude-magnitude relationships for each station. By applying these parameters, we obtain a monitoring capability of both test sites ranging from m_b 2.8-3.0 using teleseismic stations only. When including the nearby Nilore station to monitor the Indian tests, we show that the threshold can be reduced by about 0.4 magnitude units. In particular, we demonstrate that the Indian tests on 13 May, 1998, which were not detected by any known seismic station, must have corresponded to a magnitude (m_b) of less than 2.4.¶We also discuss the effect of a nearby aftershock sequence on the monitoring capability for the Pakistani test sites. Such an aftershock sequence occurred in fact on the day of the last Pakistani test (30 May, 1998), following a large (m_b 5.5) earthquake in Afghanistan located about 1100 km from the test site. We show that the threshold monitoring technique has sufficient resolution to suppress the signals from these interfering aftershocks without significantly affecting the true peak of the nuclear explosion on the threshold trace.