GIS-based urban modelling: practices,problems, and prospects

This paper reviews the practices, problems, and prospects of GISbased urban modelling. The author argues that current stand-alone and various loose/tight coupling approaches for GIS-based urban modelling are essentially technology-driven without adequate justification and verification for the urban models being implemented. The absolute view of space and time embodied in the current generation of GIS also imposes constraints on the type of new urban models that can be developed. By reframing the future research agenda from a geographical information science (GISci) perspective, the author contends that the integration of urban modelling with GIS must proceed with the development of new models for the informational cities, the incorporation of multi-dimensional concepts of space and time in GIS, and the further extension of the feature-based model to implement these new urban models and spatial-temporal concepts according to the emerging interoperable paradigm. GISci-based urban modelling will not only espouse new computational models and implementation strategies that are computing platform independent but also liberate us from the constraints of existing urban models and the rigid spatial-temporal framework embedded in the current generation of GIS, and enable us to think above and beyond the technical issues that have occupied us during the past ten years.     

Geomorphology of carbonate platform‐marginal uppermost slopes: Insights from a Holocene analogue,Little Bahama Bank,Bahamas

As the product of a variety of sediment sources and sedimentation (and re‐sedimentation) and erosion processes, the geomorphology and sedimentology of carbonate slopes are highly variable. The purpose of this study is to describe sub‐bottom profiles and side‐scan sonar, multibeam and optical data acquired by an autonomous underwater vehicle to explore variability in geomorphological and sedimentological character of the present‐day platform‐marginal, uppermost slope environments (< 240 m water depth) on the north, open‐ocean facing flank of Little Bahama Bank, Bahamas. Although at time scales of greater than 100 ka this margin is progradational, the data illustrate a complex juxtaposition of erosional and depositional processes and features. Erosion is evidenced by two prominent escarpments (70 m and 120 m) that expose eroded, bedded rocky outcrops. These escarpments are interpreted to represent relict features, related to past sea‐level positions, although they still may be shedding debris. Aside from erosional remnants, sedimentation and active transport is indicated by several features, including active bedforms (especially above the 70 m escarpment, but ripples occur to depths of ca 200 m), several mass transport complexes that overlie and cover the lower escarpment, gravity flow deposits and rare slump features. Similarly, a thick (up to 20 m) onlapping sediment wedge, interpreted to be Holocene in age, suggests lateral accretion of the slope by more than 75 m in this period. Data illustrate that this open‐ocean margin is distinct from windward margins in the Bahamas, which typically include near‐vertical walls of erosion or bypass, flanked downdip by rubble and talus, and leeward margins, which have onlapping muddy wedges, but that lack marked terraces or escarpments. Collectively, the results provide perspectives into the nature and controls on complex geomorphological patterns of erosion and deposition in Holocene uppermost slope systems, concepts potentially applicable to ancient analogues.     

High-Grade Fluid Metasomatism on both a Local and a Regional Scale: the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, and the Val Strona di Omegna, Ivrea-Verbano Zone, Northern Italy. Part II: Phosphate Mineral Chemistry

This study explores the origin and geochemical evolution ofapatite, monazite, and xenotime along two metamorphic traverses.The first, from the Kigluaik Mountains, Seward Peninsula, Alaska,consists of a localized (85 cm) orthopyroxene–clinopyroxene-bearingdehydration zone. The second consists of orthopyroxene ±clinopyroxene-bearing granulite facies metabasite layers interlayeredwith metapelites over a 3–4 km traverse, along the ValStrona, Ivrea–Verbano Zone, Northern Italy (IVZ). In bothdehydration zones small Th- and U-poor inclusions of monaziteand/or xenotime occur in the apatite. These inclusions are metasomaticallyinduced and nucleated within the apatite via the coupled substitutionsNa⁺ + (Y + REE)³⁺ = 2 Ca²⁺ and Si⁴⁺ + (Y + REE)³⁺ = P⁵⁺ + Ca²⁺.These are not present in apatite from the original amphibolitefacies gneiss. Apatite, in both dehydration zones, also showsa relative increase in both F and Cl compared with apatite fromthe amphibolite facies zone. Granulite facies metabasites inthe IVZ also contain isolated monazite grains, which range fromuniform to complexly zoned in Th the (13–30·1 mol% ThSiO₄). These are the product of breakdown and subsequentmobilization of the lanthanides and actinides from monazite-(Ce)in the metapelite layers into the metabasite layers at the startof granulite facies metamorphism. KEY WORDS: apatite; monazite; xenotime; KCl–NaCl brines; metasomatism; phosphate minerals; charnockite–enderbite; granulite facies metamorphism     

Blanket mire formation at the Cross Lochs, Sutherland, northern Scotland

A brief review of the genesis of blanket peats is presented, together with detailed analyses of basal peats from northern Scotland. Particular attention is paid to local factors affecting peat growth and the problems of sampling and interpretation arising from them. Macrofossil and loss-on-ignition analyses of four peat-mineral interfaces solve many of the terminological problems of such profiles and indicate that interpretations based on field stratigraphy alone are uncertain. Pollen analyses of two profiles from contrasting microtopographic situations show well-defined vegetational change associated with early peat development. Fully organic ombrotrophic peat is present from 6805 ± 50 BP at one site, following anthropogenic burning from c . 7500 BP and partial recovery of the open birch woodland. A change from birch woodland to Calluna heath occurs at approximately the same time on a more freely drained site with much later peat development, following further burning from 4890 ± 65 BP. Anthropogenic activity is clearly associated with changes in soil and vegetation preceding peat formation, and the role of climatic factors remains equivocal.     

RE-INTERPRETATION OF THE CYRTINA SEPTOSA BAND DATA, LOWER CARBONIFEROUS OF DERBYSHIRE, ENGLAND, BY COMPUTER ANALYSIS

Re-interpretation of Cyrtina septosa Band (Lower Carboniferous) data from Derbyshire (England) by trend analysis reveals previously unrecognised but meaningful sedimentational patterns. Trends in geographic variation of number of shells; their disarticulation, orientation, and size; and thickness of the Band are judged to be indicative of water depth and turbulence, conditions of accumulation, and source.     

On the relationship between flow and suspended sediment transport over the crest of a sand dune, Río Paraná, Argentina

The links between large‐scale turbulence and the suspension of sediment over alluvial bedforms have generated considerable interest in the last few decades, with past studies illustrating the origin of such turbulence and its influence on flow resistance, sediment transport and bedform morphology. In this study of turbulence and sediment suspension over large sand dunes in the Río Paraná, Argentina, time series of three‐dimensional velocity, and at‐a‐point suspended sediment concentration and particle‐size, were measured with an acoustic Doppler current profiler and laser in situ scattering transmissometer, respectively. These time series were decomposed using wavelet analysis to investigate the scales of covariation of flow velocity and suspended sediment. The analysis reveals an inverse relationship between streamwise and vertical velocities over the dune crest, where streamwise flow deceleration is linked to the vertical flux of fluid towards the water surface in the form of large turbulent fluid ejections. Regions of high suspended sediment concentration are found to correlate well with such events. The frequencies of these turbulent events have been assessed from wavelet analysis and found to concentrate in two zones that closely match predictions from empirical equations. Such a finding suggests that a combination and interaction of vortex shedding and wake flapping/changing length of the lee‐side separation zone are the principal contributors to the turbulent flow field associated with such large alluvial sand dunes. Wavelet analysis provides insight upon the temporal and spatial evolution of these coherent flow structures, including information on the topology of dune‐related turbulent flow structures. At the flow stage investigated, the turbulent flow events, and their associated high suspended sediment concentrations, are seen to grow with height above the bed until a threshold height (ca 0·45 flow depth) is reached, above which they begin to decay and dissipate.