Geochemical Fingerprinting of Coltan Ores by Machine Learning on Uneven Datasets

Two modern machine learning techniques, Linear Programming Boosting (LPBoost) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs), are introduced and applied to a geochemical dataset of niobium–tantalum (“coltan”) ores from Central Africa to demonstrate how such information may be used to distinguish ore provenance, i.e., place of origin. The compositional data used include uni- and multivariate outliers and elemental distributions are not described by parametric frequency distribution functions. The “soft margin” techniques of LPBoost and SVMs can be applied to such data. Optimization of their learning parameters results in an average accuracy of up to c. 92%, if spot measurements are assessed to estimate the provenance of ore samples originating from two geographically defined source areas. A parameterized performance measure, together with common methods for its optimization, was evaluated to account for the presence of uneven datasets. Optimization of the classification function threshold improves the performance, as class importance is shifted towards one of those classes. For this dataset, the average performance of the SVMs is significantly better compared to that of LPBoost.     

The atmospheric transport potential for water vapour and dust in the Sahel region

The transport of water vapour and dust in the Sahel can be assigned to identical atmospheric flow systems, the African Easterly Jet, the Easterly Waves and the Squall Lines. The yield of the rainy season in the Sahel depends on the conditions in the preceding rains of the season and is closely coupled to the surface heat budget both in the monsoonal air in the S and the trades in the N. The heat budget, in particular the evaporation after the passage of a Squall Line, is influenced not only by the total amount of preceding rains but also by the plant cover pumping the water to the surface and smoothing the magnitude of the evaporation in time. This feed-back mechanism may be made responsible for the persistence of the Sahel drought as experienced in recent years. The dust export from the African continent towards the Atlantic can only be so effective, because the Squall Lines and the African Easterly Jet are meshed in a way that produces large amounts of suspended material and lifts it to great heights where the transport velocity is very fast.     

Deep-sea sediments in the eastern equatorial Atlantic off the African coast and meteorological flow patterns over the Sahel

Deep-sea mineral dust deposits are a powerful tool allowing to deduct atmospheric flow patterns. Here deep-sea sediments from the eastern tropical Atlantic were used to derive climatic conditions over the African continent where in summer the dust is lifted in the transition zone of the Sahara and the Sahel. The meteorological process causing this aeolian dust injection are the squall lines, the rain bearing disturbances of the Sahel. They produce a high surface wind velocity area in their northern vicinity. The deep-sea deposits of sediments and their spatial patterns allowed to conclude that the dust raising mechanism connected with the squall lines were similar for present day conditions and for the time of the last glacial maximum. The Saharan trades and the African monsoon had about the same extension in either time slice coupled with an identical travel belt of the squall lines. However, the intensity and the frequency of the squall lines were lower in glacial times.

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Zusammenfassung Tiefseesedimente liefern interessante und wertvolle Aufschlüsse über atmosphärische Strömungsbedingungen. Hier werden die Sedimente aus dem Gebiet des östlichen tropischen Nordatlantiks verwendet, um klimatische Angaben über die Strömungsverhältnisse über dem afrikanischen Kontinent zu gewinnen, da die Quelle des Staubes auf dem Kontinent im Übergangsbereich zwischen der Sahara und dem Sahel zu suchen ist. Die meteorologische Ursache des systematischen Staubeintrages in die Atmosphäre sind die regenbringenden sommerlichen Störungen des Sahel («>squall lines»<), die in ihrem nördlichen Randbereich ein Gebiet hoher Windgeschwindigkeit am Boden aufweisen, so daß es hier regelmäßig zu Staubaufwirbelungen kommt. Mit Hilfe der räumlichen und zeitlichen Verteilung der Tiefseesedimente konnte schon früher gezeigt werden, daß während der Periode des letzten Hochglazials die Lage der Grenzzone zwischen Passat und afrikanischem Monsun sich im Vergleich zur Gegenwart nicht verändert hat. Hier wird nun zusätzlich deutlich, daß sowohl die Intensität als auch die Frequenz der «>squall lines»< zum Höhepunkt der Vereisung geringer was als heute.

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Résumé Les sédiments amenés par le vent dans les mers profondes fournissent de précieuses indications sur la distribution des courants atmosphériques. Dans cette note, les sédiments de la partie orientale de l'Atlantique tropical sont examinés en vue de déduire les conditions climatiques régnant sur le continent africain, où la source de la poussière est située entre le Sahara et le Sahel. En effet, l'origine météorologique des apports éoliens sont les pertubations pluvieuses (lignes de grains) qui sont accompagnées sur leur bordure nord de vents de grande vitesse au sol. La distribution des sédiments sur le fond océanique a déjà permis de conclure que le mécanisme de transport était, lors de la dernière glaciation (18.000 ans), semblable à ce qu'il est aujourd'hui. Toutefois, l'intensité et la frequence des perturbations étaient plus faibles qu'aujourd'hui.

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Reconstruction of the Late Holocene climate and environmental history from North Bolgoda Lake,Sri Lanka,using lipid biomarkers and pollen records

The catastrophic impact and unpredictability of the Indian Ocean Monsoon (IOM) over South Asia are evident from devastating floods, mudslides and droughts in one of the most densely populated regions of the globe. However, our understanding as to how the IOM has varied in the past, as well as its impact on local environments, remains limited. This is particularly the case for Sri Lanka, where erosional landscapes have limited the availability of well-stratified, high-resolution terrestrial archives. Here, we present novel data from an undisturbed sediment core retrieved from the coastal Bolgoda Lake. This includes the presentation of a revised Late Holocene age model as well as an innovative combination of pollen, source-specific biomarkers, and compound-specific stable carbon isotopes of n-alkanes to reconstruct the shifts in precipitation, salinity and vegetation cover. Our record documents variable climate between 3000 years and the present, with arid conditions c. 2334 and 2067 cal a bp. This extreme dry period was preceded and followed by more wet conditions. The high-resolution palaeoenvironmental reconstruction fills a major gap in our knowledge on the ramifications of IOM shifts across South Asia and provides insights during a time of major redistribution of dense human settlements across Sri Lanka.     

Midsummer Energy Balance for the Southern Seas

During a ship voyage from Tasmania to Antarctica in summer 2000/01, radiative and meteorological measurements were continuously made, from which the surface energy budget was calculated. Sea conditions throughout the voyage ranged from open water to broken pack and finally to snow-covered unbroken sea ice in McMurdo Sound. The global radiation increased on average during the trip (to higher latitudes) as we travelled poleward. The net radiation, which was positive (toward the surface) on average, decreased however, mostly due to the increase in surface albedo. For open water, most of the net radiation is used for evapouration (61%), while for broken sea-ice conditions, nearly all energy is used for melting of the sea ice or heating of the ocean (96%). For unbroken snow-covered sea ice, the net radiation lies close to zero, due to the high surface albedo, which reached a mean value of 0.81. The sensible heat flux becomes the largest heat source and nearly all the energy is used for warming of the surface. Finally, a Radarsat image, on which the ship track was visible, was used to compare the ship observations with satellite derived ice types.