Geomorphological records of a ‘flood-dominated regime’ in the Rhône Delta (France) between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD. What correlations with the catchment paleohydrology?

Abstract

In the Rhône Delta, numerous paleoenvironmental indicators coming from geomorphology, sedimentology, paleoecology and archeology provide evidences of remarkable hydrological regime change at the beginning of the Roman Antiquity. A significant reinforcement in the Rhône River's competence is indicated by the increase in grain size of the sediments deposited in the floodplain, within the immediate proximity of the channel. Increase in the fluvial sediment yield is indicated by the increase in rate of sedimentation in the floodplain. Increase in water levels is indicated by the deposition of hydromorphous facies, the development of hydrophytic species, and the decrease in activity of terrestrial lombricoids in the floodplain. Numerous crevasse splays were formed by short-term avulsions of the Rhône River between the first century BC and the AD first century. Their frequency is related to an increase of Rhône River paleodischarge, which makes the channel network incapable of evacuating large volumes of water brought in by the river. The littoral zone experienced a phase of progradation between the AD 1st and the 3rd centuries, in relation to the increase of terrigenous deposits coming from the Rhône of Ulmet. The increase in solid discharge, in the flood-dominated regime (FDR) context, can be related to the overall increase in detrital output from the catchment. The Rhône Delta rather appears in phase with the northern Alps and Massif Central from the 1st century BC to the AD 1st century. The FDR at the beginning of the Christian era contrasts with the drought-dominated regime (DDR) and the reduction of torrential rainfall in the Mediterranean and south Alpine areas. These observations allow to confirm the hydroclimatic limit which could distinguish the southern part of the catchment (Provence, Durancian Alps) from the rest of the Rhône basin. © 2002 Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.     

Seismic properties of gabbroic sections in oceanic core complexes: constraints from seafloor drilling

Marine Geophysical Research - The physical properties of rock within Oceanic Core Complexes (OCC) provide information about the history of magmatism, deformation and alteration associated with...     

An Analytical Solution of the Lagrange Equations Valid also for Very Low Eccentricities: Influence of a Central Potential

This paper presents an analytic solution of the equations of motion of an artificial satellite, obtained using non singular elements for eccentricity. The satellite is under the influence of the gravity field of a central body, expanded in spherical harmonics up to an arbitrary degree and order. We discuss in details the solution we give for the components of the eccentricity vector. For each element, we have divided the Lagrange equations into two parts: the first part is integrated exactly, and the second part is integrated with a perturbation method. The complete solution is the sum of the so-called “main” solution and of the so-called “complementary” solution. To test the accuracy of our method, we compare it to numerical integration and to the method developed in Kaula (Theory of Satellite Geodesy, Blaisdell publ. Co., New York. 1966), expressed in classical orbital elements. For eccentricities which are not very small, the two analytical methods are almost equivalent. For low eccentricities, our method is much more accurate.     

Climatic oscillations in central Italy during the Last Glacial–Holocene transition: the record from Lake Accesa

This paper presents an event stratigraphy based on data documenting the history of vegetation cover, lake‐level changes and fire frequency, as well as volcanic eruptions, over the Last Glacial–early Holocene transition from a terrestrial sediment sequence recovered at Lake Accesa in Tuscany (north‐central Italy). On the basis of an age–depth model inferred from 13 radiocarbon dates and six tephra horizons, the Oldest Dryas–Bølling warming event was dated to ca. 14 560 cal. yr BP and the Younger Dryas event to ca. 12 700–11 650 cal. yr BP. Four sub‐millennial scale cooling phases were recognised from pollen data at ca. 14 300–14 200, 13 900–13 700, 13 400–13 100 and 11 350–11 150 cal. yr BP. The last three may be Mediterranean equivalents to the Older Dryas (GI‐1d), Intra‐Allerød (GI‐1b) and Preboreal Oscillation (PBO) cooling events defined from the GRIP ice‐core and indicate strong climatic linkages between the North Atlantic and Mediterranean areas during the last Termination. The first may correspond to Intra‐Bølling cold oscillations registered by various palaeoclimatic records in the North Atlantic region. The lake‐level record shows that the sub‐millennial scale climatic oscillations which punctuated the last deglaciation were associated in central Italy with different successive patterns of hydrological changes from the Bølling warming to the 8.2 ka cold reversal. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Present-day deformation of the Dauphine Alpine and Subalpine massifs (SE France)

The positions of 20 geodetic points surveyed in 1946-1952 by the Institut Géographique National in the Grenoble area (western Alps) were remeasured in 1993-1994 using GPS. We evaluate the displacements of the common points of the networks between the two surveys, and calculate the strain-rate tensors for different sets of three adjacent points. The significant N70° shortening direction observed at the boundary of the Belledonne and Taillefer massifs suggests that the dextral strike-slip motion between the External Crystalline Massifs (ECM) and the Subalpine domain is still active. Geological evidence suggests that this deformation, which is compatible with the few focal mechanisms available for the area, occurred throughout the late Neogene. Our data also suggest a roughly 3-5 mm yr⁻¹ active shortening concentrated at the external front of the Subalpine chains. This thrust motion results in a principal axis of compression orientated N130°, oblique to the direction of shortening observed in the ECM. This change in direction is also seen in in situ stress measurements. This motion may mark the southward continuation of the active fault observed in the Jura mountains by Jouanne, Ménard & Darmendrail (1995).     

Spatio-temporal fragmentation of leisure activities in information era: Empirical evidence from Nanjing,China

Activity fragmentation provides a new approach for understanding the transformation of urban space and function in the information era. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have been conducted on activity fragmentation, but few studies have focused on the fragmentation of leisure activities. This study was intended to extend the extant literature by: 1) analysing the spatio-temporal fragmentation of physical and virtual leisure activities by using a dataset collected in Nanjing, China, and 2) evaluating the reasons of leisure activity fragmentation, as well as the potential spatial effect of activity fragmentation. The results indicated that virtual leisure activities are more fragmented than physical leisure activities, but the fragmentation of physical and virtual leisure activities varies on weekday and weekend, as well as in various locations and urban districts. In addition, the results suggested that sociodemographic factors and information and communication technology (ICT) variables distinctly affect the fragmentation of leisure activities. Meanwhile, the fragmentation of virtual leisure activities may enhance the transformation of traditional urban space by reallocating leisure activity times and locations.     

New Tabu Algorithm for Positioning Mining Drillholes with Blocks Uncertainty

This paper proposes a new approach to the mining exploration drillholes positioning problem (DPP) that incorporates both geostatistical and optimization techniques. A metaheuristic was developed to solve the DPP taking into account an uncertainty index that quantifies the reliability of the current interpretation of the mineral deposit. The uncertainty index was calculated from multiple deposit realizations obtained by truncated Gaussian simulations conditional to the available drillholes samplings. A linear programming model was defined to select the subset of future drillholes that maximizes coverage of the uncertainty. A Tabu Search algorithm was developed to solve large instances of this set partitioning problem. The proposed Tabu Search algorithm is shown to provide good quality solutions approaching 95% of the optimal solution in a reasonable computing time, allowing close to optimal coverage of uncertainty for a fixed investment in drilling.