New interpretation of the Franciscan mélange at San Simeon coast,California: tectonic intrusion into an accretionary prism

Many concepts and interpretations on the formation of the Franciscan mélange have been proposed on the basis of exposures at San Simeon, California. In this paper, we show the distribution of chaotic rocks, their internal structures and textures, and the interrelationship between the chaotic rocks and the surrounding sandstones (turbidites). Mélange components, particularly blueschists, oceanic rocks, including greenstone, pillow lava, bedded chert, limestone, sandstone, and conglomerate, have all been brecciated by retrograde deformation. The Cambria Slab, long interpreted as a trench slope basin, is also strongly deformed by fluidization, brecciation, isoclinal folding, and thrusting, leading us to a new interpretation that turbiditic rocks (including the Cambria Slab) represent trench deposits rather than slope basin sediments. These rocks form an accretionary prism above mélanges that were diapirically emplaced into these rocks first along sinistral-thrust faults, and then along dextral-normal faults. Riedel shear systems are observed in several orders of scale in both stages. Although the exhumation of the blueschist blocks is still controversial, the common extensional fractures and brecciation in most of the blocks in the mélanges and further mixture of various lithologies into one block with mélange muddy matrix indicate that once deeply buried blocks were exhumed from considerable depths to the accretionary prism body, before being diapirically intruded with their host mélange along thrust and normal faults, during which retrograde deformation occurred together with retrograde metamorphism. Recent similar examples of high-pressure rock exhumation have been documented along the Sofugan Tectonic Line in the Izu forearc areas, in the Mineoka belt in the Boso Peninsula, and as part of accretionary prism development in the Nankai and Sagami troughs of Japan. These modern analogues provide actively forming examples of the lithological and deformational features that characterize the Franciscan mélange processes.     

One year irrigation experiment to assess losses and runoff volume relationships for a residential road in hertfordshire,England

Six sections of a residential road (75 mm bituminous macadam over 200mm lean mix concrete over 100 mm hoggin with a recent surface dressing of 10 mm granite chippings and K1-70 binder) that drain to individual instrumented gully pots were irrigated along the kerb and then over the whole road approximately monthly for a year. The aim was the determination of terminal infiltration losses, initial losses, percentage runoff, and infiltration curves for the kerb and road surface. The results were not as expected from the literature. There is an annual cycle of infiltration losses at the kerb with a winter peak caused by frost action that is 3.2 times greater than the terminal loss rate at kerbs in summer. The terminal loss rate for an ‘average catchment’ was 6.4251 min^?1 from the road surface and 14.251 min^?1 in summer and 46.281 min^?1 in winter at the kerb. Evaporation was usually more than an order of magnitude less significant than infiltration. The wide variation in initial losses before runoff commenced was inexplicable. Two sections of road behaved in the classic manner with initial losses averaging 0.8 mm, two other catchments had highly variable initial losses in the range 1.2 to 8.8mm, and the last two pieces of road were even more erratic. The percentage runoff for those irrigations of over 15 mm of equivalent rainfall was never more than 10 per cent. The maximum per cent runoff was around 50 per cent following 10 mm of equivalent rainfall for kerbside irrigation and only 5 mm of irrigation over the whole road. There were no significant simple or multiple regression relationships between percentage runoff from the kerb or the whole road irrigations and irrigation amount, slope, UCWI, and SMD. Infiltration curves, for kerb and road irrigation, were so diverse that they do not represent the ‘simple impervious surfaces’ envisaged at the start of the experiment and described in the literature. Since the artificial irrigation of kerbs and roads has failed to substantiate existing theory, these experiments should be repeated at a variety of sites with a high rate of irrigation.     

A tipping bucket flowmeter for roadside gully runoff

A tipping bucket flowmeter designed for the measurement of inflows to roadside gully pots is described. It is braced within the pot above the liquor and the runoff is fed to it via a glass fibre funnel and a hose. Whilst it can be calibrated to only 0·71 s^?1, it is very effective at low flows and has a number of advantages over the well known Institute of Hydrology Gully Meter. Its use at Redbourn, Hertfordshire for roads on highly permeable soils shows that for both rainfall and artificial irrigation the ‘losses’ are very large and highly variable even within a single housing estate road.     

On the Principle of Least Interaction Action and the Laplacean satellites of Jupiter and Uranus

The Principle of Least Interaction Action, which explains the observed preference in the Solar System for two-satellite resonant configurations, is shown to apply also to the Laplacean satellites of Jupiter and Uranus, in the sense that these triplet resonant structures lie close to configurations for which the time-mean of the action associated with the mutual interaction of the satellites is an overall minimum. Far from the minimum configuration, significant changes take place in the major semi-axes on time-scales ～10⁶-10⁷y. Both systems require times ～10⁸ y to come close to the minimum configuration; to approach resonance to the observed precision of the Laplace relationship (3×10^?4 for the Uranian case, 2×10^?7 for the Jovian case) requires, for both systems, a time closely comparable with the age of the solar system.     

Resolving mechanisms of toxicity while pursuing ecotoxicological relevance?

In this age of modern biology, aquatic toxicological research has pursued mechanisms of action of toxicants. This has provided potential tools for ecotoxicologic investigations. However, problems of biocomplexity and issues at higher levels of biological organization remain a challenge. In the 1980s and 1990s and continuing to a lesser extent today, organisms residing in highly contaminated field sites or exposed in the laboratory to calibrated concentrations of individual compounds were carefully analyzed for their responses to priority pollutants. Correlation of biochemical and structural analyses in cultured cells and tissues, as well as the in vivo exposures led to the production and application of biomarkers of exposure and effect and to our awareness of genotoxicity and its chronic manifestations, such as neoplasms, in wild fishes. To gain acceptance of these findings in the greater environmental toxicology community, “validation of the model” versus other, better-established often rodent models, was necessary and became a major focus. Resultant biomarkers were applied to heavily contaminated and reference field sites as part of effects assessment and with investigations following large-scale disasters such as oil spills or industrial accidents.

Over the past 15 years, in the laboratory, small aquarium fish models such as medaka (Oryzias latipes), zebrafish (Danio rerio), platyfish (Xiphophorus species), fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas), and sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) were increasingly used establishing mechanisms of toxicants. Today, the same organisms provide reliable information at higher levels of biological organization relevant to ecotoxicology. We review studies resolving mechanisms of toxicity and discuss ways to address biocomplexity, mixtures of contaminants, and the need to relate individual level responses to populations and communities.     

Rhinocerotid tooth enamel 18O/16O variability between 23 and 12 Ma in southwestern France

The relationship between the oxygen isotope ratio of mammal tooth enamel and that of drinking water was used to reconstruct changes in the Miocene oxygen isotope ratio of rainfall (meteoric water ${\delta }^{18}$O_MW). These, in turn, are related to climatic parameters (temperature, precipitation and evaporation rate). ${\delta }^{18}$O values of rhinocerotid teeth from the Aquitaine Basin (southwestern France) suggest a significant climatic change between 17 and 12 Ma, characterized by cooling together with precipitation increase, in agreement with other terrestrial and oceanic records. To cite this article: I. Bentaleb et al., C. R. Geoscience 338 (2006).     

Palaeoleptus burmanicus n. gen., n. sp., an Early Cretaceous shore bug (Hemiptera: Palaeoleptidae n. fam.) in Burmese amber

Palaeoleptus burmanicus gen. et sp. nov. (Hemiptera: Leptopodomorpha: Palaeoleptidae fam. nov.) is described from Early Cretaceous Burmese amber. The fossil is characterized by nearly completely coreaceous wings with only a small membranous area at the distal tip, and a unique wing venation consisting of eight closed cells, including four obliquely orientated toward the embolar wing margin and two large vertically-positioned cells extending nearly to the apical wing margin. Additional characters are large, compound eyes, three pairs of cephalic trichobothria, four antennal segments all similar in texture, spines on the profemur, ocelli positioned on a tubercle and a rostrum extending to the mesocoxae, with the second segment bearing four pairs of spines. The female fossil contains an asymmetrical subgenital plate orientated toward the left side of the body, indicating a side-by-side mating behavior as occurs in extant Leptopodomorpha.