New insights into asymmetric folding by means of the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility,Variscan and Pyrenean folds (SW Pyrenees)

Magnetic fabric allows to unravel the petrofabrics of sedimentary rocks and to assess their deformational history. The use of this technique, in addition to classical structural field observations in the limbs of seven asymmetric folds in the Pyrenees, helps to determine the differences of internal deformation as well as the folding kinematics. Three folds developed during the Variscan Orogeny in Ordovician and Devonian rocks, and four folds developed during the Pyrenean Orogeny in Eocene rocks, are studied. Folds show a variety of structural locations, in different thrust sheets of the Southern Central Pyrenees, different cleavage development, age, geometry and lithology. Sampling follows an equivalent lithological layer in the two limbs, except for one case, of the selected folds. Results show a modified tectonic magnetic fabric in most sites with the magnetic lineation on the tectonic foliation plane. A larger scattering of the magnetic lineation (maximum magnetic anisotropy axis) and a higher intensity of the preferred orientation of minerals (eccentricity of the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility - AMS ellipsoid) is better observed in the overturned (short) limb of the asymmetric Variscan folds than in the normal (long) limb. On the other hand, the shape parameter in Alpine folds is generally larger in the overturned (short) limb then in the normal (long) one. A good clustering of the minimum magnetic anisotropy axes is observed in all limbs. The combination of the AMS data with the structural data helps to understand and better constrain the deformation degree in these asymmetric folds and to unravel the deformational history.     

Vernacular heritage and evolving environmental policy in Australia: Lessons from the Murray–Darling Outreach Project

The interface between environmentalism and neoliberalism in industrialised nations is dynamic and evolving with each of these significant socio-political movements exerting influence on the other. In the context of Australian environmental policy, ideas of heritage, sense of place and belonging are increasingly invoked to support the current policy emphasis on the role of regional communities for realising goals for land and water conservation and environmental restoration. To explore the broader meaning and consequences of these developments, we focus on the manner in which ideas of heritage are employed and evoked within the Murray–Darling Outreach Project, a collaboration between the Murray–Darling Basin Commission, a key natural resource management agency, and the National Museum of Australia. The Murray–Darling Outreach Project has the aim of increasing community involvement in local environmental issues by promoting ideas of vernacular heritage.     

Hekla 1947, 1845, 1510 and 1158 tephra in Finland: challenges of tracing tephra from moderate eruptions

Several cryptotephra layers that originate from Icelandic volcanic eruptions with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of ≤ 4 and tephra volumes of < 1 km³ have previously been identified in Northern Europe, albeit within a restricted geographical area. One of these is the Hekla 1947 tephra that formed a visible fall-out in southern Finland. We searched for the Hekla 1947 tephra from peat archives within the previously inferred fall-out zone but found no evidence of its presence. Instead, we report the first identification of Hekla 1845 and Hekla 1510 cryptotephra layers outside of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Ireland and the UK. Additionally, Hekla 1158 tephra was found in Finland for the first time. Our results confirm that Icelandic eruptions of moderate size can form cryptotephra deposits that are extensive enough to be used in inter-regional correlations of environmental archives and carry a great potential for refining regional tephrochronological frameworks. Our results also reveal that Icelandic tephra has been dispersed into Finnish airspace at least seven times during the past millennium and in addition to a direct eastward route the ash clouds can travel either via a northerly or a southerly transport pathway.     

Morphological evolution of a complex drift-aligned prograded barrier

Prograded barriers are coastal landforms with a worldwide distribution that provide a paleoenvironmental record within a sequence of successive ridges and intervening swales. Most barriers with variable terrestrial morphologies, also known as complex barriers, have been poorly studied. At the main entrance of Western Port, a bay in southeastern Australia, a morphologically complex barrier was formed as a function of its somewhat sheltered position and orientation in relation to sporadic swells and tidal circulation. LiDAR-derived topography shows highly truncated and asymmetrical ridges both across and along the Somers–Sandy Point barrier plain. These uncommon morphologies are associated with an intricate hydrodynamic circulation subject to sporadic storms approaching at a sharp angle to the shoreline that eliminate a significant part of the sedimentary record but also redistribute vast quantities of sand to the downdrift shoreline, and a large and variable sandy bank that undergoes intense sediment movement. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating within a limited area on the western side revealed an age of ~2600 years for the innermost dated ridge, located about halfway across the plain. Significant erosion of the ridges' record occurred on the western side of the barrier between 2600 and 700 years ago and between 600 and 240 years ago, whereas undated ridges on the eastern side were preserved. This creates an opportunity for future research on past erosional events that would be of great value for coastal management and adaptation. Textural and elemental (XRF) sediment characteristics suggest that the type of material provided for barrier accretion remained the same throughout the late Holocene. Given the sustained growth of the barrier and other sandy parts of the bay, a net supply of marine sand from Bass Strait must have occurred. The proposed evolutionary model contributes to the understanding of the sediment budget for the bay as a whole.     

Controls on Methane Occurrences in Shallow Aquifers Overlying the Haynesville Shale Gas Field,East Texas

Understanding the source of dissolved methane in drinking‐water aquifers is critical for assessing potential contributions from hydraulic fracturing in shale plays. Shallow groundwater in the Texas portion of the Haynesville Shale area (13,000 km²) was sampled (70 samples) for methane and other dissolved light alkanes. Most samples were derived from the fresh water bearing Wilcox formations and show little methane except in a localized cluster of 12 water wells (17% of total) in a approximately 30 × 30 km² area in Southern Panola County with dissolved methane concentrations less than 10 mg/L. This zone of elevated methane is spatially associated with the termination of an active fault system affecting the entire sedimentary section, including the Haynesville Shale at a depth more than 3.5 km, and with shallow lignite seams of Lower Wilcox age at a depth of 100 to 230 m. The lignite spatial extension overlaps with the cluster. Gas wetness and methane isotope compositions suggest a mixed microbial and thermogenic origin with contribution from lignite beds and from deep thermogenic reservoirs that produce condensate in most of the cluster area. The pathway for methane from the lignite and deeper reservoirs is then provided by the fault system.     

Spatial assessment of fishing effort around European marine reserves: implications for successful fisheries management

We examined the spatial dynamic of artisanal fishing fleets around five European marine protected areas (MPAs) to derive general implications for the evaluation of MPAs as fisheries management tools. The coastal MPAs studied were located off France, Malta and Spain and presented a variety of spatial designs and processes of establishment. We developed a standardized methodology to define factors influencing effort allocation and to produce fishing effort maps by merging GIS with geostatistical modelling techniques. Results revealed that in most cases the factors “distance to the no-take”, “water depth”, and “distance to the port” had a significant influence on effort allocation by the fishing fleets. Overall, we found local concentration of fishing effort around the MPA borders. Thus, neglecting the pattern of fishing effort distribution in evaluating MPA benefits, such as spillover of biomass, could hamper sound interpretation of MPAs as fisheries management tools.     

Identification and definition of primary and reworked tephra in Late Glacial and Holocene marine shelf sediments off North Iceland

Nine tephra layers in marine sediment cores (MD99‐2271 and MD99‐2275) from the North Icelandic shelf, spanning the Late Glacial and the Holocene, have been investigated to evaluate the effectiveness of methods to detect tephra layers in marine environments, to pinpoint the stratigraphic level of the time signal the tephra layers provide, and to discriminate between primary and reworked tephra layers in a marine environment. These nine tephra layers are the Borrobol‐like tephra, Vedde Ash, Askja S tephra, Saksunarvatn ash, and Hekla 5, Hekla 4, Hekla 3, Hekla 1104 and V1477 tephras. The methods used were visual inspection, magnetic susceptibility, X‐ray photography, mineralogical counts, grain size and morphological measurements, and microprobe analysis. The results demonstrate that grain size measurements and mineralogical counts are the most effective methods to detect tephra layers in this environment, revealing all nine tephra layers in question. Definition of the tephra layers revealed a 2–3 cm diffuse upper boundary in eight of the nine tephra layers and 2–3 cm diffuse lower boundary in two tephra layers. Using a multi‐parameter approach the stratigraphic position of a tephra layer was determined where the rate of change of the parameters tested was the greatest compared with background values below the tephra. The first attempt to use grain morphology to distinguish between primary and reworked tephra in a marine environment suggests that this method can be effective in verifying whether a tephra layer is primary or reworked. Morphological measurements and microprobe analyses in combination with other methods can be used to identify primary tephra layers securely. The study shows that there is a need to apply a combination of methods to detect, define (the time signal) and discriminate between primary and reworked tephra in marine environments. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Farmers and perverse outcomes: The quest for food and energy security,emissions reduction and climate adaptation

Victorian farmers have experienced significant impact from climate change associated with drought and more recently flooding. These factors form a convergence with a complex of other factors to change production systems physically; and farmers’ decision making is variously described as adaptive or maladaptive to these drivers of change. Recently updated State Government policies on farming, climate and water have immediate and long term implications for food production systems but are not readily interpreted at a local scale. Further, peak oil and energy security are only partially integrated into either climate or water policy discourse. In effect, despite some far-sighted words about the meaning of climate change, uncertainty is largely met with a ‘business as usual’ mantra. Farmer narratives are used to demonstrate their systemic and increasing vulnerability and likelihood of perverse outcomes. The Future Farming strategy and Our Water Our Future are briefly analyzed, as are potential implications of the rhetoric of newly elected conservative government. Using ideas from Bourdieu and Bhabha we suggest that the reliance on farmers being able to innovate and take up opportunities associated with the uncertainty of large scale changes in climate and energy availability are misguided. It is more likely that current policy directions entrench the values of the global market and its elite, leaving farmers locked-in to historical structural responses that will not be successful in the long-term and will diminish their ability to imagine radical and diverse ways of avoiding the maladaptive structures currently surrounding their production systems.     

A contribution to Pleistocene chronology in southeast Essex,England

Parallel to the Essex coast north of the mouth of the Thames, a series of gravel spreads ranging in altitude from near sea level westward to more than 200 ft O.D. (mean sea level) proved to be the remnants of an abandoned Thames/Medway terrace system, rather than a series of “raised” beaches, as their location had suggested. The seaward side of the ancient river valley has subsequently been “captured” by subsidence.Evidence is given for five terraces, with surface levels between 5 and 75 ft O.D. Because of subsidence of the Essex coast, the terrace levels are not easily correlatable with either the Thames or Medway terrace levels. Temporal placement is attempted on the basis of one site in the 25 ft Barling terrace, which yielded a Middle Acheulian archaeological assemblage associated with a cool temperate fauna including an early form of mammoth. An ice wedge cast in the Barling terrace was filled with floodloam which weathered to a parabraunerde soil during an interglacial climate warmer than now. For these reasons man is thought to have lived on the floodplain of the Barling terrace either at the onset of the Wolstonian (Riss) glacial or during an interstadial of that stage. The question of possible linkages between Swanscombe and Clacton terraces is discussed.     

Irrigated agriculture and place‐making in the East Kimberley

This paper explores the way in which lived experiences of farmers in the Ord Valley have intersected with representations of the Ord Valley over time. I contrast the development of Stage 1 of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme in the 1960s with a proposal put forward in the late 1990s for greatly expanding the area of irrigated agriculture as Stage 2 of the scheme. I examine the rhetoric employed in planning documents and public media coverage of the first and proposed second stages of the Ord Irrigation Scheme and explore its connections with social identifications of farmers in the Ord Valley since the 1960s. I then argue the value of this approach for understanding the dynamic relationship between the spatial practices and social identifications of farmers and representations of place and land use in public media and planning processes.