Public Support for Land Acquisition: A Key Instrument for Successful Land Conservation,Governance and Management

While it is recognized that protected areas are important for biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing, governments struggle to establish and/or enlarge protected areas. Land acquisition and the challenges encountered by governing institutions in funding protected area systems expansion is discussed in this paper using the Capital Regional District (CRD) Land Acquisition Fund as a case study. We briefly discuss land acquisition in British Columbia and in the CRD, and offer an overview of the CRD Land Acquisition Fund and the public participation process that led to its establishment. We emphasize the importance of developing political and citizen support, and a shared vision about expanding protected areas systems - a key element for nearly doubling the parkland base of CRD Regional Parks in less than 20?years. We conclude by offering the lessons learned through the case study and provide guidance for policy and governance directions with regard to land acquisition.     

Investigating the response of biotite to impact metamorphism: Examples from the Steen River impact structure,Canada

Impact metamorphic effects from quartz and feldspar and to a lesser extent olivine and pyroxene have been studied in detail. Comparatively, studies documenting shock effects in other minerals, such as double chain inosilicates, phyllosilicates, carbonates, and sulfates, are lacking. In this study, we investigate impact metamorphism recorded in crystalline basement rocks from the Steen River impact structure (SRIS), a 25 km diameter complex crater in NW Alberta, Canada. An array of advanced analytical techniques was used to characterize the breakdown of biotite in two distinct settings: along the margins of localized regions of shock melting and within granitic target rocks entrained as clasts in a breccia. In response to elevated temperature gradients along shock vein margins, biotite transformed at high pressure to an almandine-Ca/Fe majorite-rich garnet with a density of 4.2 g cm⁻³. The shock-produced garnets are poikilitic, with oxide and silicate glass inclusions. Areas interstitial to garnets are vesiculated, in support of models for the formation of shock veins via oscillatory slip, with deformation continuing during pressure release. Biotite within granitic clasts entrained within the hot breccia matrix thermally decomposed at ambient pressure to produce a fine-grained mineral assemblage of orthopyroxene + sanidine + titanomagnetite. These minerals are aligned to the (001) cleavage plane of the original crystal. In this and previous work, the transformation of an inosilicate (pargasite) and a phyllosilicate (biotite) to form garnet, an easily identifiable, robust mineral, has been documented. We contend that in deeply eroded astroblemes, high-pressure minerals that form within or in the environs of shock veins may serve as one of the possibly few surviving indicators of impact metamorphism.     

Hydrous olivine alteration on Mars and Earth

Hydrous alteration of olivine macrocrysts in a Martian olivine phyric basalt, NWA 10416, and a terrestrial basalt from southern Colorado are examined using SEM, EPMA, TEM, and µXRD techniques. The olivines in the meteorite contain linear nanotubes of hydrous material, amorphous areas, and fluid dissolution textures quite distinct from alteration identified in other Martian meteorites. Instead, they bear resemblance to terrestrial deuteric alteration features. The presence of the hydrous alteration phase Mg‐laihunite within the olivines has been confirmed by µXRD analysis. The cores of the olivines in both Martian and terrestrial samples are overgrown by unaltered rims whose compositions match those of a separate population of groundmass olivines, suggesting that the core olivines are xenocrysts whose alteration preceded crystallization of the groundmass. The terrestrial sample is linked to deep crustal metasomatism and the “ignimbrite flare‐up” of the Oligocene epoch. The comparison of the two samples suggests the existence of an analogous relatively water‐rich magmatic reservoir on Mars.     

Landward limit of wind setup on beaches

Open coast storm surge water levels consist of a wind shear forcing component generally referred to as wind setup; a wave setup component caused by wind-induced waves transferring momentum to the water column; an atmospheric pressure head component due to the atmospheric pressure deficit over the spatial extent of the storm system; a Coriolis-forced component due to effects of the rotation of the earth acting on the wind-driven alongshore current at the coast; and, if astronomical tides are present, an astronomical tide component. Astronomical tide is considered to be predictable and, therefore, not a meteorological driven component of storm surge although there may be interaction between the tide and meteorological driven water levels. Typically the most important component of storm surge on the US East Coast and Gulf of Mexico shorelines is the wind setup component. The importance of inland flooding due to the wind setup component of storm surge is considered herein with special reference to the effect of subaerial slope on inland flooding where three different linear slopes are considered and storm surge is calculated for the region above still water level, using an analytic solution. The present study findings show that the inland storm surge from the wind setup component can be of considerable importance and lead to significantly higher storm surges than found for storm surge at the still water level intersection of the beach/land. It is shown that mild slopes can lead to very high water levels at the land–water interface (i.e. above the still water level intersection of the beach).     

Geochemistry of extremely alkaline (pH>12) ground water in slag-fill aquifers

Extremely alkaline ground water has been found underneath many shuttered steel mills and slag dumps and has been an impediment to the cleanup and economic redevelopment of these sites because little is known about the geochemistry. A large number of these sites occur in the Lake Calumet region of Chicago, Illinois, where large-scale infilling of the wetlands with steel slag has created an aquifer with pH values as high as 12.8. To understand the geochemistry of the alkaline ground water system, we analyzed samples of ground water and the associated slag and weathering products from four sites. We also considered several potential remediation schemes to lower the pH and toxicity of the water. The principal cause of the alkaline conditions is the weathering of calcium silicates within the slag. The resulting ground water at most of the sites is dominated by Ca2+ and OH- in equilibrium with Ca(OH)2. Where the alkaline ground water discharges in springs, atmospheric CO2 dissolves into the water and thick layers of calcite form. Iron, manganese, and other metals in the metallic portion of the slag have corroded to form more stable low-temperature oxides and sulfides and have not accumulated in large concentrations in the ground water. Calcite precipitated at the springs is rich in a number of heavy metals, suggesting that metals can move through the system as particulate matter. Air sparging appears to be an effective remediation strategy for reducing the toxicity of discharging alkaline water.     

The aftermath of the Carnian carbonate platform demise: a basinal perspective (Dolomites, Southern Alps)

In the Dolomites of northernmost Italy the carbonate‐platform growth came to a standstill late in the Early Carnian (Late Triassic). The response to this shutdown of shallow‐water carbonate production in the interplatform basins is largely unknown because erosion has removed most of the soft basinal sediments, giving rise to today's scenic landscape of the Dolomites. Mapping in the central part of the Dolomites and newly available core material has recently revealed a well‐preserved succession of basinal rocks within the Heiligkreuz Hospiz Basin (ital. Ospizio di Santa Croce Basin). In this paper, the regional depositional nature of arrested carbonate platform production is reconstructed by tracing its sedimentological record across the slope and into the basin. The uppermost St. Cassian Formation, the time‐equivalent basinal rocks to the prograding carbonate platforms, is overlain by the Heiligkreuz Formation, whose basal succession was deposited in a restricted and oxygen‐depleted environment immediately post‐dating the platform demise. The succession consists mainly of mudrocks, marlstones, and peloidal packstones, with abundant low‐diversity ostracod and pelecypod fauna and early diagenetic dolomite. C and O isotope values of the basal Heiligkreuz Formation, post‐dating platform demise, average + 2·4 and ? 2·4‰, respectively, and largely overlap the isotopic composition of St. Cassian carbonates. A shift toward slightly lower δ¹³C values in the Heiligkreuz Formation may reflect incorporation of isotopically depleted C released during bacterial sulphate reduction in the Heiligkreuz sediments. Sedimentological, palaeobiological and geochemical indices suggest that near‐normal marine conditions persisted long after the shutdown of shallow water carbonate‐platform growth, although there are clear indications of severely reduced oxygen levels in the restricted Heiligkreuz Hospiz interplatform basin. The Early Carnian platform demise induced a distinct switch in the locus of carbonate production from the shallow‐water platform and slope to the basin floor and a decrease in the availability of dissolved oxygen in the basinal waters. It is inferred that anoxia extended at least temporarily to the top of the carbonate slope, as indicated by the onlap of normal‐marine mounds by dark marlstones of the basal Heiligkreuz Formation.