LES ROCHES ERUPTIVES POST-PALEOZOIQUES DU NORD DE LA CHINE

Les Ioches dont l'etude petrograpmque par M. Lacroix fait l'objet principal de la communication suivante, ont ete recueillies, soit par M. Lacroix lui-meme, soit par M. G. B. Barbour, soit surtout par nous-memes. (P. Teilhard     

Assessment of uncertainties in the response of the African monsoon precipitation to land use change simulated by a regional model

Land use and land cover (LULC) over Africa have changed substantially over the last 60 years and this change has been proposed to affect monsoon circulation and precipitation. This study examines the uncertainties of model simulated response in the African monsoon system and Sahel precipitation due to LULC change using a set of regional model simulations with different combinations of land surface and cumulus parameterization schemes. Although the magnitude of the response covers a broad range of values, most of the simulations show a decline in Sahel precipitation due to the expansion of pasture and croplands at the expense of trees and shrubs and an increase in surface air temperature. The relationship between the model responses to LULC change and the climatologists of the control simulations is also examined. Simulations that are climatologically too dry or too wet compared to observations and reanalyses have weak response to land use change because they are in moisture or energy limited regimes respectively. The ones that lie in between have stronger response to the LULC changes, showing a more significant role in land–atmosphere interactions. Much of the change in precipitation is related to changes in circulation, particularly to the response of the intensity and latitudinal position of the African Easterly Jet, which varies with the changes in meridional surface temperature gradients. The study highlights the need for measurements of the surface fluxes across the meridional cross-section of the Sahel to evaluate models and thereby allowing human impacts such as land use change on the monsoon to be projected more realistically.     

Chemical characterization of fine particulate matter during peak PM10 episodes in Apulia (South Italy)

Some peak PM10 episodes, occurred during PM monitoring campaigns performed on October 2005 and February and June 2006 in Bari town, have been characterized. Moreover back trajectories of air masses and Principal Component Analyses were applied. Three of the peak PM10 episodes investigated were related to local emissions of primary pollutants during poor atmospheric dispersion conditions. The other two peak PM10 episodes considered are related with long range transport air masses toward Apulia region: in one case the chemical characterization and the back trajectories analysis indicate that high PM10 value detected is due to the Saharan dust advection in the Apulia region; in the other case air masses with different origin give rise to high PM10 value.Moreover PM10 daily mean concentrations, presented in this paper collected from January 2005 to August 2007 and obtained by automatic device in six stations of air quality monitoring networks in Bari territory, do not show a seasonal trend for PM10 concentrations, contrary to the PM10 trend shown in the towns of North Italy. This can be explained mostly considering that our region presents generally meteo-climatic conditions that favour pollutants dispersion.     

Relationships between the AE, ap and Dst indices near solar minimum (1974) and at solar maximum (1979)

Three-hourly average values of the Dst, AE and ap geomagnetic activity indices have been studied for 1 years duration near the solar minimum (1974) and also at the solar maximum (1979). In 1979 seven intense geomagnetic storms (Dst < –100 nT) occurred, whereas in 1974 only three were reported. This study reveals: (1) the yearly average of AE is greater in 1974 than in 1979, whereas the inverse seems to be true for the yearly average of Dst, when a higher number of intense storms is present. These averages indicate the kind of activity occurring on the sun as shown in earlier work. (2) The seasonal variation of Dst is higher than that of ap and is almost negligible in AE. (3) The correlation coefficient of ap × AE is in general the highest, as the magnetometers that monitor both indices are close, and is surpassed only by the ap × Dst correlation during geomagnetic storms, when the influence of the ring current is dominant. The correlation of ap × Dst also shows a seasonal variability. (4) For the first time a study of correlation between ap and a linear combination of AE and Dst has also been made. We found higher correlation coefficients in this case as compared to those between ap × Dst and ap ×xs AE.     

Participatory slum upgrading as a disjunctive process in Recife,Brazil: Urban coproduction and the absent ground of the city

This article engages with the coproduction of urban space by focusing on a slum upgrading project in Recife, Brazil. It argues that the urban situation is essentially inconsistent, unpredictable and unstable. It documents the history of urban planning in Recife, paying special attention to the coexistence of two different planning traditions, one aimed at what city planners call the informal city, which is participatory, bottom up and democratic, yet susceptible to be corrupted by political clientelism, and another aimed at the formal city, which is ‘strategic’, top down, technocratic and neoliberal. It argues that the informal/formal binary operates as a disjunctive synthesis that separates social actors rather than connecting them and provides the coordinates within which processes of coproduction take place. The disjunctive synthesis renders possible all sorts of fantastic imaginations that both disavow and reveal the missing ground of the city. Community leaders play a central role in the coproduction of urban space and function as the symptom of this absent ground. The article concludes that participatory urban development interventions aiming to curtail the role of community leaders end up as veritable tyrannies of participation, which should be seen as evidence of the disjointed character of planning rather than as forms of effective governmentality.     

New geological model of the Lagoa Real uraniferous albitites from Bahia (Brazil)

New evidence supported by petrography (including mineral chemistry), lithogeochemistry, U-Pb geochronology by Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), and physicochemical study of fluid and melt inclusions by LA-ICP-MS and microthermometry, point to an orogenic setting of Lagoa Real (Bahia-Brazil) involving uraniferous mineralization. Unlike the previous models in which uraniferous albitites represent Na-metasomatised 1.75 Ga anorogenic granitic rocks, it is understood here that they correspond to metamorphosed sodium-rich and quartz-free 1.9 Ga late-orogenic syenitic rocks (Na-metasyenites). These syenitic rocks are rich not only in albite, but also in U-rich titanite (source of uranium). The interpretation of geochemical data points to a petrogenetic connection between alkali-diorite (local amphibolite protolith) and sodic syenite by fractional crystallization through a transalkaline series. This magmatic differentiation occurred either before or during shear processes, which in turn led to albitite and amphibolite formation. The metamorphic reactions, which include intense recrystallization of magmatic minerals, led uraninite to precipitate at 1.87 Ga under Oxidation/Reduction control. A second population of uraninites was also generated by the reactivation of shear zones during the 0.6 Ga Brasiliano Orogeny. The geotectonic implications include the importance of the Orosirian event in the Paramirim Block during paleoproterozoic S?o Francisco Craton edification and the influence of the Brasiliano event in the Paramirim Block during the West-Gondwana assembly processes. The regional microcline-gneiss, whose protolith is a 2.0 Ga syn-collisional potassic granite, represents the albitite host rock. The microcilne-gneiss has no petrogenetic association to the syenite (albitite protolith) in magmatic evolutionary terms.