Conceptualising and measuring psychological preparedness for disaster: The Psychological Preparedness for Disaster Threat Scale

Natural Hazards - Most research on household disaster preparedness has focussed on physical, or material, preparation. Recently, researchers have turned attention to investigating psychological, or...     

An Early Pleistocene hippopotamus from Westbury Cave,Somerset, England: support for a previously unrecognized temperate interval in the British Quaternary record

Although fossil assemblages from the late Early Pleistocene are very rare in Britain, the site of Westbury Cave in Somerset, England, has the potential to address this gap. The mammal fossils recovered previously from the Siliceous Member in Westbury Cave, though few in number, have hinted at an age for the deposits that is as yet unparalleled in Britain. Here, we describe the first bona fide occurrence of Hippopotamus in the British Early Pleistocene, discovered during recent reinvestigation of the Siliceous Member. The hippo fossil indicates a refined biochronological age of ca. 1.5–1.07 Ma for the Siliceous Member and a palaeoclimate that was warm and humid, which accords well with previous palaeoenvironmental inferences. A synthesis of late Early Pleistocene hippo occurrences suggests that the Siliceous Member hippo may have been part of an early colonization of north-west Europe by these megaherbivores, possibly during MIS (Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage) 31. Alternatively, it evidences a currently cryptic northward migration during an even earlier temperate phase. In either case, the Siliceous Member is likely to represent a warm period that has not been recognized previously in the British Quaternary record.     

On the presence of leucite in basaltic rocks from central France

The existence of interstitial leucite is demonstrated in a number of alkali-basalts and basanites from the tertiary and quaternary volcanic province of central France. This leucite occurs in nepheline-normative, K₂O-rich basaltic rocks. Available experimental data show that the assemblage nepheline_ss+leucite_ss+ alkali feldspar_ss would be a frequent one, and our observations tend to support the view that it is indeed common in basaltic rocks of appropriate composition.     

A new record of Pleistocene hippopotamus from River Severn terrace deposits, Gloucester, UK—palaeoenvironmental setting and stratigraphical significance

A new Pleistocene vertebrate assemblage from fluvial deposits of the River Severn in Gloucester, England, has yielded the remains of hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), a new record for this terrace system, with additional material from probable bison (cf. Bison priscus) and elephant (Elephantidae sp.). The presence of these taxa indicates fully temperate climatic conditions and the occurrence of hippopotamus, a significant biostratigraphical indicator for the British Late Pleistocene, suggests an age for the assemblage within MIS 5e (the Last Interglacial). This would contradict the older MIS 7-6 age for the gravel body that is currently accepted on the basis of deposit mapping and imply a more complex mode of deposition than presently envisaged in the valley.     

A Middle Devensian woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) from Whitemoor Haye Quarry,Staffordshire (UK): palaeoenvironmental context and significance

This paper reports the discovery of a rare partial skeleton of a woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis Blumenbach, 1799) and associated fauna from a low Pleistocene terrace of the River Tame at Whitemoor Haye, Staffordshire, UK. A study of the sedimentary deposits around the rhino skeleton and associated organic‐rich clasts containing pollen, plant and arthropod remains suggests that the animal was rapidly buried on a braided river floodplain surrounded by a predominantly treeless, herb‐rich grassland. Highlights of the study include the oldest British chironomid record published to date and novel analysis of the palaeoflow regime using caddisfly remains. For the first time, comparative calculations of coleopteran and chironomid palaeotemperatures have been made on the same samples, suggesting a mean July temperature of 8–11 °C and a mean December temperature of between ?22 and ?16 °C. Radiocarbon age estimates on skeletal material, supported by optically stimulated luminescence ages from surrounding sediments, indicate that the rhino lived around 41–43 k cal a BP. The combined geochronological, stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental evidence places the assemblage firmly within the Middle Devensian (Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3). This would agree with other regional evidence for the timing of aggradation for the lowest terrace of the Trent and its tributary systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Environmental evaluation of MODIS-derived land units

A land stratification of the French territory had been previously performed based on time series of vegetation and texture indices. This stratification led to 300 radiometrically homogenous regions that were considered as land units (LUs). In this paper, we present a quantitative analysis of the LUs, with the aim of testing if these LUs are linked to landscape. In this sense, an evaluation of their thematic meaning in terms of environmental variables and land cover was performed. In order to achieve this, we first conducted a statistical analysis at national scale using a set of environmental variables and land cover by means of Moran’s autocorrelation index and Spearman rank correlation index. Second, to analyze the quality of the boundaries between neighboring LUs, we developed a method based on the Spearman rank correlation index calculated on test areas across the boundaries. The first analyses showed that the most explanatory variables of the LUs were land cover, topography and parent material. The boundaries analysis was applied at a regional scale (Pyrenean region), and showed that 89% of the boundaries were well explained by the land cover compositions. The results obtained support the hypothesis that time series of broad resolution remote-sensing images can capture landscape identities and produce LUs maps that have an environmental and land occupation sense.     

Differentiation of MIS 9 and MIS 11 in the continental record: vegetational,faunal, aminostratigraphic and sea-level evidence from coastal sites in Essex,UK

Multidisciplinary investigations of the vegetational, faunal and sea-level history inferred from the infills of buried channels on the coast of eastern Essex have a direct bearing on the differentiation of MIS 11 and MIS 9 in continental records. New data are presented from Cudmore Grove, an important site on Mersea Island that can be linked to the terrace sequence of the River Thames. The vegetational history has been reconstructed from a pollen sequence covering much of the interglacial represented. The temperate nature of the climate is apparent from a range of fossil groups, including plant remains, vertebrates (especially the rich herpetofauna), molluscs and beetles, which all have strong thermophilous components. The beetle data have been used to derive a Mutual Climatic Range reconstruction, suggesting that mean July temperatures were about 2 °C warmer than modern values for southeast England, whereas mean January temperatures may have been slightly colder. The sea-level history has been reconstructed from the molluscs, ostracods and especially the diatoms, which indicate that the marine transgression occurred considerably earlier in the interglacial cycle than at the neighbouring Hoxnian site at Clacton. There are a number of palynological similarities between the sequence at Cudmore Grove and Clacton, especially the presence of Abies and the occurrence of Azolla filiculoides megaspores. Moreover, both sites have yielded Palaeolithic archaeology, indeed the latter is the type site of the Clactonian (flake-and-core) industry. However, the sites can be differentiated on the basis of mammalian biostratigraphy, new aminostratigraphic data, as well as the differences in the sea-level history. The combined evidence suggests that the infill of the channel at Cudmore Grove accumulated during MIS 9, whereas the deposits at Clacton formed during MIS 11. The infill of a much later channel, yielding non-marine molluscs and vertebrates including Hippopotamus, appears to have formed during the Ipswichian (MIS 5e). This evidence is compared with other important sites of late Middle Pleistocene age in Britain and elsewhere on the continent and the importance of a multidisciplinary approach is stressed.