Returns from a speculation

A reply to a recent paper by Setten.     

Hydrologic metrics for status‐and‐trends monitoring in urban and urbanizing watersheds

Local governmental agencies are increasingly undertaking potentially costly “status‐and‐trends” monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of stormwater control measures and land‐use planning strategies or to satisfy regulatory requirements. Little guidance is presently available for such efforts, and so we have explored the application, interpretation, and temporal limitations of well‐established hydrologic metrics of runoff changes from urbanization, making use of an unusually long‐duration, high‐quality data set from the Pacific Northwest (USA) with direct applicability to urban and urbanizing watersheds. Three metrics previously identified for their utility in identifying hydrologic conditions with biological importance that respond to watershed urbanization—T_Qmean (the fraction of time that flows exceed the mean annual discharge), the Richards‐Baker Index (characterizing flashiness relative to the mean discharge), and the annual tally of wet‐season day‐to‐day flow reversals (the total number of days that reverse the prior days' increasing or decreasing trend)—are all successful in stratifying watersheds across a range of urbanization, as measured by total contributing area of urban development. All metrics respond with statistical significance to multidecadal trends in urbanization, but none detect trends in watershed‐scale urbanization over the course of a single decade. This suggests a minimum period over which dependable trends in hydrologic alteration (or improvement) can be detected with confidence. The metrics also prove less well suited to urbanizing watersheds in a semi‐arid climate, with only flow reversals showing a response consistent with prior findings from more humid regions. We also explore the use of stage as a surrogate for discharge in calculating these metrics, recognizing potentially significant agency cost savings in data collection with minimal loss of information. This approach is feasible but cannot be implemented under current data‐reporting practices, requiring measurement of water‐depth values and preservation of the full precision of the original recorded data. With these caveats, however, hydrologic metrics based on stage should prove as or more useful, at least in the context of status‐and‐trends monitoring, as those based on subsequent calculations of discharge.     

The effects of thermal stress and fluid pressure on induced seismicity during stimulation to production within fractured reservoirs

We use a continuum model of reservoir evolution to explore the interaction of coupled thermal, hydraulic and chemical processes that influence the evolution of seismicity within a fractured reservoir from stimulation to production. Events occur from energy release on seeded fractures enabling moment magnitude, frequency and spatial distribution to be determined with time. Event magnitudes vary in the range ?2 to +2 with the largest event size (~2) corresponding to the largest fracture size (~500 m) and a prescribed stress drop of 9 MPa. Modelled b‐values (~0.6–0.7) also correspond to observations (~0.7–0.8) for response in the Cooper Basin (Australia). We track the hydrodynamic and thermal fronts to define causality in the triggering of seismicity. The hydrodynamic front moves twice as fast as the thermal front and envelops the triggered seismicity at early time (days to month) – with higher flow rates correlating with larger magnitude events. For later time (month to years), thermal drawdown and potentially chemical influences principally trigger the seismicity, but result in a reduction in both the number of events and their magnitudes.     

Re‐orientation of the extension direction and pure extensional faulting at oblique rift margins: comparison between the Main Ethiopian Rift and laboratory experiments

In this study, we draw on a unique combination of well‐resolved fault‐slip data and earthquake focal mechanisms to constrain spatial variations in style of faulting in the obliquely extending Main Ethiopian Rift, East Africa. These data show that both boundary and internal faults – oblique and orthogonal to the plate divergence (PD) respectively – exhibit almost pure dip‐slip motion, and indicate significant local deflection in orientation of the extension direction at rift margins. Scaled analogue models closely replicate the multidisciplinary observations from the rift and suggest that the process is controlled by the presence of a deep‐seated, pre‐existing weakness – oblique to the direction of PD – that is able to cause a local rotation in the orientation of the extension direction at rift margins. Minor counterclockwise block rotations are required to accommodate the difference in slip direction along the different fault systems, as supported by existing and new palaeomagnetic data from the rift.     

In situ cosmogenic exposure ages from the Isle of Skye,northwest Scotland: implications for the timing of deglaciation and readvance from 15 to 11 ka

We present 10 in situ cosmogenic exposure ages from two moraines on the Isle of Skye. The Strollamus medial moraine was deposited during deglaciation of the Devensian ice sheet and yields a mean exposure age from five samples of 14.3 ± 0.9 ka. The moraine age indicates that a significant ice mass existed on Skye at the time of a regional readvance recorded in Wester Ross, northwest Scotland. Taken at face value the ages suggest that deglaciation did not occur until well into Greenland Interstade 1. The Slapin moraine represents the local limit of the Loch Lomond Readvance (LLR) and yields a mean exposure age from five samples of 11.5 ± 0.7 ka, which is consistent with deposition relating to the LLR. These ages suggest that the maximum extent may have been reached late in the stadial and that some glaciers may have remained active until after the climatic amelioration that marks its end. This scenario is considered unlikely given the nature of the climate during this period, which leads us to call for a locally calibrated production rate. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Timing,pace and controls on ice sheet retreat: an introduction to the BRITICE-CHRONO transect reconstructions of the British–Irish Ice Sheet

Motivated to help improve the robustness of predictions of sea level rise, the BRITICE-CHRONO project advanced knowledge of the former British–Irish Ice Sheet, from 31 to 15 ka, so that it can be used as a data-rich environment to improve ice sheet modelling. The project comprised over 40 palaeoglaciologists, covering expertise in terrestrial and marine geology and geomorphology, geochronometric dating and the modelling of ice sheets and oceans. A systematic and directed campaign, organised across eight transects from the continental shelf edge to a short distance (10s of kilometres) onshore, was used to collect 914 samples which yielded 639 new ages, tripling the number of dated sites constraining the timing and rates of change of the collapsing ice sheet. This special issue synthesises these findings of ice advancing to the maximum extent and its subsequent retreat for each of the eight transects to produce definitive palaeogeographic reconstructions of ice margin positions across the marine to terrestrial transition. These results are used to understand the controls that drove or modulated ice sheet retreat. A further paper reports on how ice sheet modelling experiments and empirical data can be used in combination, and another probes the glaciological meaning of ice-rafted debris.