Evidence of multiple late-Wisconsin floods from glacial Lake Missoula in Badger Coulee,Washington

Catastrophic floods from glacial Lake Missoula entered the Pasco Basin in south-central Washington and backflooded its marginal valleys. Badger Coulee, one such valley, contains beds of fine-grained slackwater sediment deposited by these floods. The slackwater sediment contains two ash layers of the Mount St. Helens set S tephra, about 13,000 yr old. The ash was deposited on a ground surface developed atop slackwater sediment deposited during preash flooding. Evidence of the former ground surface includes the reworked ash, inferred trace fossils, stream and debris-flow deposits, slopewash and/or eolian sediment, and colluvium at the ash horizon. These features and the ash were buried by slackwater sediment deposited during postash flooding. Nonflood, subaerial deposits are not present atop other beds. Instead, beds commonly are reversely graded across “contacts,” suggesting that multiple beds were continuously deposited. The exposed beds thus record at least two late-Wisconsin floods, one preash, the other postash. The pre- and postash floods may be correlative with earlier-reported floods thought to have occurred 17,500-14,000 and 14,000–13,000 yr B.P., respectively.     

Subtidal distribution of barnacles (Cirripedia: Balanidae) in Chesapeake Bay,Maryland

From 1977 to 1980, samples of barnacles were collected (as opportunities arose) from 61 subtidal locations (mostly oyster beds) around Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. Three species were identified from the area.Balanus improvisus dominated, comprising 83% of the 8,231 barnacles identified, and was collected at all locations but one. It occurred over a collection salinity range of 0.8‰ to 17.9‰.Balanus subalbidus (14% of the barnacles identified) was collected over the same salinity range, but mainly in lower salinity waters.Balanus eburneus was scarce (2% of the barnacles identified) and was collected at higher salinities (8.5‰ to 17.1‰).     

Exploitation of relaxation in cross-polarization nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of fossil fuels

The judicious choice of dipolar dephasing times or carbon magnetization holding times has been shown to improve resolution in solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra of complex materials. Signals from protonated and alkylated aromatic carbons are reduced to enhance resolution of aromatic oxygenated groups. Rapidly rotating methyl groups can be resolved from other aliphatic carbon types. These techniques were used to investigate the structure of a brown coal, xylite fractions of a brown coal, a bituminous coal, an oil shale and a solvent-refined coal. The results allow estimates of the fraction of aromatic carbon that is protonated in coal to be made, and demonstrate that methyl groups in coal rotate rapidly at room temperature.     

Fluctuations in US Freezing Rain Days

Freezing rain occurrences during a 50-year period, 1949/1950–1998/1999, derived from carefully examined records of 161 first-order stations distributed across the United States, were assessed for temporal fluctuations and trends. Classification of station fluctuations based on five 10-year periods revealed five unique distribution types in areas east of the Rockies. One of these five distributions, for stations located in the western Great Plains, experienced its greatest 10-year value at the end of the 50-year period. The other four regional distributions experienced their highest 10-year value in either of the first two 10-year periods. Nationally, the 10-year period when the greatest number of stations experienced their maximum value was 1949/1950–1958/1959, while the period when the greatest number of stations experienced their minimum value fell near the end of the 50-year record (1979/1980–1988/1989). The 50-year linear trends defined one region, the western Great Plains, with increasing values, while three areas of decreasing trend were identified; the Great Lakes, the eastern Ohio River valley, and southern New England. These analyses also indicate the need to examine and consider such time–space changes in the frequency of climate variables at various spatial scales when assessing weather risks and developing climate change scenarios.     

Stratospheric warming effects on the tropical mesospheric temperature field

Temperature observations at 20–90 km height and 5–15°N during the winter of 1992–1993, 1993–1994 and 2003–2004, from the Wind Imaging Interferometer (WINDII) and Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) experiments on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) satellite and the Sounding the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) experiment on the Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite are analyzed together with MF radar winds and UK Meteorological Office (UKMO) assimilated fields. Mesospheric cooling is observed at the time of stratospheric warming at the tropics correlative with stratospheric warming events at middle and high latitudes. Planetary waves m=1 with periods of 4–5, 6–8, 10 and 12–18 days are found to dominate the period. Westward 7- and 16-day waves at the tropics appear enhanced by stationary planetary waves during sudden stratospheric warming events.     

Jökulhlaup-related Ice Fracture and Supraglacial Water Release During the November 1996 Jökulhlaup, Skeiðarárjökull, Iceland

During the initial stages of the November 1996 jökulhlaup at Skeiðarárjökull, Iceland, floodwaters burst onto the glacier surface via a series of fractures. This supraglacial drainage led to the formation of a number of distinct ice surface depressions, one of which is investigated in detail. The morphology and structural characteristics of this feature are described, as well as the sedimentology of an associated assemblage of debris-filled fractures. This work suggests that debris-charged subglacial floodwaters travelled up to the glacier surface, where supraglacial flow occurred initially via an extensive network of fractures, orientated parallel to the glacier margin. Supraglacial discharge became progressively more focused into a series of discrete outlets, leading to the mechanical erosion of a number of depressions on the glacier surface. The associated transfer of subglacially derived floodwaters to high levels within the glacier resulted in the rapid entrainment of large volumes of sediment which may influence the patterns, processes and products of ice-marginal sedimentation in the future.     

Temporal trends in abundance of fish in the tidal Delaware River

Water quality in the tidal Delaware River has improved dramatically over the last several decades. Areas near Philadelphia that were once anoxic and formed a pollution block to migratory fish passage now rarely experience dissolved oxygen concentrations less than 3 ppm. To assess whether these improvements in water quality led to increased abundance of juvenile fishes, data from a beach seine survey conducted annually since 1980 were examined. The number of species captured increased throughout the tidal river, but the increase was greatest in the areas downstream of Philadelphia, wheare water quality has improved the most. Abundance of juvenile striped bass and American shad, two important game species in the river whose migratory patterns make them susceptible to water quality problems, both increased more than, 1,000-fold during the last decade. Correlatations between the temporal abundance patterns of these species in the tidal Delaware River and in other East Coast systems were poor, suggesting that increases in their numbers were related more closely to improving conditions within the Delaware than to factors affecting coastal stocks.     

Use of a reservoir water quality model to simulate global climate change effects on fish habitat

A case study was conducted on the potential impacts of climate change on fish habitat in a southeastern reservoir. A reservoir water quality model and one year of baseline meteorologic, hydrologic, and inflow water quality input were used to simulate current reservoir water quality. Total adult striped bass habitat, defined by specific quantitative temperature and dissolved oxygen criteria, was simulated. Daily reservoir volumes with optimal, suboptimal, and unsuitable temperature and DO were predicted for the year. Output from recent runs of atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs), in which atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have been doubled, was then used to adjust the baseline inputs to the water quality model. New sets of input data were created for two grid cells for each of three GCMs. All six climate scenarios are predicted to cause overall declines in the available summer striped bass habitat, mostly due to lake water temperatures exceeding striped bass tolerance levels. These predictions are believed to result from the consensus among GCM scenarios that air temperatures and humidity will rise, and the sensitivity of the reservoir model to these parameters. The reservoir model was found to be a promising tool for examining potential climate-change impacts. Some of the assumptions required to apply GCM output to the reservoir model, however, illustrate the problems in using large-scale gridcell output to assess small-scale impacts.     

Engineering-geological mapping of tropical soils for land-use planning and geotechnical purposes: A case study from Jamaica, West Indies

An area of a Tertiary and Cretaceous deposits, 100–310 m above sea level and on predominant 20–45°, highly dissected, concave slopes was investigated to assess its geotechnical characteristics and land use planning implications. Lithologies include turbidites, fluvial conglomerates, breccias, sandstones, mudrocks, carbonates, granodiorite, acid dykes, chloritized and epidotized volcanics, andesite and Holocene fluvial deposits. Bedrock is highly fractured and sheared, hydrothermally altered and highly weathered. Soils are quite variable, with a strong geological control on soil properties. Soils are generally sandy to gravely, with local silts and clays in mudrocks, within Holocene alluvium or in hydrothermally altered and sheared granodiorites. The soils are composed of 0.14–80.00% gravel; 5.36–62.50% sand, 2.33–50.55% silt, 0.17–51.50% clay, and total fine content between 2.50 and 94.50%, with natural moisture between 4 and 44% during the dry season, plastic limit between 6 and 35%, liquid limit between 19 and 83% and plasticity index between 1 and 59%. Sandy soils have residual friction angles between 19 and 39°, PI values less than 35% with cohesion between 1.00 and 5.27 KN/m² for cohesive samples. ASTM classification of soils include soil groups GC, GM, GW, GP, SP, SM, SC, SM, SC, ML, CL and CH.

Based on the characteristics of the terrain, the geotechnical and land use planning problems include high landslide frequency and susceptibility, soil erosion, fluvial and reservoir sedimentation, high debris flow hazard, cut slope failures, potentially expansive clays and silts, seepage erosion and soil piping, differential settlement in interlayered competent and incompetent lithologies, high solution erosion and potential subsidence over limestones, waste water disposal problems and groundwater pollution and seismic induced settlement and ground failures. These phenomena suggest that systematic site investigations should be conducted prior to the utilization of these areas for construction and development in order to minimize the deleterious effects resulting from ground failure.