English Jurassic Limestone Country: Stroud,Central Cotswolds

The area around Stroud, a small English market town perched on the steep west‐facing Cotswold escarpment, offers some of the most dramatic outcrops of Jurassic limestone in the UK. From sweeping vistas of the Severn Vale, to the deeply wooded river valleys that indent the escarpment, its landscape is undeniably one of the area's greatest assets. Recently, the geology and physiography of the landscape has been drawn into close focus by several notable UK media stories: protests against hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the underlying Lias clays; landslides causing weeks of repeated disruption across the Cotswold road and railway networks; and the recent death of a local engineer in a pit collapse of Fuller's Earth. In order to understand these stories in greater depth, it is useful to consider the story of Stroud's unique physical setting.     

A diatom‐inferred record of lake variability during the last 900 years in Lützow–Holm Bay,East Antarctica

Decadal–centennial‐scale climate variability in coastal Antarctica remains poorly understood due to the limited number of highly resolved, well‐dated records. We present a 900‐year, decadal‐scale reconstruction based on sedimentary diatoms from Lake Abi in Lützow–Holm Bay, East Antarctica. Hydrological change is inferred from diatom ecological preferences in conjunction with an existing regional training set and implies that lake water specific conductivity, depth and nitrogen availability are the key drivers of diatom assemblage change. Lake Abi underwent a series of subtle environmental changes related to these environmental variables, possibly driven by changes in catchment snow melt and the duration of seasonal ice cover. Ordination is used to trace the major patterns of change in the diatom community, with notable shifts identified between 470 and 400 and at ～350 cal a BP (where present = CE 1950). The frequency of environmental variability at Lake Abi is broadly consistent with a record of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation during the last millennium, but contrasts with the apparent climate stability elsewhere in eastern Antarctica. Further research is required to constrain the limnological and ecological responses of lakes in coastal Antarctica to obtain more rigorous palaeoclimate reconstructions from these sites of immense potential.     

Approach to calculating spatial similarity degrees of the same river basin networks on multi-scale maps

Obtaining spatial similarity degrees among the same objects on multi-scale maps is of importance in map generalization. This paper firstly defines the concepts of ‘map scale change’ and ‘spatial similarity degree’; then it proposes a model for calculating the spatial similarity degree between a river basin network at one scale and its generalized version at another scale. After this, it validates the new model and gets 16 points in the model validation process. The x-coordinate and y-coordinate of each point are map scale change and spatial similarity degree, respectively. Last, a formula for calculating spatial similarity degree taking map scale change as the only variable is obtained by the curve fitting method. The formula along with the model can be used to automate the algorithms for simplifying river basin networks.     

Floodgate Operations and Fish Communities in Tidal Creeks of the Lower Fraser River (British Columbia,Canada)

Tidal creeks in large coastal deltas can be important habitat for fish but are often highly modified by human activities. Connectivity between tributary creeks and mainstem channels is often constrained by structures such as dikes and floodgates, designed to protect urban and agricultural areas from flooding. While they play important roles in flood mitigation, floodgates can diminish habitat quality and block fish from accessing tidal creeks. It is likely that floodgates differ in their operations and may consequently open for different amounts of time; however, floodgate operations and their effects are not well quantified. We asked the question: how does the mechanical functioning of these floodgates affect fish communities in tidal creeks? We used time-lapse cameras and quantified the timing of gate openings for 22 tributaries of the Lower Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada, and related these operational data to differences in fish communities above and below floodgates. Floodgate operations varied substantially, with some floodgates opening daily while others opened less than 20% of the day, on average. Sites with floodgates that seldom opened were associated with greater differences in fish communities and with reduced upstream native species richness by about one species on average. Where floodgates opened infrequently, we also found lower upstream dissolved oxygen concentrations than at sites where floodgates opened for longer periods of time. Thus, floodgate operations can influence fish communities as well as water quality. These data indicate a large scope for improving floodgate operations for connectivity.     

The Neogene and Quaternary of England: landscape evolution,tectonics, climate change and their expression in the geological record

During the Neogene and Quaternary, tectonic and climatic processes have had a profound impact upon landscape evolution in England and, perhaps as far back as 0.9 Ma, patterns of early human occupation. Until the Late Miocene, large-scale plate tectonic processes were the principal drivers of landscape evolution causing localised basin inversion and widespread exhumation. This drove, in places, the erosion of several kilometres of Mesozoic cover rocks and the development of a regional unconformity across England and the North Sea Basin. By the Pliocene, the relative influence of tectonics on landscape evolution waned as the background tectonic stress regime evolved and climatic influences became more prominent. Global-scale climate-forcing increased step-wise during the Plio-Pleistocene amplifying erosional and depositional processes that operated within the landscape. These processes caused differential unloading (uplift) and loading (subsidence) of the crust (‘denudational isostasy’) in areas undergoing net erosion (upland areas and slopes) and deposition (basins). Denudational isostasy amplified during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (c.0.9 Ma) as landscapes become progressively synchronised to large-scale 100 ka ‘eccentricity’ climate forcing. Over the past 0.5 Ma, this has led to the establishment of a robust climate record of individual glacial/interglacial cycles enabling comparison to other regional and global records. During the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition and early Holocene (c.16–7 ka), evidence for more abrupt (millennial/centennial) scale climatic events has been discovered. This indicates that superimposed upon the longer-term pattern of landscape evolution is a more dynamic response of the landscape to local and regional drivers.     

Use of LiDAR-derived DEM and a stream length-gradient index approach to investigation of landslides in Zagros Mountains,Iran

This paper presents an approach to stream length-gradient index analysis to identify tectonic signatures. The graded profile of the Dez River in Zagros Mountains, Iran, indicates that the area has been tectonically disturbed, and it triggers landslide hazards. The high-gradient index shows that a steeper gradient could be potentially a signature for landslides identification. The digital surface models acquired by airborne LiDAR were used in this study to generate the HRDEM. Our result shows a great potential for improving landslide investigations by implementing stream length-gradient index derived from the HRDEM in conjunction with the landslide inventories data-set in the GIS environment. We also identified a correlation between the stream length-gradient index and the graded topographic profile with slopes and landslides. This empirical approach was verified by geodata analytics and landslide inventories data-set in conjunction with field observations. This study has identified the locations of high-gradient indices with susceptible to landslides.     

The development and analysis of quasi-linear map projections

Map projections are an essential component of coordinate systems used in applications such as surveying, topographic mapping, and engineering, and care needs to be taken to select ones that minimize distortion for each case. This article explores the selection process for near-linear features on the surface of the Earth and derives limits for the extent of a project that can be projected within specified distortion tolerances. It is then demonstrated that a multifaceted set of projections of the Earth may be used to extend this concept to the mapping of features such as highways and railways that are quasi-linear but do not exactly follow a standard geometrical line (a great circle or a small circle) on the surface of the Earth. A continuous, conformal coordinate system may be derived in such situations, extending to indefinite length and applicable over a swath of several kilometers width, but it cannot be extended to cover situations with extensive variations in height. Instead, the Snake Projection is analyzed, and it is shown that this can be used to develop continuous (non-zonal) projected coordinate systems for major engineering projects extending for hundreds of kilometers and having extensive height ranges. Examples are shown of the application to railway projects.