Exploring the Effectiveness of Outreach Strategies in Conservation Projects: The Case of the Audubon Toyota TogetherGreen Program

Successfully engaging target audiences represents a key challenge for environmental conservation projects. In this study, we examined 354 conservation projects implemented across the United States with the intention of systematically exploring the relationships between different forms of outreach (in particular, message content and delivery) and self-reported project outcomes. Using end-of-program retrospective surveys, we found that experiential engagement and directly demonstrating and/or communicating the ease of potential conservation actions were most consistently related to achieving desired project outcomes. Although it was thought to be largely effective by project managers, we found that focusing on equipping audiences with new knowledge was negatively related to conservation outcomes. Measured outreach variables explained between 15% and 17% of the variance in project outcomes, suggesting a wide variety of unmeasured factors at play. We discuss insights relevant to engaging target audiences in future U.S. conservation projects.     

The edison infrared space observatory and the study of extra-solar planetary material

Edison is a proposed large-aperture, radiatively-cooled space observatory planned to operate at wavelengths between 2 and 130m or longer. Current estimates for the telescope allow an aperture of 1.7 m which will achieve a final equilibrium temperature of about 30 K, although use of cryocoolers may permit temperatures below 20 K.Edison will be a powerful tool to investigate our Solar System, as well as planetary material around distant stars. At near- and mid-infrared wavelengths, where planetary material emits most of its radiation,Edison will be the most sensitive photometric and spectroscopic observatory under current consideration by the space agencies. With its large aperture,Edison will be able both to resolve the structure in nearby circumstellar Vega disks and to discriminate faint IR emission in the crowded environment of the galactic plane. With its long lifetime,Edison will allow extensive follow-up observations and increase the likelihood of catching transient events. We proposeEdison as a precursor to elements of a future space-based IR interferometer.Paper presented at the Conference onPlanetary Systems: Formation, Evolution, and Detection held 7–10 December, 1992 at CalTech, Pasadena, California, U.S.A.     

Neoproterozoic crustal growth: The solid Earth system during a critical episode of Earth history

The behavior of the solid Earth system is often overlooked when the causes of major Neoproteozoic (1000–542 Ma) climate and biosphere events are discussed although  20% of the present continental crust formed or was remobilized during this time. Processes responsible for forming and deforming the continental crust during Neoproterozoic time were similar to those of the modern Earth and took place mostly but not entirely at convergent margin settings. Crustal growth and reworking occurred within the context of a supercontinent cycle, from breakup of Rodinia beginning  830 Ma to formation of a new supercontinent Greater Gondwana or Pannotia,  600 Ma. Neoproterozoic crust formation and deformation was heterogeneous in space and time, and was concentrated in Africa, Eurasia, and South America during the last 300 million years of Neoproterozoic time. In contrast, the solid Earth system was relatively quiescent during the Tonian period (1000–850 Ma). The vigor of Cryogenian and Ediacaran tectonic and magmatic processes and the similar timing of these events and development of Neoproterozoic glaciations and metazoa suggest that climate change and perhaps increasing biological complexity was strongly affected by the solid Earth system.     

Stable isotope evidence for regional-scale fluid migration in a Barrovian metamorphic terrane,Vermont, USA

We measured the C- and O-isotopic composition of carbonate minerals in the Waits River Formation, eastern Vermont, to determine the extent of fluid infiltration during regional metamorphism over an approx. 2000 km² area in a deep-seated (>25 km) Barrovian terrane. From a petrologic study of this terrane, Ferry proposed the existence of a large regional metamorphic hydrothermal system with two first-order features: (1) on the scale of the entire terrane fluid flow was focused into the axes of two major antiforms of regional extent; (2) on a smaller scale (about 100 km²) flow was further focused around synmetamorphic granitic plutons that intruded along the axes of the antiforms. We find isotopic evidence for both the regional hydrothermal activity along the antiforms and the more intense fluid flow around synmetamorphic plutons. The evidence for hydrothermal activity around the plutons is large heavy isotope depletions, up to 6–9 in ¹⁸O_carb and ¹³C_carb, in diopside zone rocks adjacent to the plutons. These isotopic shifts are greater than can be explained solely by prograde metamorphic reactions. We find two lines of evidence for the more diffuse regional flow that was focused into axes of the antiforms. First, ¹⁸O_carb and ¹³C_carb, within individual outcrops become increasingly homogeneous with increasing grade towards antiform axes, indicating that the rocks equilibrated with a permeating fluid. Second, there are depletions in ¹⁸O near the margins of the Waits River Formation which can be interpreted as a dispersed, advective infiltration front displaced toward the antiform axes. These fronts were modelled using Eq. 13 of Bickle and Baker and imply time-integrated fluid of 10⁵–10⁶ cm³/cm², which are consistent with values derived by Ferry from measured progress of prograde devolatilization reactions.     

Isotopically diverse rhyolites coeval with the Columbia River Flood Basalts: evidence for mantle plume interaction with the continental crust

The Columbia River Flood Basalts (CRB) of the northwestern USA are coeval with eruptions of several thousand km³ of rhyolite. A broad survey of major phenocryst oxygen isotopes and of O and Hf isotopes in zircons from these rhyolites reveals significant diversity in inferred δ¹⁸O_melt values, ranging from +1.9 to +10.5‰ (SMOW), and in zircon Hf isotope compositions, which range from ε_Hf = ?39 to +9. This newly identified isotopic diversity shows that the syn‐CRB rhyolites were derived from high‐percentage melting of the crust. Low‐δ¹⁸O rhyolites, which fingerprint the melting of hydrothermally altered crust, are concentrated at the edge of the North American craton. This suggests that the conditions of crustal heating, faulting, and hydrothermal alteration required for the production of these rhyolites were concentrated there by the contrasts in crustal thickness and rheology associated with the boundary between the North American craton and younger accreted terranes.     

Transformative left-wing parties’ and grassroots organizations: Unpacking the politics of “top-down” and “bottom-up” development

Academic analyses of the potential for agents to transform development processes have been dominated by social movement theorists who focus on the prospects for creating an alternative to development that challenges the status quo. This has downplayed the role of political parties in the transformation process. This article takes the South African Communist Party (SACP) as a unit of analysis by drawing from a case study in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, where the local SACP has assisted with mobilizing a community-based organization in an informal settlement called S’swetla where the ruling African National Congress (ANC) purportedly imposed development onto residents. The local SACP viewed its intervention as pro-poor and bottom-up. It appeared initially to offer a transformative alternative to the official approach taken by the Alexandra Development Forum (ADF), an invited participatory space adopted by the Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP) – a flagship project of the ANC. This paper uses this example to problematize the simplistic dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up development in the context of a political party that claims to be committed to pro-poor and people-driven development. In doing so, it argues that theorists must pay closer empirical attention to the politics of both invited and invented participatory spaces in order to understand the implications that this has for transforming development.     

Neoproterozoic diamictite in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Northern Saudi Arabia: evidence of ~750 Ma glaciation in the Arabian–Nubian Shield?

The Neoproterozoic Atud diamictite in Wadi Kareim and Wadi Mobarak in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and the Nuwaybah formation in NW Saudi Arabia consist of poorly sorted, polymictic breccia, with clasts up to 1 m of granitoid, quartz porphyry, quartzite, basalt, greywacke, marble, arkose, and microconglomerate in fine-grained matrix. Stratigraphic relations indicate that the diamictite was deposited in a marine environment. Integrated field investigation, petrographic study and U–Pb SHRIMP zircon ages demonstrate that the Atud and Nuwaybah are correlative. The distribution of zircon ages indicate that ~750 Ma ages are dominant with a significant component of older materials, characterized by minor Mesoproterozoic and more abundant Paleoproterozoic and Neoarchean ages. Some matrix and metasedimentary clast zircons yield ages that are a few 10s of Ma younger than the age of the youngest clast (754 ± 15 Ma), suggesting Atud/Nuwaybah diamictite deposition ~750 Ma or slightly later, broadly consistent with being deposited during the Sturtian glaciation (740–660 Ma). The Paleoproterozoic and Neoarchean clasts have no source within the ensimatic Arabian–Nubian Shield. The distribution of the pre-Neoproterozoic ages are similar to the distribution of the pre-Neoproterozoic ages in Yemen and Saharan Metacraton, suggesting that these clasts have been transported hundreds of kilometers, maybe by ice-rafting. The Atud diamictite may represent important evidence for Cryogenian “Snowball Earth” in the Arabian–Nubian Shield.     

The role of in situ stress in determining hydraulic connectivity in a fractured rock aquifer (Australia)

Fracture network connectivity is a spatially variable property that is difficult to quantify from standard hydrogeological datasets. This critical property is related to the distributions of fracture density, orientation, dimensions, intersections, apertures and roughness. These features that determine the inherent connectivity of a fracture network can be modified by secondary processes including weathering, uplift and unloading and other mechanisms that lead to fracture deformation in response to in situ stress. This study focussed on a fractured rock aquifer in the Clare Valley, South Australia, and found that fracture network connectivity could be discriminated from several geological, geophysical and hydrogeological field datasets at various scales including single well and local- to regional-scale data. Representative hydromechanical models of the field site were not only consistent with field observations but also highlighted the strong influence of in situ stress in determining the distribution of fracture hydraulic apertures and the formation of hydraulic chokes that impede fluid flow. The results of this multi-disciplinary investigation support the notion that the hydraulic conductivity of a fracture network is limited to the least hydraulically conductive interconnected fractures, which imposes a physical limit on the bulk hydraulic conductivity of a fractured rock aquifer.