A review of seawater intrusion and its management in Australia

Extended periods of below-average rainfall combined with a rising population density in the Australian coastal margin have led to higher stresses on coastal water resources, and the risk of seawater intrusion has increased. Despite reports of seawater intrusion in the majority of states and evidence that some Australian coastal aquifers are seriously depleted, comprehensive seawater intrusion investigations have only been completed for coastal systems in Queensland and to a lesser degree in Western Australia and South Australia. The degree of assessment appears to be linked to the perceived economic value of the groundwater resource. The most detailed studies include those of the Pioneer Valley and Burnett basins in Queensland, for which conceptual and mathematical models have been developed at the regional scale, and have been used to underpin trigger-level management approaches to protect against further seawater intrusion. Historical responses to seawater intrusion include the establishment of artificial recharge schemes; the most prominent being that of the Lower Burdekin aquifers in Queensland. Recommendations for future solutions include enhanced fit-for-purpose seawater intrusion monitoring, continuing research into investigation methods, and improved knowledge-sharing through education programs and the development of national guidelines for seawater intrusion assessment and management.     

Sponges (Porifera) as living metazoan witnesses from the Neoproterozoic: biomineralization and the concept of their evolutionary success

The emergence of the Metazoa can be dated back to the Neoproterozoic Era which comprises the Cryogenian Period during which two major glaciations occurred, the Sturtian and the Varanger-Marinoan. At that time, the phylum Porifera (sponges) evolved as the first animals and developed a hard skeleton. The two classes of siliceous sponges, the Hexactinellida and the Demospongiae, are already provided with the major genetic repertoire and gene regulatory networks that also exist in modern multicellular animals. Besides these metazoan innovations, the siliceous sponges display one autapomorphic character, silicatein, an enzyme which mediates bio-silica formation. Well preserved siliceous sponge fossils have been excavated from the Cambrian Burgess Shale- and Chengjiang deposits. It is concluded that it was the hard skeleton of the siliceous sponges that contributed to the successful evolution and survival of the Porifera during the last 500 Ma.     

The Cretaceous of the Eastern Bangong-Nujiang Suture Zone (Tibet):Tectono-Sedimentation

1IntroductionThe Tibet plateau consists of terranes which were accreted in a southward-younging succession from Late Permian to Mid-Eocene (Dewey etal., 1988; Mattern etal., 1998; Mattern and Schneider, 2000). The Songpan-Ganzi terrane was accreted to the Kunlun during Late Permian along Kunlun-Qin-ling suture. The Qiangtang block was added onto the Songpan-Ganzi terrane at the Jinsha suture dur-ing Late Triassic-Early Jurassic. The Lhasa block became attached to the Qia…     

Estimation of mean water residence times and runoff generation by0 measurements in a Pre-Alpine catchment (Rietholzbach, Eastern Switzerland)

Stable isotopes (¹⁸0) are used to investigate hydrological processes in the small Pre-Alpine research catchment Rietholzbach in NE Switzerland. The catchment covers an area of 3.18 km² and ranges from 680 to 960 m a.s.l. The¹⁸0 concentration in rainfall and in runoff at various sites, including a lysimeter installed within the catchment, over a 2-a period are investigated. First, conceptual flow models are applied to determine the mean water residence times of different systems of the basin and their storage properties. As a second approach, the separation of runoff components using¹⁸O and Mg ions as tracer during some storm flow events was carried out. The following flow mechanisms can be identified from the modelling results: (i) lateral hillslope fluxes, which are faster in the part of the Tertiary Molasse sediments and slower in the part of the Quaternary deposits, and (ii) relatively slow vertical infiltration processes through the soil layer within the lysimeter. Mean residence times of 12.5 months result for the total catchment baseflow component and 24.5 months for the baseflow from the upper part of the catchment, respectively. For the lysimeter seepage water, a mean residence time of about 200 days was obtained. During the intensive storm events, a fast reaction of the stored subsurface water due to heavy precipitation and an expulsion of this storage water amounting to a considerable portion of the total basin runoff can be detected.     

Hollandite–strontiomelane solid solutions coexisting with kanonaite and braunite in late quartz veins of the Stavelot Massif, Ardennes, Belgium

In a newly found type of quartz vein cross-cutting the famous "viridine"-bearing phyllites at Le Coreux, hollandite, ideally BaMn₈O₁₆, was discovered for the first time at this locality and in Belgium. Because the crystals contain up to 60 mol% of the Sr end member, this is also the second occurrence of strontiomelane. The coexisting "viridine" (= kanonaite) contains the highest amount (88 mol%) of the ideal end member MnAlSiO₅ ever found worldwide. The hollandite-type minerals are intimately intergrown with braunite containing appreciable Ca and Mg. Ba-bearing muscovite, Fe-poor excess-Al clinochlore (not quite trioctahedral), and albite are the remaining accessory minerals in the dominant quartz matrix. Microprobe analyses of all phases show rather extreme element fractionations: nearly all K is located in muscovite and none in the hollandite phase despite the existence of the end member KMn₈O₁₆ (cryptomelane). Similarly, nearly all Na is in albite and not in hollandite (no NaMn₈O₁₆=manjiroite component). Nearly all Mn resides in the two oxide phases and in kanonaite. Mg is strongly fractionated into chlorite. The small amounts of Fe and Ti present are predominantly partitioned into the hollandite phase, which also accommodates most of the Ba and Sr. Indeed, the hollandite phase is stabilized by the latter two elements relative to other Mn oxides. Kanonaite is stabilized by Al. Although no requisite sites are available in its crystal structure, braunite always contains small amounts of Ba and Sr. However, the Sr/(Sr+Ba) ratios in braunite are spurious and unrelated to those of the directly adjoining hollandite phases The conditions of formation of these veins may be well below 300 °C at low pressures (1-2 kbar), in agreement with the experimental results that the maximum Mn contents in kanonaite increase with falling temperatures.     

Climate Shifts during the Last Century

Fluctuations of the land surface areas covered by Koeppen climates are analysed for the 1901 to 1995 period using trends and outliers as indicators of climate shift. Only the extreme climate zones of the global Tropics and of the Tundra (with the highly correlated northern hemisphere temperature) realise statistically significant shifts and outliers. There are nosignificant trends and outliers in the fluctuating ocean-atmosphere patterns (Pacific Decadal and North Atlantic Oscillations) and the highly correlated intermediate climate zones (dry, subtropical and boreal) of the surrounding continents.     

Simulating midday all-slope surface temperatures along a climatic-latitudinal transect during cloudless summer conditions

Two physically-models of solar radiation transmission and of a steady-state slope energy budget have been coupled. Using climatic observational inputs, averaged in 10-deg latitude bands, a systematic examination was made of changing surface temperatures and differences between surface and air temperatures as functions of varying slope angles (0 to 90 deg) and orientations (south-, west-, and north-facing). Along a latitudinal transect of the east coast of the Americas (northern hemisphere), two contrasting landscapes were examined: barren and grassy. No simple relationship was discovered among the factors regarding shortwave and longwave radiative absorption, components of the energy budget, and surface temperature trends, yet the response of temperatures on a latitudinal basis was systematic and orderly. Characteristically, a great diversity existed among surface temperatures of different slopes and orientations at any particular latitude. Such diversity was accentuated in the higher latitudes. The findings were assumed general enough to encompass most of the possible contrasts encountered in a real-world north-south transect.Dr. O'Rourke is currently a Visiting Scholar at UCLA from Litton Systems, Inc., Data Systems Division.     

Computer simulation of crystal structures

It is impossible to calculate from first principles the details of crystal structures. However, it is possible to rely on information which is certain, namely on interatomic distances, and calculate the details of a crystal structure based on these. Individual distances between atoms can be predicted accurately if one considers the coordination numbers of anions and cations, the extended electrostatic valence rule, and the effects of shared edges between different coordination polyhedra. The predicted interatomic distances are used as observations in a distance least squares refinement in which the positional parameters and the cell edges are adjusted until the calculated interatomic distances correspond as closely as possible to the predicted distances. The topology of the simulated structure has to be known or assumed. Appropriate weighting can facilitate proper modelling. Applications include: a) solution of pseudosymmetric structures; b) preliminary refinement of trial structures; c) geometric refinement without X-ray intensities; d) comparison of hypothetical structures with observed polymorphs of the same compositions; e) simulation of temperature dependence of structures; f) simulation of pressure dependence; g) calculation of structures isomorphous to known structures; h) calculation of thermal ellipsoids; i) calculation of local environments deviating from the overall symmetry of a structure; j) testing of hypotheses about the behavior of structures at varying conditions.