Les Vertébrés de la Partie Moyenne du Crétacé en Europe

Les gisements de Vertébrés de la partie moyenne du Crétacé en Europe sont peu nombreux, et des groupes importants (notamment les Mammifères) y sont encore inconnus. Les poissons sont mieux représentés que les tétrapodes, et plus utilisables d'un point de vue biostratigraphique. Pour un certain nombre de groupes de Vertébrés, la partie moyenne du Crétacé semble correspondre à un renouvellement faunique important.In Europe, fossil vertebrate localities in the middle part of the Cretaceous are not numerous, and some important groups (notably mammals) are still unknown there. Fishes are better represented than tetrapods, and more useful from a biostratigraphic point of view. For several groups of vertebrates, the middle part of the Cretaceous seems to correspond to an important faunal renewal.     

Paleo-reconstructed net basin supply scenarios and their effect on lake levels in the upper great lakes

Paleo-reconstructed hydrologic records offer the potential to evaluate water resources system performance under conditions that may be more extreme than seen in the historical record. This study uses a stochastic simulation framework consisting of a non-homogeneous Markov chain model (NHMM) to simulate the climate state using Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)-reconstructed data, and K-nearest neighbor (K-NN) to resample observational net basin supply magnitudes for the Great Lakes of North America. The method was applied to generate 500 plausible simulations, each with 100 years of monthly net basin supply for the Upper Great Lakes, to place the observed data into a longer temporal context. The range of net basin supply sequences represents what may have occurred in the past 1,000 years and which can occur in future. The approach was used in evaluation of operational plans for regulation of Lake Superior outflows with implications for lake levels of Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie, and their interconnecting rivers. The simulations generally preserved the statistics of the observed record while providing new variability statistics. The framework produced a variety of high and low net basin supply sequences that provide a broader estimate of the likelihood of extreme lake levels and their persistence than with the historical record. The method does not rely on parametrically generated net basin supply values unlike parametric stochastic simulation techniques, yet still generates new variability through the incorporation of the paleo-record. The process described here generated new scenarios that are plausible based on the paleo and historic record. The evaluation of Upper Great Lakes regulation plans, subject to these scenarios, was used to evaluate robustness of the regulation plans. While the uncertain future climate cannot be predicted, one can evaluate system performance on a wide range of plausible climate scenarios.     

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: a targeted study of catalogued clusters of galaxies

We have carried out a study of known clusters within the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) observed areas and have identified 431 Abell, 173 APM and 343 EDCC clusters. Precise redshifts, velocity dispersions and new centroids have been measured for the majority of these objects, and this information is used to study the completeness of these catalogues, the level of contamination from foreground and background structures along the cluster's line of sight, the space density of the clusters as a function of redshift, and their velocity dispersion distributions. We find that the Abell and EDCC catalogues are contaminated at the level of about 10 per cent, whereas the APM catalogue suffers only 5 per cent contamination. If we use the original catalogue centroids, the level of contamination rises to approximately 15 per cent for the Abell and EDCC catalogues, showing that the presence of foreground and background groups may alter the richness of clusters in these catalogues. There is a deficiency of clusters at     that may correspond to a large underdensity in the Southern hemisphere. From the cumulative distribution of velocity dispersions for these clusters, we derive a space density of     clusters of     This result is used to constrain models for structure formation; our data favour low-density cosmologies, subject to the usual assumptions concerning the shape and normalization of the power spectrum.     

Microscopic characteristics of orthoquartzite from sliding friction experiments. II. Gouge

Optical, TEM and SEM observations were made on gouge from orthoquartzite subjected to sliding friction experiments (Hayes, 1975; Dunn and Hayes, 1975) at a constant effective confining pressure of 500 bars and a strain rate of 2.5 · 10⁻⁵ s⁻¹, both dry and in the presence of pore fluids. All experiments exhibited stick-slip behavior, and brittle fracture of both surface asperities and the gouge is the dominant deformation mechanism. Crystalline, smooth filamentous projections on larger fragments and individual filaments found throughout the gouge indicate that ductile flow is occurring at the tips of surface asperities. Welded gouge and a small amount of glass are found in the dry samples. The presence of a fluid inhibits the formation of welded gouge and glass but promotes the production of angular fragments by causing them to move past one another instead of clumping. The gouge showed a 99.7% reduction in the average grain size for all experimental conditions indicating that mechanical abrasion is highly effective even with 2.5–5.9 mm axial displacements.The experimental results can aid our understanding of the formation of gouge and fractures during faulting and the stabilization of fault movements to prevent earthquakes. The experimentally-produced gouge is analogous to cataclastic rocks lacking primary cohesion which are produced during near-surface brittle fracturing. Observations of experimental and natural faults suggest that fracturing along the sliding surface increases with increased displacement. Fault stabilization is enhanced by the presence of a fluid which lowers the coefficient of sliding friction and which completely wets the gouge produced during the movement.     

Maximum likelihood estimates of the two- and three-dimensional power spectra of the APM Galaxy Survey

We estimate the two- and three-dimensional power spectra, P ₂( K ) and P ₃( k ), of the galaxy distribution by applying a maximum likelihood estimator to pixel maps of the APM Galaxy Survey. The analysis provides optimal estimates of the power spectra and of their covariance matrices if the fluctuations are assumed to be Gaussian. Our estimates of P ₂( K ) and P ₃( k ) are in good agreement with previous work, but we find that the errors at low wavenumbers have been underestimated in some earlier studies. If the galaxy power spectrum is assumed to have the same shape as the mass power spectrum, then the APM maximum likelihood P ₃( k ) estimates at k ≤0.19  h  Mpc⁻¹ constrain the amplitude and shape parameter of a scale-invariant CDM model to lie within the 2 σ ranges 0.74≤( σ ₈)_g≤1.28 and 0.06≤Γ≤0.46 . Using the Galactic extinction estimates of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis, we show that Galactic obscuration has a negligible effect on galaxy clustering over most of the area of the APM Galaxy Survey.     

Gully erosion reduces carbon and nitrogen storage and mineralization fluxes in a headwater catchment of south‐eastern Queensland,Australia

Increased erosion associated with land use change often alters the flux of sediments and nutrients, but few studies have looked at the interaction between these disrupted cycles. We studied the effects of gully erosion on carbon and nitrogen storage in surface soil/sediment and herbaceous vegetation and on C and N mineralization in a headwater catchment used for cattle grazing. We found significantly lower C and N stored in an incising gully compared with an intact valley. This storage was significantly higher in an adjacent stabilizing gully, although not to the levels found in the intact valley. The intact valley had two to four times higher soil/sediment concentrations of total organic C, total N and Colwell extractable P than the incising gully. Lower storage was not explained by differences in vegetation biomass density or silt and clay content. Vegetation accounted for only 8% of C and 2% of N storage. Although not a significant store in itself, vegetation has an important indirect role in restoring and maintaining soil/sediment C and N stocks in eroding areas. We found significant linear relationships between C and N mineralization rates and soil/sediment C and N content, with lower rates occurring in the eroded sediment. These findings support our initial hypothesis that gully erosion reduces C and N storage and mineralization rates in eroding catchments. The implications of this study include a change to the quality of eroded sediments in headwater catchments, causing C‐poorer and N‐poorer sediments to be exported but overall loads to increase. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurements of the initiation of post‐wildfire runoff during rainstorms using in situ overland flow detectors

Overland flow detectors (OFDs) were deployed in 2012 on a hillslope burned by the 2010 Fourmile Canyon fire near Boulder, Colorado, USA. These detectors were simple, electrical resistor‐type instruments that output a voltage (0–2·5 V) and were designed to measure and record the time of runoff initiation, a signal proportional to water depth, and the runoff hydrograph during natural convective rainstorms. Initiation of runoff was found to be spatially complex and began at different times in different locations on the hillslope. Runoff started first at upstream detectors 56% of the time, at the mid‐stream detectors 6%, and at the downstream detectors 38% of the time. Initiation of post‐wildfire runoff depended on the time‐to‐ponding, travel time between points, and the time to fill surface depression storage. These times ranged from 0·5–54, 0·4–1·1, and 0·2–14 minutes, respectively, indicating the importance of the ponding process in controlling the initiation of runoff at this site. Time‐to‐ponding was modeled as a function of the rainfall acceleration (i.e. the rate of change of rainfall intensity) and either the cumulative rainfall at the start of runoff or the soil–water deficit. Measurements made by the OFDs provided physical insight into the spatial and temporal initiation of post‐wildfire runoff during unsteady flow in response to time varying natural rainfall. They also provided data that can be telemetered and used to determine critical input parameters for hydrologic rainfall–runoff models. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantitative model of the growth of floodplains by vertical accretion

A simple one‐dimensional model is developed to quantitatively predict the change in elevation, over a period of decades, for vertically accreting floodplains. This unsteady model approximates the monotonic growth of a floodplain as an incremental but constant increase of net sediment deposition per flood for those floods of a partial duration series that exceed a threshold discharge corresponding to the elevation of the floodplain. Sediment deposition from each flood increases the elevation of the floodplain and consequently the magnitude of the threshold discharge resulting in a decrease in the number of floods and growth rate of the floodplain. Floodplain growth curves predicted by this model are compared to empirical growth curves based on dendrochronology and to direct field measurements at five floodplain sites. The model was used to predict the value of net sediment deposition per flood which best fits (in a least squares sense) the empirical and field measurements; these values fall within the range of independent estimates of the net sediment deposition per flood based on empirical equations. These empirical equations permit the application of the model to estimate of floodplain growth for other floodplains throughout the world which do not have detailed data of sediment deposition during individual floods. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.