How does the ownership of land affect household livelihood pathways under conditions of deagrarianization? ‘Hanging in’, ‘stepping up’ and ‘stepping out’ in two north Indian villages

In rural parts of the global South, livelihoods are diversifying away from agriculture. Nevertheless, agriculture typically still remains the backbone of rural life and is usually considered the prime source of economic security, social prestige and self‐identity. The task of narrating these somewhat contradictory processes in a conceptually coherent fashion has proven a major challenge for research. This paper responds to this problem by deploying an adapted version of Andrew Dorward's schema of households ‘hanging in, stepping up or stepping out’ of their landed interests. Dorward's middle‐ground theory provides an appropriate analytical vehicle for capturing the vagaries and situated complexities of the land‐livelihoods nexus. However the theory fails to fully appreciate the extent to which household livelihood decision making rests on complex entanglements that leverage land‐based and nonfarm activities against one another. We demonstrate the critical importance of these processes through the results of in‐depth interviews with 32 households in two north Indian villages. These interviews lead us to propose that land factors in livelihood aspirations in three fundamental ways: an arena for interpenetrated agrarian and nonagrarian livelihood streams; a base for social reproduction; and a bulwark of food (and by extension, livelihood) security through own‐production capabilities.     

First record of Bonnemaisonia hamifera (Bonnemaisoniales,Rhodophyta) in the South Pacific,from the South Island of New Zealand

ABSTRACT

The tetrasporophytic ‘Trailliella’ stage of the red algal genus Bonnemaisonia is reported for the first time from the Southern Hemisphere. Here we describe a bloom of the tetrasporophyte of B. hamifera from the mouth of the Waikouaiti River, Karitāne, South Island, where it occurred as thousands of free-floating tufts up to 1?cm wide in shallow water, accumulated in windrows on sand banks and beaches, and in the water column at depths of 10–12?m on the adjacent open coast. Gametophytic stages have not yet been found in New Zealand. The material collected to date is strictly vegetative, and reproduction occurs via fragmentation. The identity of the New Zealand samples as B. hamifera was confirmed by both morphology and rbcL sequencing. The abundance and floating dispersal of B. hamifera suggests that it is invasive and will become widely distributed in New Zealand.     

The occurrence of thiosulfates and other unstable sulfur species as natural weathering products of old smelting slags

Summary Orthorhombic barium thiosulfate monohydrate, triclinic barium thiosulfate fluoride, triclinic barium sulfite and monoclinic hydrated barium aluminium trisulfide hydroxide have been isolated and identified as natural weathering products in old smelting mill slags. None of them have been found in nature before, but two of them are known as laboratory products. They represent a stepwise sequence in sulfur oxidation numbers and are potential intermediates in the familiar but little-understood oxidation of sulfides to sulfates and thus throw light on the mechanism of the natural oxidation of sulfide ores. The nature of these phases and co-existing species suggests formation between about Eh -0.45 v at pH 11 and Eh -0.6 v at pH 13.[

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Das Vorkommen von Thiosulphaten und anderen unstabilen Schwefelverbindungen als natürliche Venwitterungsprodukte alter Schmelz-Schlacken

Zusammenfassung Orthorhombisches Barium—Monohydrat, triklines Barium-ThiosulfattFluorid, triklines Barium-Sulfit und monoklines, hydriertes Barium-Aluminium-Trisulfid-Hydroxyd sind isoliert und als natürliche Verwitterungsprodukte in alten Schmelzschlacken identifiziert worden. Keine dieser Verbindungen sind bisher in der Natur nachgewiesen worden, jedoch sind zwei davon als Kunstprodukte bekannt. Sie stellen eine schrittweise Abfolge von Schwefeloxydationszahlen dar und sind potentielle Zwischenglieder in der bekannten, aber wenig verstandenen Oxydation von Sulfiden zu Sulfaten. In diesem Sinne werfen sie auch Licht auf den Mechanismus der natürli-chen Oxydation von Sulfiderzen. Die Art dieser und koexistierender Verbindungen legt eine Bildung zwischen Eh -0.45 v bei pH 11 und Eh -0.6 v bei pH 13 nahe.

     

The seismic anomaly beneath Iceland extends down to the mantle transition zone and no deeper

A 3-D teleseismic tomography image of the upper mantle beneath Iceland of unprecedented resolution reveals a subvertical low wave speed anomaly that is cylindrical in the upper 250 km but tabular below this. Such a morphological transition is expected towards the bottom of a buoyant upwelling. Our observations thus suggest that magmatism at the Iceland hotspot is fed by flow rising from the mantle transition zone. This result contributes to the ongoing debate about whether the upper and lower mantles convect separately or as one. The image also suggests that material flows outwards from Iceland along the Reykjanes Ridge in the upper 200 km, but is blocked in the upper 150 km beneath the Tjornes Fracture Zone. This provides direct observational support for the theory that fracture zones dam lateral flow along ridges.     

Responses of upper Chesapeake Bay to variations in discharge of the Susquehanna River

Upper Chesapeake Bay can be defined as the segment of the bay extending from its head seaward to the mouth of the Potomac Estuary. The Susquehanna River Estuary provides approximately 87% of the total freshwater input to this reach of the bay. With infrequent exceptions, resulting from summer and early fall hurricanes, the Susquehanna River has a well-defined seasonal flow pattern typical of mid-latitude rivers: high discharge in late winter and early spring, followed by low-to-moderate discharge throughout the summer and autumn. Within this general seasonal framework, there are large year-to-year variations in the magnitude of the early spring freshet and of the summer-fall period of low flow. The large seasonal variations in river flow produce significant responses to this fluctuating signal which are manifested in variations in the milieu of upper Chesapeake Bay. Stratification, circulation, sedimentation, nutrient levels, dissolved oxygen levels, and a number of other important and characteristic properties and processes of the upper bay all are closely coupled to variations in discharge of the Susquehanna River. Effects are not limited to the bay proper. Renewal of the tributary estuaries of the upper bay is controlled by variations in flow of the Susquehanna River.