Evidence for Holocene environmental change from C/N ratios, and δ13C and δ15N values in Swan Lake sediments, western Sand Hills, Nebraska

Profiles of percent carbon and nitrogen, carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratios and stable carbon (¹³C), and nitrogen (¹⁵N) isotopic ratios in organic matter from an 11.6 m core were used to reconstruct environments of deposition in the Swan Lake basin during the past 5300 YBP. The upper 6.5 m consisted of gyttja containing variable amounts of reddish brown-colored fine organic matter and calcium carbonate. It was followed by a 0.5 m sandy silt, which was followed by a 3.6 m reduced layer characterized by large quantities of black organic plant remains, sapropel, and then by another sapropel layer consisting mainly of well-sorted sapropelic sand with relatively low organic matter content. The C- and N-contents in the organic matter in the sediment profile ranged from 0.5 to 23% and from 0.02 to 2%, respectively. Carbon content were positively correlated to both N and clay content while carbon content was negatively correlated to sand content. Two major environmental phases in Swan Lake were apparent from large differences in the C and N data of the sediment organic matter. These include the sapropel (marsh) stage that stretched from approximately 5330 to 3930 YBP, and the following gyttja (open water stage). During the sapropel marsh plants identified in a previous pollen study as cattails and sedges proliferated and produced copious amounts of well-preserved organic matter. C/N ratios, ¹³C values, and ¹⁵N values in the sapropel were significantly different from those that characterized organic matter in the gyttja. During the gyttja ¹³C values indicated that deep primary producers have dominated lake biomass. By utilizing bicarbonate as their C-source, the accumulating biomass became relatively enriched ¹³C values. The presence of high sediment CaCO₃ contents indicated more alkaline and deeper water conditions prevailed during the gyttja. Further refinement of the data suggested that each major phase initially contained an identifiable transition stage. During the sapropelic (initial marsh stage) which occurred before 5330 YBP, sand content gradually decreased as organic matter increased. As reflected by high C/N ratios and slightly enriched ¹³C values, these sands appear to have contained sufficient permeability to promote partial mineralization of accumulated organic-N containing compounds. A short initial gyttja transition period from about 3930–3830 YBP occurred in which the sediment silt content was anomalously high relative that measured in the surrounding layers. The silt content suggests that this turbid transition layer can not be completely explained by sediment mixing via bioturbation. The silts appeared to have been associated with the sharp climate change that resulted in higher water-table conditions during the gyttja stage.     

Land desertification and restoration in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is characterized by high population growth, degraded and fragile nat-ural ecosystems, and a limited amount of arable lands. It is one of the most water-sc...     

Balance characteristics of multivariate background error covariances and their impact on analyses and forecasts in tropical and Arctic regions

For variational data assimilation, the background error covariance matrix plays a crucial role because it is strongly linked with the local meteorological features, and is especially dominated by error correlations between different analysis variables. Multivariate background error (MBE) statistics have been generated for two regions, namely the Tropics (covering Indonesia and its neighborhood) and the Arctic (covering high latitudes). Detailed investigation has been carried out for these MBE statistics to understand the physical processes leading to the balance (defined by the forecasts error correlations) characteristics between mass and wind fields for the low and high latitudes represented by these two regions. It is found that in tropical regions, the unbalanced (full balanced) part of the velocity potential (divergent part of wind) contributes more to the balanced part of the temperature, relative humidity, and surface pressure fields as compared with the stream function (rotational part of wind). However, the exact opposite happens in the Arctic. For both regions, the unbalanced part of the temperature field is the main contributor to the balanced part of the relative humidity field. Results of single observation tests and six-hourly data assimilation cycling experiments are consistent with the respective balance part contributions of different fields in the two regions. This study provides an understanding of the contrasting dynamical balance relationship that exists between the mass and wind fields in high- and low-latitude regions. The study also examines the impact of MBE on Weather Research and Forecasting model forecasts for the two regions.     

Rock composition and origin of the Duwi Formation calcareous rocks, Upper Egypt

Upper Cretaceous phosphorite beds of the Duwi Formation, Upper Egypt, are intercalated with limestone, sandy limestone, marl, calcareous shales, and calcareous sandstone. Calcareous intercalations were subjected to field and detailed petrographic, mineralogical and geochemical investigations in order to constrain their rock composition and origin. Mineralogically, dolomite, calcite, quartz, francolite and feldspars are the non-clay minerals. Smectite, kaolinite and illite represent the clay minerals. Major and trace elements can be classified as the detrital and carbonate fractions based on their sources. The detrital fraction includes the elements that are derived from detrital sources, mainly clay minerals and quartz, such as Si, Al, Fe, Ti, K, Ba, V, Ni, Co, Cr, Zn, Cu, Zr, and Mo. The carbonate fraction includes the elements that are derived from carbonates, maily calcite and dolomite, such as Ca, Mg and Sr. Dolomite occurs as being dense, uniform, mosaic, very fine-to-fine, non-ferroan, and non-stoichiometrical, suggesting its early diagenetic formation in a near-shore oxidizing shallow marine environment. The close association and positive correlation between dolomite and smectite indicates the role of clay minerals in the formation of dolomite as a source of Mg^2＋ -rich solutions. Calcareous rocks were deposited in marine, oxidizing and weakly alkaline conditions, marking a semi-arid climatic period. The calcareous/argillaceous alternations are due to oscillations in clay/carbonate ratio.     

Missing basics: a study on sanitation and women’s health in urban slums in Lucknow,India

GeoJournal - Sanitation is a multidimensional concept alluding primarily to provision of services for safe disposal of human excreta, provision of clean potable water as well as maintenance of...     

ENSO and IOD analysis on the occurrence of floods in Pakistan

Different techniques have been used to discuss the existence of significant relation between the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Various studies present their interaction and influence on the natural disasters (i.e. drought, flood, etc.) over large parts of the globe. This study uses a Markov chain method to investigate the relation between the ENSO and IOD for the period of 62 years (1950–2011) and aggregates their influence on the occurrence of floods in Pakistan. Both data sets show similarities in the formation of transition matrices and expected number of visits from one state to another. The strong values of 2-dimensional correlation and high self-communication of the transition states confirm the existence of a possible relation between ENSO and IOD data. Moreover, significant values of dependency and stationary test endorse the applicability of the Markov chain analyses. The independent analysis shows that strong events of both data sets are co-occurred in the same flood years. During the study period maximum number of floods was observed during summer monsoon season. However, further analysis shows that after 1970, Pakistan observed the highest percentage of floods occurred per year during El Nino, Non-ENSO and positive IOD years. These observations and results demonstrate that climate variability especially ENSO and IOD should be incorporated into disaster risk analyses and policies in Pakistan.     

Note on the isotopic geochemistry of fossil-lacustrine tufas in carbonate plateau—A study from Dungul region (SW Egypt)

Lithological, chemical, and stable isotope data are used to characterize lacustrine tufas dating back to pre-late Miocene and later unknown times, capping different surfaces of a Tertiary carbonate (Sinn el-Kedab) plateau in Dungul region in the currently hyperarid south-western Egypt. These deposits are composed mostly of calcium carbonate, some magnesium carbonate and clastic particles plus minor amounts of organic matter. They have a wide range of (Mg/Ca)_molar ratios, from 0.03 to 0.3. The bulk-tufa carbonate has characteristic isotope compositions: (δ¹³C_mean = −2.49 ± 0.99‰; δ¹⁸O_mean = −9.43 ± 1.40‰). The δ¹³C values are consistent with a small input from C4 vegetation or thinner soils in the recharge area of the tufa-depositing systems. The δ¹⁸O values are typical of fresh water carbonates. Covariation between δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O values probably is a reflection of climatic conditions such as aridity. The tufas studied are isotopically similar to the underlying diagenetic marine chalks, marls and limestones (δ¹³C_mean = −2.06 ± 0.84‰; δ¹⁸O_mean = −10.06 ± 1.39‰). The similarity has been attributed to common meteoric water signatures. This raises large uncertainties in using tufas (Mg/Ca)_molar, δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O records as proxies of paleoclimatic change and suggests that intrinsic compositional differences in material sources within the plateau may mask climatic changes in the records.     

Assessing groundwater storage changes in the Nubian aquifer using GRACE data

Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) level two (L2) data is used in estimating the groundwater storage changes (GWSC) in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS). This set of data consists of spherical harmonics coefficients with specific degree and order. The GRACE data is de-correlated using a sixth degree polynomial in order to reduce the effect of the noise error resulting from the correlation between the spherical harmonics coefficients with the same degree parity. The GRACE estimates of GWSC are smoothed using Gaussian filter with half width of 1000 km. This half width is chosen in order to maximize the correlation between the GRACE estimates of GWSC and previous modeling results of the NSAS. The loss in groundwater storage occurring in each of the four countries sharing the NSAS is calculated to assess the sustainability of using the NSAS as a water resource in each country. The overarching finding in this study is that NSAS is losing its groundwater storage at a very high rate. Also, it is found that Egypt is the fastest in losing its groundwater storage from the NSAS. This loss of groundwater storage in Egypt may not necessarily be resulting from in-country extractions because of the trans-boundary nature of this aquifer. The GRACE-based estimates are found to be close to available data and previous modeling results of the NSAS.