Evidence against early nineteenth century major European induced environmental impacts by illegal settlers in the New England Tablelands,south eastern Australia

Paleoenvironmental reconstructions from Little Llangothlin Lagoon have been used to argue for early European impact on the eastern Australian landscape. In particular, these studies have argued for European arrival on the New England Tablelands at about 1800 AD, with significant impacts including the clearance of one species of Casuarina before 1820 AD and significant erosion by 1836 AD (Gale et al., 1995; Gale and Pisanu, 2001; Gale and Haworth, 2002, 2005). We have re-cored the lagoon, dated the cores using ²¹⁰Pb and radiocarbon, and counted pollen and other proxies. Our ²¹⁰Pb results indicate that ²¹⁰Pb background was achieved stratigraphically later than the erosion event and we have three early Holocene radiocarbon ages in the erosion event interval. We conclude that the ‘erosion event’ predates European settlement. The ²¹⁰Pb results indicate much less erosion in response to European settlement than suggested by these earlier studies. We also find no notable decline in Casuarina in the pollen record spanning the time of initial European impact, and in fact we find very little Casuarina in the record. Instead of a Casuarina dominated vegetation we conclude that the area was dominated by open Eucalypt forest prior to European settlement. Rather than changes in the regional vegetation in the early 19th century, we attribute changes in the palynoflora spanning the ‘erosion event’ to changes within the lake/wetland and in particular to changes in the dominance of different species of Myriophyllum; most likely due to water depth fluctuation. This site has stood out as indicating an earlier European impact than other localities in eastern Australia, beyond the original limits of settlement near Sydney. Our findings suggest that a more traditional interpretation of this site is warranted and that no very early impact is discernable.     

Compression of witherite to 8 GPa and the crystal structure of BaCO3II

Natural witherite (Ba_0.99Sr_0.01CO₃) has been studied by single-crystal X-ray diffraction in the diamond anvil cell at eight pressures up to 8 GPa. At ambient pressure, cell dimensions are a?=?5.3164(12) Å, b?=?8.8921(19) Å, c?=?6.4279(16) Å, and the structure was refined in space group Pmcn to R(F)?=?0.020 from 2972 intensity data. The unit cell and atom position parameters for the orthorhombic cell were refined at pressures of 1.2, 2.0, 2.9, 3.9, 4.6, 5.5, 6.2, and 7.0 GPa. The volume-pressure data are used to calculate equation of state parameters K _T0?=?50.4(12) GPa and K′?=?1.9(4). At approximately 7.2 GPa, a first-order transformation to space group P3¯1c was observed. Cell dimensions of the high-pressure phase at 7.2 GPa are a?=?5.258(6) Å, c?=?5.64(1) Å. The high pressure structure was determined and refined to R(F)?=?0.06 using 83 intensity data, of which 15 were unique. This high-pressure phase appears to be more compressible than the orthorhombic phase with an estimated initial bulk modulus (K _7.2GPa) of 10 GPa.     

Temperature increase and respiratory performance of macroinvertebrates with different tolerances to organic pollution

Respiration rates (mg O₂ g^?1 AFDW h^?1) of Leuctra hippopus, Sericostoma personatum, Helodes minuta, Gammarus pulex and Asellus aquaticus were studied across an oxygen gradient at 2.8 and 6.3 °C, corresponding to an expected 3.5 °C increase in Danish winter stream temperature. Species were selected from the Danish Stream Fauna Index (DSFI), representing an expected hierarchy of tolerance towards water quality degradation. We expected that low-ranking, tolerant species (i.e. indicators of bad water quality) would have the capacity to regulate their oxygen uptake relatively independently of oxygen availability (oxy-regulators) and high-ranking, sensitive species (i.e. indicators of good water quality) would be less able to do so (oxy-conformers). For all species respiration rate was higher (although non-significantly) at 6.3 °C. The species’ oxy-regulatory capacity did not consistently reflect their DSFI ranking. As expected, and in accordance with its DSFI ranking, A. aquaticus had the highest oxy-regulatory capacity with the ability to regulate O₂ uptake until an oxygen saturation of only 20%, which did not change with increasing temperature, emphasizing the robustness of A. aquaticus towards changes in the environment. S. personatum, H. minuta and G. pulex revealed no oxy-regulatory capacity. In contrast, the plecopteran L. hippopus did display an unexpected oxy-regulatory capacity. Though an increase in temperature changed L. hippopus’ capacity to oxy-regulate (the critical limit increased from 32.5 to 43.5% oxygen), respiration rates did not change significantly in spite of the temperature increase. This result contradicts the general belief that stoneflies, because of their affinity to well oxygenated habitats, are conformers. Our findings call for further studies on the respiratory conformer–regulator concept and its role as an eco-physiological trait for bio-assessment.     

Nogle midtsjællandske kanalplaner fra begyndelsen af det 19. århundrede

Jacobsen, N. H., 1973: Nogle midtsjællandske kanalplaner fra begyndelsen af det 19. århundrede. Geografisk Tidsskrift 72, s. 33–44. København, September 30, 1973.

Based on archives studies, canal-projects on Sjælland are described. The plans were submitted a. 1800 in order to facilitate military transports and improve the supplies of food and fuel to Copenhagen.     

Autotrophic and heterotrophic abundance and activity associated with a nearshore front off the Georgia coast,U.S.A.

The nearshore frontal zone off the coast of Georgia was found to be an area of high phytoplankton and bacterioplankton abundance and activity. Phytoplankton and bacterioplankton populations on the seaward side of the frontal zone had significantly higher photosynthetic and heterotrophic potentials than the nearshore side of the front. Phytoplankton species composition changed across the front, verifying that the front is a barrier to cross shelf mixing. Nearshore, large chain forming diatoms dominated, while smaller single cell diatoms and cyanobacteria dominated the seaward side of the front. Increased bacterioplankton activity was found associated with phytoplankton photosynthetic activity. Light appeared to be the major factor controlling photosynthesis across the frontal zone. Nitrogen, phosphorus and silica were present in similar concentrations, well above levels that would limit photosynthesis, on both sides of the front. Therefore the outflow of nutrients from rivers or estuaries did not influence primary production directly.     

Microbial distribution and abundance in response to physical and biological processes on the continental shelf of southeastern U.S.A.

The distribution and abundance of bacteria and phytoplankton on the continental shelf of the southeastern United States were observed in relation to physical processes. Phytoplankton production was influenced by inputs of water of reduced salinity from the estuaries and by inputs of high salinity, low-temperature water from the west front of the Gulf Stream. The distribution of chlorophyll suggests that in each case production is influenced both by inputs of nutrients and by the enhanced vertical stability associated with the stratification of waters of different densities. The standing stock of bacteria on the inner shelf, 10⁶ ml^?1, is little changed by the influx of water of reduced salinity. On the outer shelf, where the usual standing stock of bacteria is 10⁵ ml^?1, the numbers increase to 10⁶ ml^?1 in and above intrusions of Gulf Stream water in which phytoplankton blooms have developed, suggesting that the bacteria respond to products of both phytoplankton and zooplankton production. Adenylate energy charge values in the waters of the southeastern shelf are variable and volatile. At times values of 0.7 to 0.8 are widespread over most of the shelf, while at other times values <0.6 are common, with localized patches of high values. Both autotroph-dominated and heterotroph-dominated microbial communities show these variations.     

Absolute S-velocity estimation from receiver functions

We present a novel method to recover absolute S velocities from receiver functions.
For a homogeneous half-space the S velocity can be calculated from the horizontal slowness and the angle of surface particle motion for an incident P wave. Generally, the calculated S velocity is an apparent half-space value which depends on model inhomogeneity and P -waveform. We therefore, suggest to calculate such apparent half-space S velocities from low-pass filtered (smoothed) receiver functions using a suite of filter-parameters, T . The use of receiver functions neutralize the influence of the P -waveform, and the successive low-pass filterings emphasize the variation of S velocity with depth.
We apply this   V _{S ,app.}( T )  technique to teleseismic data from three stations: FUR, BFO and SUM, situated on thick sediments, bedrock and the Greenland ice cap, respectively. The observed   V _{S ,app.}( T )  curves indicate the absolute S velocities from the near surface to the uppermost mantle beneath each station, clearly revealing the different geological environments. Application of linearized, iterative inversion quantify these observations into   V _S ( z )  models, practically independent of the S -velocity starting model. The obtained models show high consistency with independent geoscientific results. These cases provide also a general validation of the   V _{S ,app.}( T )  method.
We propose the computation of   V _{S ,app.}( T )  curves for individual three-component broad-band stations, both for direct indication of the S velocities and for inverse modelling.     

基于收入群体差异的北京典型郊区低收入居民的行为空间困境

既有低收入居民空间困境的研究以居住空间研究为主,关注低收入者受到的住房与社区隔离,难以刻画低收入者在整日尺度面临的时空制约。行为空间作为行为地理学与时间地理学的重要概念,为描述低收入居民在日常生活中面临的移动性与可达性相关的问题提供了有力的工具。本文提出利用潜在活动空间和实际活动空间共同描述居民行为空间,分析低收入居民在时空可达性和实际利用城市空间能力上的劣势。基于2012年北京市上地—清河居民活动与出行日志,利用路网分析、最小多边形分析等方法刻画居民每日的潜在活动空间和实际活动空间。通过对不同收入群体的比较,发现低收入居民比其他居民的潜在活动空间和实际活动空间都要小。进一步构建模型分析潜在活动空间和实际活动空间的影响因素,发现包括收入在内的个体社会经济属性、空间属性和行为属性对潜在活动空间和实际活动空间存在影响,但是二者的影响因素存在差异。对行为空间的测量有利于增进对于不同群体社会分异与空间隔离的认知,对未来的研究具有重要的意义。