A remote-sensing technique for the identification of aeolian fetch distance

This paper describes a new method for assessing aeolian fetch distances in beach/dune systems. The remote‐sensing technique has advantages over currently used proxy measures of fetch distance, such as those based on tide gauges and beach profiles. The method uses a digital camera, global positioning system surveying, and a geographical information system software package to produce a rectified image of the beach surface. From this, direct measurements of the wet–dry beach boundary can be combined with wind direction measurements to determine fetch distance. The method offers an improvement on current approaches to sediment transport estimates: a 28‐day study on Magilligan Strand, Northern Ireland, showed that the commonly used high water mark approach overestimated fetch distance by 30% compared with the technique reported here.     

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS AS A TOOL FOR INVESTIGATING SEPARATED FLOW IN RIVER BENDS

The detailed three-dimensional structure of the flow patterns in river bends with separated flow and factors controlling the existence and characteristics of these flow patterns are unclear at present. It is shown here, firstly, how a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program may be used to reproduce the qualitative features of the mean flow in a real river bend to allow testing of the model's capabilities. It is then shown how the CFD code may be used to construct hypothetical channel bends which allow the experimentation necessary to investigate the controls on the extent of the separated flow.     

A new approach to provenance studies: electron microprobe analysis of detrital garnets from Middle Jurassic sandstones of the northern North Sea

Reading provenance from heavy-mineral suites is hampered by the depletion of diagnostic, but unstable, heavy minerals through intrastratal solution, a common phenomenon in deep sedimentary basins such as the North Sea. This paper demonstrates the potential of electron microprobe analysis in overcoming this problem, by concentrating on the compositional variations shown by detrital garnets, which are relatively resistant to intrastratal solution. Studies of the garnets from the Brent Group (Middle Jurassic) of the Murchison and Tern oilfields in the northern North Sea reveal that three distinct areas supplied detritus. Association 1 which characterizes the Broom Formation in both areas and recurs higher in the sequence in the Tern field, is ascribed to an Orkney-Shetland source. The location of the areas supplying the garnets of Association 2, best represented in Murchison, and Association 3, common to both fields, is less clear. Their ultimate sources clearly include high-grade metamorphics, and therefore probably lie on the Norwegian landmass, the Orkney-Shetland Platform, or, conceivably, the Scottish landmass, but the possibility of recycling makes it difficult to judge their immediate provenances. Nevertheless, the presence of three garnet associations indicates that the most widely accepted model of Brent sedimentation, with sands derived from a domal uplift in the outer Moray Firth and channelled northward along the Viking Graben, is untenable.     

Aeolian dune‐field development in a water table‐controlled system: Skeiđarársandur,Southern Iceland

Aeolian dune fields characterized by partly vegetated bedforms undergoing active construction and with interdune depressions that lie at or close to the water table are widespread on Skei?arársandur, Southern Iceland. The largest aeolian dune complex on the sandur covers an area of 80 km² and is characterized by four distinct landform types: (i) spatially isolated aeolian dunes; (ii) extensive areas of damp and wet (flooded) interdune flat with small fluvial channels; (iii) small aeolian dune fields composed of assemblages of bedforms with simple morphologies and small, predominantly damp, interdune corridors; and (iv) larger aeolian dune fields composed of assemblages of complex bedforms floored by older aeolian dune deposits that are themselves raised above the level of the surrounding wet sandur plain. The morphology of each of these landform areas reflects a range of styles of interaction between aeolian dune, interdune and fluvial processes that operate coevally on the sandur surface. The geometry, scale, orientation and facies composition of sets of strata in the cores of the aeolian dunes, and their relationship to adjoining interdune strata, have been analysed to explain the temporal behaviour of the dunes in terms of their mode of initiation, construction, pattern of migration, style of accumulation and nature of preservation. Seasonal and longer‐term flooding‐induced changes in water table level have caused episodic expansion and contraction of the wet interdune ponds. Most of the dunes are currently undergoing active construction and migration and, although sediment availability is limited because of the high water table, substantial aeolian transport must occur, especially during winter months when the surface of the wet interdune ponds is frozen and sand can be blown across the sandur without being trapped by surface moisture. Bedforms within the larger dune fields have grown to a size whereby formerly damp interdune flats have been reduced to dry enclosed depressions and dry aeolian system accumulation via bedform climb is ongoing. Despite regional uplift of the proximal sandur surface in response to glacial retreat and unloading over the past century, sediment compaction‐induced subsidence of the distal sandur is progressively placing aeolian deposits below the water table and is enabling the accumulation of wet aeolian systems and increasing the likelihood of their long‐term preservation. Wet, dry and stabilizing aeolian system types all co‐exist on Skei?arársandur and the dunes are variously undergoing coeval construction, accumulation, bypass, stabilization and destruction as a result of interactions between localized factors.     

Eruptive Stratigraphy of the Tatara-San Pedro Complex, 36{degrees}S, Southern Volcanic Zone, Chilean Andes: Reconstruction Method and Implications for Magma Evolution at Long-lived Arc Volcanic Centers

The Quaternary Tatara–San Pedro volcanic complex (36°S,Chilean Andes) comprises eight or more unconformity-bound volcanicsequences, representing variably preserved erosional remnantsof volcanic centers generated during