Monitoring vegetation dynamics in East Rennell Island World Heritage Site using multi-sensor and multi-temporal remote sensing data

ABSTRACT

East Rennell of Solomon Island is the first natural site under customary law to be inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Potential threats due to logging, mining and agriculture led to the site being declared a World Heritage in Danger in 2013. For East Rennell World Heritage Site (ERWHS) to ‘shed’ its ‘Danger’ status the management must monitor forest cover both within and outside of ERWHS. We used satellite data from multiple sources to track forest cover changes for the entire East Rennell island since 1998. 95% of the island is still covered by undisturbed forests; annual average normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for the whole island was above 0.91 in 2015. However, vegetation cover in the island has been slowly decreasing, at a rate of –0.0011 NDVI per year between 2000 and 2015. This decrease less pronounced inside ERWHS compared to areas outside. While potential threats due to forest clearing outside ERWHS remain the forest cover change from 2000 to 2015 has been below 15%. We suggest ways in which the Government of Solomon Islands could use our data as well as unmanned air vehicles and field surveys to monitor forest cover change and ensure the future conservation of ERWHS.     

Development of a GIS-based Methodology for Quantifying Predation Risk in a Spatial Context

We used GIS‐based techniques and inductive‐spatial modelling to analyse spatial interactions between predator and prey populations, a unique example of an extension to an existing ecological approach. The approach identifies spatial predictors of predation and is demonstrated for braided riverbed habitat in the Mackenzie Basin, New Zealand. This habitat is highly modified and is the focus of intensive management because of the presence of introduced mammalian predators and their native prey (primarily nests of ground‐nesting native birds that are extremely vulnerable to predators). Native prey are currently in decline due to predation; GIS techniques therefore have the potential to augment conventional ecological techniques and management practices. Predation risk to nests of ground‐nesting birds was interpolated across an area using inverse distance weighting. A linear regression model for spatio‐temporal predictors of nest predation was deter‐mined using a predation risk surface and three separate surfaces representing predator abundance, prey abundance, and habitat structure. These measures can enhance the non‐spatial results from conventional ecological inquiry and help solve pest management problems affecting the natural environment.     

Metamorphic fluid flow in the northeastern part of the 3.8-3.7 Ga Isua Greenstone Belt (SW Greenland): A re-evalution of fluid inclusion evidence for early Archean seafloor-hydrothermal systems

Fluid inclusions in quartz globules and quartz veins of a 3.8-3.7 Ga old, well-preserved pillow lava breccia in the northeastern Isua Greenstone Belt (IGB) were studied using microthermometry, Raman spectrometry and SEM Cathodoluminescence Imaging. Petrographic study of the different quartz segregations showed that they were affected by variable recrystallization which controlled their fluid inclusion content. The oldest unaltered fluid inclusions found are present in vein crystals that survived dynamic and static recrystallization. These crystals contain a cogenetic, immiscible assemblage of CO₂-rich (+H₂O, +graphite) and brine-rich (+CO₂, +halite, +carbonate) inclusions. The gas-rich inclusions have molar volumes between 44.8 and 47.5 cm³/mol, while the brine inclusions have a salinity of ∼33 eq. wt% NaCl. Modeling equilibrium immiscibility using volumetric and compositional properties of the endmember fluids indicates that fluid unmixing occurred at or near peak-metamorphic conditions of ∼460 °C and ∼4 kbar. Carbonate and graphite were precipitated cogenetically from the physically separated endmember fluids and were trapped in fluid inclusions.In most quartz crystals, however, recrystallization obliterated such early fluid inclusion assemblages and left graphite and carbonate as solid inclusions in recrystallized grains. Intragranular fluid inclusion trails in the recrystallized grains of breccia cementing and crosscutting quartz veins have CO₂-rich assemblages, with distinctly different molar volumes (either between 43.7 and 47.5 cm³/mol or between 53.5 and 74.1 cm³/mol), and immiscible, halite-saturated H₂O-CO₂-NaCl(-other salt) inclusions. Later intergranular trails have CH₄-H₂ (X_H2 up to ∼0.3) inclusions of variable density (ranging from 48.0 to >105.3 cm³/mol) and metastable H₂O-NaCl(-other salt?) brines (∼28 eq. wt% NaCl). Finally, the youngest fluid inclusion assemblages are found in non-luminescent secondary quartz and contain low-density CH₄ (molar volume > 105.33 cm³/mol) and low-salinity H₂O-NaCl (0.2-3.7 eq. wt% NaCl). These successive fluid inclusion assemblages record a retrograde P-T evolution close to a geothermal gradient of ∼30 °C/km, but also indicate fluid pressure variations and the introduction of highly reducing fluids at ∼200-300 °C and 0.5-2 kbar. The quartz globules in the pillow fragments only contain sporadic CH₄(+H₂) and brine inclusions, corresponding with the late generations present in the cementing and crosscutting veins. We argue that due to the large extent of static recrystallization in quartz globules in the pillow breccia fragments, only these relatively late fluid inclusions have been preserved, and that they do not represent remnants of an early, seafloor-hydrothermal system as was previously proposed.Modeling the oxidation state of the fluids indicates a rock buffered system at peak-metamorphic conditions, but suggests a change towards fluid-graphite disequilibrium and a logf_H2/f_H2O above the Quartz-Fayalite-Magnetite buffer during retrograde evolution. Most likely, this indicates a control on redox conditions and on fluid speciation by ultramafic rocks in the IGB.Finally, this study shows that microscopic solid graphite in recrystallized metamorphic rocks from Isua can be deposited inorganically from a fluid phase, adding to the complexity of processes that formed reduced carbon in the oldest, well-preserved supracrustal rocks on Earth.     

Speleology and magnetobiostratigraphic chronology of the Buffalo Cave fossil site, Makapansgat, South Africa

Speleological, stratigraphic, paleomagnetic and faunal data is presented for the Buffalo Cave fossil site in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Speleothems and clastic deposits were sampled for paleomagnetic and mineral magnetic analysis from the northern part of the site, where stratigraphic relationships could be more easily defined and a magnetostratigraphy could therefore be developed for the site. This is also where excavations recovered the fossil material described. A comparison of the east and South African first and last appearance data with the Buffalo Cave fauna was then used to constrain the magnetostratigraphy to produce a more secure age for the site. The magnetostratigraphy showed a change from normal to reversed polarity in the basal speleothems followed by a short normal polarity period in the base of the clastic deposits and a slow change to reversed directions for the remainder of the sequence. The biochronology suggested an optimal age range of between 1.0 Ma and 600,000 yr based on faunal correlation with eastern and southern Africa. A comparison of the magnetobiostratigraphy with the GPTS suggests that the sequence covers the time period from the Olduvai event between 1.95 and 1.78 Ma, through the Jaramillo event at 1.07 Ma to 990,000 yr, until the Bruhnes-Matuyama boundary at 780,000 yr. The faunal-bearing clastic deposits are thus dated between 1.07 Ma and 780,000 yr with the main faunal remains occurring in sediments dated to just after the end of the Jaramillo Event at 990,000 yr.     

Do firms adopt lower standards in poorer areas? Corporate social responsibility and environmental justice in the EU and the US

Within the context of broader debates on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental justice (EJ), this paper examines three key questions: first, how the standards that corporations adopt at the global scale trickle down into local site-level practices; second, whether levels of corporate environmental performance vary from place to place; and third whether any variations in corporate environmental performance relate to the principles of EJ. To do this, the analysis draws upon recently disclosed data to evaluate variations in the environmental performance of oil refineries across the US and the EU. It finds significant variations in emissions of some key pollutants. These exist both across the range of refineries, with dirtier refineries emitting at least five times as much as cleaner refineries, and between the EU and the US, with refineries in the EU emitting more than twice as much as refineries in the US. At the local level, it finds that there are correlations between higher levels of emissions from refineries and lower levels of income, employment and population density. Although these findings provide support for some of the contentions of the EJ movement, they do not say anything about causality, and as a result we cannot say definitively that companies adopt lower standards in poorer areas.     

Analysis of Patterns in Diadromous Fish Distributions Using GIS

Understanding the factors limiting migratory behaviour is fundamental to conservation of diadromous fish. Applications of indices of habitat suitability are problematic for diadromous fish because fish presence and abundance in relation to habitat quality are confounded by barriers to fish migration. An alternative approach is to assess diadromous fish distributions in proportion to distance inland and altitude above mean sea level, and subsequently generate trajectories for the various species. This approach, however, may be problematic. We show that river distance inland and elevation are only weakly correlated in our study area. Thus, in areas where steep slopes are not encountered, fish migrations to significant elevations and inland distances can be expected. In other areas, coastal cliffs and geologic fault lines provide for steep stream gradients close to the sea, and fish do not migrate far inland. To solve this issue, we developed methods for improving species trajectory approaches to explain the distribution of diadromous fish using a GIS. We adjusted distance and altitude categories so that each stratum was represented by the same number of site records, with flexible intervals for each stratum. For species capable of forming land‐locked populations we manipulated input values for elevation and river distance inland to account for migrations from lakes, rather than sea. Additionally, a new GIS derived variable was introduced to better explain the distribution of diadromous fish; the maximum stream slope a fish would encounter during upstream migration. This new slope variable, independent of distance inland and elevation, is likely to be a better predictor of migratory fish occurrences than elevation above mean sea level, as the different species will have different slope‐thresholds that they can overcome.     

Geochemistry of an acidic chromium sulfate plume

The historical disposal of acidic chromium sulfate solutions into unlined lagoons between 1953 and 1970 at an industrial site resulted in formation of a dense aqueous phase liquid (DAPL) plume [specific gravity 1.11 g/cm³, pH 3, up to 4700 mg/L Cr(III), and up to 90,000 mg/L SO₄]. The DAPL sank through the shallow glacial till aquifer to an underlying impermeable gneissic bedrock from where it migrated downgradient along buried channels incised in the bedrock. Because of its high density, the plume chemistry is sharply stratified vertically. Chromium(III) predominates in the DAPL because excess Cr(VI) not reduced in the original process has been reduced by Fe(II) derived from silicates, while Cr(OH)₃(am) occurs as surface coatings on silicate minerals and as discrete particles mixed with Fe(OH)₃(am) and Al(OH)₃(am). The solubility of Cr(OH)₃(am) accurately describes Cr(III) concentrations in the plume and nearby groundwater, while Al and Fe in solution are also consistent with solubility-controlling oxyhydroxides. Because of these solubility controls, metal cations are attenuated relative to more mobile Cl and SO₄, resulting in a chromatographic separation of solutes downgradient from the plume origin. The good agreement between predicted and observed solution concentrations illustrates the utility of equilibrium modeling when interpreting metal transport characteristics and in determining the efficacy of natural attenuation in subsurface systems.