The persistence of lead from past gasoline emissions and mining drainage in a large riparian system: Evidence from lead isotopes in the Sacramento River, California

Lead concentrations and isotope ratios measured in river water colloids and streambed sediment samples along 426 km of the Sacramento River, California reveal that the influence of lead from the historical mining of massive sulfide deposits in the West Shasta Cu-mining district (at the headwaters of the Sacramento River) is confined to a 60 km stretch of river immediately downstream of that mining region, whereas inputs from past leaded gasoline emissions and historical hydraulic Au-mining in the Sierra Nevadan foothills are the dominant lead sources in the remaining 370 km of the river. Binary mixing calculations suggest that more than 50% of the lead in the Sacramento River outside of the region of influence of the West Shasta Cu-mining district is derived from past depositions of leaded gasoline emissions. This predominance is the first direct documentation of the geographic extent of gasoline lead persistence throughout a large riparian system (>160,000 km²) and corroborates previous observations based on samples taken at the mouth of the Sacramento River. In addition, new analyses of sediment samples from the hydraulic gold mines of the Sierra Nevada foothills confirm the present-day fluxes into the Sacramento River of contaminant metals derived from historical hydraulic Au-mining that occurred during the latter half of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. These fluxes occur predominantly during periods of elevated river discharge associated with heavy winter precipitation in northern California. In the broadest context, the study demonstrates the potential for altered precipitation patterns resulting from climate change to affect the mobility and transport of soil-bound contaminants in the surface environment.     

Microbial mass-dependent fractionation of chromium isotopes

Mass-dependent fractionation of Cr isotopes occurs during dissimilatory Cr(VI) reduction by Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1. Cells suspended in a simple buffer solution, with various concentrations of lactate or formate added as electron donor, reduced 5 or 10 μM Cr(VI) to Cr(III) over days to weeks. In all nine batch experiments, ⁵³Cr/⁵²Cr ratios of the unreacted Cr(VI) increased as reduction proceeded. In eight experiments covering a range of added donor concentrations up to 100 μM, isotopic fractionation factors were nearly invariant, ranging from 1.0040 to 1.0045, with a mean value somewhat larger than that previously reported for abiotic Cr(VI) reduction (1.0034). One experiment containing much greater donor concentration (10 mM lactate) reduced Cr(VI) much faster and exhibited a lesser fractionation factor (1.0018). These results indicate that ⁵³Cr/⁵²Cr measurements should be effective as indicators of Cr(VI) reduction, either bacterial or abiotic. However, variability in the fractionation factor is poorly constrained and should be studied for a variety of microbial and abiotic reduction pathways.     

A quantitative interpretation of recent experimental results on stable carbon isotope fractionation by aerobic CH4-oxidizing bacteria

A quantitative model of recent laboratory experiments on carbon isotope fractionation by methane-oxidizing bacteria is proposed. The simulated experimental apparatus consists of a bacterial culture with a constant liquid volume, a gas headspace and a methane bubbling mechanism. The relative effects of bacterial growth and transport phenomena that do not depend on cell density are clarified. In all calculations, gas-liquid mass transfer is defined by unconstrained model parameters. Limited mass transfer from the culture into the headspace, rather than the incomplete dissolution of substrate-rich bubbles, seems to have caused an apparent decrease in the measured carbon isotope fractionation. The experimenters attributed this fractionation shift to a growing imbalance among kinetic rates as methane consumption by bacteria increases. Model predictions support this interpretation but also show that changes in carbon isotope fractionation in the course of the experiments cannot be unambiguously correlated with bacterial cell density unless gas-liquid mass transfer parameters are calibrated. Simulations of other laboratory experiments indicate that a reported change in carbon isotope fractionation could, in part at least, be the result of experimental conditions rather than the emergence of a different methane oxidation pathway postulated by the experimenters. A careful evaluation of mass transfer from the liquid culture into the gas headspace is warranted in this type of experiments since isotope fractionation factors are likely to be used in a wide variety of environmental contexts.     

Integrating diverse methods to understand climate-land interactions in East Africa

The questions of how land use change affects climate, and how climate change affects land use, require examination of societal and environmental systems across space at multiple scales, from the global climate to regional vegetative dynamics to local decision making by farmers and herders. It also requires an analysis of causal linkages and feedback loops between systems. These questions and the conceptual approach of the research design of the Climate-Land Interaction Project (CLIP) are rooted in the classical human-environment research tradition in Geography.This paper discusses a methodological framework to quantify the two-way interactions between land use and regional climate systems, using ongoing work by a team of multi-disciplinary scientists examining climate-land dynamics at multiple scales in East Africa. East Africa is a region that is undergoing rapid land use change, where changes in climate would have serious consequences for people’s livelihoods, and requiring new coping and land use strategies. The research involves exploration of linkages between two important foci of global change research, namely, land use/land cover (LULC) and climate change. These linkages are examined through modeling agricultural systems, land use driving forces and patterns, the physical properties of land cover, and the regional climate. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are being used to illustrate a diverse pluralism in scientific discovery.     

Church-based social capital, networks and geographical scale: Katrina evacuation, relocation, and recovery in a New Orleans Vietnamese American community

This research examines the role of social capital and networks to explain the evacuation, relocation, and recovery experiences of a Vietnamese American community in New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As the single largest community institution, the parish church’s complex bonding and bridging social capital and networks proved particularly critical in part because of its historically based ontological security. The process of evacuation, but especially relocation and recovery, was dependent on deploying co-ethnic social capital and networks at a variety of geographical scales. Beyond the local or community scale, extra-local, regional, and national scales of social capital and networks reproduced a spatially redefined Vietnamese American community. Part of the recovery process included constructing discursive place-based collective-action frames to successfully contest a nearby landfill that in turn engendered social capital and networks crossing ethnic boundaries to include the extra-local African American community. Engaging social capital and networks beyond the local geographical scale cultivated a Vietnamese American community with an emergent post-Katrina cultural and political identity.     

The posthumous tectonics and mechanism of exhumation of granitic plutons: The case of the Transbaikal region and the Tien Shan

The study of granitic plutons of the Baikal Highland and the Tien Shan has made it possible to establish new features of their posthumous (after incorporation into the consolidated Earth’s crust) structural reworking and to understand the implications of the cataclastic flow for the exhumation of the crystalline basement in the studied regions. It is shown that granitic plutons undergo appreciable structural transformation at the stages of tectonic reactivation that is significantly separated in time from the moment of formation of plutons as geological bodies. The 3D cataclastic deformation is the main mode of structural reworking of granitic plutons, while the cataclastic flow is the main form of their mobility. Newly recognized slice structures characterize the volumetric deformation of granites.     

Lateral structural variability in zone of eocene island-arc-continent collision,Kamchatka

The lateral variability of structural elements in the collision zone of the Cretaceous-Paleocene Achaivayam-Valagin island arc with the northeastern Asian margin is considered. The similarity and difference of Eocene collision structural elements in the north and the south of Kamchatka are shown. In northern Kamchatka, the continent-arc boundary is traced along the Lesnaya-Vatyn Thrust Fault, which completed its evolution about 45 Ma ago. The thin, near-horizontal allochthon of this thrust, composed of island-arc rocks, overlies the deformed but unmetamorphosed terrigeneous sequences of the Asian margin. The general structure of this suture in the Kamchatka Isthmus and southern Koryakia is comparable with the uppermost subduction zone, where a thin lithospheric wedge overlaps intensely deformed sediments detached from the plunging plate. In southern Kamchatka (Malka Uplift of the Sredinny Range), the arc-continent collision started 55–53 Ma ago with thrusting of island-arc complexes over terrigenous rocks of continental margin. However, the thickness of the allochthon was much greater than in the north. Immediately after this event, both the autochthon and lower part of allochthon were deformed and subsided to a significant depth. This subsidence gave rise to metamorphism of both the autochthon (Kolpakov and Kamchatka groups, Kheivan Formation) and lower allochthon (Andrianovka and Khimka formations). The anomalously fast heating of the crust was most likely related to the ascent of asthenospheric masses due to slab breakoff, when the Eurasian Plate was plunging beneath the Achaivayam-Valagin arc.     

Lithospheric Origin of Oligocene-Miocene Magmatism in Central Chile: U-Pb Ages and Sr-Pb-Hf Isotope Composition of Minerals

Establishing the petrogenesis of volcanic and plutonic rocksis a key issue in unraveling the evolution of distinct subduction-relatedtectonic phases occurring along the South American margin. Thisis particularly true for Cenozoic times when large volumes ofmagma were produced in the Andean belt. In this study we havefocused on Oligo-Miocene magmatism in central Chile at 33°S.Our data include field and petrographic observations, whole-rockmajor and trace element analyses, U–Pb zircon dating,and Pb, Sr, and Hf isotope analyses of plagioclase, clinopyroxene,and zircon mineral separates. Combined with earlier dating resultsthe new zircon ages define a 28·8–5·2 Maperiod of plutonic and volcanic activity that ceased as a consequenceof flattening subduction of the Nazca–Farallon plate.Rare earth elements patterns are variable, with up to 92 timeschondrite concentrations for light rare earth elements yielding(La/Yb)_N between 3·6 and 7·0, and an absence ofEu anomalies. Initial Pb isotope signatures are in the rangeof 18·358–19·023 for ²⁰⁶Pb/ ²⁰⁴Pb, 15·567–15·700for ²⁰⁷Pb/ ²⁰⁴Pb and 38·249–39·084 for ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb. Initial ⁸⁷Sr/ ⁸⁶Sr are mostly in the range of 0·70369–0·70505,with two more radiogenic values at 0·7066. Initial Hfisotopic compositions of zircons yield exclusively positiveHf_i ranging between + 6·9 and + 9·6. The newlydetermined initial isotope characteristics of the Oligo-Miocenemagmas suggest that the mantle source lithologies are differentfrom both those of Pacific mid-ocean ridge basalt and oceanisland basalt, plotting in the field of reference values forsubcontinental lithospheric mantle, characterized by moderatelarge ion lithophile element–high field strengh elementdepletion and high ²³⁸U/ ²⁰⁴Pb. A Hf model age of 2 Ga is estimatedfor the formation of the subcontinental mantle–continentalcrust assemblage in the region, suggesting that the initialSr and Pb isotope ratios inferred for the source of the Oligo-Mioceneparental magmas are the result of later Rb and U enrichmentcaused by mantle metasomatism. A time-integrated model Rb/Srof 0·039 and µ 16 are estimated for the sourceof the parental magmas, consistent with ratios measured in peridotitexenoliths from continental areas. Evolution from predominant(>90%) basaltic–gabbroic to andesitic–dioriticmagmas seems to involve a combination of (1) original traceelement differences in the metasomatized subcontinental mantle,(2) different degrees of partial melting and (3) fractionalcrystallization in the garnet- and spinel-peridotite stabilityfields. The genesis of more differentiated magmas reaching rhyolitic–graniticcompositions most probably also includes additional crystalfractionation at both shallow mantle depths and within the crust,possibly leading to some very minor assimilation of crustalmaterial. KEY WORDS: calc-alkaline magmatism; Oligo-Miocene; U–Pb dating; Sr–Pb–Hf isotopes; central Chile     

Origin of the Oceanic Lithosphere

In a global examination of mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) glasscompositions, we find that Na₈–Fe₈–depth variationsdo not support modeling of MORBs as aggregates of melt compositionsgenerated over a large range of temperature and pressure. However,the Na₈–Fe₈ variations are consistent with the compositionalsystematics of solidus melts in the plagioclase–spinellherzolite transition in the CaO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂–Na₂O–FeO(CMASNF) system. For natural compositions, the P–T rangefor melt extraction is estimated to be 1·2–1·5GPa and 1250–1280°C. This P–T range is a closematch with the maximum P–T conditions for explosive pressure-releasevaporization of carbonate-bearing melts. It is proposed thatfracturing of the lithosphere induces explosive formation andescape of CO₂ vapor. This provides the vehicle for extractionof MORBs at a relatively uniform T and P. The upper portionof the CO₂-bearing and slightly melted seismic low-velocityzone flows toward the ridge, rises at the ridge axis to lower-lithospheredepths, melts much more extensively during this rise, and releasesMORB melts to the surface driven by explosively escaping CO₂vapor. The residue and overlying crust produced by this meltingthen migrate away from the ridge axis as new oceanic lithosphere.The entire process of oceanic lithosphere creation involvesonly the upper 140 km. When lithospheric stresses shift fractureformation to other localities, escape of CO₂ ceases, the vehiclefor transporting melt to the surface disappears, and ridgesdie. Inverse correlations of Na₈ vs Fe₈ for MORB glasses areexplained by mantle heterogeneity, and positive variations superimposedon the inverse variations are consistent with progressive extractionof melts from short, ascending melting columns. The uniformlylow temperatures of MORB extraction are not consistent withthe existence of hot plumes on or close to ocean ridges. Inthis modeling, the southern Atlantic mantle from Bouvet to about26°N is relatively homogeneous, whereas the Atlantic mantlenorth of about 26°N shows significant long-range heterogeneity.The mantle between the Charlie Gibbs and Jan Mayen fracturezones is strongly enriched in FeO/MgO, perhaps by a trappedfragment of basaltic crust. Iceland is explained as the productof this enrichment, not a hot plume. The East Pacific Rise,Galapagos Ridge, Gorda Ridge, and Juan de Fuca Ridge samplemantle that is heterogeneous over short distances. The mantlebeneath the Red Sea is enriched in FeO/MgO relative to the mantlebeneath the northern Indian Ocean.