Soil-sized eolian dusts from the lower troposphere of the eastern Mediterranean Sea

Soil-sized eolian dusts have been collected by a mesh technique from the lower troposphere of the eastern Mediterranean. The overall average dust-loading in this region is 14 μg m^?3 of air, which is among the highest recorded for maritime soil-sized dusts.There are two distinct dust populations in the eastern Mediterranean; these have been termed the “northeastern Mediterranean assemblage” and the “southeastern Mediterranean assemblage”.The dusts of the “northeastern assemblage” originate in the soils of southern Europe. The average dust-loading of this assemblage is 12 μg m^?3 of air, and illite is the principal clay mineral with secondary amounts of kaolinite and the smectites. These dusts make only a secondary contribution to the land-derived material in the underlying deep-sea sediments.The dusts of the “southeastern assemblage” have their origin in the desert belts of North Africa and the Middle East. Their average dust-loading is 17 μg m^?3 of air, and kaolinite is their dominant clay mineral. Dusts of the “southeastern assemblage” make an important contribution to the land-derived fractions of some eastern Mediterranean deep-sea sediments.In addition to eolian dusts, river-transported material from the island of Cyprus has also been investigated. The effects of this “Cyprus assemblage” on sedimentation in the eastern Mediterranean is confined to the immediate vicinity of the island itself.     

Mechanisms of compaction of quartz sand at diagenetic conditions

The relative contribution of cracking, grain rearrangement, and pressure solution during experimental compaction of quartz sand at diagenetic conditions was determined through electron and optical microscopy and image analysis. Aggregates of St. Peter sand (255±60 μm diameter grain size and porosity of approximately 34%) were subjected to creep compaction at effective pressures of 15, 34.5, 70, and 105 MPa, temperatures of 22 and 150°C, nominally dry or water-saturated (pore fluid pressure of 12.5 MPa) conditions, and for times up to one year. All aggregates displayed transient, decelerating creep, and volume strain rates as low as 2×10⁻¹⁰ s⁻¹ were achieved. The intensity of fracturing and degree of fragmentation increase with volume strain and have the same dependence on volume strain at all conditions tested, indicating that impingement fracturing and grain rearrangement were the main mechanisms of compaction throughout the creep phase. The increase in fracture density and decrease in acoustic emission rate at long times under wet conditions reflect an increase in the contribution of subcritical cracking. No quantitative evidence of significant pressure solution was found, even for long-term creep at 150°C and water-saturated conditions. Comparison of our findings to previous work suggests that pressure solution could become significant at temperatures or times somewhat greater than investigated here.     

Delineating ground water recharge from leaking irrigation canals using water chemistry and isotopes

Across the Great Plains irrigation canals are used to transport water to cropland. Many of these canals are unlined, and leakage from them has been the focus of an ongoing legal, economic, and philosophical debate as to whether this lost water should be considered waste or be viewed as a beneficial and reasonable use since it contributes to regional ground water recharge. While historically there has been much speculation about the impact of canal leakage on local ground water, actual data are scarce. This study was launched to investigate the impact of leakage from the Interstate Canal, in the western panhandle of Nebraska, on the hydrology and water quality of the local aquifer using water chemistry and environmental isotopes. Numerous monitoring wells were installed in and around a small wetland area adjacent to the canal, and ground water levels were monitored from June 1992 until January 1995. Using the water level data, the seepage loss from the canal was estimated. In addition, the canal, the monitoring wells, and several nearby stock and irrigation wells were sampled for inorganic and environmental isotope analysis to assess water quality changes, and to determine the extent of recharge resulting from canal leakage. The results of water level monitoring within study wells indicates a rise in local ground water levels occurs seasonally as a result of leakage during periods when the canal is filled. This rise redirects local ground water flow and provides water to nearby wetland ecosystems during the summer months. Chemical and isotopic results were used to delineate canal, surface, and ground water and indicate that leaking canal water recharges both the surface alluvial aquifer and upper portions of the underlying Brule Aquifer. The results of this study indicate that lining the Interstate Canal could lower ground water levels adjacent to the canal, and could adversely impact the local aquifer.     

Prey and plastic ingestion of Pacific Northern Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis rogersii) from Monterey Bay,California

Marine plastic pollution affects seabirds, including Pacific Northern Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis rodgersii), that feed at the surface and mistake plastic for prey or incidentally ingest it. Direct and indirect health issues can result, including satiety and possibly leading to inefficient foraging. Our objective was to examine fulmar body condition, identify cephalopod diet to species, enumerate and weigh ingested plastic, and determine if prey number and size were correlated with ingested plastics in beach-cast fulmars wintering in Monterey Bay California (2003, n = 178: 2007, n = 185). Fulmars consumed mostly Gonatus pyros, G. onyx, and G. californiensis of similar size for both years. We found a significant negative correlation between pectoral muscle index and average size of cephalopod beaks per stomach; a significant increase in plastic categories between 2003 and 2007; and no significant correlation between number and mass of plastic compared with number and size of prey for either year.     

Movement and propagation of multicellular convective storms

Migration velocities of convective storms are summarized for six situations, with different environmental wind fields. Small-and medium-sized storms generally moved to left of the direction of, and at speeds somewhat less than, the vector mean wind in the troposphere. Large-diameter (ca. 20–30 km) storms generally deviated to the right, in proportion to their sizes and to the veering of wind with height. This behavior, and the tendency for large storms to move appreciably slower than the mean wind, are even more pronounced when giant clusters of thunderstorms are considered. An example is analyzed in which a multicellular storm, 80 km wide, moved 55° to right of the mean wind and with half its speed. This behavior results from a characteristic pattern of propagation, in which new cells tend to form on the general upwind side of the cluster, with the larger and more intense cells developing on its right flank. The individual cells move through the cluster, dissipating on approach to its advancing and left flanks. Preferential formation of cells toward the rear side of the cluster is shown to be compatible with the probable origin and trajectories (relative to the moving storm) of air ascending from the lower part of the subcloud layer. The sometimes-observed rapid movement of large multicellular storms to left of the mean wind is partly accounted for by an opposite (left forward flank) pattern of propagation.     

Species identification and decay assessment of Late Pleistocene fragmentary vertebrate remains from Pin Hole Cave (Creswell Crags,UK) using collagen fingerprinting

Ancient bone remains are widely utilized when investigating vertebrate biodiversity of past animal populations but are often so highly fragmented that the majority of specimens cannot be identified to any meaningful taxonomic level. Recently, high‐throughput methods for objective species identification using collagen peptide mass fingerprinting have been created to overcome this with the added indication that they could also offer a means of relative ageing through decay measurement. Here we explore both species identification and decay measurements for the Pin Hole Cave ‘microfaunal’ assemblage, the site that has been designated as a representative for Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 in Britain in terms of its suite of mammalian fauna. We explore the technique's potential to corroborate the faunal diversity established previously by macroscopic studies and evaluate the decay measurements across the species boundary. The results support that the analysis of fragmentary remains by collagen fingerprinting can yield a more diverse set of fauna, and offer additional information relating to taphonomy, than the analysis of morphologically intact bones on their own. However, although useful for identifying likely contaminations of an assemblage, there was an unexpected decrease in the decay measurements observed for some megafauna compared with much younger microfauna, indicating that other factors need to be carefully monitored before it could be used as a relative ageing technique in Quaternary deposits.     

Anchor uncertainty and space-time prisms on road networks

Space-time prisms capture all possible locations of a moving person or object between two known locations and times given the maximum travel velocities in the environment. These known locations or ‘anchor points’ can represent observed locations or mandatory locations because of scheduling constraints. The classic space-time prism as well as more recent analytical and computational versions in planar space and networks assume that these anchor points are perfectly known or fixed. In reality, observations of anchor points can have error, or the scheduling constraints may have some degree of pliability. This article generalizes the concept of anchor points to anchor regions: these are bounded, possibly disconnected, subsets of space-time containing all possible locations for the anchor points, with each location labelled with an anchor probability. We develop two algorithms for calculating network-based space-time prisms based on these probabilistic anchor regions. The first algorithm calculates the envelope of all space-time prisms having an anchor point within a particular anchor region. The second algorithm calculates, for any space-time point, the probability that a space-time prism with given anchor regions contains that particular point. Both algorithms are implemented in Mathematica to visualize travel possibilities in case the anchor points of a space-time prism are uncertain. We also discuss the complexity of the procedures, their use in analysing uncertainty or flexibility in network-based prisms and future research directions.     

Evaluation of uncertainties in the CRCM-simulated North American climate

This work is a first step in the analysis of uncertainty sources in the RCM-simulated climate over North America. Three main sets of sensitivity studies were carried out: the first estimates the magnitude of internal variability, which is needed to evaluate the significance of changes in the simulated climate induced by any model modification. The second is devoted to the role of CRCM configuration as a source of uncertainty, in particular the sensitivity to nesting technique, domain size, and driving reanalysis. The third study aims to assess the relative importance of the previously estimated sensitivities by performing two additional sensitivity experiments: one, in which the reanalysis driving data is replaced by data generated by the second generation Coupled Global Climate Model (CGCM2), and another, in which a different CRCM version is used. Results show that the internal variability, triggered by differences in initial conditions, is much smaller than the sensitivity to any other source. Results also show that levels of uncertainty originating from liberty of choices in the definition of configuration parameters are comparable among themselves and are smaller than those due to the choice of CGCM or CRCM version used. These results suggest that uncertainty originated by the CRCM configuration latitude (freedom of choice among domain sizes, nesting techniques and reanalysis dataset), although important, does not seem to be a major obstacle to climate downscaling. Finally, with the aim of evaluating the combined effect of the different uncertainties, the ensemble spread is estimated for a subset of the analysed simulations. Results show that downscaled surface temperature is in general more uncertain in the northern regions, while precipitation is more uncertain in the central and eastern US.